Loading/updating to Copac: how easy do you find it?
Written by bethan : with 2 comments
As we have been using the same processes and documentation to handle the loading and updating of libraries for a while, we decided that it was time to ask for some feedback to ensure that we were making the process as easy as possible for the libraries involved.
We asked 9 of the most recently loaded libraries to respond to a short online survey, asking them about their experience of the load and update process, how useful they found the documentation, and whether they had any suggestions for improvement. We did have to emphasise that we were concerned only with the Copac side of the process; unfortunately we can’t do anything about how easy (or otherwise) libraries find it to extract data from their library management systems, although we do recognise this as a valid concern.
The results were very encouraging! Respondents were asked to rate how easy they found the load und update processes, and the vast majority replied that they found them either ‘easy or ‘very easy’, with only one library anticipating that they would find the update process difficult. Documentation was also considered very good, with one library saying that they found it ‘clear and easy to follow’.
It wasn’t all sunshine and flowers, however, as some libraries did comment that they hadn’t realised how long it would take to get the records loaded onto Copac, or how much time it would take them to extract their data. We realise that we need to do a better job of managing expectations here: while we do try to add catalogues as quickly as possible, it can sometimes take time to complete the process, and perhaps we aren’t clear enough about that.
General comments had the Copac staff blushing, as we were told that ‘support has always been excellent’, and ‘we found the process of having our records loaded easy at our end, and thank Copac staff for their help’. One library said that they were ‘just surprised how simple and straightforward the whole procedure turned out to be.’
Responses were kept anonymous, so we can’t tell who exactly we have to thank for all of this wonderful feedback, but we are very grateful for it all 
If there are any libraries out there who would like to know more, or comment, please get in touch with us! We’d love to hear from existing members of the Copac community who would like to comment, or from libraries who would like to be a part of the community and would like to know more about the (very easy!) technical processes involved.
Really this is a very interesting blog. We are involved in a project to create a union catalog from a thousand libraries here in Spain, and we are very interested in “What’s happening behind the scenes” at a project so model as COPAC. So I wanted to ask if you think that OAI-PMH could be a solution to harvest records from library catalogs OAI-compliant as data provider.
We would also be very grateful if you could provide any information about hardware,software and operational requeriments in COPAC, maybe public reports o something like that.
Domingo
2 Mar 09 at 5:43 pm
A thousand libraries is a frightening number of libraries to combine. I think harvesting through a mechanism such as OAI-PMH would be the only sensible way of collecting all the data. You would want the OAI-PMH servers to support the reporting of deleted records, so you don’t have to re-harvest the whole data set to work out the deletions — though most servers seem find retaining delete information difficult.
If you’re going to de-duplicate a union database of 1000 libraries, then you really need an efficient algorithm. It is the de-duplication that really slows us down in getting the records in the database. We’re hoping a move to a relational database and a change in the way we add holdings statements to bibliographic records will help us get records in more efficiently. The problem with updates is that you often don’t know which piece of information in the record has changed and so you have to update the bibliographic record and the holdings. We’re hoping to move to a system where we can updat the holdings immediately and put the update of the bibliographic record in a queue to be updated at our leisure later on when the system is less busy.
Ashley
4 Mar 09 at 1:36 pm