Ex Libris MELvyl Tells (EL Mel Tells)!

Volume 1, Number 2, August 2002

In this issue:

• Which campus record is the one in the short and long displays of a merged Melvyl-T record? How is the display record chosen?
• Is Melvyl-T using LC authority records? How?
• CDL Staff Profiles

Hello, Colleagues. You've had a chance to look at the prototype catalog (been looking at it day and night, right? http://mel-t.cdlib.org Now we want to tell you a bit more about how the catalog works, starting with the "display record", moving on to authority records, and then to the fine staff who created this baby.

Which campus record is the one in the short and long displays of a merged Melvyl-T record? How is the display record chosen?

When you see a Melvyl-T record with holdings from more than one campus there is more in the database than meets the eye. The new Melvyl catalog retains the full MARC record from each campus. Only one record displays, however, otherwise the displays would be terribly messy and confusing. Which record is displayed? The display record is chosen through a very simple points system: each record in a merged group gets one point for every indexed heading (such as author, title, or subject). In addition, those records with tables of contents notes (MARC 505 fields) get an extra 5 points. In this way, the displayed record is the most complete of all of the records in the merged group. Undoubtedly in some merged groups more than one record ties for the position as the display record. In that case, the one that gets display status is simply the first one encountered in the database.

As records are updated, the display record can change. For example, if a new record enters the database that has more indexed headings or has a table of contents note where one did not exist before in the group, that new record becomes the one chosen for display.

Is Melvyl-T using LC authority records? How?

Library of Congress Name and Subject authority records will be loaded into the new MELVYL catalog in special authority heading files. The headings in the authority files will link to the same headings from the bibliographic file in order to provide the display of "see" and "see also" references in the browse function. From the Melvyl-T screen, go to the yellow bar in the upper left hand side of side of the screen. Select Browse, and then from the drop-down menu, choose Author-Personal and type in Braaten, Oskar. You'll see the following list:

1     Braat, L.P.J.

1     Braaten, Oskar, 1881-1939.

       Brabander, G. L. de (Guido L.) - [more terms]
       See: Brabander, Guido L. de

Clicking on the "[more terms]" displays the authority record in a separate window.

No changes are made to campus records through the authority function in Melvyl-T. The authority records are used solely to provide guidance for searchers.

The two authority files will be kept up to date with weekly files issued by the Library of Congress.

There have been queries about the possible input of authority records from campus catalogs. Although there may be technical issues that we haven't explored yet the real challenge would be in managing heading choice conflicts. Absent such a mechanism we will limit the authority file to Library of Congress data for the time being.

If you have questions you'd like us to answer about the new catalog, please direct them to CDL Feedback

Now, how did we get to this point in the creation of Melvyl-T?

In our first issue, we started giving you a list of the cast of characters involved in the creation of Melvyl-T. In this second issue, we continue telling you about the rest of the suspects, with more to come in future issues.

CDL Staff Profiles

Lynne Cameron
	Cameron was a member of the CDL team that built and maintained the A&I databases in the 90s, and she brings these project skills to the Melvyl-T endeavor. She has played a key role in the development of Melvyl-T by designing and putting into place the system that not only feeds records into Melvyl-T, but also oversees the ongoing health of the catalog. Lynne hails from Sydney Australia, and lives in the Berkeley flatlands where she designs and gardens and likes to think of herself as an "escaped exotic".
Lynne's exotic design sense is also elemental to the wonderful themed staff parties that CDL has enjoyed during this transition period.

Pam Daniels
	Versatile. This is a word that describes Pam Daniels, a bibliographic analyst at the CDL, on loan from the Berkeley campus. Her duties on the Melvyl Project have ranged from analyzing the personal author algorithm in Ex Libris Aleph 500 software and comparing it to CDL's, to working on specifications for displaying screens in Melvyl-T, to helping build web pages for Melvyl-T with the graphic designer, to working on the Functional Acceptance Test, to many more essential tasks in building Melvyl-T.
Many years working with acquisitions, cataloging, with serials and monographs, in serving on committees at UC Berkeley gave Pam the knowledge of what end users want and need. Add to these skills her varied loves of antiquing, football (watching), singing, cooking, and whale watching, and you've got the versatile Pam Daniels!

Linda Gallaher-Brown
	Gallaher-Brown has relentlessly chased down her share of bugs during many years of database detective work for CDL and previously DLA. As one of the original database developers of CAT and PE, she saw Melvyl grow from its origins as a microfiche catalog, and is now playing a key role in testing the Aleph software's ability to merge records as successfully as the original Melvyl does. She also supervised the unloading of records from Melvyl for their journey into the new Melvyl-T prototype and in some cases, into the new full production catalog that will be unveiled in Fall 2002.
Besides her passion for debugging and testing, Linda also loves to travel. Most recently she toured gardens in Maui, Canada, New Zealand, England, and Scotland, where we are assuming she did not chase down bugs for a change.

Ann Jensen

Ann Jensen served as an original member of the Melvyl Transition Team, on loan from the Berkeley campus, where she has returned as head of the Astronomy/Math Stat Library. Ann headed the Services Team, and played a key role in developing the user interface design. (Felicia Poe, who will be profiled in a later issue, has now taken on this task.) Ann had the very challenging assignment of initially grappling with many interface considerations that are resulting in a catalog that best serves our users. With her long experience working closely with all levels of catalog users, she brought to the project a profound knowledge of user behavior that informed decisions along the way. A seemingly mild-mannered librarian by day, Ann’s secret life is that of a car racer. On a recent weekend you could have seen her racing her (and husband Joe’s) vintage Jaguar at Sears Point Raceway!

Raymund Ramos
	Raymund came to the CDL most recently from UC Santa Cruz, where after receiving his BA in psychology (side tracked from Computer Engineering, "One of those Santa Cruz kind of things", he says), he worked in the UCSC library for five years. He has worked at the CDL as a temporary database administrator, and also as what he describes as system admin handyman, and indeed, there's almost no aspect of the programming end of Melvyl-T that Raymund hasn't been involved in. He has configured the web server, run scripts for performance testing, and worked on getting telnet up and running.
He's drawn to the library world because it's there you can get access to information. His outside interests include (more) computer programming (such as alternative operating systems to Windows), and martial arts.

Michael Thwaites
	Michael is part of the Architecture Infrastructure Group at the CDL, and has done a hodge podge of activities for the Melvyl-T project, including ensuring consistency among the different applications, consulting on the final steps of building the production loaders, writing the specifications for Ex Libris on how to provide the circulation information from the campuses, doing the main programming for a piece of Request. At the same time, Michael is also helping keep the current (legacy) Melvyl and CDL-hosted databases up and running on the mainframe. (He's one of three people at the CDL who gets called in the middle of the night if Melvyl goes down!)
When he's not working on things like Request, Michael is making music--playing the flute, guitar, or recorder at church--or doing recreational mathematics! (Now how many of us can claim we do THAT in our spare time?)

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