For those of you entering OPAC Notes in item records and regretting that they weren't visible, regret no more. The OPAC Note is now showing next to the call number in the New BobCat or in the Hopkins opac. If you want to see one, search "andre masson louise leiris" in Primo, click on the call number from the bib display.
When Browse-searching by Title in OCLC WorldCat via the ALEPH client, the result is an alphabetical list of headings. Preceding each heading is the number of records which contain that exact heading. However, when you highlight one of the headings and click on the "Show" button, you are not being taken directly to the records with that exact heading. The ALEPH client is re-searching the OCLC database with a keyword search composed of all of the words in that heading. Since these keywords may appear across several title-like headings in a Bibliographic record, the result of the "re-search" may be a greater number of records than originally stated in the Browse results list.
Also, since the words "and", "or", and "not" may act as Boolean operators in such keyword searches, any Title heading that includes these words will give an error message when the "Show" button is clicked. To avoid this situation, search for a record that matches your book-in-hand by doing a Find search (perhaps using both Title AND Author keywords), but excluding the words "and", "or", and "not". [matthew]
If a resource did not have an identifiable Sublibrary/Collection during the migration from Advance to Aleph, its Aleph location will be MISC BLANK. Bill and Corey need to do some analysis and may be able to "fix" some of them algorithmically. If you encounter a record with a MISC BLANK in the course of your daily work, you should probably leave it alone. If the item in hand is clearly a new location/copy, you may add a new location/copy to the record. If it is not known if the item in hand is the MISC BLANK location/copy, please set it aside until the analysis and fix is done. If you absolutely know you've got the MISC BLANK in hand and you can fix it, if's probably ok to do that. The last thing you want to do is add a new correct holdings/item that represents the same object as the MISC BLANK location.
Are you confused yet? There are only 2500 or so of these MISC BLANK holdings in Aleph so you may not ever encounter one. If you want to see one, the following records have MISC BLANK locations: 350831, 1623532, 556477, 10241, 34578, 29267, 653422. Or you can do a CCL search if you know the right index.
Field 007 in Holdings came up again at today's Cataloging Q&A. For the moment, you only need to add an 007 in Holdings if you are doing a serial or a mixed-format resource. If you are simply adding a web holdings for a resource, just move the 856 onto a holdings with the right 852.
Order of 852 Subfields
Regarding the discussion at this morning's Q&A session, subfields $b and $c in an 852 field should never be separated. All other subfields should follow in their logical order (as listed in the MARC Holdings Field Guide), followed by subfield $a (which is added or moved automatically by the system to the end). [matthew]
If you have a $m to insert for Non-circulating or Electronic access, you should insert it between any call number and the $a for NNU, NNNS, NNCoo or whatever.
Do not worry about the Character Coding Scheme in the Leader. Records that came over from Advance are coded "a" for Unicode. Records that are imported from OCLC are blank. The value will be fixed to "a" when the records are exported from Aleph. All of our records are in the Unicode scheme.
There will be another ALEPH cataloging "question and answer" session on Tuesday, October 14, 10:00am-12noon, in the Avery Room of the Avery Fisher Center (Bobst Library, 2nd floor). It will be an opportunity to ask more questions about ALEPH, share tips & tricks, and to see some of the newer procedures demonstrated (e.g., common text strings, adding Holdings for 856s, indicators for 853s, the "Unlink" and "Link" buttons, and deleting records). [matthew & elizabeth]
In Geac Advance, we asked that series headings on copy cataloging be searched in BobCat. This was partly to make up for the delayed authority processing and we thought that series could use the extra attention. Now that we have built the Aleph database and it has gone through LTI processing, it is no longer necessary to give series the extra attention. You should check the book and the record and be sure that any series that is on the book is correctly given in the record, and vice versa. If any heading on the bib record -- name, subject, series -- looks strange, you should search the heading by doing a hotkey or a separate authorities search. Regular, weekly LTI processing will be instituted as soon as possible.
LTI will also change 440s to 490/8XX pairs as part of regular processing.
When shelf-listing in ALEPH, it is probably a good idea to browse by "All call number", rather than by "LC Call Number". Since we are still working on converting all of the 852 first indicators from Geac, this is the only way to guarantee that you'll find every call number. However, when searching for the next microfilm reel number, use the "Shelving Control Number" search. For example, browse for Film 99999 to be taken to the end of the list. [matthew]
Sometimes you just want to do an opac search. You can do a browser view (CTRL-o) of the record that you're looking at in the client, whether bib or holdings. You can also go to the Aleph opac at http://hopkins1.bobst.nyu.edu:8991/F and do a phrase search, more or less like you could in old Geac BobCat. It hasn't been highly configured, just kind of out of the box but it can be helpful.
You can also use this to get a combination of bib and circ information. Click on the holdings line to get details about the items and circ.