No vans on Veterans Day

The New Hampshire State Library will be closed on Monday, November 11, 2024 in observation of Veteran’s Day. Which means no van service that day.

Best,
Jill Witham
Van Service Coordinator
New Hampshire State Library

Following the Leader

In the first post of this series I included this definition:

Leader. The part of a MARC record that contains data elements that primarily provide information for the processing of the record. The data elements contain numbers or coded values and are identified by relative character position. The Leader is fixed in length at 24 character positions and is the first field of a MARC record.

Over the next several weeks I will be discussing various pieces of the leader and how they function. 

All MARC bibliographic records have a leader. If you use OCLC's cataloging interface you may be familiar with the term "fixed field." The OCLC fixed field includes the 24 bytes of the leader as well as some other stuff and presents it (by default) as a labelled set of data.

There are 24 character positions (referred to as bytes) in the leader and they are identified by numbers from 00 to 23. 

If you are not a computer then there are 17 out of the 24 bytes that you won't need to know anything about and should not mess with. 

 For those of you who like to know extra stuff, this is what is in those positions:

An example of a leader with the bytes I am about to describe displayed in different colors:

02595cam_a2200469_a_4500

I will be using this same leader as an example in future posts and will tell you later on what record it came from.

00-04 Logical Record Length: a five-character number (with leading zeros for shorter numbers) equal to the length of the entire record, including these 5 digits and the record terminator. (Red in the example)

09 Character Coding Scheme: Identifies the character coding scheme used in the record. MARC-8 is indicated by a blank and Unicode is indicated by "a". (Aqua in the example)

10 Indicator Count: This is always 2 and indicates the number of character positions used for indicators in a variable data field. (Tan in the example)

11 Subfield Code Count: This is always 2 and indicates the number of character positions used for each subfield code in a variable data field. (Bright green in the example)

12-16 Base Address of Data: a five-character number (with leading zeros for shorter numbers) that indicates the first character position of the first variable control field in a record. (Fuchsia in the example)

These positions as a group are the "Entry Map" (blue in the example) and tell the computer things about the Directory portion of the record:

20 Length of the Length-of-Field Portion: This is always 4 and is the number of characters in the length-of-field portion of a Directory entry

21 Length of the Starting-Character-Position Portion: This is always 5 and is the number of characters in the starting-character-position portion of a Directory entry

22 Length of the implementation-defined portion: This is always 0 and is the number of characters in the implementation-defined portion of a Directory entry. Note that OCLC uses this byte for the Transaction Type Code in Hexadecimal. 

23 Undefined: This is always 0.

 

Empty lender lists

"No lenders were found...Please review the request for potential errors." As of Tuesday's software update to the NHAIS ILL System, this is the message you'll see in the request history if your request has an empty lender list.

How does that happen? Immediately after you submit an individual request (not a multi-copy request), the lender list build process begins. It looks at the information in the catalog record you chose to create the request (the "source record") and looks at all catalogs (not just the search resources you may have selected) to find matches on the ISBN (or other standard number) and format. If your source record has no standard numbers, title/author and other factors come into play as match points. The "Any Edition is Acceptable" that's checked by default on the request form is just a note to the lender--it has no effect on building the lender list. And it doesn't matter whether there are any holdings on your source record. The program creates a lender list with participating lenders that have holdings on records that match the criteria in the source record.

The lender list includes libraries that are currently on vacation or whose copies of the requested title are currently checked out or who don't lend your chosen format. The determination of whether the request becomes Pending at a particular location doesn't happen until it's that library's turn in the sequence on the lender list.

Sometimes the lender list build process comes up empty. Some catalog records have no holdings, particularly in the NHU-PAC (which is a cataloging resource in addition to its ILL function). If the lender list build process finds no matching records with holdings, your request will go to Unfilled status--with an exclamation mark (a new feature) next to the title in the Borrower's Unfilled List.

Can you just forget the request you created in the NHAIS ILL System and send a message to the NHAIS-ILL e-mail list at this point in the hope that what you seek is on the shelf somewhere but hasn't been properly cataloged for whatever reason? Of course you can--the system request will change from Unfilled to Expired when the need-by date is reached and will be deleted a year later--but if you'd like to try a few other things within the system, read on.

By themselves, none of the status change options available for Unfilled requests will help you get what you're after. Delete will remove your request from the system during overnight processing, Cancel keeps the request around in case you want to refer to it or modify it later (but, again, the request will change to Expired once the need-by date is reached). Approved - Send will bring you right back to Unfilled if there's an empty lender list.

It's worth a try to use the Rebuild Lender List button (but DON'T use Rebuild Lender List for multi-copy requests). You'll find it on the Full Record Display (reached by clicking on the title in the Borrower's Unfilled List).

Rebuild Lender List is unlikely to yield anything useful if you use it immediately after the request became Unfilled but if you wait a few days it's possible that a potential lender can be found. There are a couple of circumstances where that's most likely: if you're after a new title that libraries are currently in the process of adding to their catalogs or if one or more catalogs in the system were offline at the time you created the request. If one or more potential lenders are found with Rebuild Lender List, your request will automatically become Pending at one of those potential lenders (assuming they aren't on vacation, the item is available, and the format is one they lend). If no lenders are found, your request remains Unfilled.

If your lender list remains empty, you may want to look at whether you made the best choice for your source record. Often there are multiple records to choose from to create your request. Is the record reasonably complete or is it short on details? In most cases, more details are better.

The title may be the one you're after but is the format right? Records for e-books or downloadable audiobooks, if correctly coded, will generate empty lender lists. If you find a better record, create a new request. It's up to you whether you leave the Unfilled request alone or choose to Delete or Cancel it.

Sometimes there simply aren't any holdings in the system for the title you're after even though there's a catalog record for it. Next stop: the NHAIS-ILL e-mail list.

For further assistance with troublesome requests, contact the NHAIS Help Desk (603-271-2141 or nhu-pac@dncr.nh.gov).

No NC van Thu 10/31

Unfortunately, we’ve had to cancel today’s (Thursday, Oct. 31) North Country ILL deliveries due to driver illness.  I apologize for the inconvenience, we expect normal service to resume tomorrow.

Charles Shipman

New Hampshire State Library

Series Keeper Update

 

The webpage for the Series Keeper project has now been updated to reflect all of the signed agreements that have been returned to us.

There are 92 series being kept at this point by 41 different libraries!

There is also a wish list of 54 series still looking for a keeper. (Including the Mary Russell mysteries which I personally find a bit troubling.)

If your library wants to volunteer to be the keeper of one of the wish listed series please complete the agreement form and return it (in paper, please!) to NHAIS Services.

On the "keeping a series" tab of the webpage you will find some tools we hope will be useful to you as participants in this project:

• a list of kept series organized by library (so you can check that you are signed up for what you thought you committed to)
• a list of kept series organized by author (so you can check it when you are weeding your collections to see what might be wanted by the series keeper).
  
• a label that you can print on Avery 5163 or equivalent label stock to attach to books you have agreed to keep (both for promotion of the project and to protect the book from overly-enthusiastic weeders)
  

ILL fixes and enhancements Tue 10/29 10pm

The NHAIS ILL System will be offline briefly tonight (Tuesday, Oct. 29) at 10 o'clock to install program updates.

-Requests where no lenders were found during the lender list build process will once again go to Unfilled status. In recent months, they've been moving to Awaiting Approval, which caused confusion and limited workflow options for requests. Requests with empty lender lists will now receive a borrower’s error and a red exclamation mark will be seen in the status list. The request will also receive a history note that reads “No lenders were found. Please review the request for potential errors.”

-The language used during the lender searching process for multi-copy requests is being modified. It used to say something like "28 out of 144 targets have responded to this request" but in recent months it's been saying "28 out of 459 [or sometimes 905] lenders have responded to this request." Now it'll simply state it’s searching for lenders. The number of lenders found and added to the lender list will still show.

"You can stop this process at any time" is being changed to "You can stop this process once sufficient lenders are found" but it's still strongly advised that you wait for the process to finish checking all catalogs in order to increase your chances of getting the copies you want.

-A new beta report called Lender Response Requests will provide the number of requests filled as the lender within a selected date range. The report includes a table listing the borrowing libraries that created the filled requests and the total number of requests filled. It also includes a pie chart and table that break down requests by in-system, ISSI, and non-SHAREit libraries, a breakdown that is irrelevant in our configuration of SHAREit.

856 - Electronic Location and Access

"The information required to locate and access electronic resources, including online resources. Use field 856 in a bibliographic record for a resource when that resource or a subset of it is available electronically. In addition, use field 856 to locate and access a related electronic resource or an electronic version of a non-electronic resource described in the bibliographic record." [Definition from BF&S]

More and more material is made available online every day and it can be really helpful for library patrons to be able to access those electronic resources directly from your library's online catalog. The 856 tag is the key to doing that. Some records that you will download from NHAIS have these links already in them. For example:

• Federal government documents
• Records for images freely available online
• Serials that post their latest issue online
• Items out of copyright that have been digitized

Libraries can also use this tag to add links to their own online resources which may be helpful to patrons interested in a particular item.  This might include:

• Links to themed reading lists on your website might be added to the records for all the titles on the list
• Links to a permission form that you require for patrons borrowing from your library-of-things
  
• A link to instructions for using something in your library-of-things (from the manufacturer perhaps)

The first indicator in the 856 tag tells you how you will connect to the online item. A value of 4 means it is accessible via http (or https) and is the most common value these days.

The second indicator tells you what the relationship is between the item the record represents and the online resource and generates a label for the OPAC display:

• 0 - the resource cataloged is the same as the online resource
  
• 1 - another version of the cataloged resource
• 2 - they are related resources (user manuals for the cataloged item for example)
• 3 - a component part of the cataloged resource
• 4 - another version of a component part of the cataloged resource
• 8 - no  label generated
• blank - no information has been provided

There are lots of subfields defined for the 856, but the one that is most useful for the patron is subfield u -- the Universal Resource Identifier -- the online address of the resource.

If you are creating your own local 856 tags you may also want to use:

subfield h - for non-working URIs (that you want to keep track of for some reason)

subfield x -  non-public note (info about the online resource that staff may need to know)

subfield y - link text (if this is not present your OPAC will display whatever its default is as the link itself; whatever is in this subfield will display as the linked text in the OPAC) 

subfield z - public note (info about the online resource that patrons may need to know)

In Koha (and probably other systems) the subfield y and subfield z are functionally the same -- the content of the subfield will replace the system's default language when displaying the live link. The NHSL record for the Goshen Town Report uses subfield y and the record for the Ellsworth Town Report uses subfield z. They look exactly the same in the public catalog view. Why did we use different subfields here? Because I needed an example to show you that they would look the same. 

______________________________________________

Since this is the last Tuesday of the month it is time for the October 2024 Tuesday Tags Review Quiz.

This is a 5-question self-check that will give you a chance to see how much you have learned about MARC tags this month (or where you may want to go back and re-read).  

 

NH Video Game Library

The New Hampshire Video Game Library is a statewide collection of video game consoles, video games, and video gaming accessories. Registered libraries may reserve consoles and games for in-house programming and, if they so choose, may allow individual patrons to check out items in the collection. Priority is given to libraries using items for in-house gaming programs.

The collection now includes 193 video games, 6 Nintendo Switches, 6 PlayStation5 consoles, 6 PlayStation4 VR Helmets, and 6 XBox Series X consoles.

Further information, including links for library registration and reservations for consoles and games, can be found on both the YALS website and the Exeter Public Library website. The latter also has an up-to-date list of games in the New Hampshire Video Game Library accessible by clicking on the Games to Play button:

You'll see a spreadsheet with tabs at the bottom for Nintendo Switch, PlayStation, and Xbox formats:

This project was made possible in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services.

Shipping label font size

If you've noticed the font size shrinking lately on system-generated shipping labels in the NHAIS ILL System, you're not alone. This is a known bug that's being worked on.