Pharos Task Force for Database Standards and Management
CSU Chancellor's Office
Summary - July 30, 1999 Meeting
Members of Pharos Task Force for Database Standards and Management:
Attendees:
Celia Bakke, Stan Griffith, Sandy Heft, Kit Herlihy, Wayne Perryman, Priscilla
Peters, Marvin Pollard, Gina Roth, Gordon Smith, and Tamara Trujillo.
1.
Pharos
Marvin provided an update on the Pharos project noting delays in achieving
objectives, e.g., version 3.1 of the Resource Sharing Software.
2.
Assessment of the Union Catalog
Now that the 11.7 million records extracted from the 22 CSU libraries have
been loaded and fully indexed it is important to
evaluate the union catalog.
The task force needs to determine whether:
a.
the indexing complies with the original profile and the preferences stated
in a summary document of April 9, 1999,
b.
the algorithm worked correctly, and
c.
whether there are any surprises.
Procedures
Tamara and Celia will identify a portion of the catalog for each task force
member to evaluate. Using Horizon software and both
the Webpac and staff versions
of the union catalog, the task force will:
A. determine
if the vendor complied with the indexing guidelines,
B. identify
records from the task force member's local catalog and search Pharos for
the outcome of the merge, and
C. peruse
the union catalog for any obvious surprises, inconsistencies, etc.
Pat Flowers
will also participate in evaluating the indexing. Marvin needs to
add several public search indexes to the Webpac
version. (See Marvin's
email of Monday, August 2 ca. 5:00 pm.) (Note that uniform title
appears in the author browse index.)
Assignment
deadline for B & C only: Monday, August 16, 1999.
(#A will be assigned later.)
Information re Union Catalog
COLD was somewhat surprised that the 11.5 original records merged into
a database of 3.5 million records and wondered
whether records were lost
in the merge process. Based on a suggestion from Gina R. to count
the 935 fields identifying the records
from the individual campuses,
Ameritech identified a total of 11 plus million records thus allaying fears
of lost records.
Steve Yates developed the program to apply the algorithm to create the
union database while Paul Johnson created the
maintenance program which
will be used to maintain the database. This program is based
on Steve's program and was used to create the Pharos test database (Johnson's
program) vs. the Pharos5 test database (Yates's program and the original
test file to evaluate the algorithm). Sandy H. looked at Pharos vs.
Pharos5 and identified two records in Pharos5 that don't appear in Pharos.
The basis for this apparent discrepancy was the result of using a different
record load sequence to create Pharos than Pharos5.
Steve Nelson and others from Ameritech will meet with the task force sometime
after September 15, 1999 to evaluate the
migration of the system
to Sunrise. A meeting will be held at the Chancellor's Office to plan for
the migration
3.
Gap Files
A high priority
of the Management Team is to make the database available as soon as possible
and to have it as current as possible.
Therefore, the highest priority
of the task force is to begin to implement the extraction of gap files.
Also the task force is concerned with
evaluating the maintenance
program. After these two priorities have been accomplished, the task
force can focus on evaluating the
union database.
Assignment:
Review Pharos5 vs. Pharos. There is a difference of 31 records between
the two test databases. Marvin will send a
list of these 31 titles.
(See Marvin's email of Monday, August 2 ca 5:00 pm.) The load order
for the two test database my affect the
choice of the master record.
Spot check the section of the alphabet assigned. Marvin will send
out directions for block printing as
comparing records between
the two databases on screen is too difficult if not impossible. (See Marvin's
instructions in email of
Monday, August 2 ca. 10:30
am.) The purpose of the assignment is to determine that the maintenance
program implements the
algorithm correctly.
Deadline: Monday, August 9, 1999.
In order
to test the maintenance capabilities of the algorithm, Marvin will arrange
to process 1 record of each type, e.g., add,
modified, delete, against
the actual union database. (Sandy will forward to Marvin a file of
10 adds and 10 modified records. Marvin
will select 10 deletes from
a file forwarded by San Jose.)
Kit H.
will ask Steve to write up his procedures to identify deletes from the
San Marcos Innovative database to share with other
Innovative libraries.
4.
Foreign Articles
Stan G. will send out to the task force Chico's list of specific names
containing lead articles that should not be ignored. (See
Stan's list in email of
Monday, August 2 at ca. 9:00 am.) Evaluate the list and make suggestions
for additional entries.
5.
Library Services Specialist
Gordon shared with the task force a draft job description for a Library
Services Specialist who would manage the union catalog
database and also provide
administrative support for project of the Library Resources Initiative.
The task force suggested revisions to
the draft.
6.
Electronic Resources
The EAR Committee requested that the task force address the cataloging
of electronic resources. Of immediate concern is
providing access to the
Journal Access Core Collection. The URL's are not now represented
in the Pharos database. The task force
determined that a single
record should represent both the print and e-journal for these titles.
Marvin will investigate sending to each
campus the appropriate URL
for the specific journal titles which should be added to the local record.
In addition to the URL, Marvin
will include the title and
ISSN.
The above procedure is limited
to the JACC collection. A subcommittee consisting of Stan G., Sandy
H., Kit H., and Priscilla P.
will identify and investigate
issues re the cataloging of e-resources in more detail. A charge
will be given to the subcommittee.
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