Salutations!

This week's 'Minder:  Dr Patterson: or, How I learned to Enter ON-ORDER Short Records and Not Drive Melissa to Drink.

Several libraries have started adding short records for things they have ordered (outside WCTS) so that patrons can place holds. This is fine. This is good. However, adding ON-ORDER Short Records for authors on the Favorite Author Club (FAC) is slightly different.  At least for prolific FAC authors, it is vital to Melissa’s sanity that you give those Short Records a bit of added attention. The ramifications of not doing so is that the FAC will match a patron with the wrong format or title. Read more...

Since authors like Patterson write so many titles in so many formats, genres, milieues, and the FAC is meant for mostly Adult Fiction titles, it is important to be able to identify the materials as clearly as possible. Title, Author, and Publisher aren't always enough to determine whether the title is meant for Children, is LargePrint, or is Fiction or Non-Ficition.  I mean, Melissa is good, but she's not clairvoyant!

• Indicate Large Print in the 250 field, and any other edition info that helps Melissa/OPL Tech identify the correct OCLC record
• Fill in Item Cats correctly. Especially 1 & 2. For FAC, Melissa needs to know CD-BOOK? LARGEPRINT? Or BOOK?   Adult or Juvenile?
• Authorized Author’s name --- If at all possible, copy the Author’s info in the 100 field from a Full record already in the database. So, for example:
  •   is better than just Patterson, James.  Melissa's reports try to match the exact Author Name. So, 
    • Patterson, James
    • Patterson James,
    • Patterson, James.
    • Patterson, James,
  • Are all different authors as far as the report is concerned. 
  • The closer you get to the standardized author name, the sooner Melissa can spot and add the item, and the sooner your patron gets on the hold queue for it.

Speaking of....ummm...Typing of....errrrr....While on the subject of FAC....Put on your thinking caps and let Melissa know if you have any brainstorms about what criteria to use to weed some of the authors listed on the FAC. 

Teams Tip:  Shift + Enter will add a new line w/o sending your text. 
In Excel:  Alt+Enter will add a new line w/o leaving a cell.