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Re: Cataloging Computer Select (CD-ROM) Elena Romaniuk 14 Dec 1993 13:03 UTC

In reply to Pat Frade:

The School of Business at the University of Victoria recently acquired
ProQuest Business Periodicals Research on CD-ROM which contains several
hundred "full-image" publications dating back to 1987 or 1988.

We had a request to provide a "quick and dirty" bibliographic record for each
title contained in the CD. We balked at this request, for several reasons:

Unfortunately, we have a serials cataloguing backlog, of at least several
hundred titles, and thought that we could not give the CD-ROM titles priority
cataloguing when we had uncatalogued materials currently coming in. (Some of
my colleagues tell me that one should not admit to having a backlog)

We cannot provide "quick and dirty" cataloguing for these titles.This approach
would not be consistent with our current policies for database maintenance. We
would have to provide accurate bib. records, possibly minimal. At the very
least we would have to make sure which of the several "generic" titles a given
serial on the CD- ROM actually represents.

Since these titles are in another format, and possibly considered a different
edition, it would not be sufficient to append a second copy to existing
letterpress records. Each would need its own bib. record. Probably the biggest
nightmare would be trying to keep up with title changes and titles being
added or dropped from the CD. We just do not have the staff to catalogue and
maintain the records for these titles.

We have no easy access to the product, it is housed in another building, with
limited access hours. Also, access was to be restricted initially to business
school students (I am not sure that this is still the case).

In my opinion, one can provide information on the product in different ways,
using publicity, bib. instruction, handouts, etc. Also, it should be possible
to buy a tape of the bib. information for the titles contained on these
CD-ROMs (as far as I know this has not been investigated here yet) so that we
could load that information into another database, provide access to it online
but not necessarily as part of the online catalogue.

So far, all we have done is provided an OPAC display note in the copy holdings
record for cancelled titles that they are also available on ProQuest. We have
done this for about ten titles which were identified by our Business librarian.
We will do it for others as necessary.

Do others have some thoughts on this problem?

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ELENA ROMANIUK, COORDINATOR SERIALS MANAGEMENT UNIT
University of Victoria, McPherson Library
Victoria, B.C., Canada
(604) 721-8261     BITNET: ENGIN@UVVM     Internet:  ENGIN@UVVM.UVic.CA