Acquiring Chinese E-Books: Where to Start and How to Get Here-- University of Pittsburgh Library System's Experience

Hong Xu

March 24, 2007

Where to start

Talking with the senior administrator

Talking with e-book producers

Having trials

Evaluating e-books

Decision-making in purchasing Chinese e-books

Perpetual access vs. subscription

Quantity to purchase

Database hosting

MARC records requirements

Whether or not loading the records to OCLC

The minimal level MARC records we required include the following fields:

001, 005 ,006, 007, 008, 020, 040

1xx (or 7xx if no 1xx)

245

250 (if needed)

260

300 (if needed)

533 (if needed)

856

Problems in sample MARC records

Both e-book producers use CN-MARC as the base and automatically convert them into MARC21.

Problems in understanding MARC21, particularly CJK records in MARC21.

Problems in converting some fields

Examples:

Team work

Communicating with relevant senior administrators and with EAL librarians

Coordinating with other two departments at the ULS: Information System: install reader software, test interface, load records Cataloging Management: review records; follow ULS and OCLC rules/policies

Communicating with e-book producers

Where we are and what we’ve learnt so far--

Contracts have been signed/to be signed soon.

We are on the third run of testing sample records.

Timely communication ensures things are moving on smoothly.

Team work is essential.

It is important for the e-book producers to be consistent with the contact personnel and the test records during the data trial period.

Documentation is important

Quality control is a big on-going issue.

THANK YOU !