Zoe reported that the UH shared authority database is still frozen due to the duplicate authority record problem. Karen Gegner at Endeavor believes they know a way of eliminating the duplicate records, but is having difficulty getting a programmer to work on the problem. In the list of outstanding projects Endeavor has to complete as part of our contract, the authority record problem is second after migration of the Hawaii-Pacific Journal Index. Zoe felt that after the HPJI is migrated, Karen will be giving the authority problem her full attention.

After the duplicate authority problem is cleaned-up, the next major task with respect to the shared authorities database will be loading the Library of Congress Subject Authority back files and developing an ongoing routine for loading new LCSA files as they become available.

Sophia McMillen distributed a 2-page draft the SCCC Authorities Subcommittee had developed, titled "Shared Database Authority Work Guidelines." She asked members to review the document and give her feedback about its content, (at least as much as could be given while the database is frozen). Sophia also asked members to give the Subcommittee feedback on what kind of authority training they might want. Sophia asked for a volunteer to replace Sloan Sakamoto on the Authorities Subcommittee.

As there are a lot of aspects of the Voyager authorities features that we haven't had a chance to try, the SCCC asked the Authorities Subcommittee to use the UH shared testing database to perform systematic tests of Voyager authority functionality. Among the things to be tested:

1. Does repeatedly saving a record with an unauthorized heading cause that heading to appear multiple times on an unauthorized headings report?
2. What happens when manually imported authority records match pre-existing local authority records?
3. What happens when bulk-loaded authority records match pre-existing manually imported authority records?
4. How useful is the global change function? What impact does it have on the server when run? What are the drawbacks and/or dangers of this functionality?
5. What happens when one authority record is overlayed with another? Is it possible to protect local data from being lost?
6. Are authority records added via bulk import linked to pre-existing headings in the database?

The SCCC decided that whatever profiles are developed for manually importing authority records should be conditional profiles. The Committee tasked the Authorities Subcommittee with testing to see what elements should be included in the conditional authority import profiles.

• Systems Office changes. Zoe Stewart-Marshall has accepted a Technical Services position at Cornell University. Her last day at Hamilton library will be around the end of October. The distribution of duties handled by Zoe is not completely decided at this time, but it has been decided that Jerard Yagi and Sean Hai Lipp will handle bulk import of MARC records and Fred Allen will take over oversight of the Systems Administration module.

• SCCC changes. Michelle reported that she and Fred would be dividing up the functions handled by Zoe with respect to cataloging operator profiles. Michelle will approve requests from sites for adding operators, changing the profile assigned to an operator, etc. Once a request has been approved, Fred will do the work in the Systems Administration Security section.

  Nadine Leong-Kurio volunteered to takeover maintenance of the SCCC web site from Zoe. The new location of the site has yet to be determined as Nadine must first check with Systems Administrators at her campus to find out how much space for a web site she is allowed to have.

  Michelle proposed that the SCCC try having regularly scheduled meeting times rather than waiting until there was a full agenda. The group agreed that having meetings once every 6 weeks or every other month would be workable. Michelle said she would look at the calendar to see which schedule was easiest, then report back to the group. A question was raised as to whether there should be summer meetings. The Committee recognized that many members can't make summer meetings, either because they are on 9-month contract or because staff vacations leave their library short-handed in summer. The group agreed that any meetings held in summer should be for exchange of information and not for establishing policy.

• Report requests. Michelle reported that the Systems Office officially announced at the previous week's Steering Committee meeting that previous restrictions on report requests were being lifted. For the cataloging group, it means requests for cataloging reports can be submitted by individual libraries rather than by the SCCC as a whole. Sites can work with Systems to arrange for ongoing reports. Staff who have expertise in MS Access may develop report queries themselves and submit them to Systems. Zoe pointed out that with Voyager, the most efficient way of sending reports is in electronic format, as a post-delimited text file that can be pulled into a spreadsheet or database management program such as MS Excel or MS Access. Sites which do not have the expertise to handle reports in such a format should let Systems know at the time they submit a request. All report requests should be sent to assist@hawaii.edu

• Specification review. Michelle reported that as part of the Voyager contract, the Hawaii Voyager libraries are given the opportunity to submit to Endeavor a list of things that Endeavor said Voyager could do in its response to the Request for Information which we feel Voyager doesn't actually do. Endeavor then has the opportunity to respond to the list. If, in the end, there are some things Endeavor cannot meet, the Hawaii Voyager libraries have the option of returning all Voyager software to Endeavor in exchange for a refund.

  Each functional committee was asked to review their section of the original RFI and Endeavor's response and submit a list of problems to the Steering Committee. Michelle explained that because there is no chance of the Hawaii Voyager libraries choosing not to stay with Voyager, regardless of what outstanding problems there are, she decided the review wasn't worth bothering the full committee with. Instead she called together members of the ROLS subcommittee that developed the original cataloging specs and had them perform the review. Michelle reported that a draft version of the group's findings had been turned in to the Steering Committee and ditributed to Specs Review group members. Once Specs Review group members have had a chance to make corrections, the draft will be distributed to the full SCCC for review.

• School of Medicine Library is changing its classification system. Michelle reported that the library at the UH Manoa School of Medicine has decided to start classing books using the National Library of Medicine classification system. The SCCC agreed to make sure all local editing and import procedures are modified so that NLM call numbers (tags 060 and 096) are preserved rather than deleted.

Background: Up until now what determined whether a site had someone with the ability to add bib records was whether that site had been able to send a representative to a majority of SCCC meetings. If a representative had attended a majority of meetings, that person was authorized to have Add bib capability because he or she had been a participant in discussions that resulted in the development of guidelines, policies, standards, etc. Some libraries have been unable to send a representative to a majority of meetings. The Certification Subcommittee had to find a way for these libraries to demonstrate an understanding of shared database issues associated with add bib capability. In addition, a number of libraries would like to be able to expand Add bib capability beyond their SCCC representative(s). The Certification Subcommittee needed to find a way for these libraries to demonstrate that the understanding the SCCC rep had was being communicated to others in the library who would be doing Add bib work.

Michelle proposed that the expansion of add bib certification be handled by asking requesting sites to submit their written procedures for adding bibliographic records to the Certification Subcommittee for review. Michelle distributed a draft checklist of standards to be included in written procedures for adding records to the shared database. Her proposal was that the Certification Subcommittee review procedures only to make sure that all points in the checklist are incorporated into the procedures. Sites would be expected to use their approved procedures when training operators. Sites would also be expected to update procedures to include additional standards the SCCC might add to the checklist at a later time.

The SCCC agreed to using submission of written procedures for review as a means of certification for access to add bib functionality. The SCCC also agreed to use the written procedure submission approach for future certification needs, such as use of the merge profile and having add/edit/delete capability in the authority database.

The Committee reviewed the draft checklist and asked that an additional nine points be included in the list. Michelle said she would send out the revised draft checklist via e-mail for members to review.

Sophia suggested that the SCCC consider developing a mentoring program in which a library without a lot of time or experienced staff for cataloging is teamed with a contact person from another library who can answer questions and give advice.

Noting that, with Zoe's departure, the Certification Subcommittee would be down to two members, herself and Sophia, Michelle asked other SCCC members to consider volunteering to serve on the subcommittee.

Endeavor has plans to convert Voyager into a system that uses Unicode, which will require the conversion of all Voyager databases to Unicode. Unicode will facilitate the display of text in non-Roman scripts, and will be in keeping with Endeavor's preference to follow established standards. The conversion is tentatively set for version 2001.2, which means it will happen in late 2002 at the earliest.

The implications for cataloging are that the conversion will lead to a major rewrite of the cataloging client to allow staff to enter non-Roman characters via the cataloging module. Also, the conversion will bring an end to the UH shared testing database. Since the test database is a doctored training database, it gets reset along with all other training databases during an upgrade. Theoretically, if Systems makes a record of the test database prior to an upgrade, it can use that record to restore the test database after an upgrade. However, the restore process only works if file structures remain the same. Since the Unicode conversion will change the database file structures, restoring the test database will be impossible. Members were encouraged to make as much use of the test database as they can while it is available.

Michelle reported that a merge profile (called Zed merge) has been developed and successfully tested for use in the shared database. She pointed out that a merge operation is only done when you have a specific record in hand that is more complete than a specific record in the database. Operators should only be accessing the merge profile for narrowly defined, closely controlled work.

Zoe reported that Paul Beck had developed written procedures for use of the merge profile that would be a good starting point for other groups needing to use merge. Paul's department uses merge to overlay brief Hamilton acquisition bibs with full-level records. K.T. Yao asked Paul for a copy of the procedures so that she could use them as a basis for written procedures for the Hamilton CJK cataloging unit, which often needs to merge old RLIN records with revised versions.

Nadine offered to post the procedures on the web for other SCCC members to review and for the Certification Subcommittee to use as the basis for a merge written procedures checklist.

Zoe pointed out that access to the merge function happens at the cataloging policy group level rather than at the cataloging operator level. For one person at a site to have access to merge, it must be added to the cataloging policy group definitions for that site, making it available to all site personnel with add bib capability. At Hamilton, where many people with add bib capability have had no training in when (or when not) to use merge, the workaround has been to put the merge profile in Hamilton's cataloging policy group long enough for an authorized operator to log in, then to take the profile out so others won't have access to it.

The Committee agreed that in order for a site to have the merge profile permanently added to its cataloging policy group definition, it must submit two sets of written procedures to the Certification Subcommittee: one for use of the merge profile demonstrating that all standards in the merge checklist have been included, and one for adding bibliographic records to the database demonstrating that the issue of why the merge profile should not be used for general add bib work has been clearly and emphatically addressed.

Nadine asked what procedures to follow when you need to add holdings to a record that has been suppressed from display in PAC. The group agreed that it would be okay to unsuppress the bib record and link holdings to it without contacting the suppressing library, unless the suppressing library neglected to suppress its holdings from display as well. If the holdings were not suppressed, the suppressing library should be notified as a courtesy so that they can suppress the holdings from PAC display.

Michelle asked if anyone had advice on how best to make sure you have the most recent version of the shared tag tables. K.T. explained that she documents each change, so a quick way to check is to look at the last date in her documentation in the master.cfg file of the tag table on your computer and compare it to the last date in the tag table on the Systems ftp server. The most current tag table will be the only one on the Systems ftp server.

Nadine asked what impact Pres. Dobelle's campus name changes might have on the abbreviations used by sites in bib records. The group agreed that eventually, those sites whose abbreviations are based on the community college name (HCC, LCC, MCC, WCC) might be pressured to change to a different abbreviation. Since the changes would be made in bib records, it could be a shared project among all sites willing to help with the clean-up, rather than a job for the affected libraries alone.