During my participation in three preservation microfilming projects, I noticed that all adhered to different criteria about what constituted an acceptable surrogate. With that in mind, I posted a very brief (and rather unscientific) survey last winter. I became somewhat sidetracked with other projects; however, a colleague was kind enough to remind me about it. I purposefully refrained from commenting in an effort to generate discussion. The answers that I received are tallied as much as possible. Whenever a respondent provided more than a one-word answer, I cut and pasted that answer into place. The format is that of the original survey. Each answer is preceded with either a bullet (Word) or a question mark (text). As promised, I removed all respondents' institutional names and any unquestionable clues to an institution's identity. The only names left in the answers are those that formed key points; they do not, however, identify the responding institution. The results are attached in both Word and text formats. Thank you to all who sent replies to my questions. Tom Teper Survey Answers.doc Purpose: This survey seeks to ascertain how institutions search for surrogates and what criteria are used to indicate an acceptable surrogate in preservation microfilming projects. Instructions: Please complete this survey and return it to the sender either via email (ttepe0@xxxxxxxxxxx) or fax at 859-257-5713, attention: Tom Teper. Rest assured, all institutional information will be kept confidential. However, the more information that you can provide about your institutional practices, the more valuable this survey will be. I do plan on sharing the results in the future. A. Searching for Surrogates 1. Does your preservation microfilming project include a searching component intended to avoid duplication of effort? a. Yes b. No (If no, you have completed this survey. Please return). ? Yes = 18 ? No = 2 2. If so, what utilities do you utilize? a. Local Catalog b. OCLC c. RLIN d. Paper microform catalogs e. Other (specify): ____________________________________________ f. Combinations of the above. Which ones: ________________________ ? All of the above. RLIN only for selected materials as it frequently only serves to repeat what OCLC turns up. Vendor catalogs are also searched. ? All of the above with paper catalogs used when relevant to specific subject areas. ? All electronic utilities. Paper catalogs very rarely. Online Books in Print. ? Local Catalog, OCLC, RLIN = 9 ? OCLC = 1 ? Local catalog and OCLC = 2 ? OCLC, then RLIN if not in OCLC = 2 ? Local catalog, OCLC, RLIN, and internal pres. m/f files. = 1 3. If you search electronic utilities, does your search process include varied, multiple searches of each utility? For example, when searching OCLC, does your project include command title, derived author, derived title searches, or any combination of these? a. Yes b. No ? Yes = 14 ? No = 3 ? Yes, but not systematically. If there is some idea that title variations exist or that a keyed 4,4 search would be ineffective, then multiple searches are conducted. 4. If a grant-funded microfilming project, does your grant specify what utilities and what types of searches will be conducted in order to avoid duplication of filming? a. Yes b. No ? Yes = 11 ? No reply, or N/A = 4 ? No current grant projects. ? Yes, in part. The grant specifies that we should search OCLC and any relevant print sources deemed useful or necessary. The grant also specifies that SOLINET will perform a second OCLC search and a search in RLIN. ? No = 1 B. Determining the Suitability of Surrogates 1. If any microform surrogate exists, do you automatically eliminate the title as a potential candidate for filming? a. Yes b. No ? Yes = 1 ? No = 12 ? No, we have to be able to acquire it, and this is not always possible. The work involved with chasing down a title and acquiring the m/f is often ridiculously involved, especially considering that since the late 1980s one of the main points of microfilming was to have it available to all. There is more than one major institution that makes acquiring microfilm from them a complete nightmare. ? No, we consider the microformat, producer, and date before deciding whether we will refilm. ? Yes, but it depends when the film was produced and by whom. ? ALMOST always. 2. Which of the following microforms are considered to be acceptable surrogates by your microfilming project? a. Microfiche b. Microsleeves c. Microcards d. Others ? None ? only complete, legible, post 1985 microfilm. ? NONE!!! Only 35mm film is acceptable. = 2 ? Microfiche ? depending on the date and creator. ? Microfiche ? if the master was created on 35mm ? Microfiche = 5 ? post 1985 film. More confidence if NEH funded; less confidence when filmed outside the auspices of NEH funding. Film from the early 1980's and 1970's are deemed "acceptable" until further research can be conducted to prove their unacceptability. When time permits this research (inspection of the film, determination of its availability, etc.), most 1970's and early 1980's film is deemed unacceptable. Film prior to 1970 is unacceptable. Film with no date is unacceptable. All microopaques, microcards are deemed unacceptable. Some Research Publications film is unacceptable because it appears to be produced from masters generated in the 1950's-1980's by disreputable micropublishers. ? Microfiche and microfilm = 2 ? Only microfilm. = 2 ? 35mm silver halide microfilm. Microfiche and 16mm silver halide microfilm (in a pinch) if the reduction ratios are acceptable. ? Microfilm, microfiche and facsimilie reprints. ? No answer. 3. Does a date of creation affect the decision as to what constitutes an acceptable microfilm surrogate? a. Yes. If so, what is that date? b. No ? Late 1970's = 1 ? Post 1980 = 2 ? Early 1980s = 1 ? Generally after 1983 = 1 ? Yes, 1985 w/rare exceptions. ? 1985 = 2 ? Mid-1980s = 1 ? 1986 = 1 ? 1989 or later. ? No, but it will now! ? We consider film produced before 1980 unacceptable, except in a very few cases when we know from experience that the producer's earlier film is good (such as LC). ? No, unless it was our own in-house filming which was unacceptable. ? Yes. It varies depending on the creator, but for most film it coincides with the development and adoption of RLG Guidelines. ? Yes, but it depends on the date of creation and the source. ? In the past, we have not automatically ruled out 1970's or early 80's film; however, my opinion has changed. I would like to establish a "firm date" of 1985 as a "cutoff" after I examine the results of this survey. ? No = 1 4. Does a place of creation affect your decision as to what constitutes an acceptable microfilm surrogate? a. Yes. If so, what are your criteria? b. No ? Yes ? having received good quality film from a particular place on a regular basis. ? Yes, if you mean by creator; no, if you mean by geographic location. [Criteria are] Knowledge of reliable commercial sources, participation in RLG/NEH and other reputable projects, etc?. ? Yes, there is a list of vendors/institutions that we have built up over the years that, from experience, we know not to buy from. ? Not usually. ? Does the source provide quality film ? Yes, I work from a "short list" of unacceptable micropublishers. Everything produced, no matter the date, produced by these agencies is deemed unacceptable. ? Yes, research libraries and major micropublishers are considered acceptable sources. Note, we look at who owns the master negative rather than literally where the film was created. For example, we would not draw a distinction between film produced in-house by a library and film the same library outsourced to another lab. ? Yes, we eliminate out of business micropublishers and small institutions that did the work some time ago. ? SOLINET short list = 2 ? Yes, institutions that conform to RLG microfilming guidelines. ? Yes, known for good filming. ? Yes, if produced by a reliable institution or vendor. ? Yes, what we know about their preservation program. ? We don't have a rule about place of publication. But because so little filming has been done in [our subject area] anywhere, we find in practice that virtually all the producers are in the US or England. ? RLG libraries only. ? No = 2 5. If your project searches OCLC or other similar utilities, do you accept microfilms with dates appearing as "19--" as acceptable surrogates? a. Yes b. No ? No = 11 ? No, unless we can verify the date by searching the local OPAC. ? Yes, but contingent upon who the creator is. ? Yes, because the source of the film/fiche appears in the record. ? Yes, sometimes (depends on institution). ? Yes, although we probably shouldn't! But those do not arise very often. ? Yes, when we see the "19?" we look to see if there are other clues about quality in the record. If there is a clear indication in the record that a master negative exists and is owned by a responsible library, we're willing to overlook the incomplete date. ? No reply. 6. If you search electronic utilities, do you accept microfilms with dates prior to 1983 as acceptable surrogates? a. Yes b. No ? No = 8 ? No, unless LC or NYPL. ? Not sight unseen. We borrow and examine the film first. ? Yes for a very limited number of creators. ? Yes, unless they are defunct firms or small libraries. ? Yes; again, we probably shouldn't. However, reviewing them has often shown that they are alright. ? Yes, until they can be formally proven to be unacceptable. This is labor intensive. My hunch is that all pre-1985 is imperiled. I would like a more "formalized," i.e., generally accepted and readily acknowledged cutoff date. ? Yes, except our own in-house filming. ? Yes = 3 7. Does your microfilming project include a means of eliminating titles within your collections from redundant searches? a. Yes. If so, please explain. b. No ? Yes = 2 ? No = 9 ? N/A = 1 ? Yes, we have a database of all titles being considered as a part of the project. ? Yes, we create a "national master microform" location on the matching record in our OPAC. This location states the year produced, the holding institution, and the corresponding OCLC or RLIN numbers. ? Yes, when they are unique. ? After a decision has been made on a title, the action will preclude other treatments, such as withdrawal or off-site storage. Also, a reformatted version will show up on our catalog, which is always searched prior to preservation action. ? No, not currently. When the original SOLINET projects were managed, we worked from a bibliography that was annotated with our "film" or "not film" decision. Filmed items were routinely annotated with a pencil note saying "SG, meaning SOLINET grant, and the date". This was annotated on the filmed copy only. If multiple copies existed, these may not have been annotated. Ditto with the "not films". ? No. I'm not sure if I understand the question. Are you asking if we mark either duplicate copies or records to indicate that the title has already been treated? If so, the answer is no. We work under the assumption that it would be more work than simply re-searching the title if another copy shows up in the work flow. Also, we no longer mark in any way titles that have been reviewed and rejected for treatment. 8. Does your microfilming project ever request existing surrogates from other institutions to test them for quality before eliminating those institutions from consideration as producers of acceptable surrogates? a. Yes b. No ? Yes = 5 ? Yes, we strike a balance between thoroughness and productivity. We regard some institutions & vendors as trusted sources. If we have doubts, we film. ? No = 10 ? No, our size library (mid) and relatively small scale of m/f action does not make this a real demand or need. ? We order service copies of all film we consider acceptable. If the producer can not fill the order, we film the title. We inspect each service copy for legibility and completeness, and if it is unacceptable we return it and film the title. If a producer has a pattern of selling unacceptable film, we stop considering that producer acceptable at the initial review. 9. Does your microfilming project ever request existing surrogates from other institutions to test the actual availability of said surrogate microforms through utilities such as ILL? a. Yes b. No ? Yes = 4 ? Yes, but not in an organized fashion. Hit and miss. ? Yes, but not often. ? No = 11 ? No, we are conservative in "accepting" available film. Comments: Please feel free to include any comments that you believe may clarify or benefit the final outcome of the survey. ? I would also be interested in knowing about the type of examination that most libraries give to the films that they order from institutions or commercial vendors. We examine every reel, frame by frame, and compare them against the original book titles ordered for preservation purposes. An inspection form is filled out for each reel, and we have found a number of problems too numerous to mention., the most basic of which is that the title on the reel does not exactly match the bibliographic information on the OCLC record (Sloppy cataloging seems to be very widespread, in general). We're keeping stats on our findings and hope to write an article on the problems found. I think we're placing far too much trust in the apparent availability of film. ? In sum, we evaluate the combination of date, who created the film, are they a reputable commercial source or a library that follows RLG/NEH guidelines; for early film, did they have a preservation department that had knowledge of filming standards; does the cataloging look like they know what they're doing, etc. We maintain a private in-house list of places whose film we automatically do or don't accept. ? More often than not, when we find a record for an existing microfilm that meets our criteria, we just move on to another treatment, such as preservation photocopy or simply putting them in a box. It is relatively rare that we actually order film when we find a record. When we have ordered film, we have found that some sources are slow or unresponsive. If we are not able to obtain film, we will reconsider producing the film ourselves. ? This is definitely a matter that I think might benefit from further exploration. As you would expect, the [Name Removed] Preservation Department is committed to avoiding duplication of preservation effort as much as possible. We have an in house Brittle Book program which aims to follow standards and best practices as disseminated by the preservation community. Our Brittle Book coordinator keeps excellent statistics and I would like to share them with you at this time. From July 1st to October 31st 2000, 583 items (monographs and serials) were identified as brittle by staff at various [Name Removed] circulation desks. These volumes were routed to the Brittle Books program here in Preservation where they were laboriously processed by staff and students. 1,763 searches were conducted in various electronic databases (local, OCLC, RLIN, and Books in Print.) on these titles. Only 81 acceptable microfilm surrogate hits were recorded from these 1,763 searches. [As noted in survey above, [Name Removed] Preservation staff only considers a microfilm hit "acceptable" if the surrogate was produced on 35mm film after 1989, by a reputable vendor or institution.] Of the 81 acceptable hits, years of experience acquiring film tells us that only 40%, or 33 reels, will ever actually be acquired by [Name Removed]. The 48 orders placed by the [Name Removed] Acquisitions Unit for the other reels will be, for various reasons, unfillable. Given the many staff and student hours spent searching, the fees paid to OCLC and RLIN for online searches, the administrative time spent training new students to search every semester, and the computer and space demands for the hours of search time, we occasionally question the efficiency of the process. However, since we do not see any other way to avoid filming an item that has already been filmed to an acceptable level elsewhere, we continue. ? I think institutions that own originals/master negs of microfilm need to improve their service to other institutions. I think preservation departments have done well in organizing the best way to create microfilm, but now we need to be able to share that microfilm in an easy and straightforward way. Perhaps guidelines on how to make copies available should be more prevalent. ? We have, on occasion, requested a sample of the product. One case in particular was when we wanted to buy a $3000 set of microfiche. We requested a sample fiche from the set so we could make sure the $300 was worth it! ? When searching has been completed, worksheets for the titles found in microform are returned to the selectors. The selectors/division are responsible for acquiring/ordering the film. ? I am intrigued by question seven and look forward to ideas about this. ? We have tried searching other databases after OCLC and RLIN, such as European databases, but found it was not worthwhile because we virtually never found film. After sampling the legibility and completeness of service copies already in our collection, we re-filmed core ? journals in English that had been filmed by reputable micropublishers. Because of the great importance of the titles involved and our mandate to preserve all the biomedical and health sciences literature, we decided that although the number of problems was relatively small, the amount of text loss (due to missing pages or illegible text) was bad enough to warrant the expense of filming.
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