There is an analogy made way back in the library literature comparing the automating of small libraries to hiring a 747 jet airplane to deliver a bon bon to the other side of a small town. It was with that picture in my mind that I resisted automation for many years neglecting the changes in tech-nology that were making the analogy obsolete.

So it was that in 1992 the library at Green Mountain College was awarded, after a previous unsuccessful application, a federal grant for the specific purpose of joining OCLC, cataloging its new material on OCLC and converting the records of its current collection to machine readable for-mat so that an online public access catalog (OPAC) could be created by 1997. Since 1981 techno-logy, specifically automation for access to collections, has invaded libraries in the United States. However, for the most part, very small colleges have been left behind. There are two reasons for this -- lack of money and lack of knowledgeable staff. Many of these colleges have closed their doors in the past ten years. Those which remain struggle on very limited funds and staff are libraries with four, five or even fewer employees to carry on all functions of a full service library. Green Mountain College, one of the survivors is no exception. With fewer than 600 students, an annual library budget ranging from $18,000 to $75,000, no computer staff in the college to whom to turn for advice and assistance, automation was very low on the priority list.

Nevertheless, there were many factors in our local and regional environment which fairly screamed at the professional librarian "You're neglecting your primary responsibility if you don't do something to get this library on the path to automation." Let us look at some of these:

• The State of Vermont had initiated its statewide Automated Library System (known as VALS) in 1987 and was making rapid progress in upgrading, improving, and expanding the system daily. Any library could access the system once it had its own computer, modem and communica-tions software, but unless one's collection was online, a library could contribute little. The desire to be a contributor not simply a taker was a significant motivator to finding a way to begin automation.

• Colleges all around us were well along in their automation projects. The state-run university and colleges, the larger private colleges in Vermont and most other states had begun plans for an automated catalog of some kind and were cataloging new materials using one of the national utilities.

• Students were coming to us from secondary schools which had automated catalogs, LANS, sophisticated document delivery systems. We had a sadly out of date, inadequately maintained card catalog and three CD-ROM databases. That did not seem like the appropriate way to educate young people to go out into an increasingly computerized world.

• Methods of teaching had been changing over the years. Whereas in the past, subjects studied and information sought in college libraries were usually confined to very narrow definitions of the curriculum, today's students work at every level of expertise -- novice, intermediate, advan-ced and very broad concepts of what the curriculum encompasses. Professors encourage students to work on topics of their choice resulting in more information being sought in obscure and specific topics. This approach requires resources in many more subject areas and covers much broader time periods than are actually in the colleges curriculum making it more difficult to provide resources on site for every student "on demand."

This writer's thoughts, in 1991, were that "we" must find some way to connect to the new technologies. Studying the material our federal government provided through the Department of Education, I realized that automating our catalog, and contributing to VALS and OCLC, fit right into the government's efforts to provide funds for "institutions of higher education which demonstrate a need for special assistance for the planning, development acquisition, maintenance or upgrading of technological equipment necessary to organize, access or utilize material in electronic formats and to participate in networks for the accessing and sharing of library and information resources" (U.S. Department of Education, 1991). I began the process of planning to write a grant proposal.

2. PLANNING AND PROPOSING

The first hurdle to tackle was to determine just what the Department of Education was funding and what kind of a project was both appropriate for our library and of interest to the people who would judge our proposal. Phone calls to the office named on the application form provided many ideas, the most useful among them being the provision of copies of the grant applications from institutions which had been awarded grants in previous years. This reading material was an invalua-ble resource. I learned that while there were many quite sophisticated projects funded, 20-30% of the awards went to college libraries for projects as mundane as memberships, cataloging and retros-pective conversion. These were by no means creative, groundbreaking or new but for many reasons, usually related to budget, were difficult or impossible for a "micro college", as we are sometimes called, to begin by oneself. Discussions with staff in the VALS project, OCLC and several of the OCLC network affiliates helped the librarians at Green Mountain College evolve a plan which appeared to be feasible to submit for funding and to carry out over a two-three year period in the library.

The proposal was written by the College Librarian. The federal guidelines provided in the application form set forth a complete outline as to the way the information must be presented. The real challenge came in having two librarians who actually knew very little about automation, plan an entire project on paper and prepare a budget for it. Over the six week period it took to write the proposal, hundreds of questions came up which required phone calls to colleagues, organizations, government offices. Accumulating the information, adapting it to our own situation and envisioning the end result in the day-to-day work of the library was a huge challenge. Finally, however, the complete proposal and all the required signature sheets were mailed to the Washington, D.C. Office of Education. Then the librarians went back to their jobs knowing that it would be at least seven months before they would know anything about the fate of this proposal. If the proposal was not successful, a second application would be made.

In September 1991, the library was informed that it had not been funded. However the staff at the Department of Education sent the comments of the grant readers and the proposals of the winners to the librarians; using this new information the same proposal was rewritten and resubmitted in January, 1992. Although it was the same length, the specific criticisms of the readers were address-ed and the proposal was rewritten so that the plan for the retrospective conversion project was more clearly delineated. Also, a short section on the history of the college and its need for outside support to fund automation was rewritten and streamlined.

In mid July 1992 on a sleepy Friday afternoon the librarian received a phone call from the Office of Education notifying her of the department's intent to fund the proposal. The surprise, the realization, or possibly lack of realization, of what lay ahead caused an immediate shock reaction among the staff. Planning was begun within days so that when the start date of October 1 arrived, the staff might believe they were ready to tackle this giant.

3. IMPLEMENTATION

The project called for Griswold Library to join OCLC, to begin cataloging using OCLC, parti-cipate in OCLC interlibrary loan and convert its catalog to machine readable format using one of the OCLC options for what is referred to in shortened form as "recon." The first priority was to join OCLC. For most institutions there is one affiliate network to join to connect to OCLC. However, because of our location straddling the New York State border, but in a New England state, we were evaluating the pros and cons and the cost of two networks---New England Library Information Network (NELINET) based in the Boston area and the State University of New York (SUNY) OCLC network located much closer to us. It was quickly learned that a major cost restructuring at OCLC had rendered the original proposed budgets obsolete; new budgets for each affiliate had to be prepared, compared and evaluated.

In this process it was soon learned that the original concept of entering bibliographic records online could no longer be accommodated with the amount of money requested and provided in the grant. The cost of using the OCLC database had simply increased too much to allow this. We were immediately faced with the decision to choose another option to accomplish recon. This involved endless budget reworkings and communications with Washington to get approval for the change. From the beginning we were behind schedule, but within six weeks the decision was made to join OCLC via NELINET. The paperwork was completed, equipment was ordered, a personnel search was initiated to hire a recon project coordinator. Planned but nevertheless disruptive, a maternity leave for the Technical Services Librarian and the Holidays intervened and the newly hired coor-dinator became critically ill just before he was to begin work. However, in early February, 1993 staff training was begun.

While one can conceive the most specific set of plans and try to anticipate every contingency, inevitably events conspire to slow the process. With each of the key players lacking experience in the entire online and automation environment this project was no exception. It is my conviction that we have broached each difficulty with aplomb and careful evaluation of the problem. However the results of our decisions are still to be determined as new circumstances present themselves each month for adjustment.

Problems encountered thus far can be divided into four distinct categories:

1) Determining the most appropriate and efficient method for accomplishing retrospective conversion of our holdings;

2) Quality of the database being created;

3) The process of hiring and training project staff; and

4) Effects of the project on library staff and operations.

Let us look at each of these in more detail:

• Firstly, the original grant budget provided for online entry of records to the OCLC data base. The new pricing structure made that impossible to accomplish within the same budget. Whatever else happened the amount of funds coming to the college for this project would not exceed $86,000 for the three year period. Seeking advice from the two different OCLC affiliates we were presented with different solutions and sought additional guidance from other librarians who had survived or were in the midst of recon projects. We decided to go with the newest option the Cat CD450 using CD-ROM discs to search records, save our final choices and batch those saved records to send online to OCLC. Making this decision, we had made two assumptions, which we now know to be inaccurate. They were as follows:

- Because our shelf list was full of preMarc handwritten records, we assumed it was too inaccurate to send to OCLC for their staff to do the conversion. Many libraries are sending shelf lists out regardless of this handicap and dealing with the inaccuracies later. If we could not convert online, Cat CD450 seemed like the next best thing. It is possible that is true but it is now obvious that if the project continues using only this method for retrospective conversion, it will not be completed in the time and with the funds allocated.

- Using information from both affiliates, it was assumed that searching could be accomplished at 24 titles per hour. That is almost double what we have been able to achieve and would be the same whether we are online or on CD-ROM.

• Secondly, the quality of the data base -- the end result -- was neglected entirely and turns out to be an issue that requires much discussion, consideration and evaluation. A top quality data base would require attention to every detail -- addition of series titles which are not presently entered, subject headings which have not been used, addition or elimination of added entries and many other issues which some of us have never considered before.

• Thirdly, hiring is a difficult, time consuming and expensive process which cannot be hurried in our rural environment. Having made the Coordinator's position part time, I had neglected to consi-der how difficult it could be to attract qualified applicants. Our location, far from any major popula-tion center, added to the difficulties. When a qualified coordinator was hired, problems immediately became apparent in having hired on an hourly basis for a professional position. Chang-ing the initial plan of input and familiarizing the new employee with the new work environment took more time than anticipated. The plan presented in the grant proposal did not consider any of these factors. The proposal also provided for the hiring of a summer position and several students for the school year. A change in hiring practices of the College added days of work to the coordinator's job just to hire these people. This could not be predicted and reduced the time the coordinator could devote to primary issues involving recon. The way clerical staff were planned in the proposal assumed that training is instantaneous; that is not the case and adds further to the timetable problem. The best way to avoid some of these pitfalls would be to review a written proposal with another person who has carried out such a project. However, it must be assumed that there will always be some new barrier to prevent a written schedule from going according to plan.

• The fourth consideration is the extent to which current library operations and the work load of individual staff members change as the project is implemented. All possibilities cannot be enter-tained in advance but the Project Director must assume that such a broad based project brought into a small library with 4-6 full time staff members will affect everyone unless the project funds are suffi-cient to hire totally new and additional staff. That was impossible at Green Mountain; at least two staff member must devote 20-50% of their time to the Project. Their other work must be assumed by other staff or not done at all. The complete revising of cataloging procedures does not happen overnight but involves, once again a training period, which slows all processes down. Every aspect of the library's work and every staff member's schedule is affected. This was not considered care-fully enough in the preliminary planning and has required a juggling of priorities and diplomacy in rearranging jobs.

This was the phase-in period -- Feb-August, 1993. We now consider that we are beginning to operate close to what might be considered maximum load. But production at the current rates will not complete 50% of the project by the time the grant period ends. To further complicate matters, the Technical Services Librarian overseeing the day-to-day work of the entire proposal -- cataloging and interlibrary loan as well as recon---has resigned and after a month's vacancy has been replaced by a new librarian who must undergo OCLC training and familiarize herself with the new environ-ment and work methods. The student staff must be hired and trained. What does the immediate and longer range future hold for this project?

4. THE FUTURE

When this paper is discussed at NIT '93, we will have a better idea as to average monthly productivity. However, it is a given that even if we reach 1000 items per month (at 750 in August 1993) we will be a far cry from the 1500 per month projected in the proposal. In addition the figure used for collection size was unrealistically low at 42,000. While this is what we said we would accomplish, the size of the collection we should add is closer to 54,00O. Therefore in late 1993 the project staff will reevaluate OCLC's other recon options to determine if Retrocon, Microcon or another method might be considered for some part of the collection.

Also, for the third time, a detailed cost analysis of both OCLC affiliates, NELINET and SUNY will be performed and other benefits of membership evaluated to determine if we should change our affiliation. The overhead costs charged by each are different and were not clearly understood at the time of our initial membership. Lowest possible cost is crucial. Training is an essential part of OCLC participation and in our case travel to training sites is four hours each way. That necessitates an overnight stay which would change if our membership were changed to the New York State site, much closer to us but not a part of New England and thus outside of NELINET's region.

Current cataloging practices will continue to be evaluated and refined. At this time the initial searching is done online for new items bypassing the CD450. That must be changed to reduce costs and requires another analysis of work flow by the new Technical Services Librarian and training of the technical services assistant. However it took only a few weeks to realize how much faster items can be cataloged and entered into the card catalog. Under the old system, books went to the public shelves within two weeks of arrival but cards, ordered from Library of Congress and individually prepared by a typist, took six months or more to get into the catalog. Thus access was severely limited. With careful and consistent attention to work flow, books should be fully cataloged and available within three weeks using OCLC under normal conditions.

Interlibrary loan has also been considerably improved since whatever we cannot fill in the VALS system, we can now accomplish electronically with OCLC. Items arrive within two weeks in most cases. We anticipate that we will begin to move closer to closing the gap of being net borrow-ers. Even with only approximately 2500 items in World Catalog we have received OCLC requests for books. We anticipate increasing both borrowing and lending.

5. CONCLUSION:

The major conclusion which can be made from Griswold Library's experience thus far is that the benefits we enjoy by being a part of the country's best known national bibliographic utility are considerable, but the utility is a monolith and learning how to work it is, at times, confusing, frus-trating and difficult. That learning depends 100% on easy access to a free phone line direct to experts who will spend the time needed to guide one through problems. Fax machines would also be useful and might be more accessible in some countries. However, unless the new user has a staff member with extensive computer hardware and software experience, and intensive OCLC experien-ce or that easily accessible and inexpensive phone or fax line, a project like this one could very quickly become so bogged down by unanswered questions that it would soon wither.

The frustrations of dealing with such a large complicated organization are formidable and require patience and ease of access as well as funds. The rewards are enormous and Griswold Library and its staff have just begun to experience them. Access to bibliographic records for cata-loging, catalog cards ready to file, the ability to find locations for materials not own locally and receipt of those materials quickly, provide new meaning to customer service. In libraries such as ours where collections are small and there are few or no other libraries nearby to visit or call on, automation and connection with regional and national networks are a godsend. Technology challenges librarians in ways many of us never considered. The results are worth the struggles, but the struggles can and do challenge workers beyond our wildest imaginations. Technology is changing our world and providing libraries and its users with a surfeit of material and options in access to materials. At the same time it demands more of every one of us physically, mentally and emotionally. How those of us in small and remote locations cope with these demands will determine how well we will succeed.
 
 

REFERENCE

US Department of Education. FY 1992 Application for Grants Under the College Library and Cooperation Grants Program. Information Sheet B-1. Washington, DC: United States Department of Education, 1992. Ed Form G50-51P. p.B-1.