MPOW decided to reclass the main libraries documentary films. In the past Feature films received an accession number while documentaries were cataloged using LC. The decision has been made now to convert all of the titles in LC to be integrated into the list of feature films. I can see how this would be desirable for staff access etc… but I can also see how the patron is losing a certain amount of access to categories. I just finished writing the macro that converts a report in Aleph to a list of titles with all the needed information (System#, Holdings #, barcode, Title, Call#, Item description). I then created a macro that assigns an accession number to the items in the list. The trickiest part was skipping titles in a series (pt.1-5 etc…) That wasn’t too hard though I just wrote some code that compared the call#’s and only increased the number assigned if there was not a match. This worked out well and I have the lists ready to go to Copycat where the labels will be made and then to Access services for labeling.
I will next write a macro that works in the catalog to alter the call# in the holdings to reflect the assigned accession number. The old (LC) call # will be placed in a non-public z subfield in the 852, because it is assumed (by catalogers) that next year they will want to reclass the videos again.
