Summary Results of the Retrospective Conversion Survey of Rare Materials: Complete Results

Sections:

I. Library & Collection Information

1. How would you categorize your library (e.g. University, Independent, Public)?

1. University
2. University
3. Independent
4. University
5. University
6. University
7. Independent
8. University
9. Independent
10. University
11. Government
12. University
13. University
14. University
15. Independent
16. Independent
17. University
18. University

2. Title Statistics

a. Approximately how many titles are in your rare/special collections?

1. 120,000
2. 200,000
3. 100,000
4. 99,000
5. 327,000
6. 700,000
7. 43,000
8. 60,000
9. 15,000
10. 225,000
11. 500,000
12. 370,000
13. 400,000
14. 200,000
15. No answer
16. 129,000
17. 82,000
18.43,000

b. How many titles in your library's collections as a whole?

1. 3,000,000
2. 1,225,000
3. 100,000
4. 10,000,000
5. 1,510,994
6. 700,000
7. 43,000
8. 2,600,000
9. 130,000
10.6,120,000
11. 5,000,000
12. 10,000,000
13. 400,000
14. 2,700,000
15. no answer
16. 214,000
17. 2,950,000
18. 1,200,000

3. Staffing Statistics

a. How many part-time/full-time catalogers perform rare/special collections cataloging?

1. 4
2. 1.25
3. 3
4. 1
5. 2.5
6. 12
7. 1
8. 3
9. 2 part-time
10. 3 full-time staff that catalog part-time & 1 full-time
11. 3 part-time (3 full-time during recon)
12. 8
13. 4
14. 2
15. no answer
16. 7
17. 1 part-time
18. 2

b. What is the overall size of your cataloging staff?

1. 12.75
2. 3
3. 7
4. 25.67
5. 12
6. 1.2
7. 3
8. 3 part-time
9. 60
10. 30
11. 8
12. 4
13. 19
14. no answer
15. 10
16. 1
17. part-time
18. ??

c. Do you have designated rare/special collections catalogers (by title and/or position description) or units?

yes - 14
no - 3
no answer - 1

4. Cataloging information

a. What percentage of your rare materials is at least minimally cataloged?

1. 95%
2. 90%
3. 10%
4. 64%
5. n/a
6. 68%
7. 100% books; most maps; prints & engravings, 75%; manuscripts, 95%
8. 70%
9. 100%
10. 95%
11. 60%
12. 99.9%
13. 97%
14. 98%
15. 94%
16. 90%
17. 90%
18. 75%

b. What percentage is in an automated system?

1. 90%
2. 59%
3. 10%
4. 96%
5. 65%
6. 43%
7. no answer
8. 70%
9. 100%
10. 50%
11. 40%
12. 95%
13. 33%
14. 98%
15. 6%
16. 55%
17. 85%
18. 65%

c. What automated system do you currently use (e.g. NOTIS, Innopac, Horizon, SIRSI, etc.)?

Notis - 5 (Cornell?)
Sirsi - 1
Endeavor - 1
III - 5
Local - 2
Horizon - 1
Other - 1
DRA - 1

d. To which national/international utilities do you contribute (e.g. OCLC, RLIN)?

OCLC - 9
RLIN - 2
both OCLC & RLIN - 7

e. Which utilities do you search/use for cataloging copy?

OCLC - 9
RLIN - 4
Both OCLC & RLIN - 5

II. Past/Ongoing Recon Projects

1. What were the starting and ending dates of the project(s) (projected end date if ongoing)?

1. 4/1995-6/1999
2. 1/1994-3/1995 ongoing cleanup
3. 9/1991-12/1991
4. 1981-1984
5. 1987-1997
6. 10/1997-1/1999
7. 1990-1992
8. 1976-1985
9. 1993
10. 8/1997-12/1998; 1999
11. 6/1982-11/1984
12. 1990-present (in house); 1993- (vendor) (cleanup and vernacular languages remain)
13. 1991-ongoing
14. Several phases completed in 1997
15. Starting in 1996-
16. 1985-2000
17. 1982-ongoing
18. 1/1996-6/1998
2. RECON Statistics

a. Approximately how many rare titles were involved in your RECON?

1. 79,000
2. 20,250
3. 1000
4. 27,000
5. 830,000 (211,000 special collections)
6. 171,610
7. unknown
8. 30,000
9. 15,000
10. 6000 (current project only)
11. 60,000
12. 207,318 via vendor; 62,868 in-house
13. 5000 so far
14. 20,000
15. 275,000+/-
16. 119,000. (Most were done in house as a book in hand recataloging project).
17. Not available.
18. 6000

b. In how many languages? Which ones?

1. English, Latin, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Greek
2. English, Latin, French, German, Italian, Spanish
3. English
4. Latin, Greek, French, German, Italian, English, Spanish, Chinese
5. all languages
6. 10+ English, French, Spanish, Slavic, Hebrew, Latin, Greek, Italian, Russian & others
7. English, French, German, Latin, Italian, Spanish
8. English, all European languages, Latin, Greek
9. no answer
10. English; Latin, French, Italian, German, Spanish and Icelandic
11. All major Western European languages: Latin, English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Swedish, Greek
12. Dozens including JACKPHY and all major Western European languages
13. English, Russian, French, Italian, Spanish, Latin German.
14. Mostly English, French, German, Latin
15. Mostly English and Latin with French, German, Italian, Spanish, Greek and other languages in lesser numbers.
16. English, French, German, Italian, Latin, Spanish
17. No answer
18. Mostly English, but some other languages.

3. RECON Personnel/Profiling

a. Who was involved in your RECON (vendor, in-house paraprofessionals, regular cataloging staff, or others)? Performing which functions?

1. Student inputters
2. Head of cataloging profiled; vendor imaged & converted ; cataloging staff did cleanup
3. In-house/vendor. Paras input, cataloger reviewed
4. Vendor, cataloging staff
5. Retro. Conv. Task Force included special collections staff drew up initial plan and specs.
6. vendor, in-house prep. Evaluation, eview; main library, systems support
7. in-house cataloger and volunteer
8. In-house copy cataloger performed all cataloging with advice from dept. head and professionals in Cataloging Dept. Assisted by 1 Library Tech. Asst. and 1 student.
9. OCLC did recon; regular cataloging staff did cleanup; para-professionals prepped records.
10. Done in-house.
11. Vendor: keyboarding and quality control; staff: oversight, resolving problems, final review
12. Vendor, in-house paraprofessionals, students and regular cataloging staff. Vendor and regular cataloging staff involved in profile refinement and monitoring of projects; paraprofessionals, students and regular cataloging staff in keying records for in-house recon and for cleanup of vendor recon.
13. Vendor, in-house para-professionals, regular cataloging staff and others. Vendors keyed records into OCLC; all others performed all aspects of recon.
14. Regular cataloging staff negotiated with vendor, set specs, and helped prepare shelflist. Vendor (OCLC) performed actual recon. Paraprofessionals and catalogers did cleanup.
15. Actual recon was done by the vendor including scanning cards, searching for records, keying records, delivering records to second vendor for authority cleanup.
16. In-house professional catalogers (recataloging); in-house paraprofessionals (inputting from cards); vendor for portions.
17. Vendor; paraprofessionals and regular cataloging staff.
18. Professional cataloger trained and supervised the work of 1 paraprofessional hired specifically for the recon project.

b. If you used a vendor, were special collections librarians involved in profiling of the project (i.e specifying what the vendor was to do, and to what standards) and/or monitoring vendor compliance?

1. n/a
2. Head of cataloging profiled and monitored
3. Yes
4. N/a
5. Special collection staff were consulted for profiling and monitoring
6. Yes
7. N/a
8. n/a
9. No answer.
10. n/a
11. Special collections librarian was involved in profiling and monitoring.
12. Yes.
13. Yes
14. No, alas.
15. Yes.
16. No answer.
17. No.
18. n/a

c. How was your profile drawn up?

1. Special collections catalogers and curators
2. Cataloging staff reviewed source file and noted idiosyncrancies; head created it
3. RLIN matching profile
4. Lib. Administration with vendor
5. Task Force, Retro. Conv. Coordinator and the Head of cataloging with vendor
6. Questionnaire
7. N/a
8. Not applicable.
9. In consultation with vendor.
10. Not applicable
11. Based on profile for general collection recon, with some revisions to deal with aspects of the special collections shelflist. Rare book recon was an afterthought to the general recon project and changes we could make wre minimal, since we did not want to renegociate the contract.
12. Recon committee of librarians (consisting of cataloging staff, recon librarian, and Special Collections staff) working with vendor.
13. Worked with librarian in Main Library's monographic processing dept. who was in charge of the whole project
14. Don't know, since we were not involved.
15. With input of the head of Tech. Services, chief catalogers and unit heads for rare and reference books (latter are contemporary titles), acquisitions librarian, systems manager and vendor rep.
16. No answer.
17. Team from Tech. Services.
18. No answer.

d. Would you change your profile if you had it to do again? How?

1. n/a
2. no
3. no
4. no
5. no
6. no
7. n/a
8. n/a
9. No
10. Not applicable
11. Yes! For instance we would have omitted some categories of material that had bizarre records that could be tolerated in a card catalog but have made problems in the an online environment. Our cataloging system was non-MARC and we had limited ability to add fields to records, so some data got shoved into inappropriate fields; if we had to work in such an environment now , I would make sure the data could be easily searched for later maintenance.
12. Yes, no matching/editing, but more keying directly from cards.
13. yes, that profile was for only a particular project.
14. The only glitchs that pertained specifically to rare materials were bound-withs. The vendor ignored bound with titles in some instances.
15. Too soon to tell. The specs were tweaked a lot.
16. No answer.
17. Be sure LC card number is not used as first match.
18. No answer.

e. Can you attach a copy or summary of your profile?

1. no
2. yes
3. no
4. no
5. yes
6. yes
7. n/a
8. Not applicable
9. No.
10. Not applicable
11. no
12. Yes.
13. no
14. no
15.yes?
16. No answer.
17. No answer.
18. No answer.

4. Rare RECON/General RECON

a. Was your rare RECON done in conjunction with that of non-rare materials?

1. yes
2. yes
3. no
4. yes
5. yes
6. no
7. n/a
8. Yes.
9. Yes
10. Not on this project; other portions of the rare collection are included in general recon.
11. Yes.
12. No.
13. Some (ca. 1500 records)
14. Yes
15. Yes.
16. No. Modern recon was accomplished in-house by regular para-professional staff between 1991 and 1994 with additional contracts with RLA in 1992 and 1994.
17. Yes.
18. No.

b. If so, approximately what percentage of the total RECON was rare?

1. 98%
2. 13%
3. 99%
4. 6%
5. 25%
6. 100%
7. 100%
8. Don't know.
9. 75%
10. Not applicable.
11. 15%
12. Not applicable.
13. <1%
14. 15%
15. 50%
16. No answer.
17. Not available.
18. No answer.

b. Were rare and non-rare materials treated differently? (This can also be noted in answer to some of the questions below.)

1. no.
2. Not by vendor; uncoverted material was divided rare/non-rare
3. No
4. no; all material with local note was flagged but notes were not entered
5. Same basic profile. Rare/Special collection sent photocopies of main entry instead of shelf list used for general collection. Items stamped "upgrade" had local notes and tracings added.
6. N/a
7. yes
8. Yes.
9. No.
10. Yes, for rare materials a photocopy of the shelf list card is sent to the Special Collections Dept. so that they can addi special files fields to the record (publication date, place of publication and provenance).
11. Yes to some extent.
12. Not applicable.
13. yes.
14. No.
15. Yes, in several instances.
16. No answer.
17. No.
18. No answer.

II. PAST/ONGOING RECON PROJECTS

5. Treatment levels

a. Did all rare collections RECONned receive the same level of treatment? (if not, please describe)

1. yes
2. yes
3. yes
4. yes
5. All rare collections received the same treatment, some received more attention than others
6. N/a
7. Rare DCRB
8. Yes
9. Yes.
10. Yes, except that we add special files for date, publisher, and place to records of pre-1800 imprints and pre-1825 American imprints.
11. All rare collections that were in the rare book catalog shelflist (largerly restricted to pre-1801 imprints). 1801-1913 monographs and serials that are considered part of the rare book collection, but were in the general collection shelflist received recon as part of the general collection.
12. Yes.
13. No. This is a complicated question. Different circumstances dictated different treatments. For instance, serial records were done very much like serials for the rest of the university libraries.
14. From the vendor, yes. Problems have been rectified by the rare book cataloger as identified.
15. No. Temp slips for rare books were treated like reference material (vendor could not tell from temp slips if rare or not rare). A few unaccessioned collections with accompanying cards from previous owner libraries converted with little editing. These are items that will eventually be recataloged in the normal course of events.
16. No, most rare material received full on-line cataloging. An exception is the current project to match STC/Wing/18th cent. holdings with ESTC records.
17. Yes.
18. Yes.

b. Were any categories of materials excluded from your RECON project? (Please describe)

1. no.
2. dups already online were excluded
3. non-book collection
4. no rare materials were excluded
5. manuscripts, sheet music, broadsides
6. yes, material with insufficent information for matching and editing; microfilm; records already online
7. no.
8. No
9. In our first recon project we only converted the rare materials and the F & G classifications.
10. The focus of the current is narrow to begin with, due to limited funds: our reference collection, books in the Z's, and the pamphlets in our Anti-Slavery collection.
11. Anything not in the shelflist, including pamphlets and 19th cent. dissertations.
12. Yes, microfilm.
13. No, we just haven't done everything yet.
14. Items that needed original cataloging.
15. Yes. Rare book exclusions include ESTC titles and books with RLIN records already.
16. Manuscripts, playbills, original works of art on paper, photographs, prints and engravings, paintings, microfilms.
17. No.
18. Yes, there are still some book collections in the Rare Book Collection that the curator does not want in the online catalog.

c. If so, were any of these eventually recataloged and made accessible online, locally in your OPAC and/or through a bibliographic utility?

1. N/a
2. 36,000 excluded, 17,000 will be recat.
3. Very slowly
4. N/a
5. Broadsides were part of a separate project
6. Not yet
7. N/a
8. N/A
9. Yes.
10. Eventually all material will be reconned as money becomes available.
11. Yes, we have an on-going project ot catalog the pamphlet collection.
12. Yes.
13. Not applicable.
14. Yes, but this process is on-going.
15. Yes, a tape for the ESTC tiles and a tape for the RLIN records not in the local opac will be loaded later.
16. No answer.
17. No answer.
18. No answer.

d. If not, what is your plan for making these records accessible online?

1. n/a
2. 10 year plan
3. no
4. n/a
5. no answer
6. in-house and vendor
7. n/a
8. N/A
9. No answer.
10. Recon as money via grants becomes available, and when time allows with in-house staff.
11. See above.
12. No answer.
13. Not applicable.
14. No answer.
15. Not applicable.
16. Our long range plan is to seek both grant funded projects as well as continuing to perform in-house recon; with full-time professional cataloging staff.
17. No answer.
18. No plan at present. Perhaps a new curator will feel differently.

6. Enhancement of Records

a. Were non-AACR2 records for your rare materials upgraded to AACR2 standards at the time of RECON?

1. no
2. no.
3. no
4.no
5. no, headings if an AACR2 heading exists
6. no
7. yes
8. LC records if available, were not record. Non-LC and original records were made AACR2
9. Yes.
10. Access points are upgraded, but for the rest the best available cataloging copy, whether AACR2 or not.
11. No.
12. No.
13. Yes.
14. no.
15. Told vendor to prefer DCRB/BDRB records for rare titles. Will get a mix of dcrb, aacr2 and pre-aacr-2.
16. For rare materials, yes, with the exception of the work being done in the ESTC file. For modern materials, no.
17. no.
18. Most were, but not all. We feel that we didn't have the time to upgrade all the bib. records.

b. Did your RECON involve any reclassfication?

1. occasionally
2. no.
3. no answer
4. no
5. no
6. no
7. yes
8. Yes
9. No.
10. No, but previous and future projects will.
11. No.
12. No.
13. No.
14. No, though reclassification was/is done subsequently on selected materials.
15. no.
16. Some recataloging projects did involve reclassification, current projects do not.
17. no.
18. Not applicable.

c. In addition to the basic descriptive fields, did your RECON include provision for:

1. Subject headings

1. if on card or utility record
2. on accepted copy
3. yes
4. no.
5. yes
6. yes
7. yes
8. Yes
9. Yes.
10. yes
11. For post 1800 imprints, yes. Pre-1801 imprints did not have subject headings.
12. Yes.
13. yes.
14. Yes.
15. Instructed the vendor to add what is not already in the record from the card.
16. Yes for book in hand recataloging.
17. no.
18. Yes.

2. Genre headings

1. if on card or utility record
2. on accepted copy
3. yes
4. no
5. no
6. yes
7. no
8. No answer
9. yes
10. yes
11. Dissertations, serials only.
12. yes
13. no
14. no
15. Instructed vendor to convert 755 to 655 in matches and strip out totally if 2 not rbgenr, rbpri or rbpub
16. Yes for book in hand recataloging.
17. no
18. no

3. Personal name added entries

1. if on card or utility record
2. if on accepted copy
3. yes
4. yes
5. yes
6. yes
7. yes
8. yes
9. yes
10. yes
11. es
12. yes
13. yes
14. yes
15. yes
16. Yes for book in hand recataloging.
17. no
18. yes

4. Tracings for special files (e.g. associations, place of printing/publication, chronological, etc.)?

1. pre-1600 printers
2. no
3. yes
4. no
5. yes
6. yes
7. yes
8. Yes
9. Yes
10. Yes.
11. No.
12. yes.
13. yes.
14. No.
15. Scanned cards don't have this information. Asked vendor to input as 690 the dates from fixed fields for rare titles only.
16. Yes for book in hand recataloging.
17. no.
18. no

d. Was it necessary to omit any information or special files? If so, is the information still maintained in some other way?

1. n/a
2. yes, original card file was retained
3. n/a
4. yes
5. no
6. no
7. no
8. No.
9. Yes, the bookplate file which will be added manually.
10. No answer.
11. No information from special files (autograph, bookplates, association, place of printing) was included. Searching by imprint year was available in the online system, generarated from the data in the imprint field.
12. Yes.
13. No.
14. No.
15. If not on card or match, will lose 752 data and 7xx for printers/booksellers etc. Still have card files for some of these. No immediate plans to convert that data.
16. Yes (for book in hand recataloging and inputting from cards. Special files (card, paper, and word processing) are maintained which contain bibliographic information related to cataloged and uncataloged material.
17. no.
18. Yes. Donor information, some copy-specific information. This is retained in the shelf list cards for now. As we find out more about the new online system we may be able to cease card production.

e. Was any information added to RECON records that was absent from original records (e.g., the items in question 6c)?

1. occasional 510 notes
2. no, in-house records were too incomplete
3. n/a
4. LC record used for old minimal level records
5. special files for certain material
6. yes
7. yes
8. A substantial amount, especially notes.
9. In process of being added.
10.Yes, all the information mentioned in 6c.
11. No.
12. Yes.
13. Yes
14. Only to the extent that problems with previous cataloging practices (which were abominable) have been identified and rectified by our current rare book cataloger.
15. Most rare titles had no subject tracings. Will get subject access to much of the collection from the recon project.
16. Yes.
17. no.
18. Yes. Subject headings and added entries.

7. Authority Control

a. Was authority control considered in your project?

1. yes
2. yes
3. no
4. no
5. yes
6. yes
7. no
8. Yes.
9. Yes.
10. yes.
11. no.
12. yes.
13. yes.
14. yes.
15. yes.
16. yes.
17. no.
18. yes.

b. How was authority control handled (simultaneously with RECON, in-house, sent to a different vendor, ignored, etc.)?

1. in-house
2. vendor - BNA
3. n/a
4. vendor - BNA
5. vendor
6. vendor - OCLC
7. largely ignored
8. 8. Handled simultaneously with recon.
9. Sent to different vendor for processing.
10. Our recon person creates authority records as she goes and inputs them into RLIN NAF file.
11. Sent to different vendor for processing.
12. Sent to a different vendor for processing. Done in-house for in-house recon.
13. Done in-house.
14. Sent to a different vendor.
15. Sent to a different vendor.
16. In-house for rare materials, but simultaneous to recon for modern materials. Authority control was also done by a vendor at the time of bringing up our OPAC in 1996.
17. Sent to a different vendor.
18. Authority records were consulted by the paraprofessional doing the editing.

c. Did your RECON create any problems with your normal authority work?

1. n/a
2. yes, lacked staff to create series
3. no
4. no
5. no
6. no
7. no
8. No.
9. Yes.
10. No, except to add a lot to the number of authority records we create.
11. No.
12. no.
13. no.
14. no.
15. Remains to be seen.
16. Yes. Differing forms of headings often occur online than in card files; local traced subject headings were not converted to 650's.
17. no.
18. no.

8. Mechanical Problems

a. Were there any problems in uploading your RECON records into your OPAC?

1. n/a
2. no
3. no
4. no
5. ver few error records
6. yes, but corrected early on
7. yes
8. Lost all notes fields, which had to be added by data entry.
9. Minimal.
10. No, we created the records in our local system.
11. No.
12. yes.
13. no.
14. yes.
15. no.
16. no.
17. yes.
18. no.

b. If so, were any problems specific to rare materials?

1. many records mysteriousl suppressed
2. n/a
3. n/a
4. n/a
5. Only to the degree that special collections material have more unusual features
6. no
7. When uploaded to new system the length of title was problematic
8. Do not believe notes affected general collection.
9. no
10. N/a
11. n/a
12. no
13. n/a
14. no
15. n/a
16. n/a
17. no
18. n/a

9. Quality of Records

a. In your opinion, were the rare RECON records satisfactory?

1. yes, but upgrading planned
2. To the best of the vendor's ability considering incomplete nature of source file
3. yes
4. yes
5. yes, at least as good as before
6. yes
7. yes
8. Yes, generally satisfactory.
9. Yes.
10. yes
11. Yes, as far as the shelflist records were satisfactory.
12. no.
13. yes, most have been produced in-house with a high standard of quality. But it is slow.
14. No, but they are better than nothing.
15. Yes, so far.
16. Yes for our recataloged (book in hand) records. Less satisfactory are the records produced from cards.
17. yes
18. In general yes, not all records were upgraded during the recon, which was disappointing.

b. If not, why not?

1. n/a
2. n/a
3. n/a
4. n/a
5. n/a
6. n/a
7. n/a
8. n/a
9. n/a
10. n/a
11. n/a
12. Error rate too high, instructions were not followed, excessive duplicate records, inability to handle some languages, etc.
13. n/a.
14. Not really related to recon, a problem with longterm poor quality contol in cataloging at this institution.
15. n/a.
16. no answer.
17. n/a
18. n/a

10. Cleanup

a. Was/is there any clean-up of records involved?

1. yes
2. yes
3. yes
4. yes
5. yes
6. yes
7. yes
8. yes
9. Ongoing cleanup.
10. Yes for records created by Central Technical services.
11. yes
12. yes, massive amounts
13. yes
14. Yes
15. yes, lots.
16. yes
17. yes
18. yes

b. If so, of what kind?

1. uniform titles, main entries checked
2. 17,000 titles require manual conversion; 48,000 titles require other cleanup
3. Making certain added entries were present and accurate
4. Added local notes; resolving problems flagged by OCLC such as dup. Call numbers and records
5. Resolution of problem records flagged by vendor. Incomplete source file. Discrepancies between cards and online record
6. answering questions, transferring holdings info. To bibl records; adding OCLC numbers; transliteration
7. length of title and internal problems
8. Routine checking of the database, especially with regard to name authorities.
9. Our shelflist cards sent for conversion were incomplete; the only complete record was in the public catalog.
10. Adding special files fields.
11. Correcting imprint year codes, shelving location codes, authority work.
12. All kinds, correcting typos, call number errors, errors caused by illegible notes on cards; incomplete records; adding special tracings that were not on cards.
13.Some authority clean up; some holdings clean up.
14. Correcting locations (all records had the main circulating collection location on them when they were loaded); rectifying obvious cataloging blunders; adding cataloging for bound-with items.
15. 1) specific problems coded by vendor staff with a special field in the bib (currently have 10 categories of these); 2. serials holdings (asking vendor not to add holdings from cards for serials and monographic series); 3. duplicates (recataloging of records already scanned has gone on simultaneous to the recon); 4. creating authority headings not taken care of by the second vendor for authority control.
16. Authority clean-up is still required for a small but significant percentage of modern books. Authority control will also be required for all records imported from the RLIN/ESTC database.
17. Holdings attached to wrong records.
18. Upgrade to aacr2; authority work; new/improved subject headings and added entries. Occasionally correcting original cataloging.

c. How long did clean-up take, or how long will it take? Is it being done ad hoc or on a project basis?

1. ad-hoc
2. 10 years on ad hoc basis
3. ad hoc
4. ongoing
5. just beginning, possibly 5-10 years
6. unknown
7. ongoing
8. Clean-up is an ongoing procedure with us.
9. four years.
10. It doesn't take more than a couple of minutes per record, but since there are so many records, it will go on for a very long time. We're doing it on a slow-motion-project basis (as something to work on while we're at the reference desk, etc. like knitting)
11. 2-3 years.
12. Done ad-hoc and on a project basis.
13. Done on a project basis. ca. 20 hours.
14. Locations corrections were done immediately on a rush project basis to forestall problems with patrons. Other problems are being dealt with an ad-hoc basis.
15. Will take much time; will cross bridge when recon is further along.
16. Both ad-hoc and on a project basis.
17. 14 months and continuing.
18. We worked from photocopied shelf list cards. Verification was often necessary and required retreiving and examining the books.

d. Was clean-up anticipated and planned for?

1. yes
2. yes, more significantly than anticipated
3. no
4. yes
5. yes
6. yes
7. no
8. yes.
9. yes.
10. Yes.
11. No.
12. yes.
13. yes.
14. Yes.
15. yes.
16. yes.
17. Not to this extent.
18. Anticipated, but we had no idea how much time would be spent verifying information.

f. Can you estimate a dollar expense for clean up? If not, can you express the cost in some other way (e.g. as a percentage of the total RECON budget, number of distinct projects, time taken to complete them, etc.)?

1. 10% of time, more extensive for vault and rare items planned
2. n/a
3. no
4. no
5. no, separate budget, part of cataloging staff's regular duties
6. no
7. no
8. no.
9. no.
10. In terms of staff time, if I do the cleanup, it costs about $1,754 to clean up 5,000 records at 2 minutes each.
11. no.
12. No. Many people are involved. Extremely costly.
13. $200
14. No.
15. no answer.
16. yes.
17. no.
18. Paraprofessional assigned to the project spent about 40% of her time doing clean-up.

11. Disposal of Old (Paper) Records

a. Have you discarded, or do you plan to discard, all or part of your paper records upon completion of RECON (e.g., shelflist, card catalog, acquisition records)?

1. no
2. no
3. n/a
4. no; catalog was frozen
5. No; closed the card file. Will retain the files until cleanip is completed.
6. Yes
7. Yes, except shelflist
8. No, we will always maintain a card catalog, and still produce cards, especially for certain separate collections.
9. No.
10. We discard the worksheets used for the project, and pull the cards from the card catalog, but we are retaining a shelf list on cards. We order new shelf list cards for reconned titles so we can tell they've been reconned.
11. We've discarded the manual authority files. The shelflist and card cat. for rare materials are still available, but not maintained.
12. yes.
13. Yes, have discarded public catalog cards.
14. The main library plans to do this. Special Collections will not discard its shelf list, but production of shelf list cards was discontinued in 1992.
15. Gradual phase out; no decisions made yet. Probably will archive cards and slips. No plans to discard. Probably will freeze active files.
16. No.
17. Eventually discard paper records.
18. Special Collections wants to keep all card files (shelflist, acquisition file, card catalog) In the shared online catalog, it was not easy to retain copy specific information so cards were considered essential. The new OPAC may have this feature and when it comes up we may be able to revisit this issue, but the Special Collections curator is very attached to the cards.

b. Do you miss any that you discarded? Do you get any use out of those retained?

1. no answer; yes for random quality control checks
2. n/a; n/a
3. no; n/a
4. no answer; yes
5. n/a; yes, helps resolve problems and discrepancies
6. Not yet discarded; no answer
7. No; yes, the shelflist
8. None discarded; use them everyday.
9. Not applicable.
10. No. Yes, we still find the shelf list useful, especially since some of our paging staff are computer phobic. We are currently doing an inventory, and since Notis does not accomodate searches specific to Rare & Manuscript Items, the shelf list is essential.
11. Get very occasional use out of retained catalog, mostly the check on origin of mess-ups found on recon records.
12. Yes. Yes.
13. No; we use the shelf list constantly.
14. Not applicable; yes.
15. Too soon to answer.
16. n/a
17. No answer.
18. no answer.

12. In your opinion, was the financial expenditure of your RECON reasonable? Did you receive value for money?

1. no. answer
2. yes
3. yes
4. yes
5. Yes. We could not have converted all of these materials, within this time frame, without aid of our vendor and this Recon project. Since we first started loading those records into our local system, the Recon records have consistently accounted for approximately one-half of all of the records in our database.
6. Yes.
7. Difficult to assess; done without additional budgeting; 2nd priority to new acquistion
8. Yes, as far as I know.
9. yes.
10. Yes. We've had the good fortune to find excellent staff for these projects, so they churn out lots of records per day, and their work is also of high quality. It's been nice to have them on site, too, instead of having to communicate long-distance with a vendor.
11. Don't know.
12. Expenditure reasonable, but we did not get the value we wanted.
13. Yes.
14. Yes.
15. Too soon to tell.
16. yes.
17. It enabled the library to convert a large number of records in a short amount of time. The amount of clean-up however makes value for money questionable.
18. yes.

III. Future Recon Projects:

1. Is your library planning a rare RECON project within the next five years?

a. If so, do you plan to use a vendor or do the work in-house?

1. no
2. no
3. no
4. ongoing cleanup
5. no
6. yes
7. no
8. 8. No, not that I know of.
9. No.
10. Yes. We'll do it in-house as money becomes available.
11. no answer.
12. Yes, for tract collections not in our dictionary catalog. We plan to do as an in-house recataloging project.
13. Yes. A combination of vendor and in-house.
14. No.
15. Manuscripts catalog project at some point.
16. The library will be will be wrapping up recataloging projects over the next few years; our future plans for rare materials will be to recatalog them, item-in hand. Done in-house.
17. No.
18. no answer

2. Would a web-based resource center concerning rare RECON be helpful to you?


1. yes
2. no
3. yes
4. yes
5. yes
6. yes
7. maybe
8. maybe
9. Yes.
10. Yes, I would be interested to see what other institutions are doing with recon.
11. no answer.
12. yes, for rare material elsewhere in the library system.
13.Perhaps if it included price information from vendors.
14. Helpful to the profession.
15. Yes.
16. yes
17. no answer..
18. Not at this point.

3. Would published guidelines concerning rare RECON be helpful to you?


1. yes
2. no
3. yes
4. yes
5. yes, especially for "odd" formats
6. yes
7. yes, especially for manuscripts
8. Maybe.
9. Yes.
10. Well, we've pretty much established our own guidelines, and we're comfortable with them; but I'd be interested to see what guidelines other people came up with.
11. no answer.
12. Yes.
13. Not particularly.
14. They would have been.
15. yes.
16. yes.
17. no answer.
18. not at this point.

4. Are you planning any HTML or SGML work in conjunction with rare RECON?

a. If so, how would those files relate to your rare catalog?

1. no
2. no
3. no
4. no
5. no
6. no
7. no
8. We are adding outlines of our collections to our web site as we can get help to do so.
9. no.
10. Yes, we have already done a lot of work toward mounting the guides for a couple of major manuscript collections on the web.
11. no answer.
12. not for printed material.
13. no.
14. no answer.
15. Nothing for printed materials. Finding aids for some manuscript collections and other formats are being converted from paper to html.
16. Both online finding aids and as images of items in the collection.
17. no answr.
18. no answer.

5. Do you have any suggestions or advice to libraries contemplating rare RECON?


1. If done in-house take the time to train inputters well; make certain of technical support
2. No answer
3. No more than any other contracted work: assume nothing and get it all clearly in writing, plan carefully, have staff roles clearly defined
4. N/a
5. See their sheet and include much data
6. don't throw away the shelflist
7. prayer
8. I was the para-professional who did the majority of the Recon for Special Collections from 1976-1982. I left the university in 1982 and did not return till 10 years later. There are still a few items needing recon. I would advise libraries to plan and carry out a recon project. The enhanced bibliographic control of your collection is worth any amount of effort.
9. Plan for clean-up no matter which vendor you use.
10. The Law Library here had a vendor do a recon project for them, and they were very unhappy with the results. Although I'm sure there are good vendors out there, I think it's preferable to have the project carried out on site if possible rather than sent out to a vendor. For purposes of getting grant funding, we've found it can be helpful to bundle the recon project together with a preservation project, and to focus on collections that are distinctive (with a high percentage of original cataloging involved.).
11. no answer.
12. Yes.
13. Consider carefully the costs of doing work in-house or outsourcing. Most outsourced work has a considerable in-house component to finish the job.
14. no answer.
15. Devote as much time as possible to the profile. Determine what is mandatory and what you can live without. Realize it will not be a perfect conversion of manual data to online data. You're going to lose some data; you're going to get some you did not have before.
16. no answer.
17. no answer.
18. I think the project takes longer than one anticipates, but it is a wonderful opportunity not only to add bib. records to the OPAC, but to upgrade old records. Advice on how to estimate time would be useful to include in your guides. Ite seems to me that contracting with an outside agency would be rather ineffecient because so many of our items had to be examined to verify information. I would be interested to hear how others handled this work.

Criticism:

We would appreciate your suggestions about how we might improve this survey, especially concerning important questions we may have neglected to ask.

1. No answer
2. No answer
3. No answer
4. No answer
5. No answer
6. No answer
7. No answer
8. No answer.
9. No answer.
10. I'd be curious to know whether anyone has had trouble making a case to their library administration for funding to recon special collections materials. We've been fortunate in that regard, but how have others fared.?
11. no answer.
12. no answer.
13. I would have included a question about how the recon was financed.
14. no answer.
15. no answer.
16. no answer.
17. no answer.
18. no answer.

Optional:

Who was the vendor for your RECON project?

1. no answer
2. Retro Link Associates
3. No answer
4. OCLC
5. OCLC
6. OCLC
7. No answer
8. No answer.
9. OCLC.
10. None.
11. no answer.
12. no answer
13. OCLC for work done by vendor
14. no answer.
15. no answer.
16. For modern books, RetroLink Associates.
17. no answer.
18. no answer.

What was your experience working with them? (ease of communication, clarity of contract, etc.)

1. N/a
2. Mostly positive; some problems with frequency of staff turnover
3. N/a
4. Good, early user of OCLC for recon, many changes since then.
5. Good experience, one liason for the entire project, and much of the staff at OCLC worked on the entire project.
6. Good experience. Lots of questions back and forth. OCLC had to recon a variety of styles and classifications. Slow in the beginning but picked up with experience.
7. N/a
8. No answer.
9. Positive, supportive experience.
10. N/a.
11. no answer
12. no answer..
13. Our experience working with them was very good. We did not have direct contact with them because our project was part of a larger grant project to recon Latin American materials, but the librarian with whom we worked was the main project director did an excellent job for us.
14. no answer.
15. no answer.
16. no answer.
17. no answer.
18. no answer.

Created by E.C. Schroeder
Comments: edwin.schroeder@yale.edu
Last updated: 6/27/2000