Library Day in the Life - Round 8, Day 5

This post is part of Library Day in the Life project. See the Library Day in the Life wiki for info on the project. I also participated previous rounds. You can find all my posts for this project by searching my blog's librarydayinthelife tag. You can also follow my Twitter posts @slmcdanold with the hashtag #libday8.

Friday, February 3, 2012 

I have much better luck making the bus this morning, but I forgot my travel mug full of coffee. I make a small detour between the bus stop and the library to buy coffee, again.

8:05am - Arrive at desk, my precious brew in hand. Login to the work network. This is followed by logging in to email, my work calendar, Voyager and Connexion, opening GTalk, opening a browser (Firefox at work, but Chrome at home), and logging in to various web programs (including Evernote), start TweetDeck.

Read email. Forward and respond to necessary messages. Catch up on news feeds, work email listservs, and library-related Twitter lists. Scan subjects and then delete mass numbers of listserv messages.

Check calendar to find out what's on today's schedule.

Walk over to supervisor's office to check in on a couple of backlog clean up projects we are working on: catching up on the Hebrew and South Asia materials.

Email off weekly timesheet report for staff to Library HR office.

Earlier this week the slate for the NASIG 2012 elections were announced. I'm up for secretary this year. We'll see what happens this time around as I've been on the slate before, but not elected. And apparently my opponent has friends that have volunteered to campaign for her! Oh dear. I better get on that as the ballots go out Feb. 27th. (hee!)

10:00am - Meeting to discuss preservation issues for serial back volumes.

Brief break of about 20 minutes between meetings to check email. 

11:00am - Meet with serials acquisitions librarian to sort out some issues with Hebrew serial titles that have been identified as our Hebraica cataloger makes headway on the backlog. Non-Roman scripts can cause confusion and things get linked to incorrect records, issues get skipped because of lack of proper title Romanization, etc. So we're clearing the confusion the best we can when we find the problems. Fortunately this takes all of 15 minutes to walk through and explain them and we can both move on to other things.

Since I have some unscheduled time that on my calendar looks like I'm occupied, I spend some time on that list of "web" location holdings that are problems. Turns out there's more than just the reserves issue that has shown up on our report. We also have random duplicate holdings, missing subfields, mysterious "web" holdings on print titles, and more. So it looks like we're going to have to go through all 269 titles one by one and by hand to fix them.

Noon - LUNCH.

12:30pm - I get some excellent news that the "new" workflow for individually purchased ebooks is up and running! We have it set up now that when an ebook is purchased, a brief record is put into our catalog so the payment record and invoice can be created. This payment record is suppressed. Once access is turned on, the payment record is unsuppressed, the URL from the vendor for our access is added to the bib, and the now unsuppressed brief bib is picked up by a daily report so it can be fully cataloged. Since we're adding the access URL to the brief bib, the public will have access immediately so if there's a delay in cataloging there's no impact on access. Now I just have to train myself to go retrieve the report every morning...

Send a few emails regarding the LITA/ALCTS Library Code Year Interest Group. We have approval from both ALCTS and LITA so we're legitimate!! YAY! ::Kermit flail:: Our ALCTS approval is conditional on some wordsmithing and revisions to the group purpose, but they approved us so we can move forward due to some impending deadlines. We're submitting our A/V and meeting room request for ALA Annual 2012 in Anaheim, CA! Watch the catcode wiki, catcode Twitter list, and the ALA Connect Code Year space for details. And don't be afraid to sign up (whether you're participating in Code Year or not) and join us in learning to code or improving our coding skills together.

Back to the spreadsheet of "web" location holdings. It's like I have 269 problem children who need individual attention. I do filter as much as possible, but I still have to check each and every one.

It's been a long day of staring at a screen full of MARC code and spreadsheets.


2:00pm - Meet with colleague to put together the charge for the subgroup to investigate the various metadata schema available that can accommodate preservation, descriptive, structural, and administrative elements for a wide variety of types of materials that may be included in the digital repository.


Give staff person the monthly report of items that are officially declared lost. 


3:45pm - Final email check. Clean out email listservs. Check Twitter and blog feeds. Schedule this post.


4:00pm - Shut things/programs down and log out from work network. Shut down (restart) computer. Leave work. 


I have to get out of here a bit early today as I'm attending an "Introduction to Python" workshop (more coding!) tonight and all day tomorrow sponsored by PhillyPUG / PyStar Philly. I need to get home to pack up my laptop and head out so I'm not late tonight (especially given my bus karma this week)! I did the intro to Python class last September, but it didn't really stick. So when the opportunity to take it again came up, I jumped at the opportunity. I'm hoping my Code Year work has helped so it sticks better this time.

Library Day in the Life - Round 8, Day 4

This post is part of Library Day in the Life project. See the Library Day in the Life wiki for info on the project. I also participated previous rounds. You can find all my posts for this project by searching my blog's librarydayinthelife tag. You can also follow my Twitter posts @slmcdanold with the hashtag #libday8.


Thursday, February 2, 2012 

I get to my desk around 8:55am, and yes, this is a bit late. My bus karma this week can only be described as terrible. Seriously epically bad bus karma. This morning I barely missed one (this week's prevailing theme...watching the bus go by as I'm about 1/2 a block from the stop), the second one didn't even pause, and the third (which I finally boarded) got caught behind a truck. EPICALLY BAD. Grumble...SEPTA...grumble.

Login to the work network. This is followed by logging in to email, my work calendar, Voyager and Connexion, opening GTalk, opening a browser (Firefox at work, but Chrome at home), and logging in to various web programs (including Evernote), start TweetDeck.

While things warm up, I retrieve my coffee travel thermos only to discover I didn't tighten the lid and it has dripped my precious brew all over the inside of my lunch bag. 

Can I go back to bed and start the day over now, please?

Read email. Forward and respond to necessary messages. Catch up on news feeds, work email listservs, and library-related Twitter lists. Scan subjects and then delete mass numbers of listserv messages.

Check calendar to find out what's on today's schedule.

9:15am - my phone rings. It's a random number. I pick up, the number hangs up. I do this twice before just letting it ring. The number calls repeatedly for the next 10 minutes, for a total of 7 more calls, each one ringing at least 4 times before hanging up. This is beyond annoying, to say the least.

I'd like to repeat my request to go back to bed now and start the day over.

That pesky reserves e-item multiple holdings records issue? It's still around. We're still working on it. That report from yesterday turned up a few other oddities that we have no idea what to do with such as personal copies with print and online components, and some that don't seem to be related to reserves at all.

10:10am - Stop by my supervisor's office to check in with her on a couple of things, including what we need to do in order to add our ebooks to our NewBooks+ stream. It highlights new acquisitions of books in the library (our media/videos are highlighted in a separate catalog), and we need to figure out how to fold in ebooks without overwhelming the system in terms of sheer number of records. Some of the MARC record sets we load for collections have over 50,000 records (some over 100,000!) so clearly we have to determine an effective filter for these extremely large sets.

10:30am - Department Heads. This meeting is a regular first Thursday of the month event. This month's topics include presentations on a special collections database from the museum folks, and a discussion about digital humanities. Oh, but if you get there early, there are treats! And coffee! I think the nice flaky pastry with icing on it helps to improve my morning, don't you agree?

Noon - Retrieval of MARC records for various ebook collections from vendors that post the files on websites. Some files I get an email alert, some are emailed to me as attachments, but a few vendors just post them without any notification options. I do have a "master" list of collections that are set up as ongoing subscriptions including how we get notified about updates in a Excel file shared with our electronic acquisitions folks so we can all keep it updated. But I have a tickler in my calendar and a running list in Evernote to remind me to go check the websites for specific subscriptions (mainly ongoing series, the online version of a standing order, or collections where they are still creating the MARC records) and pull down any new files. Usually there are only a few records in each update file, so I can quickly process and edit them and load them directly into our catalog. For the updates that I get via email or RSS notification, I process them as they arrive. I'm able to keep up currently, but in terms of scalability this is not the best method. I'm working on figuring out a workflow for these collections that get update files of MARC records that is a bit more streamlined and scalable. So far the sheer diversity (and seeming randomness) of how different vendors process and make updates available, and the variation in frequency for those updates, are making it difficult to have one workflow that encompasses them all.

12:30pm - LUNCH. The danger of eating lunch at your desk so you can catch up on stuff: colleagues stopping by with questions.

1pm - meeting of all the supervisors in technical services so our two new supervisors can get to know everyone.

3:00pm - Track down a colleague to talk about various workflow issues regarding upcoming work barcoding back volumes of serial titles. Send out email to all library staff announcing a set of MARC records for individual titles in a collection have been loaded and are available in the catalog. Successfully load

4:00pm - Successfully download update file or records, run it through the generic Perl script, make remaining edits, and load the completed records into our catalog. All without having to ask anyone else to take care of any part of it. It's very exciting to be able to complete the process without assistance! [Note: see yesterday's post explaining the excitement of being able to run sets through a script myself instead of asking our systems folks to do it for me.]

4:30pm - Check in with Hebraica cataloger about some serial titles in Hebrew we were working on yesterday. We're slowly working through the backlog so the titles are migrating over from her in a nice slow steady stream. It's not overwhelming, but we're making progress which is exactly what needs to happen.

4:45pm - Final email check. Clean out email listservs. Check Twitter and blog feeds. Schedule this post. 

5:00pm - Shut things/programs down and log out from work network. Shut down (restart) computer. Meet up with a friend to catch up over a couple of beverages. Yay for friend time!

Library Day in the Life - Round 8, Day 3

This post is part of Library Day in the Life project. See the Library Day in the Life wiki for info on the project. I also participated previous rounds. You can find all my posts for this project by searching my blog's librarydayinthelife tag. You can also follow my Twitter posts @slmcdanold with the hashtag #libday8.


Wednesday, February 1, 2012 

I get to my desk around 8:25am, login to the work network. This is followed by logging in to email, my work calendar, Voyager and Connexion, opening GTalk, opening a browser (Firefox at work, but Chrome at home), and logging in to various web programs (including Evernote), start TweetDeck.

Read email. Forward and respond to necessary messages. Catch up on news feeds, work email listservs, and library-related Twitter lists. Scan subjects and then delete mass numbers of listserv messages.

9:00am - Fill out survey from ALA on ALA Midwinter.

Pick up a piece of paper and find a sheet that looks suspiciously like a reimbursement form. Realize I forgot to turn in the paperwork and receipts to submit for reimbursement for ALA Midwinter. Sigh. ::headdesk:: Make the trek upstairs to turn things into the business office.

Check calendar to find out what's on today's schedule. The day is open. Whoa. What shall I do with myself today?

Morning: prepping and editing files of MARC records for bulk loads

Remember that weird character that showed up and caused records to error out when we tried to load them? I talked about it yesterday. It's not obvious when the character was introduced, so I'm going to review the files from each part of the process to find out when the random character string ({A0}) was inserted at the end of some of the subjects. This file goes through three scripts: the generic one to standardize things, a post generic script to map the subject codes to the LCSH equivalents, and finally a pre-load process to prep the records (adding data to generate holdings records upon loading, etc.). I have the individual output files for each step in that process to review and find when the character string showed up so we can troubleshoot.

I send off various requests for loading files of MARC records into the production instance of our catalog. Once I get the confirmation the records are loaded, I'll send out an announcement to all staff that title-level access is available. I also load smaller sets (less than 50 records) by hand into our system to speed things along.


10:10am - In order to help streamline the editing process for files of MARC records, I'm working with the systems colleague that normally runs the records through the scripts for me to get it set up so I can do it myself. This is very exciting. That means far fewer requests and less lag time for set editing. If I run new sets through the basic normalizing/standardizing script (FYI, it's in PERL, and all it does is standardize certain fields for local needs), then the only requests I need to make are for actual loads into our system! Exciting! Of course, this means installing software (ActivePerl community edition) on my desk and mapping me to various files, which takes a good 30 minutes. My colleague in systems is very patient with me, walking me through the steps (which I meticulously document in Notepad as we go through) and we have success! ::Kermit flail in celebration:: The process utilizes the DOS command window, and oh boy is my cmd vocabulary rusty. Yikes.


While we're chatting about running the MARC file editing scripts, I answer a few of her questions about load profiles and report frequency for a few ebook cataloging workflows we're tweaking. I discover in the course of the conversation that I was given SysAdmin access a few weeks ago but somehow I didn't get the message. SysAdmin installed and away we go! ::more Kermit flail:: Today is a good day!


Of course, the first attempt to do this on my own and I try to run the script on a file still in a .zip folder. Note to self: extract files first, THEN edit using Perl script. ::facepalm::


Noon - Try to figure out why we can't save edits to a bulk load profile when we change the order settings. I now have two chat windows open, one with my systems colleague and the other for a colleague that works in acquisitions to see if our inability to save a change to the orders piece of a bulk load profile is related to system permissions (I don't have permissions to edit in the acquisitions module).


12:40pm - LUNCH. Much needed. I think low blood sugar was starting to affect my brain (see attempt to edit file in .zip folder above).


While eating my soup, I respond to a message about putting together local specific training for MarcEdit and start to craft a possible outline, breaking things up into reasonable chunks from basic to really really complicated stuff. I don't know if I could do my job without MarcEdit anymore.


1:45pm - Next up is changing the way we process a specific MARC records subscription. I have to cancel one service, and set up a workflow for addressing changes by hand. This also means various requests to have records deleted from the catalog as well as a report of the deleted records so I can do the corresponding holdings maintenance. I put together the deletion request and report request and send it off to our systems department "ticket" system to add it to their queue. I also send off the message inquiring how to cancel the subscription to the MARC records files from OCLC WorldCat Collection Sets. 

I also get an email letting me know that the issue of multiple holdings records being created during the e-item creation process for reserves is much larger than just the handful I knew about yesterday. Our online resources should only have one holdings record with a "web" location and no other holdings locations or additional "web" holdings. Thus the creation of additional holdings records during the reserves e-item creation process is causing all sorts of display and processing issues. I request a report of all the bibliographic records affected so we can start cleaning up and start troubleshooting to find out what step in our procedure needs to be fixed to prevent the creation of multiple holdings records. Fortunately the report turns up less than 300, and it includes not just duplicate "web" holdings but also those where people are just using the wrong template to create "web" holdings. Completely manageable.



2:30pm - Help out our Hebraica cataloger with some serials questions and a cataloging module system question. The rest of my day is spent trying to track down errant issues, combing through backlogs in various places on our ground floor (aka the "basement") for materials in Hebrew, and trying to separate out titles that somehow got combined onto one record even though they are quite different. We gave up trying to figure out how and why it happened, and instead are just trying to fix it. Whew. I have stuff to talk to our serials acquisitions person about on Friday (he begged off talking about it tomorrow, so Friday it is).


4:15pm - Final email check. Clean out email listservs. Check Twitter and blog feeds. Schedule this post.


4:30pm - Shut things/programs down and log out from work network. Shut down (restart) computer. Drop of reimbursement form on my way out.

Library Day in the Life - Round 8, Day 2

This post is part of Library Day in the Life project. See the Library Day in the Life wiki for info on the project. I also participated previous rounds. You can find all my posts for this project by searching my blog's librarydayinthelife tag. You can also follow my Twitter posts @slmcdanold with the hashtag #libday8.


Tuesday, January 31, 2012


I get to my desk around 8:05am, login to the work network. This is followed by logging in to email, my work calendar, Voyager and Connexion, opening GTalk, opening a browser (Firefox at work, but Chrome at home), and logging in to various web programs (including Evernote), start TweetDeck.

While everything warms up, I compile the paperwork and receipts to submit for reimbursement for ALA Midwinter. Must remember to turn these in TODAY.

Read email. Forward and respond to necessary messages. Catch up on news feeds, work email listservs, and library-related Twitter lists. Scan subjects and then delete mass numbers of listserv messages.


Check calendar to find out what's on today's schedule.

Send out finalized version of one of the three sets of minutes I typed up on Sunday.

Send request to load update file for one of our ongoing ebook collections. We subscribe to regular updates of MARC record files for quite a few of our ebook collections. Mostly these are science publications, or conference proceedings type resources. Each time an updated file is posted, I send a message with instructions to our systems folks that there's a file ready for loading. They run it through a couple of scripts, both the generic one standardizing certain fields I described previously, followed by a script we wrote summarizing any additional edits for that collection specifically. These edits are typically things like additional title access points per request from our collection development librarians. Once the file is loaded, I'm emailed a report that all is complete and if there were any errored records or problems. All in all it's a fairly seamless workflow.

I also make sure I update the two spreadsheets where we track our bulk loads. One is the "master" that tracks all the collections and what the status is for loading MARC record sets. The other is just a summary count of the number of records loaded for each collection broken up by fiscal year for reporting purposes (statistics, y'all).


In cleaning up my inbox this morning, I realized I went right past an email sent out yesterday afternoon about access to Lynda.com. They have great technology training and I'm excited my library has purchased a site license! I did a bit of exploring, and discover they have a 4 hour session on programming fundamentals among many other interesting options. Professional development opportunity FTW! 

9:10am - Start work on troubleshooting an error file from a recent record load. 169 records loaded fine, but 16 of them errored out. I have to figure out why and then re-load them by hand. With any batch load, there's always the possibility of records that error out. The issues can be anything from record length (too long and the batch load process hangs and spits the record back), diacritics problems, MARC field validation issues, to complete mysteries. Sometimes the records load fine by hand even though they errored on the back-end batch load. For these 16 records it was three things: a random floating empty subfield b in the 300 field, an indicator error in a name entry, and a random character string ({A0}) inserted at the end of some of the subjects.


9:25am - Chat with my supervisor about a bizarre record display resulting from an e-item created for reserves module purposes. We don't create items for our online stuff, because there's nothing physical to track. For reserves, however, they create a "temp e-item" to put things in a professor's class list. Theoretically the item is removed later and all is well, but we've encountered a few irregularities in displays.


My morning so far can be summed up thusly: ebook record troubleshooting. Good times.


10:30-11am - Bi-weekly check-in meeting with 1 of my 4 staff. This is the other half of my staff meeting for this week. Next week I'll have my meeting with my remaining two staff.

More email and ebook troubleshooting.

11:30am - Meet with a colleague to discuss some issues that have arisen regarding e-items and the reserves module. This is the follow up from the earlier conversation with my supervisor. The reserve module and that workflow isn't part of technical services, but the access services department. So to fix the issues we're seeing of floating holdings records, e-items attached to incorrect holdings (and titles), etc., it requires a bit of inter-departmental cooperation and troubleshooting.

12:15pm - LUNCH. I need to eat a good lunch today before I donate blood so I don't pass out. I speak from personal experience that I need to do this when I donate...no donating before I've had at least 2 good meals that day.

12:35pm - Phone call from a colleague about getting together to write a charge for a subgroup for a committee I'm on. [Note: this is the same colleague that called me yesterday right before I had to leave to be somewhere. He swears he's actually trying to time his phone calls for the 10 minutes before I have to leave my desk. :cP] We have a group that's working on creating (from scratch) an digital repository (beyond our existing scholarly commons repository). We're starting from nothing, so the first step is figuring out what we need to actually store by putting together a census to interview our colleagues to find out what files they are hoarding and need preserved. Simultaneously, we're putting together a subgroup to investigate the various metadata schema available that can accommodate preservation, descriptive, structural, and administrative elements for a wide variety of types of materials that may be included in the repository.


1pm - My appointment to donate for the campus blood drive with the Red Cross. Luckily it's a beautiful day for a walk across campus to the donation site. They were a bit backed up so I had to wait a while for them to get to me. But the best thing? The after donation cookies were the mini-Keebler Fudge Stripes! NOM NOM NOM

2:20pm - After I'm done giving up a pint of my blood and am back at the library, I check email to discover that our system is kicking people out again this afternoon and had to be restarted. Sigh. I also find a request to schedule a meeting. I put together the meeting request and send it out via our networked calendar to various individuals. It's always fun to try to find an hour of time that 6 different people are available (/sarcasm).

3pm - My weekly meeting for the committee I'm on that's working on the user interface design of our new public catalog interface. We have a beta version live now (http://dla.library.upenn.edu/dla/franklin/) but are still fine tuning and working on getting some missing data (and indexes) into our display. In addition to the fine tuning, we're working on the next step of the implementation: the account services pieces (renew, view your checked out items, etc.). We're writing up the functional specs for various pieces including how to log in and log out of the account services, how to renew items, viewing and acting on your items already checked out, placing requests, etc. These functional specs will be used by a team of indexers and programmers to actually make the various pieces work. Writing a functional specs is an iterative process. We talk through the most straight forward process, step by step, identifying where the various pieces of data need to come from (what systems and indexes within each system, and on down the rabbit hole), how things need to be mapped (within the display and from one screen to the next), labels, and then we start introducing the exceptions, and then it blows up into a massive document with references, referrals, and more and suddenly what you thought would be simple and straight forward really is quite complicated. That complicated mess is then reviewed by systems folks (those indexers and programmers), and returned to us with questions, comments, and general feedback. We turn around and make more changes, and the review cycle starts over again. Eventually we get to a functional spec that can be used by the people to actually start the creation/programming process.


It's been an interesting (and positive) experience to be on a user interface team. I'm so used to looking at the data behind the scenes, all that underlying gibberish of MARC and codes and more (that frighteningly makes more sense and is easier to read to me than a cleaned up public display), and I've definitely had to stretch myself to look at things differently. I have to think about how the data is *used* and what is useful for the user needs (find - identify - select - obtain, hello FRBR our old friend). Our primary focus is on what displays and how the user interacts with the system. Aesthetics come in later (and are partially pre-determined). I've learned how to explain our data to non-data people, talking about what is there, what all the codes mean, data variations (both known and possible), how data could potentially be used, and explaining limitations. It's been a fascinating process and has really forced me to understand what I work with on a daily basis (data) in a completely new way and on a new level.

4:15pm - Back from meeting. Ended up spending part of the time chatting with colleague about related but not committee specific work going on. Good to get updates. And time for more email. Seven messages while I was gone for an hour. SEVEN. Yeesh.

Last major task for the day: more statistics, y'all (yes, it's the last day of the month why do you ask?). I copy the statistics for my unit from the website system reports interface. These are generic reports from the system to ensure an accurate count of items added (I have staff that barcode over 1,000 items each month, asking them to count that by hand would be just cruel), newly added records, etc. There's little (if any) context to these generic system reports, so I mesh these generic system reports with the specifics given to me by my staff each month, and then compile them all at the end of the fiscal year for use in a variety of reports on the Libraries, including sending reports to the Association for Research Libraries.




4:50pm - Manually sync local shared calendar system with my personal GoogleCalendar. Meeting Maker doesn't have a push function that plays nice, so I have to save events to an .ics file and then import them into Google. Why? Because I can't see my Meeting Maker calendar without either my desktop client or a web browser. Again, Meeting Maker just doesn't seem to play nice with things I need it to (including my Android cell phone). So I manually sync it whenever meetings are added/changed. Final email check. Clean out email listservs. Check Twitter and blog feeds. Schedule this post. 


5:15pm - Shut things/programs down and log out from work network. Shut down (restart) computer. Leave work. 

Library Day in the Life - Round 8, Day 1

It's time for another round of Library Day in the Life posts. See the Library Day in the Life wiki for info on the project. I also participated previous rounds. You can find all my posts for this project by searching my blog's librarydayinthelife tag. You can also follow my Twitter posts @slmcdanold with the hashtag #libday8.

Obligatory background: I'm a cataloger at a rather large academic library. Specifically a cataloger of electronic resources (anything online, in any format), and continuing resources (serials, etc.). I participate in the PCC program, doing NACO and both CONSER and BIBCO work depending on what I'm dealing with at the time. I also participate in committee work for the PCC, ALA ALCTS, and NASIG.


I am head of a unit that handles the cataloging, maintenance and inventory control of continuing resources (both serials and integrating resources) and electronic resources (online resources) for all units of the Libraries by updating and maintaining bibliographic, holdings and item records. I have four para-professional (or support) staff in my unit. Two that work an early shift, and two that work a later shift. In an attempt to cover the most ground, my schedule says I work from 8am to 4pm, although I usually don't actually get out of the office until 4:30 or 5pm.

The majority of time spent on the cataloging for continuing resources and many online resources is maintenance work and updating of the bibliographic records to reflect current information. Changes can be anything from the frequency, to a change in publisher, to a title variation or title change. Cataloging these types of materials is like trying to hit a moving target or nailing jello to the wall. There's also the ongoing inventory maintenance on our holdings records to deal with keeping our holdings current, including withdrawn/lost/missing volumes, general edits to fix accuracy issues, etc. I also spend a large amount of time managing the bulk loads of MARC records for title-level access to online resources such as streaming media and ebooks (including batch editing the records prior to loading using tools like MarcEdit) and managing the cataloging of individual ebooks and ebooks series that aren't available in sets but require regular maintenance and updating.

Monday, January 30, 2012


I was a bit late this morning courtesy of my cat and a hairball incident. It upset my routine enough that I left my travel mug of coffee at home on the counter. I am not so much a morning person, so my routine is fine tuned to make sure I get out of the apartment in once piece, wearing shoes not slippers, and without locking myself out. I'm lucky the only thing I forgot was my coffee. So I made a quick stop before heading into the library for some coffee. Coffee is a non-negotiable morning requirement.


Once I acquired my precious brew and got to my desk, I login to the work network. This is followed by logging in to email, my work calendar, Voyager and Connexion, opening GChat, opening a browser (Firefox at work, but Chrome at home), and logging in to various web programs (including Evernote), start TweetDeck.

Read email. Forward and respond to necessary messages. Catch up on news feeds, work email listservs, and library-related Twitter lists. Scan subjects and then delete mass numbers of listserv messages.


Check calendar to find out what's on today's schedule.

10-10:30am: Bi-weekly check-in meeting with 1 of my 4 staff. The other staff person I meet with this week (2 people each week) is out today so we'll meet Tuesday instead. And next week I'll have my meeting with my remaining two staff. This is something I started back in July. These bi-weekly meetings have greatly improved and increased communication with my staff by having regular face-to-face conversations. They also present more opportunities to get solutions for things directly from them. I don't have to solve the problems, I just have to support the solution and the process. The feedback from my staff on our bi-weekly meetings has been overwhelmingly positive. It helps us all stay on top of things and address issues before they get out of hand and become critical. It's also helped our unit come together and work better together. Communication has improved not just between myself and individual staff, but between staff members. Our unit has really "jelled" and is working well as a single functional unit rather than individuals thrown together. It's incredibly encouraging and satisfying to see that happen (it's been a long road and a lot of hard work from all of us to get here).

And yet I'm constantly reminded that management is a work in progress, ever evolving. I try different things, some work, some don't. I'm constantly having to learn and improve as a manager. I've attended seminars and workshops, read articles, and received honest feedback from colleagues and my own supervisor, all of which have been valuable in various ways to help me be a better manager. It's not easy. Anyone that tells you otherwise is a liar.

11am: We have several new professionals. This morning was an orientation meeting between the new head of a unit in a different department and my department. Essentially we use the time to break down the relationships between units and departments and review workflows.


Noon: Code4Lib Conference online meeting for pre-conference planning. It has become clear that I will not be able to attend Code4Lib after all. The pre-conference proposal was last minute so I hadn't planned to attend and it's just not possible with everything going on right now. I tried to find a way to make it work (both financially and work related), but alas, no dice. Sometimes having to be responsible can really suck. But that doesn't stop me from finishing up the pre-conference planning. I'll still do my part and put together slides for what would have been my portion of the brief presentation. I'm seriously disappointed, but now even more determined to plan ahead to attend next year. We are exploring the possibility that I may be able to participate via Skype, and I really hope that happens. Either that or someone better figure out cloning quickly...I volunteer as a test subject!


We've been using Adobe Connect for our online meetings. It's quite powerful, and I've used it for other committee work where we need to bring people together from all over the country and for presentations/trainings since you can upload files and share your desktop. There's nothing to install beyond the basic Adobe software suite (and who doesn't have the reader these days) which has the underpinnings to run the meeting space. The connection is via a URL. No registration or passcodes needed. Which is very user friendly, especially when you are trying to throw a meeting together at the last minute. All participants need is a headset with microphone for conversation (although there is a chat box if microphone isn't an option), and an internet connection and browser. The only issue we've encountered is that it's not as reliable when someone connects via wireless, but is perfectly stable when connecting via Ethernet (a "wired" connection).


As soon as we were done with the Code4Lib meeting, I switched over to the (free!) ALA Midwinter Midwinter Tech Wrapup 2012 which started at 1pm. A panel presents their "observations and analysis of the top technology trends from the conference, and what they see as the implications for libraries". It's an interesting snapshot of all the new stuff that gets presented at ALA.

Mid-way through the Tech Wrapup presentation, I realize I haven't eaten lunch yet. My stomach reminded me with an annoyed growl/grumble. Oops. Fortunately the Wrapup is being recorded, and they will be sending out the recording and links to the slides in the next few days.

1:30pm - LUNCH.

2:00pm - A colleague sends me many helpful emails to address my need to swap Date1 and Date2 in a large number of files of MARC records. Holly Tomren is my hero today. Sometimes the best thing is to share your challenges openly and freely (and without shame). Chances are someone else has encountered it too and can either provide a solution or some helpful guidance or at least some sympathy. :)

As much as I would like to play with what she sent immediately, I have a small list of things in our catalog to clean up. Since our system has decided to be cooperative and stable today (note: our server has been cranky and the reasons for its' crankiness continue to elude our local systems folks and the systems folks at the company that owns the ILS software), the clean up edits take priority.

2:30pm - And just as I find all my notes and emails and bring up the first record, the system crashes. Dammit.

2:40pm - I try to log in to the system again and success! Edits ahoy!

2:57pm - And not so fast. System crash. I think I saved the record I was editing in time. ::crosses fingers::

3:04pm - System restarted. And we're back up. Yea gods...whiplash!

3:30pm - Editing of some of the meeting notes I typed up yesterday. It's tricky, as I'm reporting on what was said by someone else on a committee I'm not on. Needless to say the individual has had quite a few suggestions for edits to my notes.

3:45pm - Respond to an email from a colleague about loading a set of records for digitized historical newspapers into our catalog. Add the requested collection to the master spreadsheet so it can be placed in the queue by our collection development team. They evaluate priorities and determine the order of the sets that have been requested or purchased for loading into the catalog. We have a bit of a backlog, but we're slowly catching up. Some of the sets we load are quite large (the Congressional Serial Set and the Parliamentary Papers are two good examples of extremely large sets consisting of many files with upwards of 50,000 records per file) so they take some time. We can only load so many records at a time, due to system limitations and post-load re-indexing needs (re-indexing can be a demanding and potentially resource eating process for a server).

4:10pm - I had the privilege of serving on the ALCTS Continuing Resources Section Ulrich's Serials Librarianship Award jury committee this year. One of our final tasks is reviewing the press releases and announcements that will be going out celebrating and honoring the recipient of the award. These are the kinds of documents I love reviewing and editing. A feel-good way to end the day.

While editing, I also get pinged via Google Talk by a colleague from another institution with a serials cataloging question. There are some complicated changes to an institution name that require edits in multiple places on top of a migration from print format to online. Serials can be complicated and tricky when they are feeling onerous. But I do love that I live in the future and such things can be discussed via online chat. :)

4:30pm - Final email check. Clean out email listservs. Check Twitter and blog feeds. Schedule this post.

4:35pm - Phone call from colleague asking me about next steps for a workflow revision.


4:40pm - A staff person asks me a question about some strange notes in a holdings record. We figure out the best way to edit the notes so they make sense.

4:50pm - Rush to shut things/programs down and log out from work network. Shut down (restart) computer. Leave work. I have somewhere to be at 5:30pm and must get out of here!



[Edited to finish filling in the last 30 minutes of my day...didn't have a chance before I had to leave and it was already scheduled to publish! Oops.]

Library Day in the Life - Round 8, Day 0

It's time for another round of Library Day in the Life posts. See the Library Day in the Life wiki for info on the project. I also participated previous rounds. You can find all my posts for this project by searching my blog's librarydayinthelife tag. You can also follow my Twitter posts @slmcdanold with the hashtag #libday8.


Obligatory background: I'm a cataloger at a rather large academic library. Specifically a cataloger of electronic resources (anything online, in any format), and continuing resources (serials, etc.). I participate in the PCC program, doing NACO and both CONSER and BIBCO work depending on what I'm dealing with at the time. I also participate in committee work for the PCC, ALA ALCTS, and NASIG.


I am head of a unit that handles the cataloging, maintenance and inventory control of continuing resources (both serials and integrating resources) and electronic resources (online resources) for all units of the Libraries by updating and maintaining bibliographic, holdings and item records. I have four para-professional (or support) staff in my unit. Two that work an early shift, and two that work a later shift. In an attempt to cover the most ground, my schedule says I work from 8am to 4pm, although I usually don't actually get out of the office until 4:30 or 5pm.


The majority of time spent on the cataloging for continuing resources and many online resources is maintenance work and updating of the bibliographic records to reflect current information. Changes can be anything from the frequency, to a change in publisher, to a title variation or title change. Cataloging these types of materials is like trying to hit a moving target or nailing jello to the wall. There's also the ongoing inventory maintenance on our holdings records to deal with keeping our holdings current, including withdrawn/lost/missing volumes, general edits to fix accuracy issues, etc. I also spend a large amount of time managing the bulk loads of MARC records for title-level access to online resources such as streaming media and ebooks (including batch editing the records prior to loading using tools like MarcEdit) and managing the cataloging of individual ebooks and ebooks series that aren't available in sets but require regular maintenance and updating.

Sunday, January 29, 2012

Sadly, my week started on a Sunday this week because I needed a large block of time to knock some stuff off the to-do list. I was out on Friday due to a nasty sinus headache, so I came into the office on Sunday afternoon to catch up on some work. Most notably, I had minutes from three meetings that needed to be typed up (complete! and sent off for review before posting) as well as a need to start making sense of my ALA meeting notes and begin the process of turning them into reports (not so complete). I also conquered a substantial amount of email messages. Whee, email.


I was interrupted briefly by a student who walked right by the "STAFF ONLY" sign into the Information Processing Center (our tech services). The sign is on a stand and written in all caps placed right in front of the glass doors so you see it before you even think about opening the doors. Not to mention you have to walk by it when you open the doors and enter the IPC. He was talking on his cell phone quite loudly, obviously oblivious to his surroundings. I stopped him, said he can't be in this area, and asked him to leave. He just stared at me, so I pointed out that he was in a staff only secure area and there was a sign he walked by indicating it as such, and he needed to leave immediately. He then quipped to the person on the phone "hold on, I'm being scolded" and gave me some serious "I'm all super self-important" attitude (internal dialogue: um, dude, you are NOT that important, trust me and scolded? that was not a scolding, you idiot, I will show you a scolding if you continue to ignore me). I replied by politely pointing out again that there was a clear sign and that he's not staff, so he still has to leave immediately. He finally left, walking slowly, as I followed him to make sure he actually exited the IPC. Sigh. Students.


After my student interruption, I tried to tackle a MARC record set challenge. We have a MARC record set for materials from the 18th and 19th century. The way these were cataloged is as reproductions, and the date that is being displayed first (Date1) is the date they were digitized and the secondary date (Date2) is the date of the original (18th and 19th century dates). This is not helpful to our users who are searching and looking for the date the item was created/written. So I'm trying to flip the two dates around so that the date of the original is the first date (Date1: 008/07-10) and the digitization date is the second date (Date2: 008/11-14). This sounds simple, but when you have 20 files anywhere from 2700 records to over 10,000 records, it's not. Since I do not want to create a new field, MarcEdit's Swap Field Utility doesn't work. The script editor tool in MarcEdit is powerful, but not quite that detailed unless you're writing by hand instead of using Terry's brilliant guided entry script writing process. I'm not sure there is a way to flip flop the Date1 and Date2 fixed fields without writing a script from scratch, which is not something I have the skill set for (yet! Code Year hopefully will change this). I'll have to talk to our specialist up in systems about this on Monday.


Finally, I did some work on some slides for an upcoming pre-conference I'm working on for Code4Lib Conference 2012 Seattle (only a week away, eek!). We have a planning meeting during lunch on Monday and I needed to get my stuff together to share. I have some serious formatting to do, but the plan for my slides is sketched out clearly now so I feel more prepared.


All of that took me around 3 hours at work. It's amazing how much you can get done when you have a large block of time without any meetings to break it up. Most of my days are pretty dominated by meetings so I don't have that kind of block very often unless I force it to happen.


Once I get home, I have more work to do, but of the personal development nature after I take care of a few chores. I'm behind on Code Year. Like two weeks behind at this point (doh!). Something tells me I'll be spending many hours tonight working on code. I've seen suggestions on Twitter that this is best accomplished with a glass of wine (or several) or a "few" beers. I'll take that under advisement. :) Who knows, maybe I'll take my laptop down to my corner bar for awhile (does Local 44 have wifi? huh. I have no idea...). Also, I wonder if I can simultaneously code and watch Downton Abbey? Anyone?

Library Day in the Life - Round 7, Day 5 & 6

This post is part of Library Day in the Life project. See: http://librarydayinthelife.pbworks.com/ for more information. I also participated previous rounds. You can find all my posts for this project by searching my blog's librarydayinthelife tag. You can also follow my Twitter posts @slmcdanold with the hashtag #libday7.

Friday, July 29, 2011 and Saturday, July 30, 2011

My Friday ended up being an unplanned vacation day courtesy of my cat. I didn't get any sleep at all on Thursday night due to multiple, um, hairball incidents. Every time I'd start to drift off there was another one. So Friday started with a phone call to the vet to discuss preventative measures. I spent most of the day alternating between napping, checking email, and watching the cat like a hawk for another hairball incident. Yes, I was pretty much useless. That's what happens when I don't get any sleep.

What that also means is that I have some work to do this weekend that didn't happen yesterday and so I'm prepared for Monday. So after my Saturday morning trip to the local farmers' market, I settled down with iced coffee and my laptop for a few hours starting around 11:30am to get some much needed work done via remote desktop.

First things first, edit the notes from the PCC hybrid bib records task group. I get them cleaned up and post them in Google Docs for the group to review. We all have our assignments for next week. My job is to start work on the introduction and background sections of our report.

I also answer several emails regarding local 856 practices (that's the MARC field for URLs for you non-catalogers) and other miscellaneous emails. I also deal with comments on a proposed task force the PCC Standing Committee on Automation sent to the PCC Policy Committee. The feedback has been completely supportive, with a request to clarify at least one of the bullet points in the charge to prevent confusion as to the task force's purpose. Easy. Done.

I finish up work on a couple of record sets. First I verify the corrections to that pesky set of errored records. I comb through the file one more time, checking for any additional non-MARC-8 characters. I think (key word: *think*) I got them all. I upload the file to the shared drive and put in the request to load the corrected file.

Next record set problem is a file that got corrupted. I play around with it, changing the extension to see if that works. Voila! The file is usable again! I run a few validation processes on the file, and then re-compile it back into MARC so it can be loaded into our system. I can't believe it was that easy but I'm not going to look a gift horse in the mouth so to speak.

Finally I copy our monthly statistics. An automatically generated report uploads to a website each month, including both daily activity and a monthly summary of the activities of everyone in my unit, including myself. It's a way to ensure nothing slips through the cracks when it comes to stats reporting. I have to submit a yearly report to our data librarian so he can submit statistics to the ARL and other groups. Between the automatic report on system activity plus the stats my staff submit (covering things the automatic report doesn't include, such as deletions), my numbers are about as accurate as possible.

1:45pm And done. I clean out the email listservs and make sure everything is saved and disconnect/log off from remote desktop. And I still have most of my Saturday afternoon to go play (read: run errands).

Library Day in the Life - Round 7, Day 4

This post is part of Library Day in the Life project. See: http://librarydayinthelife.pbworks.com/ for more information. I also participated previous rounds. You can find all my posts for this project by searching my blog's librarydayinthelife tag. You can also follow my Twitter posts @slmcdanold with the hashtag #libday7.

Thursday, July 28, 2011

Arrive at my desk 8:15am. Running late today. Took me three tries to leave the house as I had to keep going back for things I forgot. I'm just happy I didn't lock myself out. Also, there's a crane lift blocking the staff entrance this morning to lift materials into the construction space up on the sixth floor. I know we received an email about it yesterday, but of course I forgot until I arrived and had to backtrack to get to the alternate entrance opened instead. Sigh. I'm sure some of my absent mindedness this morning can be blamed on the 2am epic! battle! between my cat and a fly that somehow got into my apartment. Yes, I am tired.

Login to work network. Login to email, calendar, Voyager and Connexion, open GChat, open a browser, login to various web programs (including Evernote), start TweetDeck.

Read email. Forward and respond to necessary messages. Catch up on news feeds, work email listservs, and library-related Twitter lists. Scan subjects and then delete mass numbers of listserv messages.

Today is a mix of back to back meetings and then a lot of non-meeting time. Sometimes it's nice to have things divided into clear chunks so the day is less choppy.

I spent much of my time before my first meeting preparing for my meetings, especially the one I'm "hosting" at noon.

10:00am-11:00am Meeting of my staff working on barcoding the bound serial volumes and the staff that process things being sent to storage, which also involves a lot of barcoding. We follow the same procedures and policies for the barcoding piece of things, so everyone is getting together to compare notes and have a round robin type discussion.

11:00am-noon Roger Schoenfeld from ITHAKA gave a talk/presentation on the activities of ITHAKA for supporting teaching and learning. Unfortunately I had to leave early to open the online "room" for my noon meeting.

I inhale a quick snack before my meeting so my stomach growling doesn't get recorded.

Noon-1pm Online meeting of my PCC task group on RDA hybrid bib records. We've been meeting once a week using Adobe Connect to discuss things. As chair of the task group, I'm also the "host" in Adobe Connect so I monitor the chat, take notes, turn the recording function on/off, etc. We record our meetings so anyone that has to miss a meeting can catch up on the discussions. We're also using GoogleDocs to share meeting minutes/notes and drafts and communally comment on and edit them. Just communicating via email and document comments can be tricky, as threads get complicated and split and merge and you end up with multiple versions of documents floating around. Having a conversation once a week definitely helps us stay on track so we can meet our tight deadline of having a report ready by Sept. 1st. We have an outline for our report now, so I'm breathing a bit easier. :) Tomorrow morning I'll clean up the minutes and post them.

Once my meeting is over, I chat briefly with a colleague via GoogleTalk about editing a record to reflect changes in ownership and therefore, access. URLs are removed from the record. Done.

Now to eat lunch. Even with my snack I'm *starving* since it's after 1pm. Take some time during lunch to catch up on email and listservs. My RDA-L listserv folder is hitting critical mass on number of unread messages (over 1,500!). I think I'm going to have to spend some time tomorrow afternoon cleaning it out. Listserv folder cleaning is a good Friday afternoon activity.

Of course, since I'm eating lunch later than normal, my lunch involves multiple interruptions from my staff and colleagues. One of the hazards of eating lunch at my desk.

I manage to slip away from my desk for a break to see a friend that's stopped by with her baby girl. Squee baby break!

[Caution: MARC/tech speak ahead!] I return to the problem I started work on a few days ago: the records that errored when we loaded a record set. I identified and fixed the simple MARC error, and identified another possible culprit for the error rejection by our system: non-MARC diacritics. My colleague (rare books cataloger) let me know how to enter the superscript character directly in our system, so I know the diacritic exists, I just have to find the numeric equivalent so I can replace the errant character (or rather replace non-valid diacritic with the character followed by the valid the diacritic code or code sequence). I find the document that lists all the diacritics available and the keystrokes, but no numeric codes.

After a good hour of digging around online and through other records in our system, I finally find the code sequence used to represent a superscript (strangely: {esc}p#{esc}s is the exact sequence where # is replaced with the numeral you want as the superscript). Now comes the fun part, running through all the permutations to do a find/replace on the record file. It takes me the rest of the afternoon to find/replace all the errant characters in the file, even with MarcEdit's fantastic tools. In addition to the superscript issue, I find a few other non-MARC characters in the process (such as the infamous "curly" quotes that cause copy/paste issues in so many different situations). I really really hope this fixes the issues and when we try a re-load we don't get and more errored records back from the system. I'll check the file again in the morning when my eyes are fresh.

Sometimes I'm convinced systems/databases for libraries are specifically designed to drive catalogers nuts. I like logic and bulk editing and reports for clean up projects. These things are not easily accomplished with our current system. Sigh.

4:15pm Final email check. Clean out email listservs. Check Twitter and blog feeds. Schedule this post.

4:25pm Log out from network. Shut down (restart) computer. Leave work. Off to my much needed acupuncture appointment!

Library Day in the Life - Round 7, Day 3

This post is part of Library Day in the Life project. See: http://librarydayinthelife.pbworks.com/ for more information. I also participated previous rounds. You can find all my posts for this project by searching my blog's librarydayinthelife tag. You can also follow my Twitter posts @slmcdanold with the hashtag #libday7.

Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Arrive at my desk 8am.. Login to work network. Login to email, calendar, Voyager and Connexion, open GChat, open a browser, login to various web programs (including Evernote), start TweetDeck.

Read email. Forward and respond to necessary messages. Catch up on news feeds, work email listservs, and library-related Twitter lists. Scan subjects and then delete mass numbers of listserv messages.

I return to my troubleshooting for the newly loaded records that are throwing up a proxy error. It appears an errant extra character ended up between our proxy prepend and the URL somehow. I'm not sure what happened. So I send a request off to our tech/systems people to check the handle server tables to see where the extra character (quote mark) is being introduced (is it in the proxy end? or is it before the URL in the table? is it a set of quotes embedded in the URL?). After a brief email exchange, it appears there's a random number of URLs from the collection with errant quotes embedded in them. It's not systematic or predictable. I'll have to fix them by hand and then have our tech/systems folks replace the URLs in the underlying handle server table. Good times.

I also submit a request to load a new update to a collection that's ready.

Next I submit a request to run a new set of records through a script of standard edits that all our MARC record sets get before I make any additional edits/additions to the records. All of our records have a standard note added about our license as well as a unique modifier added to the 035 (system number) to make the set easy to identify for maintenance once it's in the catalog. Other modifications the script can make is to convert a set of records for the print versions in to records for the online versions. These record sets are for local use only. Frequently the use is restricted by our license agreement when we get the records direct from the vendor, so they aren't sent to any utility, which is why we can do this "quick and dirty" conversion.

9:30am Weekly meeting with my supervisor and Dept. head to talk about what's going on. I have a short list of topics to discuss with her, and she usually has updates on things for me as well.

Back from my meeting and back to email. Feedback request on proposed PCC task force gets sent off to the Policy Committee.

The report on the URLs that need editing from the handle server table is waiting for me. Less than 15 minutes later they're fixed, checked, and sent back to be replaced in the table.

I finish updating the spreadsheet we use to track MARC record sets and FTP it to the library's website server.

And suddenly it's 5 minutes to noon and time for lunch. It's Wednesday, which means the guys from Beechwood Orchards are on campus with lots of fresh, local, and delicious fruit! It's stone fruit season, and the options are overwhelming. I opted for nectarines and a pint of fantastic heirloom cherry tomatoes. They taste like summer!

After lunch I spend some time doing some CONSER cataloging. My intern (who unfortunately departed the end of June) did a lot of of work prepping a large number of records that need updating. I'm slowly working my way through the massive pile she left me. It's a mix of print serials, online databases, online books, and some other weird stuff.

I also finish up a couple of serial records for print Bengali serials on cinema. Fortunately we have a number of language and subject area specialists that work in my library. When a resource is in a language I can't read (Arabic, Hebrew, Japanese, Chinese, Bengali, etc.), I start the serial record, and then pass it off to the language specialist who fills in the information for me from the resource and adds any fields in non-Roman scripts. I finish up the coding on the record once all the data has been transcribed (or described), and done! One record for a serial in a language I can't read. It's a very effective workflow.

2:30-4:00pm Monthly meeting for the supervisors' group that I coordinate/moderate/chair. Lots of discussion.

Back to my desk to address/answer the deluge of email messages that arrived in the previous 90 minutes. Seriously. A deluge of email. Some days I swear my inbox is made of bunnies that are spawning more bunnies faster than the speed of light.

4:45pm Final email check. Clean out email listservs. Check Twitter and blog feeds. Schedule this post.

4:50pm Log out from network. Shut down (restart) computer. Leave work. A friend and I have post work plans for dinner (it's the University City Dining Days so great deals at fantastic local restaurants) and the Harry Potter movie! A lovely mid-week break in my routine.

Library Day in the Life - Round 7, Day 2

This post is part of Library Day in the Life project. See: http://librarydayinthelife.pbworks.com/ for more information. I also participated previous rounds. You can find all my posts for this project by searching my blog's librarydayinthelife tag. You can also follow my Twitter posts @slmcdanold with the hashtag #libday7.

Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Arrive at my desk about 8:05am. Login to work network. Login to email, calendar, Voyager and Connexion, open GChat, open a browser, login to various web programs (including Evernote), start TweetDeck.

Read email. Forward and respond to necessary messages. Catch up on news feeds, work email listservs, and library-related Twitter lists. Scan subjects and then delete mass numbers of listserv messages.

Surprisingly, I have no meetings, appointments, etc. on my calendar today. Quick! Hide me!

I spend some time investigating the server reference in a local handle URL (aka local PURL) that I had never seen before. [caution: MARC speak ahead!] This came up due to an email asking questions about what to do if there's no subfield in the 856 to mask the URL in the public display. The example in the email included a handle with the new-to-me handle server reference in the address. Ultimately, after asking a few additional questions, I have two new things on my to-do list that spawned from the email: what to do with things that have no indicators present in the 856 field, and I need to further investigate what things have the new-to-me server reference and whether they should even be visible to the public. If so, then we'll need to do some metadata cleanup to add some subfields to mask the URL and tell the public where the link takes them. Time to request a report from our system (all report queries to to the system server are made by our tech/systems folks - I don't have access to the report functionality).

I reply to the email, indicating the changes on the ingest/display specs for our OPAC (we're still in the development/testing phase) to answer the original question about display when there's no subfield to mask the URL. Ultimately I end up on the phone with the team leader for the user interface design team I'm on to nail down the specific language we need to use. Lots of [] statements and OR and AND boolean statements mashed together. All of this will have to be confirmed at a meeting next week, but we think our proposal will be approved with no objections.

I then return to the ebook cataloging records I started yesterday and finally finish them. I import the new records into our system and email my staff person to complete the local processing.

I remember I need to send email reminder to all librarians about a meeting tomorrow afternoon. I send it promptly before I forget again.

And all of that happened before 10:20am.

The rest of the morning is spent on work with MARC record sets. I have two sets ready for editing. [caution: more MARC speak ahead!] We usually do minor modifications on all of our record sets to add additional access points (at the request of the bibliographer), delete 9xx fields that conflict with local use, and normalize specific MARC fields so limits work properly in our OPAC. Once my additional edits are complete, I have to amend the ticket with our tech/systems folks so they know they files are ready for loading into our catalog.

11:45am A colleague stops by. Her computer crashed and when she got her new one, all her OCLC authorizations and settings were gone. This happens with surprising regularity (the loss of settings). I am the keeper of the master list of OCLC authorizations for our libraries, so after finding out what she needs to do and what her staff need to do, I write down the authos she needs.

12:15pm Time for lunch! And a walk over to the Philadelphia Runner store in search of a pair of long-ish running shorts. The shorts I've been using aren't designed for running, and well, that can be uncomfortable when they get twisted. Unfortunately, they only have the super-short summer styles in. Looks like I'll have to order a pair with a longer inseam from REI instead (bonus! I have a 20% off coupon for one full-price item at REI!).

During lunch I get notification that the URLs in the most recent collection set of MARC records we loaded are throwing up a proxy error page. Damn. Forward the email to the appropriate colleagues for proxy troubleshooting. I also get the error file from the load sent to me. In good news 1,010 records DID load. But 76 records didn't load for reasons unknown. Only 2 records have an easily identifiable MARC error...the rest are mystery errors. Now to attempt to troubleshoot/fix the errors and load the records again.

I do eventually figure out that some of the records errored because they have a non-Unicode/non-MARC8 character in a note field: a superscript. Now I just have to figure out how to fix those and figure out why the rest of the records errored. I email my colleague that's a rare books cataloger to find out how they enter superscript characters for signatures.

I spend the rest of the afternoon alternating error fixes with Program for Cooperative Cataloging committee and task group work. The PCC Policy Committee (I'm a member since I'm current chair of the Standing Committee on Automation) has a document for review. My Standing Committee has a proposal in for a task group and we need to respond to comments from the PCC Steering Committee so it can move forward ASAP. The PCC RDA hybrid bib record task group I'm chairing has several documents I need to review and comment on. It's a busy time for the PCC.

4:00pm Final email check. Clean out email listservs. Check Twitter and blog feeds. Schedule this post.

4:10pm Log out from network. Shut down (restart) computer. Leave work. Today I *have* to leave on time as I have to get somewhere in Center City before 5pm.

Library Day in the Life - Round 7, Day 1

I realize this blog has been silent for quite some time, but it's time for another round of Library Day in the Life posts which is an excellent reason to revive it. See: http://librarydayinthelife.pbworks.com/ for info on the project. I also participated previous rounds. You can find all my posts for this project by searching my blog's librarydayinthelife tag. You can also follow my Twitter posts @slmcdanold with the hashtag #libday7.

Obligatory background: I'm a cataloger at a rather large academic library. Specifically a cataloger of electronic resources (anything online, in any format), and continuing resources (serials, etc.). I participate in the PCC program, doing NACO and both CONSER and BIBCO work depending on what I'm dealing with at the time. I also participate in committee work for the PCC, ALA ALCTS, and NASIG.

I am head of a unit that handles the cataloging, maintenance and inventory control of continuing resources (both serials and integrating resources) and electronic resources (online resources) for all units of the Libraries by updating and maintaining bibliographic, holdings and item records. I have four para-professional (or support) staff in my unit. Two that work an early shift, and two that work a later shift. In an attempt to cover the most ground, my schedule says I work from 8am to 4pm, although I usually don't actually get out of the office until 4:30 or 5pm.

The majority of time spent on the cataloging for continuing resources and many online resources is maintenance work and updating of the bibliographic records to reflect current information. Changes can be anything from the frequency, to a change in publisher, to a title variation or title change. Cataloging these types of materials is like trying to hit a moving target or nailing jello to the wall. There's also the ongoing inventory maintenance on our holdings records to deal with keeping our holdings current, including withdrawn/lost/missing volumes, general edits to fix accuracy issues, etc. I also spend a large amount of time managing the bulk loads of MARC records for ebooks and managing the cataloging of individual ebooks and ebooks series that aren't available in sets but require regular maintenance and updating.

Monday, July 25, 2011

Arrive at work a little after 8am. Login to work network. Login to email, calendar, Voyager and Connexion, open GChat, open a browser, login to various web programs (including Evernote), start TweetDeck.

Read email. Forward and respond to necessary messages. Catch up on news feeds, work email listservs, and library-related Twitter lists. Scan subjects and then delete mass numbers of listserv messages.

First order of business: review minutes from my committee's meeting at ALA Annual. I unfortunately missed the meeting, so I need to read the minutes closely to catch up on what we're doing. I'm currently the Continuing Resources Section representative to the ALCTS Division-level Organization & Bylaws Committee. I agreed to serve because this committee has nothing to do with cataloging or continuing resources, so I get to interact with colleagues from other divisions and who do completely different work than I do. It's refreshing and requires me to think differently (which is a good thing).

Next I work on ebook sets. I'm tracking in Evernote what stage each collection is in; which have open tickets; which need tickets opened for bulk loading process by our technology/systems folks.

During my ebook sets work, I'm interrupted by a rush ebook cataloging request (2 individual titles), required updates to several serial records as a result of the ebook cataloging request, and multiple questions from my staff about a current transfer and barcoding project. I log into the secondary ebooks general email account to see the rush request emails and reply/forward to the appropriate individuals.

10:00am and 10:30am - Bi-weekly check-in meetings with 2 of my 4 staff. Next week I'll have my meeting with my remaining two staff. This is something new I'm trying. Management I've learned over the past 2 years is an ever evolving process. I try different things, some work, some don't. I'm constantly having to learn and improve as a manager. These bi-weekly meetings are to try to improve/increase communication with my staff by having regular face-to-face conversations. Hopefully it will help address problems before they become crises. It also presents more opportunities to get solutions for things directly from them. I don't have to solve the problems, I just have to support the solution and the process.

Back to ebook sets work.

Interrupted again by the arrival of the two grant staff that will be guests in our Unit's space. We happened to have two empty cubicles with the departure of my intern the end of June. So until December, the grant staff will be using the intern cubicle and the student cubicle in my Unit's space. I introduce myself and make sure they know where the essentials (bathroom, water cooler, refrigerator) are and find out when they will be around the next few weeks. My staff had requested an informal meet and greet since we're sharing space. While the grant staff are not part of my unit or even under the umbrella of my department or in the tech services division (they're part of a completely different department and division in the library), we do want to ensure that things aren't awkward and that the space sharing goes smoothly. So I reserve a room for a mid-morning meet and greet with everyone early next week after our guest have settled in a bit.

12:30 - Brownbag lunch discussion for librarians. This is also something new. An informal discussion on a different topic suggested by ourselves each week. Essentially informal professional development. Unfortunately, I arrived late due to the moving in of our guests.

After the brownbag, stopped to chat with a few colleagues to answer questions and get an answer to a question about what these rush ebooks actually are in the bibliographic cataloging world. Turns out the 2 new ebooks we received a rush cataloging request for this morning are actually separately published "enhanced" versions of a serial issue. So they need original cataloging and I can't piggyback on the existing serial record. Good times.

Return to my desk and deal with more email. Questions, cataloging issues, and committee work. I didn't get a chance to eat before the brownbag, and I forgot to take my lunch with me, so I end up eating lunch at my desk around 2:20pm. Oof.

I end up working on the ebook original records while eating lunch. One of the benefits of working with mainly online materials is I don't have to worry about spilling food or beverages on them. Also, multitasking at it's finest!

I complete one ebook record and my lunch, and am promptly interrupted by my staff with a few questions about item record strangeness. The also let me know they need more work and more dusting/cleaning supplies. I call and leave a message for a colleague that we need more volumes for our barcoding project (we're trying to systematically barcode all the bound serial volumes in the stacks...this is a long-term project). I then email our business office staff person to order more dusting cloths. Many of the volumes we are barcoding haven't been moved, or even touched, for years so they have a nice coating of dust on them. By now it's 3:30pm.

I check my email, and find a message from our systems/technology staff asking me about the profile for a bulk load. I have no idea what this profile means. What's worse, I have no idea where to look to find the bulk import rule profiles for our system. Time to make a phone call. Apparently they are in the system admin client, which I don't have access to. Fortunately one of my colleagues who's office is conveniently next door does have access and was able to print out the specs for each possible rule profile. Emailed the systems person back and I think we've figured it out. We'll see when the load log arrives.

I think I'm going to talk to my boss about putting in a request for access to the System Admin profile at least on a "read only" status when I meet with her this week. It would simplify things.

I realize I'm not going to finish the ebook cataloging today, so I save the records make a note to finish them both first thing in the morning tomorrow. I also didn't get to any CONSER work today and my shelf/stack to be completed is starting to lean dangerously. I'm going to have to schedule time in my calendar for that, aren't I? [Rhetorical question...the correct answer is "of course if I want it to actually happen.] Sigh.

Final email check. Clean out email listservs, skipping AUTOCAT (I'll deal with that one later...I don't have the patience or time right now). Check Twitter and blog feeds. Schedule this post.

4:35pm: Log out from network. Shut down (restart) computer. Leave work. Pray rain holds off until I get home. Really looking forward to my "Tranquil Vinyasa" yoga class tonight. It's the perfect way to start the week and end the day on Mondays.