9 Technical Services
The activities of the Technical Services Division during the year have been
guided by a Business Plan stemming from the Library's Strategic Plan for
1996-2000. The Division has benefited from a closer organisational relationship
with Gippsland Technical Services.
9.1 Reduced Costs
The costs of Technical Services continue to be reduced, with a cumulative 13.7%
reduction in salary costs (including oncosts) compared with 1995. These
reductions have been achieved through the re-engineering of processes and
re-profiling of the Division.
9.2 Improvements to Library Catalogue
The Library received Quality funds in both 1995 and 1996 to upgrade substandard
catalogue records. $40,000 Quality money was matched by the Library in October
1995 and is being used to upgrade serial records. 6000 core serial records have
been upgraded so far with the assistance of CAVAL, with 11,500 substandard
serial records remaining for retrospective conversion. In 1996, $50,000 Quality
funds was received for improving monograph catalogue records in the research
collections, with 8200 records being converted by the end of the year. Effort
has been concentrated on disciplines such as Literature and History, and Rare
Books' holdings of Australian literature which include a pre-1900 component.
ABN records have been loaded in the catalogue for a number of microform
collections including Early English Books as listed in the Short Title
Catalogues of Pollard & Redgrave 1475-1640 and Wing 1641-1700.
A music cataloguer was appointed to work on the backlog of music score
cataloguing. 932 titles have been catalogued so far. The Humanities and Social
Sciences Librarian also provided $32,000 to continue retrospective conversion of
the music card catalogue. The number of scores requiring retrospective
conversion has been reduced from 18,000 to 8000.
A small budget was provided to continue cataloguing the Lindsay Shaw donation
of juvenile literature. 900 titles were processed.
Gippsland Technical Services has undertaken a retrospective conversion
project on teaching curriculum materials which is still in progress.
There has been a shift to downloading bibliographic records from ABN at the
order point as opposed to the taking of monthly tapes subsequent to cataloguing.
A comparison of cataloguing statistics for the last three years is given in
Figure 4.
Figure 4 Monograph & Non Book Titles Catalogued (excl.
Gippsland)
9.3 Virtual Library Directions
The library catalogue has been redeveloped to provide virtual access. With the
WWW front end to the catalogue, it is possible to move directly from the
catalogue record to an Internet resource by clicking a URL. Some positions have
been revised to work on these virtual library developments. Staff from Clayton
and Gippsland Technical Services have been involved in developing a prototype
electronic resources database to provide a 'virtual shelf' of resources which
can be digitally accessed. The application of cataloguing standards (MARC,
AACR2R) to electronic versions is still evolving.
Technical Services staff have also provided ongoing support for the Monash
electronic journal project. This project links in with the increasingly
important issue of metadata for electronic publications. This has the potential
to provide a foundation for electronic bibliographic description that may
improve structured access to information on the Internet and promote
interoperability among disparate description models.
A WWW homepage (http://www.lib.monash.edu.au/techserv/cat.htm) is being
developed, mainly for cataloguing, providing links to current standards
information. The shift to networked versions of standard tools such as LCNA,
LCSH and DDC21 has had some teething problems.
9.4 ABN (Australian Bibliographic Network) Response Times
Access to ABN, previously by leased lines, is now primarily via Telstra
Internet. Investigation of serious response time problems in the second half of
the year revealed the problem to be packet loss at the interface between VRN
(Victorian Regional Network) and Telstra Internet. This was resolved by the
installation of an additional link and upgrades to existing links. Longer term
improvement should stem from upgrading AARNET to a private national integrated
backbone network.
9.5 PALS Library System
Two upgrades to the PALS Library System in the second half of the year produced
benefits for Technical Services. Batch uploading of records downloaded from ABN
is now possible. The facility for editing bibliographic records on PALS has also
been improved. The provision of a reference structure in the catalogue has also
been added, which should reduce complaints from catalogue users about the lack
of a reference to the preferred form of a search term. A project is underway to
test EDI features such as electronic ordering from book suppliers.
9.6 Serials Reorganisation
A major project over the year has been planning the integration of the
Humanities and Social Sciences Library Serials Section into the Technical
Services Division. A Cycle Time Reduction exercise revealed extensive overlap of
activities and unnecessary separation of related tasks. A Serials Review
Librarian was appointed to work with staff to redesign jobs and develop a new
structure for the integrated operation. The move is expected to be completed by
March 1997.
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