From the Editor

Alice Platt, ANO Editor

Opportunities Abound

In our current society, there is endless debate about where progress and change come from. Which has the greater potential to change history: policy-making from our organizational leaders, or the individual who quietly takes on a new task or initiative? Fortunately, we can have both, and it is to both we thank for humanity’s progress.

I see this in our libraries. Many are the dedicated members of The International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA), the leading international body representing the interests of library and information services and their users. Thirteen ALCTS members currently serve in IFLA, and as liaisons to ALA they provided reports of this year’s annual IFLA General Conference and Assembly, held in August 2011. This issue includes their accounts of the conference programs and meetings. It is encouraging to know such great progress is being accomplished at the international level.

Back home, individuals are making a difference in libraries across the country, supporting missions of cultural, educational, and informational needs of our citizens. We can see this in Pamela Bluh’s article about Project SEARCH, a program designed to provide internships and job training to young adults with disabilities. The technical services department at the University of Maryland Thurgood Marshall Law Library discovered that not only could the individuals in the program benefit, but the library could as well. I do not believe it is overreaching to assume that this work leads to even greater benefits in our society.

In this vein, I encourage everyone to reflect on your accomplishments of 2011, both great and small. We all have the opportunity to make a difference.

Contact Alice Platt (platt@bostonathenaeum.org).

From the President

Betsy Simpson, ALCTS President 2011–2012

Do You Believe in Magic?

Earlier this year Apple CEO Steve Jobs, a pioneer in personal computing, passed away leaving an extraordinary legacy, one which is driving the future of global communication. He was hailed as a visionary and creative genius and his products as revolutionary. In his reflection on this pivotal moment, media scholar Siva Vaidhyanathan conveys well what so many think about their Apple devices—pure magic (“Apple, Demystified” in The Chronicle of Higher Education, October 21, 2011). Yet Vaidhyanathan suggests a downside to this magical aura when he states, “My rhapsody should trouble you, as it troubles me. Belief in magic is not good for society. It blinds us to real costs, and it stunts our critical faculties.” The danger Vaidhyanathan cautions us about is losing sight of the ingenuity and hard work behind what we see.

Much of what ALCTS members do takes place in the backroom—acquiring, managing, describing, preserving, digitizing—but each role is integral to the public image of the library. We know all too well that magic is not in the mix (although sometimes it sure would help!). It behooves us to make sure the powers that be appreciate the complexities involved. Our efforts are intended to be transparent to library users but critical to their success. As such, we are always striving to provide the information and tools our users need to accomplish their goals in a way that is seamless, even magical, to those we serve.

Similarly, ALCTS has a “backroom.” In addition to Charles, Christine, and Julie who do a fabulous job in the ALCTS Office, there are literally hundreds of ALCTS volunteers working year-round to offer members programming, publications, and opportunities for networking and collaboration. The results might seem like magic to the uninitiated, but they are nothing but. At its fall meeting the Executive Committee continued the push to improve the organization based on member input from the Reshaping survey. Recent actions include the creation of two new task forces and setting the stage for a Board discussion regarding virtual participation. I invite you to read further for the details.

The Publishing Review Task Force, chaired by former ALCTS President Mary Case, is well underway with a charge to recommend strategic directions for the ALCTS publishing program, taking into consideration issues in the broader publishing world, by the 2012 Annual Conference. The task force’s specific tasks include drafting a mission statement for the ALCTS publishing program, conducting an environmental scan to identify challenges and trends in publishing, assessing the relationship among all ALCTS publishing segments, determining new and currently under-represented areas of focus and possible new opportunities for members to contribute, and identifying infrastructure needs to advance ALCTS’ publishing program.

The Advocacy Task Force, chaired by Mary Beth Weber, is charged with identifying what ALCTS members mean by “advocacy,” define ALCTS’ role in advocating for our functions or for libraries, and recommend what steps, if any, ALCTS should take to strengthen its advocacy efforts. To this end, the task force will review comments from the Reshaping survey related to advocacy, identify existing ALCTS advocacy activities, consider new avenues for advocacy within ALCTS, and assess the need for organizational change to support advocacy. The task force has been asked to submit a report to the Board at the 2012 Annual Conference.

Are you finding it harder to attend two ALA meetings per year? Does this impact your ability to accept committee appointments? If so, you’ll be interested to hear about a possible change to the committee appointment process beginning in 2013 that the Board will discuss at Midwinter. The idea is to have terms that run from Annual to Annual, instead of post-Annual to Annual. Such a change would make it easier for division and section committees to meet in-person at Annual, then meet virtually during the rest of the year. Not only would this allow for a smoother transition from one committee to the next due to the overlap at Annual, but also incoming committees would have an opportunity for face time early on to develop work plans and build on the energy and enthusiasm everyone feels looking ahead to the new year. The trend within ALA is toward a more education-oriented and less business-focused Midwinter, so ALCTS would be right in sync with ALA’s approach. I’m sure Board members would welcome your comments (see http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/alcts/mgrps/board/ats-bd.cfm).

I look forward to working with you on these important issues and many more during the year.

A politician once said, “Magic lies in challenging what seems impossible.” Maybe those words capture best the “magic” created by Steve Jobs and inspire us to bring the same creative spirit to our libraries.

Contact Betsy Simpson (betsys@uflib.ufl.edu).

From the Office

Charles Wilt, ALCTS Executive Director

Leading ALCTS

Every once in a while I think it’s important to talk about the need to identify and develop future leaders for ALCTS. The leader’s role within ALCTS can come in many shapes from ALCTS President to interest group vice-chair, from publication editor to section secretary. There are many leadership roles that a member can aspire to and fill. Identifying and then providing those future leaders opportunities is most important. The responsibility to develop our future leaders rests with everyone currently in a leadership position. It also rests with those members who desire to lead. They must make it known of their interest.

Over the last several years, ALCTS has made a concerted effort to expand the number of opportunities a member has to become involved. Part of that expansion is the number of new leadership positions created. With every new interest group, there is at least one position, chair, and many others, in fact. With each new task group created, there are opportunities not previously available. It used to be that members had to “do their time,” or “pay their dues,” starting out in some lowly committee post, slowly and methodically moving up or over, taking on other duties, and eventually attaining the lofty position of section chair or Board member or division committee chair. The process was long and drawn out. Fortunately, with the possible exception of the ALCTS President, that rise through the ranks idea is no longer a valid way to encourage members to take on additional roles and responsibilities. Newer members and younger members and even more experienced members want to create an ALCTS career path that is more suited to their own professional career path. It’s not news to anyone that libraries are constantly changing. It’s also not news to anyone that ALCTS needs to make sure that members who want to lead, can.

So what is there to do? I’ll give you an example. Each year six nominating committees scan the members for potential candidates for office from President to section member-at-large. Each year, it seems like the process becomes more difficult to find members who are willing to serve in these positions. Sometimes it’s the time commitment. Sometimes it’s the need to attend Midwinter and Annual. Sometimes it’s just the perceived additional workload. But sometimes it’s because the pool of potential candidates isn’t there. We’ve worked through all the “usual suspects” and don’t have additional names. The names that are recommended are good people but may not have enough experience. That begs the question then of how much experience is enough. For ALCTS President, it’s a good deal. For section member-at-large, maybe not as much. But if we don’t begin preparing members to take on the elected officers early in their ALCTS service career, we may end up with fewer people to run the organization.

As I said in the beginning, identifying members for leadership roles is the responsibility of the current leadership. Current leaders must begin to work with, mentor, and provide guidance for those future leaders. And quite frankly, we have some exceptional future leaders. I know because I see their work, but I don’t see everyone’s work. But section chairs, committee chairs, executive committees, past leaders do see member’s work. I often get asked to recommend some member for this post or that post, and I do make some suggestions, but although I monitor the organization, I don’t know everyone. (I know, hard to believe!)

So future leaders, next time you see a leadership role that you are interested in, speak up; let someone know you are interested. Take a chance. We need you now and we need you in the future ALCTS.

Contact Charles Wilt (cwilt@ala.org).

Event Calendar

The events in this calendar are among the very best offerings for library technical services professionals, but are by no means the only events of interest. ALA maintains Affiliates Conference & Event Calendar 2009–2024, a comprehensive calendar of events of interest to all library professionals.

January

January 6
CurateGear: Enabling the Curation of Digital Collections | Chapel Hill, North Carolina

January 9–13
ALCTS Virtual Midwinter Symposium

January 20–24
ALA Midwinter Meeting | Dallas, Texas

January 25–28
Special Libraries Association Leadership Summit | Atlanta, Georgia

February

February 6–9
Code4Lib Conference | Seattle, Washington

February 7–10
iConference | Toronto, Ontario, Canada

February 15–19
Music Library Association | Dallas, Texas

February 23–26
Alaska Library Association Annual Conference | Fairbanks, Alaska

March

March 11–13
SPARC Open Access Meeting | Kansas City, Missouri

March 13–17
Public Library Association Conference | Philadelphia, Philadelphia

March 21–23
Tennessee Library Association Annual Conference | Knoxville, Tennessee

March 21–23
Computers in Libraries | Washington, D.C.

March 26–27
Future Perfect Conference 2012: Digital Preservation by Design | Wellington, New Zealand

March 26–28
United Kingdrom Serials Group 2012 Annual Conference | Glasgow, Scotland

March 29–April 2
40th Annual ARLIS Conference | Toronto, Ontario, Canada

April

April 2–4
Electronic Resources and Libraries Conference | Austin, Texas

April 11–14
Museums and the Web | San Diego, California

April 16–18
London Book Fair | London, England

April 17–20
Texas Library Association Annual Conference | Houston, Texas

April 17–20
Annual Conference of the Wisconsin Association of Academic Librarians | Lake Geneva, Wisconsin

April 18–20
Distance Library Services Conference | Memphis, Tennessee

April 18–20
Florida Library Association Conference | Orlando, Florida

April 18–20
2012 Washington Library Association Conference | Tulalip, Washington

April 19–21
2012 ASI Annual Conference | San Diego, California

April 24–27
Alabama Library Association Annual Conference | Hoover, Alabama

April 25–26
Oregon Library Association Annual Meeting | Bend, Oregon

May

May 7–8
Connecticut Library Association Annual Conference | Groton, Connecticut

May 9–10
Massachusetts Library Association Annual Conference | Worcester, Massachusetts

May 9–11
Maryland Library Association Annual Conference | Ocean City, Maryland

May 18–13
Medical Library Association Annual Meeting | Seattle, Washington

May 19–21
Maine Library Association and the Maine Association of School Libraries conference: Libraries United | Orono, Maine

May 19–22
Acquisitions Institute at Timberline Lodge | Mt. Hood, Oregon

May 21–23
International Conference on Information Resources Management | Vienna, Austria

May 31–June 1
Rhode Island Library Association Annual Conference | Smithfield, Rhode Island

May 31–June 1
Society for Scholarly Publishing Annual Meeting | Arlington, Virginia

June

June 21–26
ALA Annual Meeting | Anaheim, California

June 27–30
American Theological Library Association Annual Conference | Scottsdale, Arizona

July

July 9–13
Conference on Open Repositories | Edinburgh, Scotland, United Kingdom

July 15–18
Special Libraries Association Annual Meeting | Chicago, Illinois

August

August 6–11
Society of American Archivists Annual Meeting | San Diego, California

August 11–17
World Library and Information Congress 2012, 78th IFLA General Conference and Assembly | Helsinki, Finland

World Library and Information Congress: 77th IFLA General Conference and Assembly Conference Wrap-Up

ALCTS sponsors representatives to eight sections of the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) annual meeting (named World Library and Information Conference beginning in 2003).

This year San Juan, Puerto Rico warmly welcomed approximately 2,500 delegates from 116 countries to the Caribbean, and sent many of them home just in advance of Hurricane Irene. Held August 13–18, 2011, the theme of this year’s World Library and Information Congress: 77th IFLA General Conference and Assembly was “Libraries beyond Libraries: Integration, Innovation and Information for All.” This year also marked the end of the term of Ellen Tise of South Africa as IFLA president, and ushered in the presidency of Ingrid Parent of Canada.

More information about the San Juan conference can be found in the full program, including conference papers, online at http://conference.ifla.org/past/ifla77/programme-and-proceedings.htm. There is also a special conference web site for news, available from http://express.ifla.org/, which includes conference blog posts and tweets as well as pictures and video.

Future IFLA meetings are as follows:

• 2012: Helsinki, Finland, August 11–17, 2012
• 2013: Singapore, August 2013 (dates to be determined)

Beginning with the 2013 Congress, IFLA will follow a seven-year planning cycle designed to ensure rotation in geographic locations: 2013 in Asia & Oceania; 2014 in Europe; 2015 in Africa; 2016 in North America; 2017 in Europe; 2018 in Latin America & the Caribbean; and 2019 in Europe.

Following are summaries of the keynote presentations and reports from sections which include an ALCTS delegate. To see conference papers from any of the sessions, visit http://conference.ifla.org/past/ifla77/programme-and-proceedings.htm, click Daily Programme from the left-hand navigation bar, and click on the session date to browse that day’s session agendas and papers.

Opening Ceremony

By Sha Li Zhang, University of North Carolina at Greensboro Libraries

The opening ceremony is one of the highlights of the IFLA conference. Luisa Vigo-Cepeda, Chair of the 2011 World Library and Information Congress (WLIC) National Committee, presided over the opening ceremony. In representing librarians from Puerto Rico, Vigo-Cepeda welcomed all conference attendees. Several distinguished individuals also gave welcome remarks: Ana R. Guadalupe-Quinones, Chancellor of the University of Puerto Rico; Miguel Munoz-Munoz, President of the University of Puerto Rico; Mercedes Gomez Marrero, Executive Director, Institute of Puerto Rican Culture representing the Governor; Mario Gonzalez-Lafuente, Executive Director of the Puerto Rico Tourism Company, and. Fernando Aguitar-Carrasquillo, Representative of the Mayor of San Juan and Director of Economic Development, Municipality of San Juan. Through their warm words, genuine hospitality of the people in the Caribbean island was in a display. In his words, Guadalupe-Quinones regards Puerto Rico as a geographic bridge to connect the Americans in northern and southern continents. He wished all to have enlightening experience at the conference.

The speech from Ellen Tise, IFLA President 2009–2011, focused on her presidential theme “Libraries Driving Access to Knowledge.” Tise states that IFLA and the library world are cognizant that unhindered access to information is an essential feature of bringing political stability to the world, quickening the pace of recovering from the internationally experienced recession, eradicating poverty, decreasing disease and ensuring a green environment. Tise explains that her presidential theme for 2009–2011 would not only be relevant to the personal goals of the her IFLA presidency, but also the one which would assist libraries and librarians to contribute significantly to addressing world issues as well as capture one of the key activities of the profession and its members. Tise praised people in Egypt who formed a ring of holding hands to protect one of the revered institutions of information in Egypt. Tise expressed empathies on behalf of IFLA to librarians in Japan who endured devastating natural disaster of the tsunami in early 2011 and to library colleagues in other places that have been visited by unfortunate events. Tise eloquently articulated that libraries stand above all, for the enlightened and rational notion that human beings are improved by the acquisition of knowledge and information and that no bar should be placed in their way. Libraries are the bastions that provide the materials, instruction and assistance that enable individuals.

The keynote speaker at the opening ceremony was Fernando Picó, S. J., distinguished Puerto Rican historian, humanist, and professor at the University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras Campus. Pico speaks on “The Afterlife of Texts: When Paradise Is an Internet Site” in Spanish. Picó is an expert on nineteenth-century Puerto Rico and is considered the highest authority in this area of study and more generally in the field of the island’s history.

After the keynote speech, the opening ceremony culminated with music presentations by the Youth Symphony Orchestra of the Ernesto Ramo Antonini Free School of Music in San Juan, Puerto Rico. The artists performed Campanitas De Cristal, En Mi Viejo San Juan, El Cumbanchero, La Copa de la Vida, and more. These beautiful pieces from Puerto Rico kept audience from leaving the conference hall. It was an enjoyable experience.

IFLA Acquisitions and Collection Development Section

By Sha Li Zhang, University of North Carolina at Greensboro Libraries

Satellite Program

This year, the IFLA Standing Committee on Acquisitions and Collection Development Section held a satellite meeting, “Maximizing Collection Development of Electronic and Print Media in the Digital Environment: Opportunities for Collaboration, Strategic Partnership, and Patron Initiated Models,” on August 10–11, 2011 at the University of Virgin island, St. Thomas. Presenters were from Austria, Canada, Finland, Germany, Mexico, Spain, and United States. The topics of the satellite program included balancing electronic and print media (Finland), managing print and electronic materials (Canada), experience on eBooks on Demand project (Austria), collection management in the Spanish speaking world (Mexico), digitization workflow (Germany), use of open accessible materials (U.S.), subscription models (i.e., traditional subscription, big deals, or pay-per-view) and patron-driven acquisitions (U.S.), etc. Approximately thirty-five librarians from U.S. and Caribbean islands attended the satellite meeting. With assistance from Helén Ladrón de Guevara, the Organizing Committee member, all presentation slides were translated into Spanish and English. After the one-day conference, the committee members joined with the members of the IFLA Genealogy and Local History Section for a cultural evening, sponsored by the Library Association of the Virgin Islands and the VI Cultural Heritage Institute. The members enjoyed Creole food and drinks, music, and dance. Special thanks should go to Judith Rogers and other local arrangement committee members for hosting this very special conference. The full papers from the satellite conference are available at http://www.library.mcgill.ca/ifla-stthomas/index.html.

Open Program

The Standing Committee organized an open program during the IFLA Conference, “Developing collections in hard financial times: proactive collaboration, balancing e-resources vs. print, low-cost options and alternative resources, fee resources ….” The speakers from Austria, United Kingdom, Venezuela, Zimbabwe, Russia, and U.S. presented their papers. The open program attracted close to two hundred people. Highlights of the presentations at the open program include:

• “Shared Archiving as a Chance to Acquire Fresh Money for Collection Development.” The Austrian university libraries launched “shared archiving” project in 2010. For print journals with electronic availability, only one copy at a time will be kept throughout the country. The “best holdings” are identified and kept. Duplicate copies are weeded.
• “Overcoming the Barriers to Accessing Research Collections in the Developing World: an International Collaborative Approach.” The International Network for the Availability of Scientific Publications (INASP) has worked very hard to develop sustainable models to ensure that developing countries are part of international research networks; strengthen the skills of individuals working in and supporting research, and improve the technology to help communicate research outcomes. The presentation focused on INASP’s work in providing access to high-quality peer-reviewed international literature via deeply discounted countrywide licensing, and INASP’s work in supporting for the creation and strengthening of library consortia in low-income countries in Africa and Central America.
• “Collection Development in Public Libraries Section from National Library and Library Services Autonomous Institute, Venezuela, According to Changes of the Institute’s Budget between 2004–2011.” This presentation was in Spanish. Unfortunately, PowerPoint slides or a conference paper was not available.
• “Skating in Thin Ice: The Resilience of the Zimbabwean Libraries during the Decade 2000–2010.” Zimbabwe’s university libraries have faced extraordinarily hard time with acquisitions funding in the past decade. In 2009, U.S. currency was introduced as the medium of exchange, helping economic recovery of the country. The Open Society Institute of Southern Africa has provided funding to the establishment of the Zimbabwe University Libraries Consortium in 2001 to promote resource sharing and cooperative collection development among the university libraries. International Network for the Availability of science Publications (INASP) sponsored training programs and introduced low-cost e-journals.
• “National Electronic Information Consortium as a Leader of Cooperative Acquisitions of E-resources in Russia.” When the Soviet Union was collapsed in early 1990s, the funding for Russian research libraries witnessed substantial decreases. Lack of current research journals and other materials prevented Russian scientists and researchers from conducting research. In 2002, the National Electronic Information Consortium (NEICON) was established. It successfully attracted funds from the Russian Ministry of Culture, Soros Foundation, and Ford Foundation. The funding has enabled the consortium libraries to access research materials through subscription and purchases.
• “Even Cowgirls Get the Blues: How Research Libraries Are Coping Reduction in Their Collections Budget.” U.S. research libraries have experienced resource constraints imposed by a tough economic climate and reduced allocations at the state level. Committee on Institutional Cooperation Consortium (CIC) and the Orbis Cascade Alliance are the two examples in leveraging difficult financial time on cost-saving, with cooperative licensing for electronic journals and e-books, author-pays models, and shared print monographs with consolidated vendors to reduce the number of duplicate copies purchased by the consortium members.

Committee Meetings

During the IFLA Conference, the Committee held two business meetings. Some of the agenda items at the meetings are:

• Elected new officers for 2011–2013. Committee Chair (Joseph Hafner), Committee Secretary (Regine Schmolling), and Committee Information Coordinator (Jerome Fronty).
• Reviewed the Committee’s satellite meetings. The satellite meeting held in St. Thomas on August 9–10, 2011 was well received by attendees, despite financial difficulties preventing many librarians from the Caribbean region from participating. The topics were relevant and timely. The presenters did excellent job on each session. The facility was very conducive. The cultural events were very enjoyable. The Organizing Committee was chaired by Regine Schmolling. The Local Arrangement Committee was chaired by Judith Rogers.
• Reviewed the Committee’s open program. The open program was a very successful one. The Program Committee was chaired by Pascal Sanz, the committee member.
• Reviewed preparation for a satellite meeting in Finland. Pentti Vattulanien, a former committee chair and member, gave updates on the satellite meeting to be held in Kuopio, Finland, on August 9–10, 2012, prior to the IFLA Conference. The theme of the satellite meeting is, “Keeping the Tail Long and Letting the Birds Fly—Global Policies, Imperatives and Solutions for the Efficient Print Resources Management and Access to Less Used Document.” The local organizers include Library of Savonia University of Applied Science, University of Eastern Finland Library, and National Repository Library.
• Solicited ideas for the 2012 program. The 2012 IFLA Conference will be in Helsinki, Finland. The Program Committee was formed with Julia Gelfand as chair. The concepts and ideas for the open program were sought after. The program proposal was approved by the committee. The final program calls was issued in October 2011 through various channels for proposal submissions.
• Translations of the committee’s publication. The translation work from English to Chinese, French, Russian, and Spanish were completed for the committee’s publication, Gifts for the Collections: Guidelines for Libraries (IFLA Professional Reports : 112). The committee needs translations in German and Arabic languages.
• Updates on Electronic Resources Guidelines. This is the committee’s ongoing publication project and will be finalized at the end of the conference.
• Section newsletter. Regine Schmolling, the new secretary, will prepare the next issue of the committee’s newsletter.

Library Visits

PHOTO: Reading room in Biblioteca National de Puerto Rico (by Sha Li Zhang)

I had opportunities to visit the following libraries at the sites of the Committee’s satellite meeting and the IFLA Conference:

• University of Virgin Islands Library. It is a typical academic library with array of services and programs. The library is situated on beautiful hills overlooking the St. Thomas City and the Caribbean Sea. It is obvious that the library is under the pressure of available space. Very modern compact shelves were installed for holding print collections.
• St. Thomas Public Library. It is a part of the Virgin Islands Public Library System, Division of Libraries, Archives, and Museums in the area. The library staff were kept busy in the summer to carry out the the 2011 Governor’s Summer Reading Challenge which was open to all the territory’s public, private and parochial school students between kindergarten and 6th grade. Photography inside the library building was not allowed. However, the library staff on duty during my visit told me that a state-of the-art building for a new public library in St. Thomas is under construction, with large amounts of space allotted for activities, technologies, and public meeting rooms.
• Biblioteca National de Puerto Rico. IFLA Conference organized a series of library tours in San Juan. The tour of Puerto Rico’s national library was one. Under the Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña, the national library hosts current collections as well as historical archives and artifacts related to the islands.

IFLA Bibliography Section

By Charlene Chou, Columbia University, and Glenn Patton, OCLC

The Bibliography Section cooperated with the IFLA-CDNL Alliance for Digital Strategies Programme (ICADS) and the Information Technology, National Libraries and Knowledge Management Section in the organization and presentation of a session titled “e-Legal Deposit: from Legislation to Implementation; from Ingest to Access.” Kai Ekholm, Director of the National Library of Finland gave the keynote address for the morning-long session, followed by six presentations from Chile, France, Germany, New Zealand, South Africa and the United Kingdom, covering all aspects of legal deposit programs in the national libraries of those countries. Check the conference web site’s Daily Programme for August 18, Session 193 for conference papers.

At its business meetings, the section welcomed ten newly elected members of the Standing Committee. Carsten Anderson of Danish Bibliographic Centre was elected to a second term as chair of the Standing Committee and Anke Meyer of the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek was elected to serve as secretary and treasurer. Committee members reviewed activities from the section’s action plan for 2010–2011 and began the planning process for a satellite meeting to be held prior to the 2012 IFLA conference. The meeting, a joint effort with the Cataloguing Section, will focus on the Guidelines for National Bibliographies in the Electronic Age. It will be hosted by the National Library of Poland in Warsaw.

Charlene Chou represents the Bibliography Section in the Working Group on Guidelines for Subject Access by National Bibliographic Agencies, which examines national indexing policies of national libraries and national bibliographic agencies and provides recommendations and establishes guidelines (minimal requirements) in addition to the Guidelines for National Bibliographies in The Electronic Age. The worldwide review ended on July 15. The draft has been revised after two working group meetings in San Juan, and the final version is intended for review by the Classification & Indexing and Bibliography sections in late October.

Full minutes of the standing committee meetings from the Bibliography Section are available at http://www.ifla.org/en/bibliography/minutes.

IFLA Cataloguing Section

By John Hostage, Harvard Law School

At this conference I completed my term on the Standing Committee of the Cataloguing Section and began a term on the Standing Committee of the Classification and Indexing Section.

Anders Cato of the National Library of Sweden chaired the activities of the Cataloguing Section for the first part of the conference. Bill Garrison of the University of South Florida served as newsletter editor, and John Hostage of Harvard Law School as information coordinator with Ana Barbarić of the University of Zagreb, Croatia, as secretary. During the conference new officers were elected: Hanne Hørl Hansen of Denmark as chair, Miriam Säfström of Sweden as secretary/treasurer, Unni Knutsen of Norway as newsletter editor, and Agnese Galeffi of Italy as information coordinator.

The program of the Cataloguing Section featured the papers “Breaking Barriers between Old Practices and New Demands: The Price of Hesitation” by Maja Žumer and others, “Data Aggregation and Dissemination of Authority Records through Linked Open Data” by Xavier Agenjo and others, “Comparison of Metadata Schemas: AACR2+ vs. ICDL's metadata schema” by Jihee Beak and Hope A. Olson, and “A Bibliographic Logistics for Processing Mega-medium Collections: A Practical System of the NCL (Taiwan) to Solve the Current Barriers in Cataloguing and Services” by Chingfen Hsu and Diing-Jong Yan.

The Cataloguing Section was disappointed that its recommendation to establish a new core activity in IFLA for bibliographic standards was rejected by the Governing Board because of lack of resources. A new committee for all IFLA standards will be created, but it is feared that bibliographic standards will get short shrift.

The FRBR Review Group is chaired by Pat Riva of Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec. The group continues to work on consolidating the Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records (FRBR) model with Functional Requirements for Authority Data (FRAD) and Functional Requirements for Subject Authority Data (FRSAD). The Working Group on Aggregates continues to study the modeling of different categories of aggregates.

The ISBD Review Group has been chaired by Elena Escolano Rodríguez of the National Library of Spain. The new consolidated edition of the International Standard Bibliographic Description was published just before the conference, replacing the preliminary consolidated edition of 2007. The group is now involved in discussions with the Joint Steering Committee for the Development of RDA and the ISSN Network about harmonizing certain provisions between the ISBD, RDA (Resource Description and Access), and the ISSN. Work continues on expressing ISBD elements in an XML/RDF schema.

IFLA Classification & Indexing Section

By John DeSantis, Dartmouth University

PHOTO: The IFLA Classification & Indexing Section in Puerto Rico, 2011 (by Bobby Bothmann)

The Classification and Indexing Section presented a two-hour program “Bridging Domains, Communities and Systems” the afternoon of August 16. The program was well attended and included presentations on Simple Knowledge Organization System (SKOS), the semantic web, and controlled LC subject headings and classification through the web. The section is looking into publishing one of the presentations. Links to most of the full papers are provided at http://conference.ifla.org/past/ifla77/classification-and-indexing-section.htm.

The section met twice during the conference to coordinate and report on activities, evaluate the San Juan program, and make plans for its 2012 programs. The section also approved its strategic plan.

The section’s Working Group on Guidelines for Subject Access by National Bibliographic Agencies, chaired by Yvonne Jahns, met early this year and submitted a final draft on the IFLA website in May for worldwide review. The comment period ended in July and resulted in mostly positive comments and valuable ideas. Two meetings of the working group were held during the conference, mostly to discuss the comments. A final version of the guidelines will be submitted in October for approval by the Classification and Indexing Standing Committee and the Bibliography Standing Committee. Once they are approved, it is hoped the guidelines will be published in 2012.

The Namespaces Task Group, under the leadership of committee member Gordon Dunsire, has been sharing information on specific namespaces activities concerning ISBD, RDA, MulDiCat and the W3C incubator group. The group met once during the conference and was joined by a large number of observers. Currently the group is waiting for IFLA to take action on the issue of bibliographic standards. The current proposal is a new Standing Committee on Standards, which would have representation from members in each section. The group now sees its work as ongoing and may need to change from a task group to a full-fledged working group.

The responsibility for the Multilingual Dictionary of Cataloguing Terms and Concepts (MulDiCat) now falls under new Standing Committee member Janis Young (Library of Congress). Even though this project originated in the Cataloguing Section, it now involves all bibliographic sections. It is also intended to be used when translating IFLA documents and other cataloguing codes. MulDiCat is now also available as a SKOS file on the new IFLA namespace.

The section is making plans for its program at the 2012 IFLA conference in Helsinki. The theme of the program will be “Subject Access Now: Inspiring, Surprising, Empowering.” In addition, the section is planning a satellite conference following the IFLA conference in Tallinn, Estonia. The theme of the satellite conference will be “Beyond Libraries: Subject Metadata in the Digital Environment and Semantic Web.”

The web site for the Classification and Indexing Section can be found at http://www.ifla.org/en/classification-and-indexing.

IFLA Knowledge Management Section

By Lois M. Chan, University of Kentucky

The Knowledge Management (KM) Standing Committee met twice during the conference.

The agenda of the first meeting included reports presented by the chair, the secretary, and other officers. Topics of reports included:

• Report on website, Facebook, and Twitter (Jane Dysart)
• Report on newsletter, blog and LinkedIn (Christel Mahnke)
• Report on Information Portal development (Elizabeth Freyre)
• Report on Global Access to Law (Stuart Basefsky)
• Report on e-Legal Deposit (Sally McCallum)

Other activities included the election of section officers. Xuemao Wang and Sally McCallum were re-elected as chair and secretary, respectively, for another term.

At the second meeting, the agenda included the announcement of a new Knowledge Management Leadership Team and a presentation by a representative from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Also discussed was preliminary decision on the program for IFLA 2012.

The program meeting of the IFLA Knowledge Management Section took place on August 17, 2011. The theme of the program was “Applied Knowledge Management: Success Stories & Case Studies in Libraries & Lessons Learned.” Topics included:

• Defining knowledge for a geographically diverse user community: a case study of services and assessment, presented by Ardis Hanson (Louis de la Parte Florida Mental Health Institute, Tampa, FL, USA)
• The librarian/lecturer: successful course development based on knowledge management principles, presented by Stuart Basefsky (Industrial and Labor Relations (ILR) School, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA)
• Knowledge management in a Single Virtual University Space (SVUS), presented by Karen Lequay (The University of the West Indies, Open Campus, St. Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago)
• A knowledge management-based strategic, global current awareness service, presented by Stuart Basefsky (ILR School, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA)

Check the conference web site’s Daily Programme for August 17, Session 184 for conference papers.

In addition, the Knowledge Management Section participated in two joint program sessions with the Bibliography Section and the Law Libraries Section:

e-Legal deposit: from legislation to implementation; from ingest to access (session 193)

Bibliography Section with IFLA-CDNL Alliance for Digital Strategies Programme (ICADS), Information Technology, National Libraries and Knowledge Management:

• "The State of e-Legal Deposit in France: Looking Back at Five Years of Putting New Legislation into Practice and Envisioning the Future," presented by Peter Stirling, Gildas Illien, Pascal Sanz, and Sophie Sepetjan (France)
• "Electronic Legal Deposit at the National Library of Chile," presented by Roberto Aguirre Bello (Chile)
• "Managing Legal Deposit for Online Publications in Germany," presented by Renate Gömpel and Lars G. Svensson (Germany)
• "The National Library of South Africa e-Legal Deposit Strategy: Legislative and Pilot Study Analysis," presented by Lesiba Steve Ledwaba, Narios Mpholefole and John K. Tsebe (South Africa)
• "Electronic Legal Deposit: The New Zealand Experience," presented by Alison Alliott (New Zealand)
• "Tortoise or Hare? Learning from the Development of e-Legal Deposit Legislation in the UK," presented by Richard Gibby and Caroline Brazier (United Kingdom)

Promoting global access to law: developing and open access index for official, authenticated legal information (session 194)

Law Libraries Section with Government Libraries, Government Information and Official Publications and Knowledge Management:

• "Mapping the World of Digital Legal Information," presented by Radu D. Popa (USA)
• "The Digital Legal Landscape in South America: Government Transparency and Access to Information," presented by Teresa Miguel (USA)
• "Mapping the Digital Legal Resources of Mexico, Central America, the Spanish-speaking Caribbean and Haiti," presented by Marisol Floren (USA)
• "Access to Digital Legal Information: Focus on the English-speaking Caribbean Countries," presented by Yemisi Dina (Canada)

Knowledge Management Cafe in Action

This joint session with the Library & Research Services for Parliaments Section began with a short introduction to knowledge management by Xuemao (Shimo) Wang, chair of the Knowledge Management Section, and an introduction to the Knowledge Cafe concept by Moira Fraser, chair of the Library & Research Services for Parliaments Section. Then participants moved from table to table every twenty minutes to informally discuss with a facilitator and colleagues the following topics:

• Knowledge sharing techniques in organizations
• Knowledge sharing applications in libraries -- case studies
• Selling the value of knowledge management in our organization/ enlisting support, and making the case for knowledge management)
• Collaborative technologies to support/facilitate knowledge sharing building and sustaining communities of practice
• Learning from lessons learned
• Social media facilitating/enabling knowledge sharing

IFLA Newspapers Section

By Sue Kellerman, Penn State University

The Newspapers Section met twice during the general conference: first to review the minutes from the previous business meeting held at the International Newspaper Conference in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in April 2011, and again to set future conferences and meetings for the coming year. Frederick Zarndt presided as chair of the section and Par Nilsson served as secretary.

The Newspapers Section’s agenda topics at the Saturday, August 13 business meeting were the proposed conference at the National Library of France on April 11–12, 2012 in Paris, and the satellite conference to be hosted by the National Digitization Center of the National Library of Finland in Mikkeli, which will be held prior to the 2012 Helsinki General Conference August 7–9, 2012. Also discussed were revisions to the section’s mission statement and progress updates on the section’s newspaper digitization guidelines. Frederick Zarndt was re-elected section chair and Sue Kellerman was elected secretary for a two-year term, 2011–2013.

The second business meeting on Wednesday, August 17 was devoted to refining the themes and logistics for the spring conference in Paris, next year’s IFLA General Conference section open sessions, and the satellite conference in Mikkeli, Finland. The call for papers announcements for each venue was drafted by a small working group of the section’s standing committee prior to this second business meeting. The proposed theme for the section’s open session at the 2012 Helsinki General Conference was discussed and approved. It was decided that the theme would be “portals and other delivery systems for digitized newspaper collections.” It was thought that a focus on users would attract more attendees to the Open Session program. Randy Olsen, representative of the Genealogy and Local History Section (GENLOC) participated in the Open Session program discussion and proposed that both sections hold a joint program session. More planning and discussion about this joint session with GENLOC is forthcoming.

The theme for the Mikkeli satellite conference will be “Electronic Re-Evolution—New Media in the Digital Age.” This pre-conference will deal with the impact of the electronic re-revolution on the newspaper field at large including e-delivery, crowd-sourcing, digital environment, copyright issues, preservation solutions and collection management. For more information on this conference including the call for papers announcement, visit http://www.ifla.org/en/node/5170.

Also on August 17, five papers were presented at the Newspapers Section Open Session. Topics included: Developing a knowledge-based improved use of historical newspaper collections; web harvesting of online news content; technical processes in creating digital objects; newspaper collections at the National Library of Chile; and the history of the Peru–Bolivian Confederation (or Confederacy), a short-lived confederate state that existed in South America between 1836 and 1839, told through its newspapers. Three of the five papers were presented in Spanish.

For more information on the IFLA Newspapers Section visit http://www.ifla.org/en/about-the-newspapers-section.

IFLA Preservation & Conservation Section

By Jeanne Drewes, Library of Congress

The Preservation & Conservation Section began their meeting by acknowledging the work of outgoing members and welcoming incoming members. The first session was chaired by outgoing chair Per Culherd; the second session was chaired by incoming chair Danielle Mincio. Julie Arnott, incoming ALCTS representative agreed to chair the program planning for 2012, with assistance from Douwe Drifhout from South Africa. The topic will be staff training. The satellite program for next year was also discussed and Reinhard Altenhoner agreed to be the representative for the combined program with Newspaper Section.

The Preservation Activity Core (PAC) program was discussed by PAC Director Christiane Baryla, who updated the committee on the training and upcoming programs. For information and papers see http://www.ifla.org/en/pac/conferences on the PAC program and satellite meeting.

This year’s conference program was “The media is the message! The convergence of media in rapidly changing societies from a user perspective as well as the demand for preservation,” presented jointly with the Audiovisual and Multimedia Section. Check the conference website’s Daily Programme for August 17, Session 161 for the program’s topics and papers.

The outgoing ALCTS representative, Jeanne Drewes, has also been the editing the section newsletter. If no one is able to assume this responsibility, the last newsletter will be sent in September and then communications will move to the IFLA P&C blog. It is possible to set up an RSS feed to the blog.

Serials and Other Continuing Resources Section

By Paul Lloyd Hover, Virginia Tech

The Serials and Other Continuing Resources Section (SOCRS) held two meetings and hosted an Open Session during the 77th IFLA World Library and Information Congress in Puerto Rico.

The Serials and Other Continuing Resources Section Standing Committee Meetings

During the first meeting, held on August 13, presiding Chair/Treasurer Helen Adey welcomed new and returning committee members. A membership list, including short bios of newly appointed members, can be seen in issue 49 of our newsletter (ISSN 0264-4738). We elected officers for 2011–2013 as follows: Helen Adey was re-elected Chair; Helen Heinrich was elected Secretary; and Alicia Wise was elected Information Coordinator/Editor of the Newsletter. IFLA HQ and Division Business announcements were accompanied by some helpful advice about Open Session programs we’d be interested in. New members (of which I am one) were encouraged to attend one of several division leadership meetings, as this will be useful in the future as our IFLA experience deepens. After assigning tasks to members in support of our mid-week Open Session, we met with Pentti Vattulainen of the Acquisitions & Collection Development Section Standing Committee and Library Director, National Repository Library of Finland, who proposed a joint satellite conference in Kuopio, Finland, two days prior to the 2012 IFLA Congress in Helsinki. The theme would be “Keeping the Tail Long (enough?) and Letting the Birds (the Wagtails?) Fly—Global Policies and Solutions for Efficient Print Resource Management and Access to Lesser-Used Documents.” Our committee enthusiastically agreed to join in this project.

Our second Standing Committee meeting took place on Tuesday, August 16, 2011. Action plan items, largely aimed at supporting IFLA 2010-2015 Strategic Directions, included the following main goals:

1. Promote good practices in serials and e-resources
2. Work with a variety of groups both within and outside of IFLA, to promote cooperation with the serials and e-resources information chain
3. Attract, involve and retain members from all parts of the serials information chain, thereby raising the profile of the Serials and Other Continuing Resources Section and IFLA
4. Monitor, report, disseminate and raise awareness of national and international standards for serials and e-resources

In addition to many subheadings under the main goals, there were helpful sections on the scope of the committee and working definitions. I thought it interesting that the scope of the committee not only includes serials and other continuing resources, but also e-resources, which in turn encompass e-books. This inclusion is reminiscent of the point made at a popular program of the conference that e-serials and e-books are in many ways merging or morphing into what will simply be called “e-resources.” The program, “Can the new book economy guarantee freedom of access to information?” was presented jointly by the Committee on Copyright and other Legal Matters (CLM) and Committee on Free Access to Information and Freedom of Expression (FAIFE). One of the most popular tweets from the Congress, originating in this session, went something like “think about the book of the future, not the future of the book!”

The second meeting also included possible topics for our next call for papers, and updates on progress made towards priority goals. One of these goals, number three noted above, was already met, empowering our meetings with an unusually broad base of participants. A glance at our committee roster will reveal, in addition to librarians, under-represented links in the serials information chain including experts on licensing, publishing, and aggregation.

The Serials and Other Continuing Resources Section Open Session

Entitled “Access and Innovation: Delivering Information to All,” the Open Session was held on Wednesday, August 17 from 9:30–11:30 a.m. The following papers were presented to a well-attended roomful of delegates:

• Research4Life: bringing academic and professional peer-reviewed content to developing countries through public-private partnerships, presented by Edmond Gaible (The Natoma Group), Richard Gedye (The International Association Of Scientific, Technical And Medical Publishers) Mary Ochs (Albert R Mann Library, Cornell University, Ithaca, Ny, Usa), Kimberly Parker (Hinari - Health Internetwork Access To Research Initiative, World Health Organization, Geneva, Switzerland) and Stephen Rudgard (Food And Agriculture Organization of the United Nations)
• OpenEdition Freemium: developing a sustainable library-centered economic model for open access, presented by Jean-Christophe Peyssard (Centre for Open Electronic Publishing, Marseille, France)
• Unbundling the big deal with Patron Driven Acquisition of e-Journals, presented by Maureen Weicher and Tian Xiao Zhang (St. John's University Library, Queens, NY)
• Initiative of the INFLIBNET centre for delivering information to the Indian academic community, presented by Rajesh Chandrakar and Jagdish Arora (INFLIBNET - Information and Library Network, Ahmedabad, India)
• Widening access to serials in the developing world: the role and philosophy of INASP, presented by Martin Belcher, Peter Burnett and Sara Gwynn (INASP - International Network for the Availability of Scientific Publications, Oxford, United Kingdom)

More details about these and other conference presentations may be found in the Congress Programme at http://conference.ifla.org/past/ifla77/programme-and-proceedings.htm.

One of the most memorable experiences I had during the conference was the luncheon directly after our session, to which we had invited our speakers. It is one thing to exchange cards with a favorite panelist after a presentation, but to actually sit next to such “movers and shakers” and have a chance to discuss their life-work at length was, in a word, fabuloso.

And speaking of fabuloso, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the fabulous people of Puerto Rico. The island is famous for its lively salsa dancehalls, bakeries that serve the best coffee in the Caribbean, warm water and huge surf. But if one day I get the chance, I’d revisit Puerto Rico for the helpful, friendly people. On first approach they seem a little shy, but every time I busted out my rusty Español people’s eyes lit up and faces beamed welcoming smiles.

PHOTO: ¡Viva Puerto Rico! (by Paul Lloyd Hover)

   Features   

My ALCTS Experience: Erin E. Boyd

By Erin E. Boyd, Troy University | Montgomery Campus

I joined ALA in 2007 after my first semester of library school. A coworker/classmate and I had heard that Annual would be held in Washington, D.C., so we made arrangements to go. Like most first-time attendees, we were very overwhelmed and unsure where to start. Needless to say, we stuck together, not exploring much of the conference outside of the exhibit hall and a few sessions here and there. After we came back from Annual, I renewed my membership, and decided to include ALCTS. While in library school I also held a technical services staff position, so I wanted to find a place that focused on technical services issues.

It was during Annual 2010, coincidentally again in D.C., that I became an active member of ALCTS. I had recently accepted a cataloging librarian position, and I wanted to continue to learn more about the technical services community. I convinced a coworker of mine to come with me to an ALCTS 101 session held during the conference. After sitting down at one of the tables, I began to chat with a few of the current members. I loved what they said about the division and their involvement. It was at that moment that I began to express my interest in becoming an active member, and fortunately for me, that was all I needed to do.

I took an informal route when I got involved with ALCTS. Instead of filling out the volunteer form online (which I highly encourage anyone to do), my path to involvement began with that short discussion of my desire to become more involved; I was unfamiliar with how committee appointments were made. After returning home from the conference, I received a formal invitation to become a member of Collection Development Section’s Continuing Education committee. Since joining the committee, I have helped to review bibliographies for some of the ALCTS web courses.

I have also become more involved with ALCTS New Members Interest Group (ANMIG), and am currently serving as coweb coordinator. I credit ANMIG with my involvement in ALCTS, and I have really enjoyed my short time working with the group. I was once timid to become involved in the division. Now I have the opportunity to promote and encourage new members to get involved. I am very thankful for the ALCTS 101 sessions, because it gave me the opportunity to become an active member in the division. More information about ANMIG can be found at http://connect.ala.org/node/85257.

Joining ALCTS has been one of the best decisions I’ve made. I have enjoyed my time being involved with the division, and I really enjoy connecting with librarians across the country. All in all, the biggest lesson I’ve learned about becoming involved is just to speak up. If you hear about an opening or are interested in becoming more involved, don’t be afraid to ask questions because you never know where it will lead you.

Spotlight on Interest Groups

Beginning with this issue, ALCTS Newsletter Online will spotlight two or three ALCTS interest groups—what they do, what the current issues are in their field, and so on. If you’d like more information about ALCTS interest groups, visit http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/alcts/mgrps/ig/index.cfm. We’d love to have you!

Copy Cataloging Interest Group

The purpose of the Copy Cataloging interest group is to discuss informally common problems concerning copy cataloging, such as quality control of copy cataloging units, work flows in copy cataloging, copy cataloging of all kinds of materials (monographs, serials, audiovisuals), staffing needs in copy cataloging, training of copy cataloging, and effects of changes in cataloging rules on copy cataloging.

Recently the group has held moderated discussions at ALA Midwinter and Annual 2011, focusing on experiences of various institutions that have tested RDA and libraries that have experimented with shelf-ready cataloging programs. Public posts of these presentations are listed on ALA Connect at: http://connect.ala.org/node/64545.

This year’s Midwinter presentations and meeting will focus on hot-button topics including e-books and RDA. If you’re attending Midwinter, we’d love to see you! Check the Midwinter Preview in this issue for more information.

Make sure to look for us the Annual Conference too, where this year we’ll host speakers Barbara Tillet, chief of the Policy and Standards Division: LC Core Elements for RDA, and Karl Debus-Lopez, chief of the U.S. General Division and acting chief of the U.S. & Publisher Liaison Division: Cataloging in Publication Electronic Books Program.

Publisher/Vendor/Library Relations (PVLR) Interest Group

The Publisher/Vendor/Library Relations (PVLR) Interest Group aims to bring together all facets of the publishing industry to discuss issues facing all stakeholders. The goal of each panel is to bring up a topic of mutual interest and to invite each of the stakeholders (publishers, vendors, and librarians) to share their views on a particular topic.

The PVLR Mission Statement states: "PVLR will create formal and informal settings for the discussion of issues and trends of interest to publishers, vendors, librarians, and others concerned with the business aspects of library collections and technical services, and will highlight best practices among our constituent groups."

We believe that part of the group’s success comes from having a open forum where people representing different parts of the scholarly communication industry can come together to exchange information and ideas in order to discuss challenging issues and facilitate lasting partnerships.

Recent topics have included patron-driven acquisitions, a discussion of the 2010 Periodicals Pricing Survey, and how to manage your future e-book collection. The group has also tackled other topics, including print on demand, approval plans and library/university press partnerships. E-books and pricing are always hot topics, and the next issue we’ve decided to focus on is interlibrary loan (ILL), especially in regards to e-books.

If you’re going to Midwinter, be sure to check out our Forum, which will tackle all things ILL this year. Find more information in this issue’s Midwinter Preview, or, for more information about the PVLR interest group, please contact co-chairs Liz Lorbeer (lorbeer@uab.edu) or Kim Steinle (ksteinle@dukeupress.edu).

e-Forum Wrap-Up

ALCTS e-forums are two-day, moderated, electronic discussion forums that provide an opportunity for librarians to discuss matters of interest on an ALCTS discussion list. These discussions are free of charge and available to anyone who wishes to subscribe to the list.

ALCTS Newsletter Online publishes wrap-ups of e-forums in each issue. To see the schedule of upcoming forums and to sign up to participate, visit http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/alcts/confevents/upcoming/e-forum/index.cfm. Previous sessions are archived at http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/alcts/confevents/past/e-forum/index.cfm.

September 21–22, 2011

Current Issues in In-Kind Materials Donations

By Stacy Gordon and Heath Martin

September’s e-forum got off the ground with a question about the criteria for accepting in-kind donations of books and other materials. Criteria mentioned were the currency of materials, their physical condition, the judgment of selectors/subject specialists, and avoiding duplication within existing collections. Many libraries have policies that describe what they will and will not accept as donations, such as magazines/periodicals, VHS materials, dated materials, or items in poor condition (mildew, bugs).

There was also discussion about disposal of unwanted donations. Book sales (which have costs of their own), Better World Books (BWB), Books on the Run, Thrift Recycling, and other organizations were mentioned. Quite a number of participants of the forum use BWB, which pays for shipping, and from which the library receives a modest percentage of the sales, as with consignment selling. BWB provides guidelines on what they will not accept.

The issue of donor relations and expectations also emerged. Even with existing policies explicating what is and isn’t acceptable, there are occasions when accepting the donation is the appropriate choice. Many libraries have written policies and conditions, sometimes signed by the donor, indicating that understand that the library will choose the disposition of the materials. Tax and appraisal information was discussed, including referrals to IRS documents.

Other issues in donor relations and expectations have to do with shipping and other costs, which may need to be absorbed for larger or more valuable gifts, the provision of bookplates or other forms of donor recognition (these may be printed or electronic), and the public/user perception of discarded materials. At one library, Dumpster diving was permitted.

Other topics touched on included the tracking of donations for assessment, weeding, and/or statistical purposes; relationships with Friends of the Library groups; and possible tax issues associated with IRS forms and gifts-in-kind retention. Finally, the forum began exploring the issue of shelf space for donated materials and relevance of space issues to procedures such as selector review and the activities of Friends groups.

The idea of a cost-benefit analysis was presented, and short of a literature search, there was at least one response describing an older study that indicated a $15 per monograph cost. As well, there was discussion about what qualities of gifts add weight on the benefits side of the equation. International language materials present their own challenges, if there is no staff with that particular language ability. Sometimes interns or volunteers can be found, but there is a cost to training them. We were reminded of weighing the cost of adding a donated material against its wider availability through interlibrary loan or access to it at another library. Generally there is a cost to cataloging and processing items added sideways from the standard workflow for new acquisitions.

Another topic discussed was the idea of passing along donated items to other libraries (consortium partners, among others) that might be known to collect in a certain area or have a greater need for a donation than the receiving library. This does not happen frequently, and is usually at a cost to the receiving library, but is done when the donation is considered to be of worth or value. Most responders did not have a systematic process in place for this kind of paying something forward (more regular gift transfer activities within the Orbis-Cascade Alliance was a notable exception). There was mention of the practice of offering something “free to a good home” through appropriate discussion lists. The cost of packaging and shipping is a general deterrent to this practice.

Shifting patterns in library donors and donations was discussed. One library observed a higher percentage of in-kind donations coming from nonaffiliated donors than from faculty or alumni of the institution. The value of sharing non-cash donor information with library development or advancement offices was also discussed.

The e-forum concluded with conversation about the present and future effects of library collections’ changing format priorities on in-kind gifts operations. The possibility of increasing donations of digital content, including photographs, newspaper content, and data, was considered, and accompanying concerns such as permissions, server space, and appraised value were discussed. Restrictive licensing terms were recognized as an obstacle when it comes to digital gifts.

To read the discussion in its entirety, visit http://lists.ala.org/sympa/arc/alcts-eforum/2011-09/msg00006.html.

October 18–19, 2011

ALCTS e-Forum: The Future of the Big Deal

By Rob Van Rennes and Rebecca Kemp

“The Future of the Big Deal” was held on October 18–19, 2011, and provided participants with the opportunity to share their thoughts and experiences with large publisher’s packages.

Participants mentioned a number of beneficial aspects of the Big Deal including the convenience of managing publisher packages in terms of a single payment, bundled pricing with inflation caps, and less back end work for individual journal titles. It was also pointed out that Big Deals provide price stability for both libraries and publishers while reducing overall unit costs. Finally, it was determined that library users experienced one of the greatest benefits by having local access to vast amounts of content with a higher degree of discoverability due to the aggregator like nature of the packages.

While there are many benefits to the Big Deal, it was noted that there are a great number of disadvantages as well. Libraries become locked into high cost multi-year packages that are based on outdated historic spend amounts. The Big Deal license agreements lack transparency, are inconsistent across libraries and are rarely equitable especially in regards to larger institutions. There is a loss of control of collections with all or nothing packages that increase in cost by requiring the addition new and transfer titles while at the same time limiting library cancellations.

Metrics for Valuing Journals and Big Deal Packages

Ivy Anderson of the University of California, Tim Jewell of the University of Washington, and David Fowler of the University of Oregon all shared details on the methodology their institutions employ to measure the value of the journals in their Big Deals. All three libraries used a combination of some of the following measures: usage, cost per use, impact factors, Eigenfactor, source normalized impact per paper (SNIP), and institution specific citations. Carmelita Pickett (Texas A & M University) also noted that the Research Libraries UK (RLUK) was in the process of developing a journal subscription analysis tool to evaluate Big Deals.

Modifying the Big Deal

There were a number of suggestions on how to modify the Big Deal to make it more viable in the future and many of the ideas involved reducing the size of the packages. There was support for libraries to have the option to pick and choose titles for one price or have the ability to include or exclude specific subject packages. Increasing the percentage of allowable cancellations was mentioned as another possibility as was the ability to scale back Big Deals without suffering an increase in journal pricing. Other reforms included developing transparent open access models that can produce new revenue streams for publishers and amending the publisher's requirement of adding new and transfer journals to packages.

Pay-per-view Access to Nonsubscribed Titles: A Viable Alternative to the Big Deal?

It was argued that the size of the school may make a difference in whether PPV is a feasible alternative to large journal packages. Terese Heindenwolf, Lafayette College (2400 FTE), commented that her library has been successfully using PPV programs with Elsevier and Wiley to realize savings over Big Deal packages. On the opposite side, reports from larger institutions such as the University of Oregon and Old Dominion University indicated that unmediated PPV programs were not cost-effective. David Fowler (University of Oregon) indicated that PPV was subject to intentional and unintentional abuse and therefore OU discontinued their PPV program after reinstating a few high use titles. Pamela Morgan (Old Dominion University) added that ODU used up their entire PPV allocation in only 3 months. Linda Dausch (Chicago Public Library) thought that it would be very difficult to make unmediated PPV work in a public library setting and Susan Klimley (Columbia University) wondered whether Open Access journals have made PPV costs affordable for health sciences libraries. Both John Abbott (Appalachian State University) and Michael Jundi (Brown Mackie College) expressed the view that PPV is untenable as an alternative to the Big Deal for most libraries, although it may work well for smaller schools or early adopters.

Considerations Librarians Should be Mindful of When Contemplating Ending Publisher Packages

Luke Swindler (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) emphasized usage statistics as a metric to consider for evaluating Big Deals. Kate Seago (University of Kentucky Libraries) was concerned with usage of subscribed titles versus unsubscribed titles and trying to achieve a balance between the amount of money available for the collection and trying to collect the most heavily used titles.

George Boston (Western Michigan University) brought up the point that libraries leaving consortial deals need to consider the effect such an action would have on the other libraries in their consortium. In support of that point, Tim Jewell (University of Washington) offered up the example of the Orbis Cascade Alliance, which had to "downgrade" its "all titles" Springer deal as a result of institutions having to reduce their spend amounts. Orbis Cascade ultimately worked out a lower spend deal that allowed all its members access to each one another’s subscribed titles, but the consortium lost access to 1,000 titles.

Information Librarians Should Possess before Negotiating with Publishers/negotiation Tips

David Fowler (University of Oregon) indicated that libraries must have sufficient data about their own collections, a well-formulated plan, and a "fall-back option" before arranging a meeting with a publisher. Luke Swindler (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) elaborated on this strategy by recommending that libraries require the publisher to make the first pricing offer for a full package. If that offer is unacceptable, the library should counter with a custom package proposal and be prepared with an "exit option" of walking away from the package deal entirely and subscribing to a core set of a la carte titles.

The Potential Difficulties in Extracting Your Institution from a Big Deal

Amie Pifer (Central Michigan University) warned that one problem with leaving a Big Deal is that libraries may have to return to list pricing which could reduce any perceived cost savings and result in further loss of content.

To read the discussion in its entirety, visit http://lists.ala.org/sympa/arc/alcts-eforum/2011-10/msg00003.html.

November 15-16, 2011

ALCTS e-Forum: Managing Electronic Theses and Dissertations

By Holly Mercer and Jennifer Roper

On November 15 and 16, the ALCTS Metadata Interest Group hosted an e-forum titled Managing Electronic Theses and Dissertations. As a workflow that represents the intersection of scholarship, university policies and library collecting, an ETD program presents relatively unique opportunities and challenges for library staff.

A successful ETD program requires involvement from a variety of campus constituents, and communication about and coordination of varying interests are necessary. Over the course of the conversation, most participants agreed that ETDs allow for efficiencies across the institution, with several institutions involving undergraduate theses, master’s projects, records of study and other document types as well as master’s theses and doctoral dissertations. The use of copyrighted materials was discussed as a concern for both the library and the university. This concern, though, does point to an opportunity for libraries to play a role in helping students, and advisors, make informed decisions about copyrighted works—both theirs and others’. The signature page arose as a topic of conversation. Whether or not an institution retains a hard copy of the full text, many consider the signature page an official part of the overall student record, and there are many solutions for archiving this particular physical piece of a thesis or dissertation.

Turning to more traditional library concerns, there was discussion about cataloging choices, indexing decisions, and discovery tools. A wide variety of repositories and digital asset managers were discussed, with some hoping to get a general overview of available options and others seeking guidance with a particular system. Participants provided a number of examples of ways to transform non-MARC metadata into MARC to provide OCLC and local catalog access to ETDs. While most participants did not think that ETDs lead to cataloging efficiency, many reported satisfaction with their ability to use a variety of programmatic methods to provide consistent data between the digital repository and the library catalog.

Looking into the future, one participant stated a goal of one day collecting ETDs into a single location across institutions with open access for all, and noted that for this dream to become a reality there should be standardized metadata collected now, in individual repositories. In response, others provided specific metadata requirements for individual institutions and consortiums and a good starting place to determine a metadata baseline.

The e-forum ended with an invitation for all to continue the conversation in person at the Texas ETD Association Conference, which will be held at the University of North Texas in Denton, TX on February 23–24, 2012. Attendees do not need to be a member of the association; all who are interested in ETDs are welcome.

To read the discussion in its entirety, visit http://lists.ala.org/sympa/arc/alcts-eforum/2011-11/msg00005.html

Championing Project SEARCH: The Role of the Library

By Pamela Bluh, Thurgood Marshall Law Library, University of Maryland

The Project SEARCH High School Transition Program gives students the opportunity to gain valuable job skills that will assist them in transitions to the work world. ¹

In many libraries, large and small, technical services staff are responsible for an assortment of jobs ranging from routine and repetitive to complex and highly specialized. And, as the mantra goes, we are often asked to do more with less! So when an opportunity arose to become a Project SEARCH internship site on the Baltimore City campus of the University of Maryland, the reaction in technical services at the Thurgood Marshall Law Library was immediate and positive. ² Although altruism did enter into our decision—altruism is, after all, one of the core values of librarianship—and participating in a public service program appealed to our sense of community service, at the same time, we were well aware that participation in the program could also offer some practical benefits.

Project SEARCH is dedicated to providing education and training to young adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities through an innovative workforce and career development model that benefits the individual, workplace, and community. ³

With the support of the library's administration, our first assignment as a Project SEARCH internship site was to determine which tasks would be most suitable for the student interns. Since we did not know what limitations the students might have, we thought that tasks performed on a daily basis and that required only a modest learning curve and could be accomplished with a minimum of direct supervision would be ideal for the students. After meeting with the job coaches and other members of the Project SEARCH team on campus, we suggested several activities that met those criteria, including delivering newspapers and magazines to the reading room and other offices in the law school, opening and sorting the mail, and stamping and sensitizing library materials. Once we were all in agreement about the tasks and about the time commitment required from the technical services staff, we trained the job coaches, advised them on best practices, and helped them establish basic guidelines to which the interns could refer in the performance of their duties.

At the beginning of the 2008–2009 school year we welcomed our first Project SEARCH intern. By the end of September, only a few weeks into the school year, we had an epiphany! Not only was he capable of handling the tasks we had originally designated, and he accomplished those tasks accurately and efficiently, but he made it clear that he was very eager, and capable, of taking on additional tasks. This proved to be a valuable lesson for us as we were immediately required to set aside any preconceived notions we may have had about the skills and abilities of the student interns. Over the years, they have surprised us in some amazing ways!

Project SEARCH challenges traditional perceptions about employing people with learning disabilities, proving that with good instruction … they can perform jobs as well as non-disabled persons. ⁴

Several of the interns have excellent keyboarding skills—it must be the gaming and texting—and excel at typing call number labels for new books. Others are wizards with numbers and like to proofread the call number labels and match them to the books. Some prefer working with letters rather than numbers and happily alphabetize journal issues and shelve them in the periodical stacks. A few prefer to work individually whereas others enjoy working with a partner or as a member of a small team. Because the technical services environment is flexible, we are able to create an individual work plan to take advantage of each student's special abilities and gifts.

At the beginning of the school year, the campus Project SEARCH coordinator and her staff arrange tours of the various internship sites for the prospective students and their families. The students have a chance to meet the staff at each worksite and participate in the decision about which sites interest them the most and where the work seems best suited to their talents. Since becoming a Project SEARCH internship site, Technical Services at the Thurgood Marshall Law Library has hosted ten students, three per school year, each for approximately ten weeks, corresponding roughly to one school term. ⁵ After interviewing the prospective interns—as we would with all job applicants—the students are assigned to specific work sites and trained by the job coaches on the basic tasks. During the introductory period, while they are being trained and their job skills are being evaluated, the students tend to be a bit shy and nervous. However, it often does not take long before they start to project self-confidence and begin to advocate for themselves. Then they are ready to tackle more complicated, challenging tasks. When they leave us, after ten weeks, they have acquired important skills that will stand them in good stead when they enter the job market.

PHOTO: Thurgood Marshall Law Library, Library Technician II Nick Clulow (in the checkered shirt) and Project Search Intern Franklin Akins.

At the end of the academic year, the commencement ceremony, complete with Elgar's Pomp and Circumstance, is a joyous occasion for the students and their families as well as for the staff. Students proudly share personal stories about their participation in Project SEARCH and describe how the experience has prepared them for the future. ⁶ They speak about the respect they have for their co-workers, that they learned how to stay focused and that they gained self-confidence and acquired real-world job skills.

Project SEARCH was the brainchild of Erin Riehle and Cincinnati Children’s Hospital. ⁷ In the mid 1990s the hospital was implementing a major initiative to increase employment opportunities for people with disabilities, and at the same time addressing a problem of high turnover among entry-level staff with responsibility for basic tasks. The convergence of these two factors led to the creation of the program that became the model for Project SEARCH.

Initially conceived for a hospital setting, Project SEARCH sites are now found not only in hospitals and other health-related enterprises, but also in banks, in state and local government offices, and in academia. Over the last decade and a half than more two hundred Project SEARCH programs have been started in forty-two states and four countries. ⁸ The Project SEARCH concept consists of two parts. One consists of a high school transition program where students receive instruction in the skills and techniques they will need in the workplace, as well as gaining real-world experience in the workplace through practical internships. The second part is an adult employment program that creates an individualized job placement for each participant by capitalizing on the job skills acquired during the internship phase.

Project SEARCH is unique in its total immersion of students in the workplace. [S]tudents spend the entire school day at the workplace, beginning with a one-hour classroom session that teaches employment and independent living skills such as effective communication, goal setting, decision making, problem solving, nutrition, grooming, and independent travel. … Project SEARCH staff identify internships that simulate real-world employment and teach competitive, marketable, transferable skills. ⁹

The beauty of Project SEARCH is that it benefits the students as well as the employer. Students learn to manage their time. They are taught how to dress appropriately for the workplace and how to navigate the city's transit system. They learn to follow instructions and experience working collegially with co-workers and supervisors. These are all practical skills they need in order compete successfully in the workplace. ¹⁰

Hosting Project SEARCH provides a unique opportunity for the employer as well. Working with the job coaches helps the staff learn the most effective ways to support and guide students with special needs. They acquire techniques to break tasks down into manageable segments, seek alternative explanations, and create accommodations to address individual requirements. Perhaps most significantly, they become role models for the students, which results in subtle and positive changes in their own performance.

Serving as a Project SEARCH internship site is an exceptional experience for all the parties involved and one where the advantages exceed the disadvantages. Without a doubt, participation requires effort and time on the part of the staff. However, we need only to witness the transformation the students undergo during the internship period to be completely convinced that it is effort and time well spent. ¹¹

Reference Notes

1.    Project SEARCH University of Maryland Newsletter, 1, no. 1 (October 2011). http://www.dors.state.md.us/NR/rdonlyres/7BF16D5C-4532-4B49-8743-9A163BE5B050/0/NDEANewsletter.pdf (accessed November 4, 2011).

2.    The University of Maryland in Baltimore together with The Arc Baltimore, the Baltimore City Public Schools, and the Maryland Division of Rehabilitation Services established a Project SEARCH program on the Baltimore city campus in 2008. The other Project SEARCH internship locations on the UMB campus include the Health Services & Human Services Library, Parking and Transportation Services, Housekeeping, Campus Mail, Human Resource Services, Paint Shop, Center for School Mental Health, Work Control, URecFit, and A & F Facilities Management Business Administration. The University of Maryland Medical Center joined the program in 2010 and accepted interns in Linen Services, the Receiving Dock, Patient Transportation, Biomedical Equipment Distribution, Cafeteria, Mailroom, Inflammatory Bowel Disease Program, Guest/Volunteer Services, and Subway.

3.    Project SEARCH. http://www.projectsearch.us/ (accessed October 23, 2011).

4.    Royal United Hospital, Bath, UK, "Project SEARCH," Insight, no. 8 (winter 2010): 10. http://www.ruh.nhs.uk/about/documents/insight/winter_2010.pdf (accessed September 28, 2011).

5.    During the summer of 2011 we were also fortunate to work with one student intern.

6.    The Arc Baltimore, "Project SEARCH Student Reflections." http://thearcbaltimore.org/pdfs/PS%20Student%20graduate%20Reflections.pdf (accessed November 3, 2011).

7.    Erin Riehle is a founder and Senior Director of Project SEARCH. "[She] began her career at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center as a staff nurse in the pediatric intensive care unit and rapidly advanced to clinical director of the emergency department. Her interest in employment for people with disabilities grew from her frustration with high turnover rates among workers performing critical tasks such as re-stocking emergency room supply shelves. Riehle found that placing individuals with developmental disabilities in these positions was both an effective solution to her staffing problems and an improvement in quality of life for the workers she employed. This positive experience ultimately led to a systematic, hospital-wide effort, led by Riehle, to explore job possibilities for people with disabilities." http://www.projectsearch.us/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=73&Itemid=56 (accessed October 20, 2011).

8.    Project Search, "Our Story. Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center." www.projectsearch.us./index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=46&Itemid (accessed October 23, 2011).

9.    Bonnie O’Day, “Project SEARCH: Opening Doors to Employment for Young People with Disabilities,” Disability Policy Research Brief. Center for Studying Disability Policy. No. 09-06, (December 2009): 2. http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/edicollect/1279/ (accessed October 17, 2011).

10.    "How Has Your Supervisor Invested in You?" 2. http://www.dors.state.md.us/NR/rdonlyres/7BF16D5C-4532-4B49-8743-9A163BE5B050/0/NDEANewsletter.pdf (accessed November 4, 2011).

11.    For more information about Project SEARCH write to Project SEARCH Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, 3333 Burnet Avenue, MLC5030, Cincinnati, OH 450229. http://www.projectsearch.us/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=66&Itemid=77 (accessed October 23, 2011).

   Event Preview: Midwinter 2012   

ALCTS Virtual Symposium: January 9-13, 2012

Launching Your Star Potential: Leadership for Today’s Libraries

For the first time, ALCTS is offering a virtual symposium just prior to Midwinter. Five one-hour sessions will be held on five days, designed to benefit all staff who supervise or manage library operations or who may do so in the future, regardless of the type and size of the organization.

Sessions will be held each day from January 9 to 13, 2012 starting at 11 a.m. PST / 2 p.m. EST.

Visit http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/alcts/confevents/upcoming/ala/mw/star.cfm to register for as few as one or as many as all of the sessions. Registration includes access to a recording of the session, for access at any time.

I’m Your Leader: the Fundamentals of Effective Leadership

Monday, January 9, 2012

Featuring Adam Goodman

Adam Goodman is an award-winning educator, researcher, and trusted advisor to leaders of companies, non-profit groups and other organizations. He directs Northwestern University’s Center for Leadership, which offers academic and applied leadership development programs for undergraduate students, Ph.D. students and high potential staff. He is a faculty member and teaches leadership courses in the McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science. He also teaches leadership coaching in the Kellogg School of Management and teamwork and decision making in the School of Communication.

An active consultant today and for more than twenty-five years, he has advised more than one hundred CEOs, senior officers, executive teams, and boards of directors and given hundreds of invited speeches and workshops in the United States and around the world. Clients include the American Library Association-Public Library Association, Ball Corp., the Government of Canada, Drupal, Kaiser Permanente, the National Association of State Budget Officers, Navigant, New Belgium Brewing, and TIAA-CREF. He was a cofounder or partner of three management consulting firms and a board member of Solbourne Computer Inc. until its acquisition by Deloitte.

His current projects include the development of 6 Leadership Questions® (an assessment and learning tool), a data intensive enterprise-wide web portal for leadership and teamwork assessments, and training programs for leadership coaching. Past work includes a national survey of public sector leaders, the design of a national model leadership program, and work with more than twenty leadership programs from across the U.S. He was the founding cochair of the Research Section of the International Leadership Association, the world’s largest association devoted to leadership, and a Distinguished Visiting Professor at Johnson & Wales University. The Adolph Coors Foundation, Boettcher Foundation, El Pomar Foundation, Ford Foundation, Gates Family Foundation, IBM and John Templeton Foundation have recognized and supported his work. He has published articles and two academic works (Community Trusteeship and Public Leadership).

For twelve years, Goodman was President and CEO of the University of Colorado’s Leadership Institute, the nation’s oldest leadership studies program. During his tenure, the Institute became the nation’s largest teaching and research program in higher education dedicated to the study and practice of leadership. Previously, he was a Special Assistant to the President of the University of Colorado with responsibility for external and student affairs.

Goodman earned a Masters Degree in management and a Ph.D. in leadership from the Graduate School of Public Affairs at the University of Colorado, where he was a Presidential Fellow.

Fads in leadership come and go. Bookstore shelves bow under the weight of leadership manuals offering solutions to complex problems, but in my twenty-five-plus years as a student and scholar of leadership, and as an advisor to leaders around the world, I have learned that there is no single set of generic rules, ancient secrets, or effective habits that will make you a great leader. Instead, this session offers a roadmap for you to solve your own leadership challenges through an engaging and authentic question-based model.

This session springs from three key research findings:

• First, good leaders solve problems. However, great leaders begin by asking the right questions to make sure the right problem is solved.
• Second, leadership looks complex and is often practiced that way. However, leadership is really organized into five straightforward themes that can be mastered: vision, values, action, situation, and the relationship between leaders and followers.
• Third, leaders don’t emerge from factories with pre-programmed styles, habits or rules. Instead, successful leaders understand and work from their own strengths while building a team around them to close needed gaps.

You will learn how to apply these insights to routinely identify, diagnose and solve leadership challenges.

Leadership by Disruption

Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Featuring Pamela Sandlian Smith

Pam Sandlian Smith is the Director of Anythink Libraries in Adams County, Colorado, a northern suburb of Denver. Anythink is a reinvention of public libraries. Anythink libraries are designed for idea people. They are a place for people to connect, interact, discover, and even play with information. Previously, Pam was Director of the West Palm Beach Public Library, and Manager of Children’s Services at the Denver Public Library.

When the future is uncertain, to some people the safest direction is either to do nothing new or to accelerate strategies that worked in the past. With the challenges that libraries face today, our future success cannot be modeled on the past. To lead libraries that survive and thrive in the future requires a willingness to rethink the rules, to be disruptive. It requires a willingness to invent a library that relates to people who have instant access to information 24/7. Leadership in this environment requires leaders, who are willing to ask disruptive questions, create collaborative teams, have a sense of courage and an ability to take risks.

Leadership: What It Means for the Library Middle Manager

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Featuring Mary Page

Mary Page is the Associate Director for Collections and Technical Services at the University of Central Florida Libraries. She has previously worked at the University of California, Davis, and Rutgers University. She is a past president of the North American Serials Interest Group (NASIG) and is a current member of the ALA/ALCTS Board of Directors. Mary has more than twenty-five years of experience as a librarian and a manager.

The middle manager manages up, down, and across the organization. Middle managers are the glue between the vision of senior leadership and the frontline workforce. Your job as a middle manager is to translate vision into action, and you must understand both the work of your unit and the entire organization, with specific insight into how your unit fits in the whole. What leadership skills are needed by the middle manager? What role does she or he play in developing the next generation of library leaders? This webinar will discuss these questions and others relating to leadership and the middle manager.

 

Leadership: From Proto-Star to Supernova

Thursday, January 12, 2012

Featuring Erica Findley and Maureen Sullivan

Maureen Sullivan is a widely recognized leader and educator in the library profession. She is a professor of practice in the Managerial Leadership in the Information Professions PhD program at Simmons College and a member of the faculty in the annual Leadership Institute for Academic Librarians at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. She currently is president-elect of the American Library Association.

Erica Findley is the Digital Resources and Metadata Librarian at Pacific University. She manages cataloging, digital image collections, and supervises Acquisitions. Recently, Erica served as the vice-chair for the ALCTS New Members Interest Group.

Why is leadership important in libraries today? How can you be an effective leader in your organization? These questions will be addressed from the perspective of a leadership expert, Maureen Sullivan and an upcoming leader, Erica Findley. You will learn the difference between leadership and management, how to meet the expectations of new leaders, and how you can lead from any position.

Leading Change

Friday, January 13, 2012

Featuring James Hilton

James Hilton is Vice President and Chief Information Officer at the University of Virginia where he is responsible for planning and coordinating academic and administrative information technology, voice communications, and network operations on a university-wide basis. He is an advocate of strong collaboration between academic and technology cultures in university environments. He is also a Professor in the Department of Psychology.

Prior to his current appointment, Hilton was the Associate Provost for Academic Information and Instructional Technology Affairs and a member of the faculty at the University of Michigan in the Institute for Social Research and in the Psychology Department where he served as the Chair of Undergraduate Studies between 1991 and 2000. He is a three-time recipient of the LS&A Excellence in Education award, has been named an Arthur F. Thurnau Professor (1997–2006), and received the Class of 1923 Memorial Teaching Award. He has published extensively in the areas of information technology policy, person perception, stereotypes, and the psychology of suspicion. Hilton received a B.A. in Psychology from the University of Texas in 1981 and a Ph.D. from the social psychology program at Princeton University in 1985.

Many of our core conceptions of leadership and the nature of change do not mesh with current reality. Leaders, we often think, are crowned—created and blessed by the hierarchy to do the will of the organization. Similarly, we often think of change as rare and the product of careful planning. The reality is that leadership has little to do with hierarchy and change is both ubiquitous and emergent. In this session, we will talk about the role of leadership throughout the organization and strategies for leading effectively in a world of constant change.

2012 ALCTS Midwinter Symposium

Friday, January 20, 2012, 8:30 a.m.–4 p.m.

Libraries, Linked Data and the Semantic Web: Positioning Our Catalogs to Participate in the 21st Century Global Information Marketplace

The web is evolving from a global information space for storing individual documents into a highly diverse information network in which pieces of data interlink and work synergistically together to create meaning. Speakers will introduce the Semantic Web and the basics of linked data. Particular attention on library linked data will include a review of the state-of-the-art and some practical experience in linking library data to the greater linked data cloud.

Librarians, developers of web applications, information architects, and others interested in the basic concept of the semantic web, linked data and how libraries can take a leadership role in creating linked data solutions will all benefit from this symposium.

Register now on the ALA Midwinter Meeting web site: http://www.alamidwinter.org/register-now. Event Code ALC1

Scheduled Presenters

Peter Brantley, Director, BookServer Project at the Internet Archive. He is the cofounder of the Open Book Alliance, and is currently a contributing editor for Publishers Weekly, authoring a blog covering library-publisher relations. He was previously the Director of the Digital Library Federation, a non-profit association of research and national libraries. He has worked in senior information technology management roles for academic digital libraries.

 

 

Karen Coyle, Librarian, with more than thirty years of experience with library technology. She consults in a variety of areas relating to digital libraries. Karen has published dozens of articles and reports, most available on her web site, kcoyle.net. She has served on standards committees including the MARC standards group (MARBI), NISO committee AX for the OpenURL standard, and was an ALA representative to the e-book standards development that led to the ePub standard. She follows, writes, and speaks on a wide range of policy areas, including intellectual property, privacy, and public access to information. As a consultant she works primarily on metadata development and technology planning. She is currently investigating the possibilities offered by the semantic web and linked data technology.

 

 

Corey A. Harper, Metadata Services Librarian, New York University Libraries. Prior to that, he was a metadata librarian and a digital library developer at the University of Oregon. He has been actively involved in the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative (DCMI) since 2002, and has focused his professional work on discussing Semantic Web technologies and Linked Open Data principles with librarians in a variety of venues.

 

 

 

Eric Miller, cofounder and president of Zepheira which provides solutions to effectively integrate, navigate, and manage information across boundaries of person, group and enterprise. Until 2007, Eric led the Semantic Web Initiative for the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) at MIT. During his work at the W3C, Eric’s responsibilities included the architectural and technical leadership in the design and evolution of the Semantic Web.

 

 

Ross Singer, Interoperability and Open Standards Champion at Talis. Previously, Ross was an application developer at Georgia Tech’s library, Emory University libraries and the University of Tennessee libraries. While at Georgia Tech Singer founded MALTA (the Metro Atlanta Library Technology Association).

ALCTS Interest Groups

Administration of Collection Management Interest Group

Saturday, January 21, 2012, 10:30 a.m.–12 p.m.
Dallas Convention Center D173

If you have any interest in the administration of collection development or management please come and join us for a town hall-style meeting. We will discuss the future of this group and possible programming ideas for ALA Annual in Anaheim. This is your chance to help create something, so please do stop by.

ALCTS/LITA Authority Control Interest Group

Sunday, January 22, 2012, 1:30–3:30 p.m.
Dallas Convention Center A201/202

Please join us for the on Sunday, January 22, 2012 at ALA Midwinter. The focus of the LITA/ALCTS Authority Control Interest Group meeting will be updates on special authority control projects.

Janis Young from the Library of Congress will give an update of the genre/forms projects at Library of Congress. Robert Bremer of OCLC will provide updates on VIAF and the genre/form implementation in WorldCat. Questions and discussion from the floor will be welcome.

A business meeting will be held after the program and everyone is invited to attend.

Book and Paper Interest Group

Sunday, January 22, 2012, 1:30–3:30 p.m.
Dallas Convention Center D171

Join us for a variety of talks about exhibit issues. Some of the questions we will be exploring are:

• Are people feeling greater pressure from their institutions to increase (or in some cases initiate) their exhibition presence, with exhibit calendars becoming more compressed?
• What departments are defining the calendar of exhibits, their timing, and their focus? How much notice are people getting for changing exhibits? Are these changes included within their budgets, or are special resources allocated for them? Are people talking about long-term reallocation of staff time to address exhibit issues?
• Are any institutions building new exhibit spaces for their collections, whether as part of an overall remodel or on an ad-hoc basis? Or are people working with their existing exhibit spaces, making do with what they have and putting a remodel request on their wish list?
• Assuming people are including some online presence with their exhibitions, how has this online presence/workflow been incorporated into the existing resource/budget/staff framework? Is anyone using new media blogging/web outlets as a virtual “exhibition” presence and forgoing a physical exhibition space entirely?

Come hear how some of your colleagues have grappled with these questions. We look forward to seeing you in Dallas.

Cataloging & Classification Research Interest Group

Sunday, January 22, 2012, 10:30 a.m.–12 p.m.
Dallas Convention Center A306

Traditions and Transitions in Batchloaded Catalog Data

In the current economic climate, libraries must adopt cost-effective methods to facilitate access to collections. Vendor-provided records enable access to individual titles when batch-loaded into the catalog, but often have substantial quality issues. In this year’s meeting, we explore the benefits, challenges, and best practices for batch-loading vendor catalog records. Following the presentations, there will be an opportunity for audience questions and a panel discussion of issues by the presenters.

“Batchloading: Current Practices and Future Challenges: A Survey of Large Research Libraries,” presented by Rebecca L. Mugridge MacIntosh, Head, Cataloging and Metadata Services, Penn State University Libraries.

A review of survey results showing how batchloading records for access to digital collections can impact staffing, budgets, workflow, and quality standards. The data also examines how batchloading activities are managed within libraries, how information technology issues support and/or hinder batchloading activities, and how libraries assess the effectiveness of batch loading.

“Quality Issues in Vendor-provided Records for E-books,” presented by Stacie Traill, Cartographic and E-Resources Cataloging Coordinator, University of Minnesota Libraries, and Chew Chiat Naun, Cataloging Strategist, University of Minnesota Libraries.

The University of Minnesota Libraries documented and analyzed types of errors in vendor-supplied batchloaded records for electronic book collections. This presentation describes specific error types detected and the methods developed for identifying and correcting errors, including use of the MARC Edit tool. It also discusses unresolved issues in quality control for batchloaded records, and proposes some potential larger-scale solutions.

“Fast, but Accurate? Pitfalls of Batch Metadata Editing,” presented by Kathryn Lybarger, Coordinator of Cataloging and Metadata, University of Kentucky.

A discussion of problems and inconsistencies in MARC records for electronic resource packages that may be unexpected and difficult to reconcile using batch processes. Includes tips on how to process record batches to help maintain an accurate catalog, while taking advantage of the efficiency enabled by batch editing.

Catalog Management Interest Group

Saturday, January 21, 2012, 1:30–3:30 p.m.
Dallas Convention Center D227

Presentations and speakers will include:

• “A Little Breathing Room Please! Catalog Management Projects That Make a Difference” presented by Ruth S. Ziegler, Authorities/Catalog Management Librarian, Florida State University Libraries. Ziegler will cover the impact of print withdrawal projects on catalog management activities.
• “Separate, Merged, and Separate Once Again: Un-mulvering the Mulvered Records” presented by Lucas Mak, Metadata and Catalog Librarian, Michigan State University Libraries. Mak will describe how he used XSLT (Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformation) to automate the process of separating 7,400 single records for theses that described both the print and microform versions into separate records for each format.
• “Cooperative Quality Control for Cataloging: Initiatives in Error Handling” presented by Ian Fairclough, Cataloging & Metadata Services Librarian, George Mason University. Fairclough will review cooperative initiatives he has undertaken with OCLC and electronic distribution lists he created to further the cooperative resolution of cataloging errors.
• “Towards Better Discovery of Video Materials” presented by Cathy Weng, Head of Cataloging and Yuji Tosaka, Cataloging/Metadata Librarian, The College of New Jersey Library. Weng and Tosaka will illustrate how enhancements were made to catalog records to improve the discovery of video materials.

Contact Connie McGuire (cmcguire@umich.edu) CMIG Chair, for more information.

Cataloging Norms Interest Group

Saturday, January 21, 2012, 10:30 a.m.–12 p.m.
Dallas Convention Center D223

All are invited to attend the program of the Cataloging Norms Interest Group. The theme of metadata management features three speakers:

• Diane Hillmann - Statement-Based Management of Metadata
• Susan A. Massey - Envisioning and Integrating New Cataloging Workflows
• Roman S. Panchyshyn - Batch Processing of E-Resource Records in a Local and Consortial Environment

Statement-based Management of Metadata
Diane Hillman (Cornell University)

Catalogers and metadata librarians have been hearing a lot about the new data environment they will be joining, and how shifts from "record-level" to ‘statement-level’ management will be a part of this evolution. But what exactly is ‘statement-level management’ of metadata and how does it work? Diane Hillmann, who learned about this concept when she was part of the NSDL (National Science Digital Library) Project, will talk about how managing statements instead of records has significant potential for us as we begin to think of ourselves as consumers as well as providers of data.

Envisioning and Integrating New Cataloging Workflows
Susan A. Massey (Head of Discovery Enhancement, Thomas G. Carpenter Library, University of North Florida)

When I arrived at the University of North Florida, the library was in the process of initiating several new workflows that would impact cataloging staff, including a new digitization unit that would need metadata services, the purchase of large e-book packages that required batch editing and loading into the catalog, the purchase of software for internal web-based documentation, and the purchase of a web-scale discovery service that entailed new ways of accessing library materials. I embarked on a reorganization process that involved creating cataloging workflow charts, performing a task analysis for each workflow, assessing staff and task competencies and reorganizing workflows for more efficient functioning of the department. The reorganization was intended to free staff time to address the newly developing technical services workflow streams such as metadata for the new digital repository and batch loading of electronic resources, but it also helped to identify training and documentation needs to incorporate changes in norms coming from the external cataloging standards environment.

Batch Processing of E-Resource Records in a Local and Consortial Environment: Streamlining Cataloging Workflow at Kent State University
Roman S. Panchyshyn (Catalog Librarian, Kent State University)

Batch processing of e-book and e-serial MARC records for both our local Innovative catalog and our consortial central catalog is one of the core services provided and maintained by staff in the library’s technical services department. Building on the work of Annie Wu and Anne M. Mitchell (Library Resources & Technical Services, vol. 54, no. 3 [July 2010]), KSU is developing a checklist process that records decision points for each project and documents workflow processes for departmental reference and consultation. The use of this checklist system provides a variety of benefits for our staff and for our users, both locally and consortially including a document trail, the duplicate prevention in our consortial catalog, guidelines for training staff, and quantifiable data that the Library can use for future research and decision making.

Collection Development Librarians of Academic Libraries Interest Group

Saturday, January 21, 2012, 4–5:30 p.m.
Dallas Convention Center D173

Please join us for a discussion about transformative collections! The ALCTS Transforming Collections Task Force was formed to consider how ALCTS can best address ALA’s goal of “providing leadership in the transformation of libraries and library services in a dynamic and increasing global digital information environment.” Members of the task force will update us on their work to date, detailing some of their proposals for how ALCTS and ALA can promote transformative collections. Their report is online at http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/alcts/ianda/transcol/0611report.cfm

We will discuss their ideas and offer additional input. Following the task force’s update, the group will discuss collection development trends we feel are transformative, sharing our experiences and gaining new ideas we can implement in our own libraries.

Collection Evaluation & Assessment Interest Group

Sunday, January 22, 2012, 1:30–3:30 p.m.
Dallas Convention Center D220

You are invited to participate in a discussion of tools and techniques utilized to evaluate library collections. There will be two presentations and plenty of time for questions and discussion:

• Chan Li from the California Digital Library (CDL) will describe a new value-based strategy used by the CDL for the UC Libraries which involves using objective metrics to compare the value of scholarly journals, establish price containment targets, and identify titles to consider for potential cancellation. A key aspect of this new methodology is the use of a Weighted Value Algorithm to assess multiple vectors of value for each journal title under review.
• Ruth Fischer of Sustainable Collection Services (SCS) will use examples from libraries to describe how the services and tools developed by SCS can assist librarians to draw down large collections of under-used print monographs when faced with limited space.

The charge of the CMS Collection Evaluation and Assessment Interest Group is:

To identify and promote useful qualitative and quantitative assessment measures that provide management information for the assessment of library collections both in the local setting and on the national and international level. To promote better utilization of existing assessment measures available from vendors or publishers, as well as those developed by libraries. To provide guidance to collection managers using assessment information to improve the management of electronic, print, and other library resources.

Collection Management and Electronic Resources Interest Group

Sunday, Jan. 22, 2012, 10:30 a.m.–12 p.m.
Dallas Convention Center D223

This is a newly formed interest group open to anyone with an interest in collection development and electronic resources. We will discuss topics of interest to the group and pursue projects that we determine are needed in this area. Please join us for our inaugural meeting and bring your ideas and enthusiasm. Everyone is welcome!

Collection Management in Public Libraries Interest Group

Monday, January 23, 2012, 1:30–3:30 p.m.
Dallas Convention Center D172

Issues relating to Collection Management will be discussed, particularly e-media and current trends in Collection Management.Contact co-chairs Peggy Murphy (pmurphy@lapl.org) and Charlene Rue (C.Rue@brooklynpubliclibrary.org) for more information.

College & Research Libraries Interest Group

Sunday, January 22, 2012, 8:30–10 a.m.
Dallas Convention Center D227

As budgets tighten and as title-focused and demand-driven acquisition models gain in popularity, conventional “big deal” publisher packages are falling under increased scrutiny. Are these packages a good investment? What processes are libraries using to make decisions about publisher package renewals/cancellations? How does the process of a “big deal” discontinuation work? And, perhaps most importantly—what are the impacts?

Please join us at the ALCTS Continuing Resources Section College & Research Libraries Interest Group as we consider these questions!

As of press time, we have two confirmed speakers who will share with us there experiences and perspectives on “big deal” discontinuations:

• Beth Bernhardt (Electronic Resources Librarian at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro)
• David Fowler (Head, Licensing, Grants Administration & Collection Analysis at the University of Oregon)

If you have questions about this meeting, please contact the Interest Group Chair, Patrick L. Carr (carrp@ecu.edu) or Chair-Elect, Melissa Behney (melissa.behney@yale.edu).

Competencies and Education for a Career in Cataloging Interest Group

Friday, January 20, 2012, 4–5:15 p.m.
Dallas Convention Center A304

Effective Succession Planning and Strategies to Identify and Prepare New Managers for Cataloging and Metadata Departments

The need to plan for succession planning in an environment that is losing its cataloging and metadata department leaders challenges libraries of all types and sizes. Guest presenter April Grey will present an overview of her experiences coming into the University of Louisiana at Lafayette as the Head of Cataloging with minimal library experience, heading a department where 80 percent of the staff have more than twenty years’ experience. She will discuss the successes, challenges and the plan for changes in the future.

Members will discuss the current state of increasing vacancies for cataloging and metadata department managers and explore the requirements, experience, and challenges of this emerging trend.

Copy Cataloging Interest Group

Saturday, January 21, 2012, 8–10 a.m.
Dallas Convention Center D227

Library of Congress Decisions for Copy Cataloging with RDA
Presented by Barbara B. Tillett, Chief Policy & Standards Divison, Library of Congress

What’s a cataloger to do if headings or the entire bibliographic record is coded as RDA? This presentation will review LC decisions for its own staff, and share information about the documentation and training materials that are available on the Library of Congress’ web page that are relevant to copy cataloging with RDA.

CIP Metadata for E-books
Karl Debus-López, Chief of the U.S. General Division and Acting Chief of the U.S. and Publisher Liaison Division at the Library of Congress, will present information on the Library of Congress’ new pilot project to create cataloging in publication metadata for electronic books that are simultaneously published with their print equivalents. The rationale for providing pre-publication metadata for electronic books will be discussed, as will the scope of the pilot and the process created by the Library of Congress to create the metadata. Library of Congress created CIP e-book pre-publication data for the pilot participants is currently available in OCLC for use by libraries and vendors as a source of copy cataloging.

Copy Cataloging Gets Some Respect From Administrators
Elaine A. Franco, Principal Cataloger, Cataloging & Metadata Services, University of California, Davis, will discuss how her library has “rebranded” copy cataloging to show its value to administrators. At the University of California, Davis, there is very little “easy” copy cataloging these days. Much of what would have been handled by beginning copy catalogers is now outsourced for shelf-ready processing. The loss of librarian positions over the last few years has meant that copy catalogers are taking more responsibility for complex copy cataloging. Copy catalogers at UCDavis are now authorized and trained to edit OCLC master records, a capability previously limited to original catalogers. As a result, UCDavis is now seeing a dramatic rise in its OCLC credits.

Questions following the discussions are encouraged.

Creative Ideas in Technical Services Interest Group

Sunday, January 22, 2012, 4–5:30 p.m.
Dallas Convention Center D220

Technical services, like any other department in a library, is faced with the need to increase efficiencies so that it can purchase and catalog material as fast as possible, in order to meet the needs of today’s users. Some technical services departments across the United States have embraced these efficiencies by implementing services such as: Patron Driven Acquisitions, Group wide License Negation, and Rapid Cataloging in order to meet the changing needs of the library. Please join us at the ALCTS Creative Ideas in Technical Services Interest Group as we discuss how these and other efficiencies have been implemented in Technical Service Departments around the United States.

Digital Conversion Interest Group

Saturday, January 21, 2012, 1:30–3:30 p.m.
Dallas Convention Center D171

Preservation professionals are increasingly charged with varied and complex collections that include a growing amount of moving image material. Furthermore, limited resources and technical learning curves contribute to the challenge of preserving these materials.

This session will provide practical information on the preservation of moving image materials. A panel comprised of experienced professionals will address such topics as standards and technical specifications, file formats, codecs and wrappers, metadata, data storage, and delivery for access. The session will provide equal parts theory and application, with an eye to what small to mid-sized institutions can do to implement these strategies.

This will be an opportunity to learn more about general technical matters surrounding these complex challenges, as well as an opportunity to bring specific questions and success stories to what will be a mostly “town hall” style meeting.

Time will additionally be allotted at the end of the program for discussion of the Annual Meeting’s agenda.

Digital Preservation Interest Group

Sunday, January 22, 2012, 8–10 a.m.
Dallas Convention Center D171

The Future Is Now: Case Studies in Born-Digital Preservation

Are you ready to handle born-digital materials? We've talked about the future onslaught of these materials, and that future is now! Our speakers will present on-the-ground case studies of how two Texas institutions are dealing with the management of born-digital materials in special collections and archives. Dr. Patricia Galloway will discuss the work of graduate students in her Problems in the Permanent Retention of Electronic Records course, and talk about what skills are necessary for future digital archivists. Michele Reilly will talk about the process underway at the University of Houston to review existing workflows and develop new ones for born-digital material management. There will be time for discussion at the end of the presentations.

Patricia Galloway teaches courses on appraisal, digital archives, and museum studies at the School of Information, University of Texas-Austin. She holds Ph.Ds in Comparative Literature and in Anthropology from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. From 1979 to 2000 she worked at the Mississippi Department of Archives and History, where among other tasks she was the first manager of information systems and directed an National Historical Publications and Records Commission project to establish an electronic records program.

Michele Reilly earned her Master in Library Science degree from Indiana University in Bloomington (2005) with a concentration in collection development and library management. Throughout her library career she has concentrated on the preservation of digital materials, the future of digital technologies and how users are affected and interact with emerging technologies. She is the head of Digital Services at the University of Houston Libraries.

Faceted Subject Access Interest Group

Saturday, January 21, 2012, 4–5:30 p.m.
Dallas Convention Center D222

Increasingly users are searching for library materials through “Next Generation Catalogs” or “Discovery Systems” which provide options to limit keyword retrieval sets by subject terms. How do our current subjects function in this context? Can standards be developed for this? What should they be?

Please join us at the ALCTS Cataloging & Metadata Management Section Faceted Subject Access Interest Group Midwinter Meeting as we consider these and related questions.

FRBR Interest Group

Friday, January 20, 2012, 10:30 a.m.–12 p.m.
Dallas Convention Center D168

There is more to Functional Requirements than just FRBR. Come join us to learn more about FRAD and the other FR models from our very knowledgeable presenters, Qiang Jin and Shawne Miksa.

Qiang Jin is Senior Coordinating Cataloger and NACO Coordinator, Associate Professor of Library Administration at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Library. Her presentation will provide a basic explanation of the Functional Requirements for Authority Data (FRAD): A Conceptual Model. It will illustrate the Conceptual Model for Authority Data with specific examples, and explain the FRAD entities, attributes of those entities and relationships between those entities with many specific examples so that attendees will be able to understand the FRAD model. It will include some brief RDA authority records exemplifying the major FRAD relationships.

Shawne Miksa is an Associate Professor in the Department of Library and Information Sciences and Acting Associate Director of the Interdisciplinary Information Science PhD Program in the College of Information (COI), University of North Texas. In her presentation, Miksa will list and define the twelve user tasks from all three FR Models (FRBR, FRAD, FRSAD) and present her conception of corresponding tasks that an information organizer (cataloger, metadata specialist, etc.) performs to support the user tasks. Most of these tasks are not new to the practice, and Dr. Miksa will show how they can be recast to correspond with the functionality models.

Heads of Cataloging Departments Interest Group

Monday, January 23, 2012, 8–10 a.m.
Dallas Convention Center D171

Developing Service-Oriented Models for Cataloging and Metadata

We are delighted to be joined by a distinguished panel of speakers:

• Jee Davis (University of Texas) & Jina Wakimoto (University of Colorado, Boulder): “Cataloging IS a Public Service: Repositioning Cataloging and Metadata Services”
• Teressa Keenan (University of Montana): “Charting a Course with NOMAP: Integrating Metadata Workflows into a Traditional Cataloging Unit”
• Jennifer O’Brien Roper (University of Virginia): “Envisioning Culture Shift: Building a Strategic Framework for Service Oriented Cataloging”
• Sharon Wiles-Young (Lehigh University): “Technical Services Involvement with New Service: Are there Silos Within the Library?”

Presentations will be followed by a panel discussion and audience Q&A. Please contact Christopher Cronin (croninc@uchicago.edu), Chair of the ALCTS Heads of Cataloging Interest Group, for more information.

Intellectual Access to Preservation Metadata Interest Group

Saturday, January 21, 2012, 4–5:30 p.m.
Dallas Convention Center D171

Presenter: Joan Starr, EZID Service Manager and Manager of Strategic and Project Planning at the California Digital Library

Data, datasets, and data management are becoming an increasingly important parts of the library collection management portfolio. In this context, librarians seek new tools and approaches that support researchers in the full research life cycle. Researchers have a number of requirements: the data must be easy to find, it must give credit to the researchers, it must be citable, and, above all, any maintenance must be easy.

Good data management is the answer, and built with hardware and infrastructure but also metadata: metadata for citation, access and preservation. Making this easy is the business of new tools like EZID, a persistent identifier service from California Digital Library.

Joan Starr is the EZID Service Manager and Manager of Strategic and Project Planning at CDL, and the Chair of DataCite’s Metadata Working Group. She will provide an overview of some of the key issues in dataset metadata, and give special focus on ways that EZID can help you extend your collection-building activities to datasets, allowing you to preserve your institution’s research investments.

ALCTS/LITA Linked Library Data Interest Group

Sunday, January 22, 2012, 10:30 a.m.–12 p.m.
Sheraton Lone Star Ballroom C2

The midwinter meeting of the Linked Library Data Interest Group will include one hour of informal discussion followed by a thirty-minute business meeting. The meeting will open with updates from the chairs on recent developments in the LLD landscape, and attendees will be invited to give brief lightning talks. This will be followed by a short summary of Friday’s “Libraries, Linked Data and the Semantic Web” institute and a discussion of topics arising from this event. The business meeting portion will primarily be focused on planning the proposed ALCTS Annual preconference.

ALCTS/LITA MARC Formats Interest Group

Saturday, January 21, 2012, 4–6 p.m.
Dallas Convention Center C149

What Lies Beyond MARC?

The Library of Congress has announced its Bibliographic Framework Initiative, which includes plans to find a successor to the MARC format. What problems do we want the new framework to solve? How might new technologies influence our practices? How do these developments relate to the introduction of RDA?

Speakers include:

• Jennifer Bowen, co-Executive Director, eXtensible Catalog Organization
• Mark Ehlert, Coordinator, Bibliographic & Technical Services (BATS) Unit, Minitex
• Kelley McGrath, Metadata Management Librarian, University of Oregon

Metadata Interest Group

Sunday, January 22, 2012, 8–10 a.m.
Dallas Convention Center C155

This year’s meeting will feature presentations on metadata guidelines for digital video, including streaming services such as Kaltura. The exact presentation lineup is being finalized.

New Members Interest Group

Saturday, January 21, 2012, 10:30 a.m.–12 p.m.
Dallas Convention Center D172

Are you a new ALCTS member or interested in becoming a member? Please join the ALCTS New Members Interest Group for a brief overview of ALCTS and opportunity to network with other new members and veteran members. Before attending the meeting, please register to be a mentor or mentee at http://bit.ly/s9RvPJ. Anyone unable to register before the meeting is still welcome, and may be matched depending on availability of other mentors or mentees. For more information, please contact chair-elect Liz Siler at liz.siler@gmail.com, or chair Amy Jackson at amyjacks@unm.edu.

Promoting Preservation Interest Group

Sunday, January 22, 2012, 10:30 a.m.–12 p.m.
Dallas Convention Center D171

Getting the Message Out There: A Show and Tell Session

Presentations and discussion will focus on:

• How you promoting preservation of your collections?
• What are tried and true methods of promotion?
• Are there new strategies for incorporating or sharing the preservation message?

We look forward to seeing you in Dallas!

Preservation Administrators Interest Group

Saturday January 21, 2012, 8 a.m.–12 p.m.
Hyatt Reunion Ballroom G/H

Featured speakers:

• Ann Marie Willar, MIT
• Roger Smith, University of California-San Diego - Managing an Efficient Local Book Scanning Workstation
• Annie Peterson, Yale, and Jake Nadal, UCLA - Scarce and Endangered Works: Using Network-level Holdings Data in Preservation Decision Making and Stewardship of the Printed Record
• Julie Mosbo, Southern Illinois University - Preservation Week Update; Poor man’s mold clean-up project
• Various alumni speakers, highlighting the Preservation Management Institute program

Contact George Blood (george@georegbloodaudio.com) Co-Chair or Roger Smith (ros001@ucsd.edu) Co-Chair, for more information. Hope to see you all there!

Public Libraries Technical Services Interest Group

Saturday, January 21, 2012, 7–10 a.m.
OMNI - Greenville Avenue

The ALCTS Public Libraries Technical Services Interest Group will be meeting at ALA Midwinter in conjunction with the OCLC Dewey breakfast. The PLTSIG portion of the meeting will start at roughly 8:30 a.m. We encourage everyone to come and hear what’s new with Dewey, and stay for the meeting. At Midwinter we usually have a round-table discussion of timely topics or issues in the technical services area specific to public libraries, and brainstorm ideas for an actual planned topic of discussion or presentation at Annual. This Midwinter, Donna Cranmer, PLTSIG Chair, will also be soliciting volunteers as vice chair, since the person chosen for that role in New Orleans has accepted a position in a special library and resigned.

Now that PLTSIG has been established for several years, it’s time for an official mailing list for the group. It you are interested in keeping an eye on the activities of the group, and want to know more about our meetings, sign up for our discussion list. Visit http://lists.ala.org/sympa, and search for alcts-publibtechserv or go to http://lists.ala.org/sympa/info/alcts-publibtechserv to sign up. A large amount of traffic isn’t expected; just flurries prior to and right after ALA meetings.

Role of the Professional Librarian in Technical Services Interest Group

Saturday, January 21, 2012, 10:30 a.m.–12 p.m.
Dallas Convention Center D174

Perpetual Access: Peaks and Pitfalls

We know that we want to have perpetual access clauses in our licenses and we know that publishers will provide them, but what are we actually getting with our perpetual access rights? In this informal group setting, we will discuss the results of our examination of perpetual access clauses from twenty of the Texas A&M University Libraries’ licenses for our major journal packages, including the impact on our electronic resources and serials workflows; the potential impact on the acquisitions and cataloging staff; and how perpetual access affects our current and/or future functions as technical services librarians. We will present a chart comparing the perpetual access rights offered by the twenty publishers and we will then open the discussion to the audience to learn how librarians at other institutions deal with perpetual access.

Join speakers Jane Smith, Coordinator of Electronic Resources at Texas A&M University, and Eugenia Beh, Electronic Resources Librarian at Texas A&M University, in discussing the peaks and pitfalls of perpetual access.

Technical Services Managers in Academic Libraries Interest Group

Saturday, January 21, 2012, 8–10 a.m.
Dallas Convention Center D172

Technical Services in Evolution: Looking into the Future

Please join us for lively table discussions on these topics of current interest:

• RDA
• Acquisitions and serials in evolution
• Changes in technical services staffing, training, and prioritization of workloads as libraries turn their focus increasingly to electronic and digital resources
• How do we as managers develop the necessary mindset to lead change as libraries move in new directions?
• What are the new skills current cataloging staff will need in the next few years and how can we provide training for them?
• DDA, social tagging, and other end-user driven trends affecting our work. What are the implications for the future of tech services?

Technical Services Workflow Efficiency Interest Group

Monday January 23, 2012, 1:30–3:30 p.m.
Dallas Convention Center D227

With constant budget cuts libraries are focusing on digitizing their unique and special collections. More metadata is now being created in house by staff that formerly only did traditional cataloging. The panelists will discuss their approaches to transitioning staff away from traditional cataloging and towards metadata. Learn from this panel how libraries have trained traditional cataloging staff to create metadata for their digital collections as part of their normal cataloging workflows and any obstacles or lessons learned during the transition to this new type of cataloging. The digital collections discussed will include institutional repositories, oral histories, museum collections and archival collections of all shapes and sizes.

Panelists include Ann Ellis, Metadata Librarian at Stephen F Austin State University; Morag Boyd, Head, Special Collections Cataloging at The Ohio State University; Teressa Keenan, Metadata Librarian at The University of Montana; and Vicki Sipe, Catalog Librarian, University of Maryland, Baltimore County.

ALCTS Forums

Alternatives to the Big Deal: Implementing Pay-Per-View Collection Management

Sunday, January 22, 2012, 4–5:30 p.m.
Dallas Convention Center, Room D168

A Collection Management Forum

Large aggregated packages of journals that publishers offer to libraries for hefty subscription fees, otherwise known as the Big Deal, have become commonplace in libraries. While they offer the advantage of purchasing large numbers of titles at a discount, librarians have become increasingly disenchanted with them because of their high cost and the inability to add or drop titles from the package. Pay-per-view subscription models offer an alternative that allows librarians to pay only for those articles that their users view. This program examines the pay-per-view model from the perspective of both the publisher and of librarians who have implemented it. The advantages and disadvantages of per view are discussed along with an exploration of where the pay-per-view model is headed and what its long-term prospects might be.

The forum will include the following speakers:

• Beth Bernhardt, Electronic Resources Librarian - University of North Carolina, Greensboro
• Chrysanne Lowe, Vice President Marketing Communications - Elsevier
• Marvin Pollard, Project Manager, Office of the Chancellor - California State University
• Ryan O. Weir, Director of Technical Services and Electronic Resources - Murray State University

Each speaker will be allotted between 15 and 20 minutes to speak. This will be followed by questions from the audience.

Bibliographic Control: A Meeting Between Educators and Practitioners

Friday, January 20, 2012, 1:30–3 p.m.

Co-Sponsored by ALCTS and ALISE

“On the Record,” the report of the Library of Congress Working Group on the Future of Bibliographic Control, stresses the need for an up-to-date educational preparation of catalogers, metadata specialists, indexers, and other librarians and information professionals, so that the educational system will continue to produce professional librarians whose skill sets match the needs of the marketplace they will be entering.

To address this issue ALCTS and ALISE are convening a meeting for librarians involved in bibliographic control (writ large) and educators. This hour and a half-long forum will feature three speakers, providing varying perspectives on the current state of cataloging and metadata education and what cataloging and metadata practitioners need to know in the workplace. Time will be provided for the speakers to respond to each other’s presentations, and to questions and comments from the audience.

The session will be moderated by Arlene G. Taylor, Professor Emerita of the University of Pittsburgh School of Information Sciences, and will feature the following panelists:

• Shilpa Rele, Metadata Librarian - University of Miami, and 2009 MLIS Graduate from the University of California, Los Angeles
• Beth Picknally Camden, Patricia and Bernard Goldstein Director of Information Processing - University of Pennsylvania
• Dr. June Abbas, Associate Professor - University of Oklahoma Department of Library and Information Studies

Continuing Resources Section Continuing Resources Cataloging Committee Update Forum

Monday, January 23, 2012, 1:30–3:30 p.m.
Dallas Convention Center, D168

There will be brief updates from representatives of the ISSN Center, the Library of Congress and CONSER Program, and CC:DA.

After the reports, John Espley of VTLS (Visionary Technology in Library Solutions) will give a demonstration of continuing resources cataloging using a RDA/FRBR model. He will also demonstrate his idea of a “super work” and its implications for continuing resources cataloging.

Discovering and Cataloging Repositories and Unique Collections: An Update on Standards, Preservation, and Usage

Saturday, January 21, 2012, 4–5:30 p.m.
Dallas Convention Center D168

Presented by the Holdings Information Committee and the Standards Committee

As more resources are indexed online and as more researchers begin their quest in a digital environment, unique local collections and institutional repositories play an ever more important role. The development of standards for these materials and ensuring their long-term preservation is crucial. Please join the Standards Committee and the Holdings Committee to learn more about RDA for Non-MARC testers. Discover how the PIRUS2 project (Publisher and Institutional Repository Usage Statistics) is enabling the recording and reporting of articles hosted by aggregators or in repositories. Learn how preservation standards can ensure the long-term protection of digital collections.

Confirmed speakers:

• Gary Van Overborg, Founder and CEO - Scholarly iQ will update us on the PIRUS2 project.
• Marie-Elise Waltz, Special Projects Librarian - Center for Research Libraries, will address preservation standards.
• Melanie Wacker - Columbia University Libraries, will cover RDA for non-MARC testers.

PARS Forum

Sunday, January 22, 2012, 4–5:30 p.m.
Dallas Convention Center D171

Is your institution the proud owner of a high-density storage facility? Is your department responsible for preparing or responding to emergency situations involving collections at a high-density storage facility? Then you should come to discuss—in person or virtually—the issues surrounding your successes and challenges with planning at the PARS Forum at Midwinter Dallas.

All folks are welcome to attend regardless of their experience with emergency planning. This is to be an informal exchange of ideas and also an opportunity to try out virtual participation. We plan on having confirmed speakers who have experience in high-density storage emergency planning, so there will be valuable content to help you with your planning needs.

Because there are a limited number of spots available, we ask that interested virtual participants please RSVP for the event by December 16th to Annie Peterson at elizabeth.peterson@yale.edu. We will be using GoToMeeting, which does not require software in order to participate; you just need a high-speed internet connection. We will confirm your participation by sending you an invitation with a link. Just click on the link during the time of the Forum and you will be connected to the virtual PARS Forum! For more information on GoToMeeting, please go to http://www.gotomeeting.com/fec/online_meeting

Publisher/Vendor/Library Relations Interest Group Forum

Monday, January 23, 2012, 8–10 a.m.
Dallas Convention Center D168

What Does Electronic ILL Mean to You?

Do you think you know everything there is to know about Interlibrary loan (ILL)? What is the difference between lending book versus journal content? What about ILL of electronic content? How is electronic ILL being addressed in site license agreements? What does the future hold for ILL borrowing practices? The Publisher/Vendor/Library Relations (PVLR) interest group invites you to join us for an informative and lively discussion with a step-by-step explanation of the ILL process, the current copyright issues surrounding ILL of electronic content, and views from the librarian, vendor and publishing communities about this important practice, and how it is evolving to meet the demands of the digital age.

RDA Update Forum

Sunday, January 22, 2012, 1:30–3:30 p.m.
Dallas Convention Center C146

Sponsored by the Cataloging and Metadata Management Section (CaMMS) and the RDA Conference Forums and Programs Task Force

Panelists will outline key cataloging changes related to RDA and steps being taken in preparation for implementation sometime after January 2013. Although there is at least a year before wide-scale implementation of RDA, changes are already impacting workflow and data exchange. In an effort to economize on speakers and room space and to add emphasis to this topic, CaMMS is foregoing its Friday Forum to join with the task force in presenting this RDA Forum.

Scheduled presenters include:

• Beacher Wiggins - Library of Congress
• Linda Barnhart - Chair PCC (Program for Cooperative Cataloging)
• Glenn Patton - OCLC
• Sally McCallum - MARBI (Machine-Readable Bibliographic Information)
• Troy Linker - ALA Publishing

   ALCTS, ALA, and Industry News   

People

Erica Findley, digital resources/metadata librarian at Pacific University in Forest Grove, Ore., has been selected as the ALCTS-sponsored Emerging Leader for 2012. The Association for Library Collections & Technical Services, ALCTS, sponsors one Emerging Leader who has chosen collections and technical services as a career and is a member of ALCTS. Read more.

Linda Phillips, a longtime ALCTS member, retired from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville on August 31 after a forty-one-year career in librarianship. Over the years, Linda was an active participant in ALCTS, working particularly on the CMDS section and the LRTS Editorial Board. "ALCTS colleagues were a dynamic support network and ALCTS programs/services of great value to my professional life," said Linda. She will keep up her UT web page at http://works.bepress.com/linda_phillips/ in the short term.

Longtime ALCTS member D. Whitney Coe passed away at Asbury Methodist Village, Gaithersburg, MD, on October 8, 2011. Whitney served as chair or a member of various committees in ALCTS, as well as serving on the Bibliography Section of the International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA), where he was part of the working group developing guidelines for national bibliographies in electronic and other formats. He spent the 1993-1994 academic year in Korea evaluating the Seoul National University Library's English-language collections under a joint American Library Association-U.S. Government grant.

Whitney has endowed a graduate student scholarship at Syracuse University. Contributions may be made to the D. Whitney Coe Graduate Financial Assistance Fund, Office of Development, Syracuse University, 820 Comstock Ave, Syracuse, NY 13224; or to the Asbury Methodist Village Benevolent Care Fund, Asbury Foundation, 201 Russell Ave, Gaithersburg, MD 20877, that provides assistance to residents who have outlived their resources.

News

ALA Annual Poster deadline is January 6. Share your best ideas and work with the national library community by presenting a poster session at the 2012 ALA Annual Conference in Anaheim. An application form and more information is available on the poster session web site, at http://www.lib.jmu.edu/org/ala/howto.aspx.

Council Candidates Announced—ALA recently announced the slate of candidates for ALA Council. On the list are sixteen ALCTS members: Sharon Castleberry, Cynthia Clark, Elizabeth Cox, George Fowler, Jim Kuhn, Olivia Madison, Jason Martin, Susan Matveyeva, Melanie McGurr, Mary Page, Nathan Putnam, Scott Reinke, K. R. Roberto, John Sandstrom, Michele Seikel, and Thomas Teper. Voting begins March 19, 2012. For more information, including information for individuals wishing to appear on the 2011 ballot as a petition candidate, visit http://www.ala.org/ala/aboutala/governance/alaelection/index.cfm. Look for more information about these candidates in the March 2012 issue of ALCTS Newsletter Online.

ALCTS President Betsy Simpson spoke with National Public Radio (NPR) this past fall to help answer the question, "Do Libraries Really Destroy Books?" Read more about it on NPR's blog: http://www.npr.org/blogs/monkeysee/2011/10/12/141265066/hard-choices-do-libraries-really-destroy-books

ALCTS Publishing Review Task Group Created—In the continuing discussion of “Re-Shaping ALCTS,” now in year two, ALCTS President Betsy Simpson appointed a task group, chaired by Mary Case, university librarian at the University of Illinois-Chicago and ALCTS Past-President, to take a broad look at current and future ALCTS publishing activities. This task group is charged with drafting a mission statement for the ALCTS publishing program; conducting an environmental scan to identify challenges and trends in publishing; assessing the relationship among all ALCTS publishing segments; determining new and currently under-represented areas of focus, and possible new opportunities for members to contribute; and identify infrastructure needs to advance ALCTS’ publishing program. A preliminary discussion will take place at Midwinter in Dallas.

The National Information Standards Organization (NISO) published a new Recommended Practice, ESPReSSO: Establishing Suggested Practices Regarding Single Sign-On (NISO RP-11-2011), that identifies practical solutions for improving the use of single sign-on authentication technologies to ensure a seamless experience for the user. More information about ESPReSSO is available from The ESPReSSO Recommended Practice is available for free download from the NISO web site at: www.niso.org/publications/rp.

Digital Content Working Group Established—This fall, the ALA Council established a new Digital Content and Libraries Working Group. It is not only a needed step coming out of the EQUACC Task Force but also supports the “Transformation of Libraries “ priority in ALA’s 2015 Strategic Plan.

The ALA Digital Content and Libraries Working Group is co-chaired by ALCTS' own Bob Wolven of Columbia University. He will lead with Sari Feldman, Cuyahoga County Public Library, Parma, Ohio. Other ALCTS members on the working group are Bonnie Tijerina, Claremont Colleges Library, and Brian Schottlaender, University of California-San Diego.

The Working Group is charged to:

• advise the Association regarding opportunities and issues related to libraries and digital content and the provision of equitable access to digital content for all.
• explore, analyze and share information on various options for expanding access to digital content for libraries and the public and for overcoming legal, technological, policy and economic barriers to equitable access
• suggest information and training that would be of use to librarians so that they can make informed choices, serve as advocates for digital access, and design and support digital services.
• advise the Association on efforts to increase public awareness and understanding of issues related to access to digital content and the challenges to/role of libraries in providing equitable access to digital resources.
• assist in the identification of strategies to influence decision makers—whether government officials, publishers, other information service providers, interest groups, and others—to effect changes that would assist libraries in better serving their communities.
• address specific issues such as Business Models, Accessibility, Privacy, Education for the Library Community, Public Outreach and Publisher/Service Provider Relations through working subcommittees, bringing in other experts and advisors as appropriate.
• serve as formal liaisons to various ALA and ALA affiliate groups (examples would include the divisions, round tables, ethnic affiliates, and ALA Accessibility Assembly).
• as appropriate, reach out to other organizations and experts in other fields in order to better understand the broad technological, social and economic environments and trends and their potential impact on libraries.

A new blog in American Libraries, E-content, will complement and help communicate out the work of the ALA Working Group on Digital Content and Libraries. Find it at http://americanlibrariesmagazine.org/e-content

Speaking of blogs... The Indiana University Bloomington Media Preservation Initiative announces the launch of a new blog at http://mediapreservation.wordpress.com/

The media preservation blog is designed for those who have read the Indiana reports—Meeting the Challenge of Media Preservation and the Media Preservation Survey—and want to follow their progress as strategies and solutions are developed. It may be of interest to universities and other organizations with archival audio, video, or film holdings.

LRTS Request for Grant Proposals

Library Resources & Technical Services (LRTS) announces the availability of grants of up to $1,000 (funded by an Association for Library Collections and Technical Services grant) to assist authors with preparing literature reviews. The purpose of the grants is to provide funds that will be used for clerical and research support, thereby allowing the author/s to concentrate on analyzing the resources and writing the literature review. Possible support tasks might be collecting citations, sorting and organizing citations by themes and categories, locating and gathering resources to be reviewed, verifying citations, funding purchases of articles not owned by the home institution of the author, and so forth. Funding also could provide a mentoring opportunity by funding assistance by a library school or information science student.

Highly cited, literature reviews provide an essential professional service to practitioners, scholars, and students by identifying the key themes and the most important publications appearing in successive two year periods. Books and articles by accredited scholars and researchers, i.e., primarily peer-reviewed publications provide the basis for a literature review.

A good literature review is evaluative, selective, and critical, and goes beyond summarizing and quoting from the selected sources. Literature reviews explain why the sources cited are important and valuable, may compare them to prior works, and create a structure that organizes the two-year body of content to make it comprehensible and to identify themes, not only for those who have followed the developments it describes, but to future researchers. All sources referenced appear in the endnotes; a separate bibliography is not published. Although commissioned, LRTS literature reviews go through the same double-blind peer review process as unsolicited manuscripts.

LRTS seeks authors for the following topical areas and coverage periods:

• Collection Development and Management literature published 2011–2012
• Cataloging/Classification/Metadata Management literature published 2011–2012
• Preservation and Reformatting literature published 2011–2012

Papers should be submitted not later than June 30, 2013. Grant recipients will be required to submit progress reports to the LRTS Editor in June and December each year.

The grant proposal must include:

1. Requester name, title, and contact information
2. The literature to be reviewed (see list above)
3. The requester’s credentials to write the literature review
4. Amount requested
5. Budget plan and rationale for how the funds will be expended

Proposals are due by January 31, 2012.

Applications and inquiries should be submitted to Peggy Johnson, LRTS Editor, lrtseditor@ala.org.

ALCTS Newsletter Online

ANO v. 22 (2011)

Masthead | Editorial Policy | Author Guidelines

   Masthead

ALCTS Newsletter Online (ISSN 1523-018X) is published four times a year by the American Library Association, 50 E. Huron St., Chicago, IL 60611. It is an official publication of the Association for Library Collections & Technical Services (ALCTS), a division of the American Library Association. It replaced the ALCTS Newsletter (ISSN 1047-949X) in December 1998. Subscription price: ALCTS Newsletter Online (ANO) is published free of charge to anyone with Web access. Business manager: Charles Wilt, ALCTS Executive Director; Send manuscripts to the editor, Alice Platt, Managing Editor: Christine McConnell; ALCTS President 2011–2012: Betsy Simpson.

Back issues (to volume 10) are available online in the ANO Archive. Contributors and authors are encouraged to read the ANO Editorial Policy, which includes the content submission schedule, purpose, and scope.

Copyright © 2011 American Library Association.

All materials in ANO subject to copyright by the American Library Association may be downloaded and printed for the noncommercial purpose of scientific or educational advancement granted by sections 107 and 108 of the Copyright Revision Act of 1976. For other reprinting, transmission, or translating, address requests to the ALA Office of Rights and Permissions, 50 E. Huron St, Chicago, IL 60611; 1-800-545-2433.   

Editorial Policy

(revised Dec. 2002, effective with volume 14, 2003)

Purpose

The primary purpose of the ALCTS Newsletter Online is to report the news and activities of ALCTS and its members, and to be the voice of the association.

Frequency

ALCTS Newsletter Online is issued in four numbers per annual volume. (Note: The frequency was changed to quarterly by a board motion at the Annual Conference in New Orleans in 1999, changed to six issues per year in 2003, and changed back to quarterly in 2009.)

Issues appear on approximately the 15th of March, June, September, and December. To be notified when a new issue has been posted, sign up online. To change your notification address, email Christine McConnell.

Scope

The primary focus is news and reports about the activities of the association, its groups and its members, such as:

• Summary reports of ALCTS programs, preconferences and institutes
• Preliminary information, announcements and schedules of upcoming continuing education events
• Board, committee and interest group reports and activities
• Candidates for office in the association
• Financial and other planning reports
• Schedules of meetings
• Announcements of new ALCTS publications
• Winners of awards given by the association
• Member updates: awards, honors, personal achievements, retirements, obituaries
• Background information on venues for meetings and continuing education events

For more information on ALCTS awards, publications, upcoming programs, committee and discussion group activities, and regional workshops, see the ALCTS web site (www.ala.org/alcts).

A secondary focus is reporting activities of interest to the membership relating to practice and developments in the fields of library collections and technical services, such as:

• Announcements of upcoming activities of other ALA and non-ALA groups
• Summary reports of meetings and activities of these groups
• Announcements of new standards and standards under development
• New policies and guidelines, and their effect on ALCTS members and the profession
• Legislative updates and international activities affecting the profession
• Recent publications of interest to members
• Brief articles on best practices in the field
• State or regional association activities and news

Feel free to submit news releases. ANO does not accept articles about commercially sold products.

Content

The editor will coordinate with the ALCTS Board of Directors and the ALCTS Publications Committee regarding the general contents of each issue, as well as with the ALCTS office staff (Executive Director and others) regarding current ALCTS priorities. The editor will attempt to keep reports concise yet complete so that all members can follow the activities of ALCTS. The editor also will strive for complete coverage of the full scope of ALCTS activities and interests.

   Submission Deadlines

Content is due no later than the twentieth day of the month prior to publication. Issues are posted on approximately the fifteenth day of the month.

Author Guidelines

Manuscript Preparation

Follow these guidelines and procedures for preparing submissions for ANO:

• Original submissions
  Only original, unpublished submissions will be accepted. Authors are responsible for the accuracy of statements included. Articles and reports are generally 300–500 words. Longer submissions will be considered on an individual basis.
• Style
  Use the Chicago Manual of Style, 15th ed. Spell out abbreviations and acronyms. Verify accuracy of all names (both personal and corporate). Confirm that email addresses or URLs provided in submissions are active and functioning.
• Format
  Use single line spacing within paragraphs. Separate paragraphs with double line spacing. Do not include highlighting, special fonts or text effects. Use only bold and italic. Do not include page numbers, and do not use headers or footers.
• Figures
  Photographs, figures, and diagrams are all considered as figures. Photographs may be requested for certain types of submissions, such as the “My ALCTS Experience” column. Photographs may accompany submissions. Photos for ANO should be submitted as .jpg files and no larger than 4 x 6 inches, resolution of 300 dpi or less (72 dpi preferred).
• Number each figure consecutively. Text should contain a reference to the figure(s) (i.e., “The filled boxes are then ready to go to storage. See figure 2.”)
• Provide a brief descriptive or explanatory caption for each figure (i.e., “Cooling system for the off-site storage facility.”)
• Submitting manuscripts
  Submit manuscripts in Word format, preferably using Times New Roman font, 11 point. Submissions may be sent as email attachments. Email messages will not be accepted. Send submissions to Alice Platt, ANO Editor.
• Copyright
  Since submissions carry a byline, the ALCTS Office needs a signed copyright agreement on file. After submissions are received, authors will be sent a copyright form to complete and fax to the ALCTS Office (instructions will be provided at that time).

ALCTS Newsletter Online Content Submission Deadlines

EVENT	SUBMISSION DEADLINE	ISSUE(S)
Midwinter Committee, Interest Group, and Liaison Reports	February 1	March
Announcements for Annual programs, preconferences, and interest groups	May 1	June
Section Chair annual reports	August 1	September
Annual program, committee, interest group, and liaison reports	August 1	September
IFLA reports	November 1	December
Announcements for Midwinter symposia and interest groups	November 1	December