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Brief Level Rules

Rapid Cataloging

Fernando Aguirre

One-Time Acquisitions & Workflows Supervisor

KARMS - New York University - DoL

ENUG 2024 Annual Meeting

October 18th, 2024

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Presentation Outline

Who We Are and Why Brief Level Rules Matter

Introduction to our team and our role in the cataloging process.
Why Brief Level (BL) rules are crucial for NYU rapid cataloging.

What is Rapid Cataloging and Its Connection to Brief Level Rules

Overview of Rapid Cataloging framework
How Brief Level rules came as solution to replace Aleph macros

How Brief Level Rules are set up to work with Rapid Cataloging

Step-by-step explanation of how BL rules are configured and its rank structure
How BL rules are integrate with rapid cataloging criterias

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Who We Are and Why Brief Level Rules Matter?

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KARMS Background

Knowledge Access and Resource Management Services (KARMS)

KA: Knowledge Access
RM: Resource Management
ACM: Archival Collections Management
DAI: Data Analysis and Integration

Technical Service Skills

Diverse knowledge and specialized language cataloging.
Vast knowledge of global acquisitions – rich collection
Multiple formats expertises – original and copy cataloging.

System Migration

Aleph was migrated to Alma- the project lasted nearly two and half years.
NYU libraries went live in January 2024 - the system still under configuration.
Development.- policies still on the works - workflows evolving as new demons appear

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Resource Management Overview

Resource Management

E-resources Unit
Serials and Payments Unit
One-Time Acquisitions Unit

RM collaborate on Rapid Cat with KA

Seven OTA staff perform copycat
15 student assistants
They work closely with 4 KA -cataloger specialist

OTA Rapid Cataloging

Non catalogers
No copy cat editing on OCLC connexion

Collection location

5 Libraries across NY city
2 global campus (Shanghai a& Abu Dhabi)

An offsite storage (Clancy)

Consortia partners

The New School
Cooper Union
New York School of Interior Design.

Offsite storage

Clancy houses 2.5 million items
Most monographs that passing RC are sent offsite.
Most English titles stay on Bobst Library

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Acquisitions & Cataloging

One Time Acquisitions Staff

Processing Assistants 7 (union)
Student Assistants 15 (grad / undergrad)

Monographs Collection size

Books & Scores 3,197,804
Audiovisual 262,977

New Accessions per year

27,894
Of those items 2,054 fail Rapid cataloging

Uncataloged items

items not qualifying for Rapid Cataloging
Various language and formats
17,000 unprocessed items

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Alma Migration

Data Migration:

Involved NYU Libraries and 6 consortium libraries, including two global campus.
Complex workflows required a complete redesign.
Rapid Cataloging process underwent review.
Staff had to adapt to a new system, replacing familiar macros.
New workflows written before training staff.

Key Challenges:

Loss of macros functionality.
Copy Cataloging MDE learning curve.
Increased number of clicks for basic processes.

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To support Acquisitions and Copy Cataloging Tasks

KARMS acquires materials across all media and formats.
Time-consuming payment workflows and physical processing.
Loss of macro functionalities for validation checks.

To support other NYU Libraries Technical needs

Electronic and print collections support in IZ & NZ including acquisitions

Adopting Brief Level Rules for Rapid Cat

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What is Rapid Cataloging and Its Connection to Brief Level Rules?

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What is Rapid Cataloging?

A policy and data structure designed to help non - catalogers perform duties associated with copy cataloging processes via OCLC Worldcat
Applies to materials purchased for the NYU collection supported by KARMS

By format: DVDs, CDs, Scores, Books.
By language: English, Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese, Catalan, German, Irish, Dutch, Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, Icelandic, Finnish, Czech, Polish, Hungarian, Romanian,Turkish

The structure contains a set of policy and rules implemented in 2016 by the Rapid Cataloging Working Group and recently updated to support Alma functionality.

Brief Level rules

Drool rules criteria
Validation rules
Normalization rules

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Rapid Cataloging Standards

NYU Metadata policy aims at avoiding bibliographic records errors including single-part and multipart books

Most have minimum requirements fields

Fixed fields 006, 008 identified by position.

Required: Core elements

020, 035, 040, 050, 245, 264

Metadata discoverability

Full record: detailed description of every data element
Publisher, Edition, subject headings, control number

LC & PCC standards

Consistency

New York University (NYU) uses international metadata standards to create and maintain bibliographic and authority metadata for NYU and consortial institutions. NYU aims to improve access to academic resources by creating and managing standardized metadata.

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Why Rapid Cataloging?

Quick Access to New Titles: Enhances user experience and ensures timely availability of materials.

Shared Catalog and Collections: Enables collaboration across libraries and increases resource accessibility.

Support for University Programs: Provides essential resources for large academic programs and faculty research.

Meeting Collection Demand: Ensures high-demand materials are readily available to patrons.

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Required MARC fields

020: Must exactly match the ISBN on the book

050/090: One of these fields must contain a complete call number

100: Must contain the first author named on the book, format may differ

245: Must exactly match the title (subfield a), subtitle (subfield b) and author (subfield c) as they appear on the title page, capitalization may differ

246: Must exactly match any variations of the title and subtitle that appear elsewhere on the book (e.g. on the cover or spine)

250: Must contain any edition statement that appears on the book (e.g. ‘Second ed.’, ‘Revised edition’, etc.). Printing statements such as “12th printing” can be ignored

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Disqualifying Fields

006/007: indicates that there is an electronic or media component to the item (may include a CD or DVD, or this may be a record for the ebook)

245 $n or $p: Subfields n and p indicate that this is part of a multi. vol.

300 $a contains “v.” or “vols.”: indicates that this is a multi. vol.

300 $a contains “1 online resource”: indicates that this is the ebook record

300 $e: the presence of this subfield indicates that the book should have accompanying material, such as a CD or DVD

$6 appears in any required field: subfield 6 indicates text in a non-Roman language, which requires further review if present in a required field

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Rapid Cat Key Considerations

OCLC WorldCat Limitations: OCLC copies are not always reliable, affecting cataloging consistency.

No Original Cataloging: The process does not involve original cataloging—records are copied, merged, or imported.

High Volume Processing: Over 27,000 new acquisitions are processed annually.

Brief Levels: Materials are categorized by Brief Levels 1-6, tailored to each material type. Brief Levels 7-10 are currently not in use

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NYU Brief Level Rules

rule "Critical Errors"

when

# rule set for Books

# missing 245, missing 035 with oclc num, contains sta field, contains multiple own fields

((existsControl "LDR.{6,1}.t" OR (existsControl "LDR.{6,1}.a" AND (existsControl "LDR.{7,1}.a" OR existsControl "LDR.{7,1}.c" OR existsControl "LDR.{7,1}.d" OR existsControl "LDR.{7,1}.m")))

AND (not exists "245" OR not exists "035.a.(OCoLC)*" OR exists "STA" OR existsMoreThanOnce "OWN"))

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What Are Other Institutions Doing with Brief Levels?

Harvard University organizes Brief Level rules to prioritize metadata quality based on encoding levels. They set up their brief level rules to exclude records from publishing to OCLC, searching and reporting.
SUNY university defined it’s rules based on OCLC's LDR position 17 for NZ records and NZ linked records. It ranks levels 01 being brief (do not meet minimum-level cataloging standards) and 10 a full record.
Princeton University uses Brief Level rules to streamlining workflows, setting cataloging levels processing for future record updates. Brief Level rules are used as one of the criteria to extract eligible records for OCLC data synchronization
All these institutions have one thing in common their Brief Level rules set up is based on Encoding levels

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How Brief Level Rules are set up to work with Rapid Cataloging?

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Brief Level BL System

Explanation of Criteria:

Levels 1-2 flag critical errors and missing required (core) fields.
Levels 3-4 have enough bibliographic information but maybe a multivolume monograph series (this level flags materials for KA review – for example – update of holdings statements).
Levels 4-6 have non critical errors & meets NYU metadata standards.

BL levels are shared across both the Network Zone (NZ) and Institution Zone (IZ), ensuring consistency in record management. To manage other library acquisition online (Shanghai, Abu Dhabi). Not reinforced network zone.

Material Type	BL	Passing Level	Classifies but needs KA review
Audio Recordings	1-4	4	3
Video Recordings	1-5	5	4
Music Scores	1-5	5	4
Books	1-6	5- & 6	4

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Advantage & Disadvantage

Disadvantages

Missing Pop-out Alerts: No automatic alerts to validate critical fields during cataloging.
Double-Saving During Overlay: When overlaying a bibliographic record for the first time, the system saves the record but fails to update the Brief Level (BL) rank.
Manual holdings records update

Advantages

BL Rank Representation: Each Brief Level (BL) rank indicates metadata completeness; higher ranks signify more comprehensive bibliographic data.
Reduced Data Errors: Enhanced clarity minimizes the potential for cataloging errors.
Increased Monograph Accession: A streamlined process facilitates the accession of more monographs into the collection.

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How does it work?

OCLC or vendor bib records ingested to Alma

Brief Level Rules validates each record

When saving (manually)
When uploaded via import profile

Existing records BL gets updated when BL job is run overnight

Each record gets a BL applied (indicating which items can be processed -qualifies for Rapid Cat)

Records failing Rapid Cat enter the inventory to the Cataloging Backlog
Overnight search for matching points 035, 020, 245…
Identifying Brief Level Job runs and updates items in the backlog
Items in the backlog are retrieved for physical processing

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Live Demo

Examples: DVD, Book, multivol, Scores
Score 1
Score 2
Score 3
Score 4
Score 5

Create a video and embedded here

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Looking ahead!

Enhanced validation alerts: Introduce automated alerts for subject headings and critical cataloging errors. This will ensure compliance with metadata standards and streamline the cataloging process by prompting immediate attention to discrepancies. Or missing fields to alert the operator.
Automated OCLC Searches for Better Copies: Revamp the OCLC search process by allowing broader search criteria, removing unnecessary limitations. By automating OCLC search index within Alma, we reduce manual intervention, ensuring that better-quality bibliographic records are automatically retrieved and updated.
Optimized Receiving Workflow: Streamline the receiving process by integrating flags for items to resemble a near "shelf-ready" state. With updates to the bibliographic, item, and holdings records, this aims to minimize the clicks required for receiving new materials, improving efficiency and reducing workload.

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Conclusions…

Rapid Cataloging offers a straightforward learning curve, ensuring high-quality records while addressing resource limitations.

The use of Brief Levels streamlines both Rapid Cataloging and acquisition tasks, expediting collection development.

This method is cost-effective for handling large print acquisitions, providing a quick, efficient approach to cataloging through a "copy cataloging" process.

Despite expediting the copy catt processing, we maintain strict quality control to uphold NYU high cataloging standards.

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Thank you!

Questions?

Contact information:

Email: la2649@nyu.edu

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References