Answers: Bibliographic Records
Q. Why are ebooks part of bib number but journals are not?
A. E-Journals are counted separately, in a different metric. We are using “bib record” here as a shorthand. Really it means “bib records except for e-journals.” We are well under our contracted e-journal limit, so we’re not discussing it currently. If you are asking the broader question (“Why? Why?”) please consult works of philosophy, theology, business administration etc.
Q. How are electronic magazines counted for bib records?
A. E-journals as Ex Libris counts them includes non-scholarly periodicals (but not newspapers). So they are not counted in the bib record metric we are discussing here, but instead, are counted in a separate metric.
Q. I know we can reduce named users by making them inactive. Is there a way to make bib records inactive? I'm thinking of reserves that are only used in one semester. Can they be inactive in the semesters they're not being used without having to re-enter the bib record again when they are being used?
A. Simply suppressing or removing inventory from a bibliographic record does not keep it from being counted toward the total. If you wanted, you could export the bib record as a .mrc file, store it locally on a computer, delete it from your Alma repository, and then import it when you need it again. But this approach seems quite complex, and it is unlikely that reserve titles at your library are contributing seriously toward our overage. Much more important is discovering and eliminating bib records that are not needed.
Q. We have been adding a lot of OER materials as brief records to make them discoverable via OneSearch and the course reserves module. But this has added more bib records. Like with instructor-owned materials, is there another way to construct these records so that it doesn't prohibitively add to our bib record count?
Q. Just wanted to clarify that any OA collections we have turned on for our college will count against the # bibs for the whole state.
Q. We have a total of 433,005 titles with MMS ID > 0. How much would it cost if we stay as is? Would you happen to know the quoted # of MMS ID and e-resources on our Exhibit C? I don't know how much we need to reduce as the goal?
Q. Do CDI activations affect a colleges total number of bib records?
Q. When I search the NZ for bibs to attach an item to, I often find multiple bib records for the same title/edition. Will the Task Force be consolidating these?
Q. Is there a way to construct instructor-owned reserves so that they do not count as individual bib records?
Q. I am a little confused as how to plan our future collection expansion? Should we consider deleting collections and let students search individual databases like our good old days? This is one way to reduce bib. Please advise.
Q. If I understand Jeff's explanation from the webinar correctly that ExL essentially double counts bibs for titles in the NZ and holdings linked in our IZ, I'm not sure I understand how moving management of electronic collections to the NZ will help reduce the total number of bibs. As I understand it, electronic collections need to be activated in our IZ in order for them to show up in our Primo, so I don't see how this change in management would reduce the number of bibs. But I'm sure I must be missing something obvious! Would appreciate help understanding this!
Q. If March 31 is the deadline, would you show us how to move our ebsco ebook collection to NZ? This will reduce significantly.
Q. We're in a multicollege district where each college manages its eresource subscriptions/access separately. In most (but not all) cases, the way we have activated electronic collections in our Alma means that there are separate activations for each college for the same subscription package resources (Academic Search Complete, ProQuest Ebook Central Academic Complete, etc). Does this bib record problem mean that we need to somehow consolidate the activations (not even sure if that would work with 9 different proxies, etc)?
Q. We have a lot (thousands) of items in our print collection that are not linked to the NZ. When the webinar started, I thought that pushing to relink them would help with this # of bibs issue, but since ExL counts both NZ bibs and linked holdings in IZ then it looks like relinking our holdings for these titles won't help reduce the number of bibs at all. Is that correct?
Q. What are ways to search for bib records that should be deleted?
Q. It would be really helpful if y'all could provide step by step instructions on the best way to completely remove electronic portfolios from our IZs. I've just been trying to remove 368 portfolios from our ebook central academic complete collection activation as they are not allowed to be accessed by US libraries. I ran a job on the set to set the portfolios to "inactive" and remove availability for the groups they were available for 2 inventory groups (we're in a multi-campus Alma). They are no longer showing up in Primo, but in Alma, they still show up in my IZ (albeit with the linked to CZ people icon in black not blue) and with the green dot next to Available for the two inventory groups. Is what I have done enough to remove them from the state's total bib count? I'd like to know so that I can check for other collections/portfolios that we no longer need and make sure that I am correctly removing them so that they will no longer count against the bib total.
Questions? Contact Amy Beadle, Project Lead at abeadle@ccctechcenter.org