a vision for a centralized cataloguing unit for Toronto District School Board 2012-2017. Prepared for an interview.

1. Collaborative
Centralization for Quality
Cataloguing
A vision for centralized cataloguing at the TDSB 2012-2017
Lorna Young
Candidate, Cataloguing Librarian position at TDSB

2. Where are We Now?
Assumptions (best guesses based on the
posting)
legacy cataloguing practices still exist from amalgamation
selection done by school library staff
new system coming soon and driving need for consistent
practices
electronic resources are currently listed outside of the
catalogue
some cataloguing and processing happening at schools, not in
centralized unit

3. Best Practices
600 schools + 500 teacher-librarians =
1100 ideas about cataloguing
Consistent cataloguing and processing
practices for faster processing of new
materials plus smoother transitions
when libraries amalgamate or close
Collaborate to create consistency

4. Best Practices to Create
Consistency
Create a survey to
uncover best (and
worst!) practices in
TDSB libraries
Survey mix of different schools for best
practices
Isolate practices with high importance and
high satisfaction first and apply as
appropriate.
create cataloguing/systems manual as a
wiki

5. New System, New
Cataloguing Standard
Clean-up projects as records are
mapped from one system to another
Authority control clean-up: will the
database be sent for authority
clean-up prior to loading in a new
system?
RDA: Resource Description and Access
implemented with new ILS if the
OPAC supports FRBR (Library of
Congress begins RDA implementation
on March 31, 2013)

6. Consistent Collections to
Support Accommodation
Reviews
Develop checklists of essential titles for dif-
ferent types of schools in consultation with
appropriate staff
Greater consistency in collections facilitates
amagalmations, redistributions, etc. arising
from Accommodation Reviews

7. Cataloguing Electronic
Resources
Is an ERM (electronic resource manager) folded
into the new ILS project?
Can stub records be created from existing lists
while standards are being created? E.g.
MarcEdit will create records from Excel file or
from URLs
How deep should the records be? E.g. is record
for e-journal enough or are records needed for
each article?

8. For the Future?
RFID for fast, efficient inventories
Library RFID: Weeding your Collection with the Digital Library Assistant (DLA)
Federated search engine for deep searching of e-re-
sources
mixed use facilities with TPL? connects with the
Community Schools studies
proliferation of electronic resources means that
cataloguing becomes more about manipulating
supplied metadata from multiple sources than
about creating metadata for physical items

9. What It's All About