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A week or two ago I posted a question about the Marc records of
Winnibago.  In particular, I'm interested in their accuracy and
consistency.  The following are the replies I got.  If you
would care to add to the information, that would be great.  I'm
particularly interested in hearing from people who also have
the automated catalog, since that's where the inconsistencies
can cause problems.  I'm also looking for full records, not
just what I have on my shelf list card.  I want people to be
able to do key word searches to find things, and if notes and
subject headings are missing, the records won't be very useful.
--
Kathy Lafferty
klaffert@pen.k12.va.us
Patrick Henry Elementary School
Alexandria, VA



Hi - We had winnie doe our retro about 3 years ago.  We sent
about 10,000

records and received 8500 hits (we had specified hits only).
In any

retro you have to accept the fact that the company matches your
title to

their database, but that database has records that have been
created over

a long period of time with no particular uniform high standard
for all.

Winnie does not massage the records to be complete - if they
did that,

the cost would be much higher.  Also, they will for an added
fee, create

new records from your shelflists, but even there the quality
will be

based on the quality of your shelflist info.  With that in
mind, we were

generally pleased with what we got.  As we come across things
that we

feel need editing, we have done so, but the records were quite
usable.



What did we do with the 1500 we did not get?  We matched them
against

Brodart's Precision One (also of varying quality) and got about
an 80%

hit rate.



No product will be perfect.  I do recommend that all who will
be working

with any automated program learn the basics of MARC records,
because they

will have to be able to edit and add no matter who does the
conversion.




I have heard from a friend of mine that Winnebago will not
confirm in

writing that they use full MARC records.




>retrospective conversion.



Cavaet Emptor:  I am both a librarian and (by night) doing

retro conversion and selling library automation software

(see http://www.link.ca/~lex/).



I will not talk of my biases, however.  I would advise you

to sample the retro conversion capabilities of different

firms, and get prices at the same time.  There is a wide

difference in quality (I used to work for an OCLC affiliate,

and know this to be the case).



Choose 50-100 records at random (every 2" in shelflist, etc.),

selecting some of each type of media.  If the card has one

word on it, send it in anyway.  Ask them to send you the

"hits" they get, and send you "TYPICAL SAMPLES OF THEIR

CATLOGING OF NOHITS").  Consider the results of this sampling

process as well as the price.  When you accept a bid, make

a proviso:  tell them you will sample the records in each batch

and want the priviledge of sending the whole batch back if

the results aren't on a par with the sample work.







Hi Kathryn - This is my first time responding to a message on
LM_Net but

I felt compelled to do so, as we had Winnebago do our
retrospective conv.

and were very pleased - had almost no problems to speak of.
They are

very good to deal with customer-service-wise, as you may
already know.









Most of the libraries in our county have used Winnebago and

have found them to be very reliable. I have found Winnebago

much better than some of the records I have received with new

materials. I have used Winnebago for some retrospective, and

for some cataloging of new materials.







I strongly recommend that you contact RLA (Retrolink
Associates), a part of

Ameritech Library Services. They can be contacted at (800)
765-6508. They

do the best work I'm aware of anywhere. Recon isn't something
you want to

have to do over again or have to go back and repair later.
Recon is an area

where I wouldn't cut any corners. If you do, the low quality
will haunt you

for years. Do it right the first time. You'll be glad you did.


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