Managing Serials with Evergreen

A Case Study of Hekman Library at Calvin College

Why Serials Management?

• High volume of throughput

• Large number of repetitive tasks

• Fine-grained details of great importance

Challenges of Serials Management

• Take advantage of general predictability and repeatability

• Allow for very frequent exceptions

• Accommodate wide variety of management practices

• Manage metadata level holdings, physical level copies, and business level information

Evergreen Serials Model

Metadata

Physical

Business

Metadata – Basics of MFHD

• MARC Format for Holdings Data

• Often pronounced as “muff-head”

• Standard, often computable way to share volume, part, and copy information

• Incorporates publication patterns as part of the standard

MFHD Example

• Field 853• Caption and Pattern statement• Often one per record

• Field 863• Enumeration and Chronology statement• Often many per record

• Other paired fields – 854/864, 855/865• Field 866 – Textual (i.e. non-standardized) Holdings

Metadata Management

• Goal – Internalize and automate the MFHD record editing so that the serials worker can concentrate on the physical item workflow

• Benefits

• Greater accuracy

• Easier integration

Evergreen Serials Model

Metadata

Physical

Business

Physical – The Issuance Table

• Primary workspace and data source for serials

• Every serial ‘piece’ will have it’s own entry

• Critical fields include

• Date Expected

• Date Received

• Series Label Information

• Claimed?

• Shelving Unit

Physical – The Shelving Unit

• Shelving Units are generic containers of one or more issuances

• May be used to represent a single issue, a volume of issues, an entire shelf of volumes, etc.

• The entire unit is represented by a single call number

• Therefore, each copy represents an entire unit

Shelving Unit – Use Cases

• Library does not circulate serials• Free to have any number of Units• Simplest case – single unit for entire run, single call

number• Library circulates current issues only

• One Unit per current issue (may have multiple copies) – use ‘Auto per Issue’ feature

• At least one unit for any bound volumes• Library circulates bound volumes

• One Unit per bound volume – use ‘Auto per Volume’ feature

• May also have Unit per unbound issue

Business – Not Included

• While some of the structures are in place, links to the acquisition structure will be a future development task

Standard Workflow

1. Create MFHD record, including prediction pattern statement

2. Generate one or more issuances based on pattern in MFHD

3. Receive issuances

• automatically generates/edits enumeration and chronology statements in MFHD

• creates call number and copy records as needed

4. Return to step 2

Primary Serials Interface - Preview

Workflow Exceptions

• Types of problems

• Claims

• Prediction pattern exceptions (issue cancelled, extra issue, date changed, etc.)

• Manual Shelving Unit, call number, and copy management

• Will be handled as needed by separate interfaces

More Information

• Credits

• Dan Wells, Library Programmer Analyst

• Steven Putt, Electronic Services Librarian

• For the latest version of this presentation, please visitwww.calvin.edu/library/downloads/eg-serials-presentation-2010.zip