Effective communication protocols
General guidelines
Remember who your audience is.
When sending to cats or cat-l, put the affected libraries' codes in the subject line when the intended audience is fewer than 15 libraries.
When forwarding or replying to a message, trim down the original post or quote appropriate passages.
Follow standard listserv etiquette, such as the OLAC-L Netiquette.
Whom to contact when
- CCS general membership
- Use the shelp mailing list, shelp-l@ccs.nsls.lib.il.us
- Catalogers for general announcements
- Use the cats alias, cats@ccs.nsls.lib.il.us
- This is an alias (forward group), which means that replies go only to the sender, not everyone subscribed to the list, unless you choose to reply to all.
- Catalogers when discussion is needed
- Use the cats-l list, cats-l@ccs.nsls.lib.il.us
- This is a listserv, which means that replies go to the list, which means everyone subscribed to the list.
- Specific technical services issues
- Use the xxxtech aliases, formed by using the old NSLS codes, such as alktech@ccs.nsls.lib.il.us
- SCRAP committee
- Use the scrap alias, scrap@ccs.nsls.lib.il.us
- This is an alias (forward group), which means that replies go only to the sender, not everyone subscribed to the list, unless you choose to reply to all.
- For a specific person
- Use that person's individual email address. (List not maintained on the wiki.)
Forward vs reply vs reply all
- Forward requires you to specify your recipient.
- Reply automatically replies to the original sender or the entire list (see above).
- Reply all replies to the sender and all of the recipients, including CC: and BCC: recipients.
Checking items
When an existing record must be split up, especially when ISBNs need to be removed from an existing bibliographic record, or when there is some question as to whether the libraries all own the same thing, send an e-mail to Cats-L describing the situation and begin the subject with VERIFY:, so that those libraries can check their holdings and decide to which record their copies should be attached.
As with other Cats-L correspondence, when fewer than 15 libraries are attached to the affected record(s), also include the libraries' three-letter codes in the subject line.
When 5 or fewer libraries are attached to the affected record(s), consider sending the e-mail only to those libraries, using the xxxtech@ccs.nsls.lib.il.us e-mail aliases.