RUSA RSS Catalog Use Committee
Report to RSS Executive Committee
Annual 2006 New Orleans
Program Held
Catalog Use spent our first meeting making final plans and preparations for
our program to be held on Sunday.
On Sunday, June 25, from 4-5:30pm, we held our program, “Catalog Transformed:
From Traditional to Emerging Models of Use”. The program was co-sponsored
by the RUSA/MARS User Access to Services Committee. We had five speakers: Andrew
Pace, Cindy Levine, John Blyberg, Jina Wakimoto, and Jill Newby. Speakers discussed
the future of the catalog, developments such as Endeca, the vendor/library relationship,
the value of local holdings/local “hidden treasures” in the catalog,
and federated searching. A 20-minute Q&A session followed the speakers’
presentations.
The program drew approximately 400 attendees. Evaluations received suggest
that most attendees were not RUSA, RSS, or MARS members. We believe many may
have been ALCTS or LITA.
Post-Program Follow Up
During our second meeting, we reviewed the approximately 60 evaluations we had
received from attendees. Evaluations were generally positive. Attendees felt
this was a very relevant topic, as most were dissatisfied with their library’s
catalog and interested in developments and improvements.
The committee discussed following up the program with a weblog or wiki on the
future of the catalog, as this seems to be an issue that people would like to
continue to follow. This would provide a space for people to interact and share
resources. It would also act as a central resource for anyone researching “next
generation” catalogs and the future of catalogs. We will also need a website
for materials from the program, such as speakers’ presentations and the
bibliography (which was well-received).
Committee members voiced some concern about maintaining weblog/wiki and whether
there were any ALA or RUSA guidelines that need to be followed when developing
one. We decided to find out more about what our options and guidelines are,
and then contact our co-sponsoring committee, RUSA/MARS User Access to Services,
for possible collaboration on weblog or wiki.
The committee discussed what we felt we could do differently to improve future
programs we may hold. We agreed we might want to consider fewer speakers. The
best part of the program was the interaction between the speakers, so we felt
that having fewer speakers and also giving more time for panel member interaction,
such as through set questions and audience Q & A, might improve future programs.
There were also many complaints from attendees about the screen being too small.
In the future, we may want to suggest that speakers bring enlarged images of
screen shots just in case the screen is not large enough to be seen from the
back.
What’s Next
The committee will be working on possibly developing a weblog or wiki in collaboration
with the RUSA/MARS User Access to Services Committee. Committee members will
also be surveying the literature and following programs at conferences such
as the LITA National Forum to see what’s on the horizon. We would like
to have a program at Annual 2008, and hope to spend now through Midwinter 2007
gathering ideas and developing a program proposal.
Membership
Anne C. Moore is completing her term as Chair of the committee and will be rotating
off. We thanked her for all her work and wonderful leadership. We also thanked
departing members Laura Zupko and Ann Jerabek for their hard work on the committee.
Liane Luckman will take over as sole Chair after Annual 2006 through Annual
2007. Bao-Chu Chang begins her term as Chair Elect after Annual 2006, and will
begin her term as Chair after Annual 2007.
Five attendees of the program voiced interest in joining our committee. Liane
will be contacting them and asking them to fill out a volunteer form. In order
to keep a healthy size committee, we could use 3-4 new members.
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