[OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Corporate Software Library

[Hardy, Elaine]

Eric,

The availability of MARC bibliographical (bib) records for your
library's collection will depend on the nature of that collection. If
your company's library consists of items (software, books, etc.) that
other libraries would have, you will have sources for what are called
copy cataloging records -- basically, you are copying another source's
cataloging rather than doing original cataloging yourself. If the items
are primarily proprietary, then finding existing MARC records would be
problematic and you (or someone else) would likely need to do original
cataloging for your collection.

OCLC's Worldcat is the largest and most diverse database of bib records
but there are various fees attached to getting those records from them.
Generally, libraries are members of a regional network that acts as a
vendor and trainer for OCLC products and services. There are fees with
that. Then, in order to access Worldcat and actually get the records,
there is a fee for that as well. A map of regional service providers for
OCLC can be found at http://www.oclc.org/contacts/regional/default.htm.
OCLC charges these fees to all libraries whether public, school,
academic or special. They don't really care if you are using them for
gain or not. But OCLC is likely to be your best source of existing MARC
records for software. Being a member also allows you to pay another fee
to participate in interlibrary loan through them.

Libraries can also retrieve MARC records from the Library of Congress
(LOC to most of the techies on this list, DLC or LC to those of us who
are catalogers). However, I don't know that you would find much in the
way of software in their collections.

There are other sources for MARC records as well. Some have costs
associated with them and some don't. 

You could contract with a cataloging vendor to convert your collection
to MARC records especially if you have a shelf list for them to use. If
you just have the materials and not a shelf list, much more complicated.
Again, money is involved since people do like to be paid for their work.
However, if you do not have someone trained in cataloging on staff, you
may need to go that route. Costs are going to depend on the nature of
your collection. Copy cataloging is much cheaper than original
cataloging. Cataloging of print materials is general cheaper than
nonprint.

If you want to catalog the items yourself, you would need to learn more
than just MARC format. MARC formats are the machine readable form that
carries the bibliographical information that describes the item in hand.
Creating good bibliographic information to input into the MARC formats
requires knowledge of cataloging and classification standards.

Elaine Hardy

 
________________________________

 
 
J. Elaine Hardy
Library Services Manager - Collections & Reference
Georgia Public Library Service,
A Unit of the University System of Georgia
1800 Century Place, Suite 150
Atlanta, Ga. 30345-4304
404.235-7128
404.235-7201, fax
 
ehardy at georgialibraries.org
www.georgialibraries.org
 

-----Original Message-----
From: open-ils-general-bounces at list.georgialibraries.org
[mailto:open-ils-general-bounces at list.georgialibraries.org] On Behalf Of
Eric.Elliott at l-3com.com
Sent: Friday, May 25, 2007 12:43 PM
To: Don McMorris; open-ils-general at list.georgialibraries.org
Subject: RE: [OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Corporate Software Library

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Don McMorris [mailto:don.mcmorris at gmail.com] 
> Sent: Friday, May 25, 2007 11:04 AM

<<SNIP>>
<<SNIP>>
> Every version of every title usually gets a MARC record known 
> as a "Bibliographic Record".  Examples for your case might be 
> "RedHat Enterprise Linux 3", "RedHat Enterprise Linux 2", 
> "Microsoft Office 2003", etc... The "Bib" usually contains 
> the title, publisher, media format, and anything you can 
> think of! <<SNIP>>

Is this information readily available?  I am not sure where to look and
have read conflicting statements about OCLC and NY library system for
example as some attempt to gather the information.  If I am not using it
for gain but as a library (even though a corp entity), is that an issue?

eselliott

~~~~~
Eric Shayne Elliott
L-3 Communications, Link Simulation & Training