We are happy to talk with you today about our project. It is my pleasure to be the coordinator of this project and to work with all five of the colleges in the consortium. I would like to thank Mary Prophet for all her work on the PowerPoint slides and Margie Powell for her editing and writing assistance.

All of us have horror stories of research that did not get done or of hours spent by some unsuspecting reference librarian or patron trying to find an elusive old document. I'll never forget the student who wrote his senior thesis on Senator Joseph McCarthy using secondary sources only to learn later that the library had all the original hearings - but they were not in the on-line catalog. I know some of the responsibility lies with the researcher, but we need and want to do all we can to make these sources accessible. There are way too many of these hidden treasures.

We are excited about and proud of the Historical Cataloging Project of the Five Colleges of Ohio and want to give the brightest possible picture of it, but I am compelled as well to be honest. I will try to include some of our real life stories, not to discourage you but to let you see that this IS a do-able project and we hope you will want to try it too. We have planned for time to take questions and for discussion at the end.

With the advent of the on-line catalog in the 1970's, the documents community began to dream. Over the years there have been many discussions and much interest in providing access to older documents. In fact the Depository Library Council and GPO have initiated and encouraged discussions. Some current members of the Five Colleges Documents Committee were part of these early talks.

In 1984, Margaret Powell and Barbara Bell, Documents Librarians at the College of Wooster, went to Library Director Michael Freeman proposing to catalog documents. "Prove to me it can be done," he said. So we did. Margie Powell, Deborah Smith Johnston, a student employee, and I studied the availability and quality of OCLC records for documents and published the results of that study in 1985.

Based on our positive results and with the support of Mike Freeman and the Technical Services department, the documents staff began a two-pronged cataloging project on July 15, 1986. Since that time, all current U.S. Government Documents acquisitions have been cataloged using OCLC.

Also beginning that day, a piece by piece retrospective cataloging of the historical documents collection at Wooster began. The first pass through the collection took ten years and the vast majority of the documents collection was cataloged. As part of the consortium's current project, Wooster is working through the titles they were unable to complete in that first pass through.

In the fall of 1995, The Five Colleges of Ohio Consortium was formed with funding support from the Mellon Foundation. These schools, all undergraduate liberal arts colleges, are Denison University, Kenyon College, Oberlin College, Ohio Wesleyan University and The College of Wooster.

Although the consortium involves more than the libraries, the initial focus was on library cooperation. In 1996 four of the five colleges merged their online catalogs into the single CONSORT system based at Denison University, and that joint catalog became part of OhioLINK's central catalog. OhioLINK is a major consortium of all the public universities and many private colleges in Ohio. CONSORT, Oberlin and OhioLINK are all Innovative Interfaces Inc. systems.

The consortium and the joint catalog provided the opportunity for cooperative cataloging of the four documents collections. The documents staffs of the colleges were already well acquainted, had shared in many projects and ideas in the past and were among the original dreamers of documents cataloging. Beginning in January 1997, they began dividing current cataloging responsibilities and assignments by item number. In an article in the Ohio GODORT newsletter, Mary Prophet, then acting director of Denison, discusses this process.

With the cooperative cataloging of current acquisitions well underway, in January 1998 the documents committee proposed a project to catalog their historical collections. In a relatively small geographic area there is a wealth of information available that is not easily accessible. Ohio Wesleyan became a depository in 1845 and is the oldest depository in the state. Kenyon is second in the state - designated in 1873; followed by Denison in 1884 and Oberlin in 1885. And, adding to this wealth of materials we had the Wooster project to build on. We were ready to take the next step.

From the start our single goal was to provide bibliographic access to these valuable materials. All five of the libraries are charter members of OCLC and as a group we are very committed to the growth and integrity of the OCLC database for worldwide access to bibliographic information.

Funding had been included in the original Mellon grant for databases and services which became available as part of our OhioLINK membership. Therefore, these funds could be used by the libraries for other purposes. You know documents folks aren't likely to pass up a good opportunity. So, the Documents Committee worked with the five Library Directors to redirect these monies. The Mellon funds have covered the OCLC and coordinator costs since July 1998. In addition to Mellon funds, the individual libraries cover the costs for student workers, staff at each college, computer equipment, space and supplies. So, with a great idea and some money in hand, the committee was ready to go!

Happily, this coincided with my return to Ohio. My experience at Wooster gave me a good background for the project, and I feel fortunate to have been hired as Project Coordinator. It was fun for me to be part of the original Wooster plan and now to build on that project with the Five Colleges, helping to move historical documents cataloging to the next level.

The colleges have each designated staff to work with the coordinator and the students. In each case, they work with other aspects of documents and have added this cataloging to their responsibilities. They typically spend from one tenth to one third of their time on the project. The documents personnel at each college are the mainstays of the project. They are the hands-on people who deal with the everyday work and questions.

In addition to the continuing staff, each of the colleges has committed student workers to the project. Student time and responsibilities vary at each library. If you have had the opportunity to work with students you understand when I say that they are the joy and the headache of a project. However, when you find the rare one who truly gets excited about the documents and handles them with the care and interest we have all developed, it is a rewarding day.

The project funds were to be spent within three years. We have been downright miserly with the money and will be able to fund the full three years with additional help and support from the libraries. We are looking for other ways to continue after these original funds are depleted. Regardless of outside funding, we plan to continue the documents cataloging and estimate it will take from 4 to 8 more years.

I remember when we began retrocon at The College of Wooster, many commented on our estimate that it would take at least ten years. We were right; it did take that and more, but now looking back we are so glad that we did it. So now with money and staff, we began to implement the plan.

Because of Wooster's original project, there were over 100,000 document records in the CONSORT joint catalog upon which to build this project. We also had encouraging, helpful and supportive Technical Services staffs. Each of the Five Colleges was already cataloging with OCLC. Using OCLC for historical documents copy cataloging was a natural next step.

Since many of the historical documents do not have records available on OCLC, we explored options for original cataloging. We contacted other libraries to solicit references for TechPro and possible other ideas. We looked at interns from Kent State University Library School. We interviewed several individuals who were interested in piecework contracts. We talked with a private firm that does a variety of library technical services projects.

While each of these options had merit, they each had drawbacks. Where would we set someone up to work and which school would be responsible for providing space and equipment, or would they travel so we would have to have five work stations and travel money? Who would supervise and review their work? How would we do billing and payment? What about quality control and OCLC access? A financial analysis showed us that most of these options would cost about as much, if not more than TechPro.

We decided OCLC TechPro was the best choice. We contracted with TechPro including unique information and specifications for each of the five schools and we have been very pleased with the decision. If you have questions about this part of our project, we would be happy to talk with you later.

We are very concerned about and interested in preserving, protecting and repairing our fragile treasures. Unfortunately we are not trained preservationists and do not have the facilities or the resources for large-scale preservation. We are operating under a strict "do no further damage" plan. All of our staff and students are trained in the gentle handling of the documents.

We have purchased acid-free envelopes to store documents in need. We have moved some documents to special collections. We have made phase boxes and preservation folders, a variation of which we call "Cynthia folders" named for one of our colleagues who is making them. We are doing some photocopying of fragile items. We plan to microfilm the publications of the Children's Bureau and we will combine our collections to create a complete set.

We are looking forward to spending more time and energy on preservation as the project progresses and we are working with the preservation specialist at Wooster, planning a workshop on strategies and techniques.

In any major project, there are problems and we have gone down our share of dead ends and made our share of wrong turns. While it has not always been a smooth ride, I can honestly say that we have been able to negotiate most of the problems. Some of the issues are as simple as, "I thought I was supposed to be cataloging the Office of the President, it looks like someone else is doing it." I check my records to see who is assigned, tell someone to wait, tell someone to proceed, problem solved.

Some of the problems are harder: such as questions of record quality, or serials check-in standards. We have made great progress with many questions, but in some cases we acknowledge that we are indeed five different institutions and we compromise. This group has a history of working together successfully on a variety of projects and we build on that relationship.

To direct and support the project, we have defined many parameters and have written and collected policy statements, procedures, instructions and samples. For example, we have criteria for brief records, collection consolidation and sharing, record enrichment, TechPro preparation, record evaluation, and notes fields and statements.

We have pulled this material together from OCLC Tech Memos, the Wooster Cataloging Manual, OhioLINK standards, and assorted job descriptions, but mainly from the discussions, desires and ideas of the Five Colleges documents group. These working papers, changed and updated as needed, have been invaluable in helping us think through what we want to do and how to do it consistently.

We spent considerable time and energy on these beginning steps. Deciding on the scope of the project took much thought and discussion. Do you do everything in the collection? Do only pre-1976 (when GPO began cataloging on OCLC), which would leave sections of material between ‘76 and the currently cataloged materials un-cataloged? What about different formats? Do you work in priority classes only? You can see the issues. We have set guidelines for what the project will cover, when to bend them a bit, and who will pay for what. This was and continues to be a difficult issue. It comes down to the need to balance our desire to catalog everything with the reality that we have limited funds and staff. I think this is the balance you all look at every day. This is one of the places I mentioned earlier, we compromise.

We did decide to focus on pre-76 publications, because the project was originally presented to catalog historical materials and because we believed the post-76 documents would be easier for each college to tackle on their own. Many post-76 docs ARE being cataloged as we work through the shelves, but are not counted as part of the project.

Setting standards for what statistics to keep and how to track them was also a big job. We knew we needed simple bibliographic and item record counts. But which bibs and items? All of them, ones for only pre-'76, item records attached to existing records in the system? We have gone back and forth on this, too. What we HAVE done is find places in the records to insert codes so we can run lists of the records we create. These codes took some doing. We had to find unique codes and unique places to put them. They needed to be searchable fields for list making. They needed to be easy enough to do that they would get done. Some we have been able to pre-program so they appear automatically. Some statistics can be taken from the OCLC bills, TechPro records and record enrichment. Another challenge, but one that was do-able.

Each of the colleges created a prioritized list of classes to catalog. The five lists were combined to create a consortium-wide priority list for cataloging. This assures that if we are not able to do all of the documents, admittedly our dream and goal, those we have identified as highest priority will get done. A sample from that follows. I am pleased to say that we have already worked through many of those highest priority classes.

For example, the War Relocation Authority is classed in both the I 52's and the PR 32's. Denison, Kenyon, Ohio Wesleyan and Wooster all listed it as a high priority. The Indian Affairs Bureau was a high priority for Oberlin.

At Ohio Wesleyan the entire collection of US Geological Survey materials, a highly used part of their collection, has now been cataloged. Denison's outstanding collection of Depression Era documents and World War II materials are now in the system. The Peace Corps materials are completed at Oberlin which is particularly appropriate since they have had 413 alums in the Peace Corps, the fifth highest number among small colleges. Kenyon has completed the PR’s through the W’s, a wonderful body of documents. These are just a few examples. The next two screens give you an example of how we track these assignments.

In order to share the workload and to catalog as many unique titles as possible, we have developed a rotation system. For each individual class, we select the college which has both strong holdings in that class and a high priority for cataloging it. They become the first library to catalog the materials from that agency. When they are finished, a second college is assigned to the class. Of course for the second school the rate of matches in CONSORT is much higher as they have the first college's records to build on. Then the third college searches, etc. Documents without records on OCLC are set aside for TechPro cataloging. This cataloging rotation is working very well, and has given us a better idea of how much unique material is in the combined collections.