[Imc] Radical Librarian Meeting Notes

[Ellen Knutson]

Radical Librarians Meeting
Thursday, January 4, 2001 5:15PM

Attending: Paul Kotheimer, James Jacobs, Sascha Meinrath, Ellen Knutson, 
Brandon Bowersox, Bob Cook, Ilan

The bulk of the meeting was spend discussing the first draft of the archive 
catalog. Bob created the database based on fields discussed at the previous 
meeting. The first draft is located at: che.onthejob.net/~bobcook/firstDraft

The database will serve as the catalog of what is in the IMC archive. News 
producers would have access to the form via the web. The form would have to 
be filled out and the item physically at the IMC before an item would be 
officially in the archive. We had previously agreed that it made the most 
sense to have the news producers fill out the form because they have the 
best knowledge of what is contained in/on the item, and therefore can best 
describe the item.  While anyone can fill out and submit a form only 
archivists will have the authority to actually post it to the catalog 
(thereby making the item officially in the archive). We agreed that this 
level of control is necessary to insure that there are actual items for 
each form filled out.

The database will also provide each archived item with a unique identifying 
number. We also discussed and agreed that individuals filling out the forms 
should provide contact information, which would serve two purposes: 1) the 
IMC would have a list of currently producing new people, and 2) the 
archivists would have means of contacting individuals if they fill out a 
form but neglect to bring the item to the IMC.

A long discussion ensued on the topic of key works. Should they be a 
controlled vocabulary or should they be free flowing (i.e., natural 
language). Another question raised was who would assign the key works -- 
the news producer or the archivist. The group came to a consensus that 
there was enough opportunity for people to describe their piece (i.e., 
title, summary, contents, comments, etc.) that a separate field for key 
words was not absolutely necessary. However, the end user could still use a 
key word search that would search for the word in all of the fields.

There were several questions about the relationship between the archive and 
the web site, which has its own archive. Bob agreed to look into whether a 
search could be combined to search both the archive catalog and the web 
site simultaneously.

A  question about the relationship between IMC produced material and non 
IMC produced material was raised. There was general agreement that they 
should be cataloged in the same way but with a notation for IMC produced 
material. Ellen suggested that we revisit the fields in the database at the 
next meeting to insure that they work equally as well for non IMC produced 
material (i.e. magazines and books).

The next meeting is scheduled for Jan 11 at 5:15 at the IMC. The main topic 
of discussion will be a collection development policy, as well as 
continuing to work on cataloging.