2nd Annual NAUUG Meeting

SUNYConnect Development of a Union

Catalog

Journey from the Known into the Unknown

SUNY (State University of New York)

• 18 million volumes

• 71 locations

• 2-year community colleges, 4-year colleges, research universities

• All bibliographic formats

The mission:

• Build a union catalog

• Using Ex Libris’ Aleph 500 software

Design process

• Ex Libris recommendations

• SUNY recommendations from:

• Working groups– Data Management– Access Management– Systems Management

Policy Decisions

• Local catalog plus union catalog

• Single bibliographic record at union level

• Shared authority control

• Patron-initiated universal borrowing

Functional decisions

• real or virtual catalog– Connectivity– Universal borrowing

• Bibliographic records– How to accomplish single record

Functional decisions (cont’d)

• Holdings information– Holdings library?– Embedded holdings?– Item record?

• Maintenance

Bibliographic database

• Merging algorithm

• Create pool of candidates

• Refine pool to virtually de-dupe

Bibliographic database

• Base record from pool

• Create a merged view

Authority file

• Purchase LC file

• Provide MeSH

• Then What?

Holdings

• Current plan = embedded holdings

Universal borrowing

• Unique sublibraries throughout SUNY

• Shared item codes

• Shared patron status codes

Universal borrowing (cont’d)

• Unique patron ids

• Patron-initiated

• Central borrower database

Central borrower database

• Borrower must be at local level!

• How to “expire” borrower?

• How current?

For Progress Reports

http://www.sunyconnect.suny.edu/

Thank you!

Maggie Hornhornma@sysadm.suny.edu

518-443-5564