SILAS.sg

2011-01-25T11:33:00.010+08:00

SILAS Knowledge Sharing Session

SILAS Knowledge Sharing Session #11/2011

The SILAS Knowledge Sharing Session #11 for FY 2010 was held on 14 Jan 2011 at the Possibility Room, level 5, National Library Building. It was attended by a total of 63 members from various libraries and institutions. The programme for that afternoon lasted from 2.00-5.00pm. The agenda for that afternoon: 1. Fine tuning SILAS subscription fee and 2. Cataloguing e-books.

On the first half of the sharing session, Henry Lam, Manager, SILAS Secretariat shared on "Fine tuning SILAS subscription fee". In his sharing, Henry provided the background why it is necessary to have an adjustment. He highlighted the benefit of using WorldCat and the charges of OCLC. Finally, he explained the principles of fine-tuning and new schedule of charge which is based on usage of OCLC WorldCat.
Mr Beh, Director, SILAS Secretariat answered during the Q&A session.

The second half of the sharing session, after the networking tea session, Kathy Choi, Senior Librarian, National Library Board, shared on Cataloguing e-books. Based on her research, electronic books (e-books) are becoming more prevalent in libraries. As quoted: "According to the 2009-2010 Statistics from the Public Library Funding and Technology Access Study from ALA's Office Research and Statistics found that 65.9% of public libraries in the United States were offering access to e-books".

Hence, in the sharing session, Kathy focused on e-books cataloguing. The following topics were included in her presentation:
- Catalouging online monographs
- Provider-neutral E-monograph record
- Separate records versus single rec0rd
- The decision to catalogue e-books
- Other issues of concern

SCIGM #03

2010-12-10T08:36:00.005+08:00

SCIGM #03

The 3rd SILAS Cataloguers Interest Group Meeting (SCIGM $03) for FY 2010 was held on 18 Nov 2010 at Imagination Room, Level 5, National Library Building. The duration for this discussion was 3 hours.

This was a round table meeting, attended by 20 members from various institutions. The institutions are arranged in alphabetical order: Nanyang Polytechnic (NYP), Nanyang Technological University (NTU), National Institute of Education (NIE), National Library Board (NLB), National University of Singapore (NUS), Ngee Ann Polytechnic (NP), SEAMEO Regional Language Centre (RELC) and Singapore Polytechnic (SP).

In this meeting, Yvonne Yin, Assistant Manager, National Institute of Education presented a 25 mins demo on MARCEdit.
Other topics discussed included:
- The advantages and disadvantages of using MARCEdit
- The workflow of name authority (subject, personal and corporate name headings)
- What to lookout when inputting of data applying RDA
- OCLC WordCat.org
- Batching loading of records to OCLC: the good and bad points
- Dublin Core

The meeting ended at 5.30pm.

2010-11-01T11:35:00.007+08:00

SILAS Knowledge Sharing Session

SILAS Knowledge Sharing Session #10/2010

The SILAS Knowledge Sharing Session #10/2010 for FY2010 was held on 15 Oct 2010 at National Library Building, Possibility Room, level 5. It was attended by a total of 28 members from various libraries and institutions. The programme for that afternoon lasted fron 2.00-5.00pm.

Saralee Turner, bibliographic specialist share on "Corporate Name Headings : Taming the monsters".
On the first half of the sharing session, Saralee briefed on the development history of Corporate Name headings, the definition of corporate headings and listed the examples of corporate headings which include: exhibitions, government bodies, institutions, conferences programmes places, ships, etc.)

After a good networking tea session, Saralee continued to share on the conceptual on the principles. She listed down the eleven types of the government bodies that enter subordinately with plenty of examples cited.

Followed by a 30 mins fruitful Q&A session.

2010-11-01T10:55:00.011+08:00

SILAS Knowledge Sharing Session

SILAS Knowledge Sharing Session #09/2010

The SILAS Knowledge Sharing Session #09/2010 for FY2010 was held on 16 Sept 2010 at National Library Building Imagination Room, level 5. It was attended by a total of 38 members from various libraries and institutions.

The programme for that afternoon lasted from 2.00-5.00pm on topic "RDA implementation scenario on WEMI (Work, Expression, Manifestation and Item) system" presented by Henry Lam.

On the first half of the sharing session, 14 questions on RDA fundamental and background were posted on the screen to recap the important points based on past weeks sharing session on RDA.
Followed by a good 30 mins networking tea session for the members to network.

On the second half after the tea session, Henry shared on the VTLS on RDA implementation scenario on WEMI System. Topics included for the presentation: RDA workflow, Simpler RDA cataloguing, VTLS RDA/FRBR extensions, Cataloguing assistance and Authority records providing the work template on MARC and work record with labels.

2010-08-16T14:35:00.020+08:00

SILAS Knowledge Sharing Session

SILAS Knolwedge Sharing Session #08/2010

The SILAS Knowledge Sharing Session #08/2010 for FY2010 was held on 6 Aug 2010 at Possibility Room, Level 5, National Library Building. It was attended by a total of 48 members from various libraries and institutions. There were 3 programmes for that afternoon, lasted from 2.00pm-5.00pm.

On the first half of the sharing session, Kim Wong, SILAS Secretariat, shared on OCLC WorldCat Holdings, which enables member libraries' holding information to be displayed on Open WorldCat. She highlighted some features on Open WorldCat. The users can create a user account to build the reading lists, write reviews, create tags.

The Open WorldCat not only links to Google Book searches, it also linking WorldCat.org to member libraries' local OPAC. By showing members libraries' holdings in Open WorldCat, it links member libraries' users back to the library catalogues.

Norlisa Othman, NTU Library, Bibliographic Services Division, was the 2nd speaker shared on a brief comparative study between the two alternatives to OCLC - SkyRiver and Biblios. On her presentation, she gave an introduction of the two products, comparison of features of the products, followed by test search findings and the conclusion.

The second half of the sharing session, after the networking tea session, Henry Lam, SILAS Secretariat shared on "A guide to RDA". In his presentation, he ran through the RDA FAQ published in the RDA JSC website and highlighted the important messages from the articles. The purpose of this presentation is to provide foundation knowledge of the new rules on RDA.

Hence, the following topics were included in his presentation: "RDA basics", "Development and context of RDA", "RDA and FRBR", "RDA and MARC21", "Impact of RDA to library" and "Adopting RDA". This session was meant for those who missed the past presentation on RDA organised by SILAS.

SCIGM #02

2010-07-22T17:03:00.008+08:00

SCIGM #02

The 2nd SILAS Cataloguers' Interest Group Meeting, in short as SCIGM #02 for FY2010 was held on 15 July at Imagination Room, Level 5, National Library Building. The duration for this discussion was 3 hours.

This was a round table meeting, attended by 19 members from Anglo-Chinese School (Independent) (ACSI), Institute of Technical Education Library (ITE), KK Women's & Children's Hospital (KKH), Nanyang Technological University Library (NTU), National Library Board (NLB), National University of Singapore Library (NUS), Raffles Institution (RI) and Singapore Polytechnic Library.

In this meeting, topics discussed included:
- The difficulties in searching publication date for AV titles.
- The trial on RDA toolkit: advantages and disadvantages to catalogue record using RDA.
- The MARCEdit.
- The maintenance of bibliographic record for e-books: single or multi records on the database.
- Batch loading of records to OCLC: the good and the bad points.

SILAS Knowledge Sharing Session

2010-06-14T09:10:00.020+08:00

SILAS Knowledge Sharing Session #07/2010

The SILAS Knowledge Sharing Session #07 for FY2010 was held on 11 June 2010 at Possibility Room, level 5, National Library Building. This is the first time SILAS organises a full-day programme. The morning session started from 9.15am-12 noon and the afternoon session started from 2.00pm-5.00pm.

This is also the first time SILAS extended our invitation to Library Association of Singapore (LAS) members. It was attended by a total of 115 members (35 from LAS and 80 SILAS members) from various libraries and institutions.

In the morning session, the programme started after the welcome speech made by Mr Beh to both LAS and SILAS members, followed by the presentation by Neil Godfrey, Bibliographic consultant, National Library Board, looked at how RDA enhancing access.

In his 1st half of the session, Neil explained why RDA is necessary development following on from AACR2 cataloguing rules. He highlighted the underlying principles of RDA and the advantanges of RDA with examples. In his presentation, Neil looked at how RDA impacted at the end-user experience of using library catalogues.

In the 2nd half of the session after a 30 mins networking refreshment, Neil shared on how RDA enables library resources to be as much a part ot the Internet as Wikipedia articles, followed by a 15 mins Q&A session.

The afternoon session was strictly for SILAS members only with a total of 85 attendees from various libraries and institutions.

Henry Lam, Manager, SILAS shared on the changes from AACR2 to RDA. He listed seven points on the basic changes as shown:
- Structure of RDA tools
- Conceptual model derived from FRBR and FRAD
- Change of vocabulary and new terminology from AACR2 to RDA
- Rule of three which RDA eliminates (the rule)
- Representation Principle following the International Cataloguing Principle (ICP) from IFLA in 2009 on "take what you see" and "accept what you get"
- Abbreviations and internationalisation: there is no abbreviations in transcribed fields and no Latin abbreviations, and the final point
- Cataloguer's judgement.

After Henry's sharing, there was 30 mins networking refreshment at the Courtyard.

Kathy Choi, Senior Librarian, National Library Board, shared on the new MARC field on RDA. The topics covered were:
- AACR2. RDA & MARC 21
- RDA/ MARC Working Group & Working principles
- New MARC fields & subfields + Current fields/subfields
- a. Approved changes
- b. Changes under discussion
- Bibliogrpahic system changes
- Mapping of MARC21 bibliogrpahy and Authorities to RDA
- OCLC MARC Format Update 2010 including RDA changes
- Future of MARC 21
- Documentation on MARC/RDA change information

On her presentation, Kathy provided many examples and links.

The sharing session ended at 5.15pm after the Q&A.

SCIGM #01

2010-05-31T13:56:00.009+08:00

SGIGM #01

The first SILAS Cataloguers Interest Group Meeting, in short as SCIGM #01 for FY 2010 was held on 14 May 2010 at Multi-Purpose Room, Basement 1, Central Public Library, National Library Building.

This was a round table meeting, attended by 13 staff from various institution libraries in alphabetical order: Institute of Technical Education (ITE) Library, Nanyang Technological University (NTU) Library, National Library Board (NLB), National University of Singapore (NUS) Library, Ngee Ann Polytechnic (NP) Library and SEAMEO Regional Language Centre (RELC) Library.

In this meeting, topics discussed included:
- The maintenance of bibliographic record for e-books: single or multi-records on the database.
- The establishing of corporate name headings for non-Latin, especially Chinese language.
- The difficulties in searching for AV titles, any command to retrieve AV titles on OCLC.
- The difference between search on ISBN and ISBN phrase on OCLC.
- The trend to merge selection function with cataloguing function in the same department in the library.
- The usage of tag 880 for Chinese characters and the main tags for Hanyu Pinyin.

The meeting ended at 5.00pm sharp.

2010-04-16T14:09:00.001+08:00

SILAS Knowledge Sharing Session #06/2010

The SILAS Knowledge Sharing Session #06 for FY2010 was held on 9 Apr 2010 at National University of Singapore, Central Library, Theatrette 1, Level 4. A Big Thank you to NUS for hosting SKSS at their premises. This session was attended by a total of 57 members from various libraries and institutions, lasted from 2.30om-5.00pm.

The agenda for that afternoon were: "Personal Name Headings in Asian languages" and "An overview on Non-Latin characters in Name Authority records" presented by Radha Asundi and Jenny Hsi respectively.

The first session, Radha shared on personal name headings in Asian languages, which include
the Malay, the Indonesian and Indian languages. On her presentation, she outlined the application and interpretation of AACR2 (Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules) and LCRI (Library of Congress Rule Interpretations) to commonly occurring Malay, Indonesian and Indian names in catalogue entries.

In her introduction to Malay, Indonesian and Indian names, the points listed were: the origin of the names, the official language used for the group, the different rules applying to the group with plenty of examples.

On the second half of the the sharing session after a good networking tea session, Jenny Hsi shared on the overview on non-Latin references (characters) in name authority records. She briefed on the background the library institutions started it, what is Pre-population project, what it does and what is resulted. She highlighted the process with guidelines and examples were provided.

She also shared on SILAS' participation on the Pre-population project: SILAS has created approximately 350 enhanced records and 400 new name headings with non-Latin references mainly for Singaporean and Malaysian Chinese authors. Issues on the future development of non-Latin reference and how SILAS member libraries could contribute to the project and benefit from it were also mentioned.

2010-04-16T10:47:00.000+08:00

Fwd: [NGC4LIB] OCLC Report Suggests Research Libraries Face Major Risks

2010-04-16T07:45:00.001+08:00

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: B.G. Sloan <bgsloan2@yahoo.com>
Date: Fri, Apr 16, 2010 at 4:31 AM
Subject: [NGC4LIB] OCLC Report Suggests Research Libraries Face Major Risks
To: NGC4LIB@listserv.nd.edu

From Library Journal:

"A new report, 'Research Libraries, Risk and Systemic Change', from
OCLC Research describes several threats to the future of such
libraries...The report suggests that numerous risks may be mitigated
by ongoing changes—such as shared infrastructure and restructured
workflow. But it suggests that the first risk category, 'an uncertain
library value proposition,' may be met only via collective new
strategies and services. Meanwhile, a second risk category may be met
with a 'new generation and type of professional,' not necessarily from
an LIS background."

Full text:

http://bit.ly/ca9FYR

Bernie Sloan

Fwd: How Tweet It Is!: Library Acquires Entire Twitter Archive

2010-04-15T14:13:00.001+08:00

Tweet will be archived at the Library of Congress.

Henry

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Library of Congress <loc@service.govdelivery.com>
Date: Thu, Apr 15, 2010 at 2:09 AM
Subject: How Tweet It Is!: Library Acquires Entire Twitter Archive
To: henrylam.silas@gmail.com

How Tweet It Is!: Library Acquires Entire Twitter Archive
Wed, 14 Apr 2010 11:31:45 -0500

Have you ever sent out a "tweet" on the popular Twitter social media service? Congratulations: Your 140 characters or less will now be housed in the Library of Congress. That's right. Every public tweet, ever, since Twitter's inception in March 2006, will be archived digitally at the Library of Congress. That's a LOT of tweets, by [...]

This service is provided by the Library of Congress at www.LOC.gov.

Unsubscribe or change your subscriber preferences
For questions or problems with subscriptions, contact support@govdelivery.com

GovDelivery, Inc. sending on behalf of Library of Congress · 101 Independence Ave, SE · Washington DC 20540 · 202-707-5000

SILAS Knowledge Sharing Session

2010-03-19T09:16:00.008+08:00

SILAS Knowledge Sharing Session #05

The SILAS Knowledge Sharing Session #05 for FY2009 was held on 12 Mar 2010 at National Library Building Multi-Purpose Room, Basement 1, Central Public Library.

This was a round table sharing session, attended by 12 members from Nanyang Technological University Library (NTU), National Library Board, Singapore (NLB), National University of Singapore Library (NUS) and Singapore Polytechnic Library (SP).

This is a fruitful session as topic discussed included:
- The maintenance of Authority Control for e-resources.
- Advantages and disadvantages of one record for both print and e-resources format.
- Work flow relating to cataloguing: directly on OCLC platform, catalogue the collections using
the local system via Z39.50.
- Institutional Repository with different level of restriction of access.
- Cataloguing staff involved in metadata using Dublin Core and AACR2.
- Services provided by other bibliogrpahic utility.
- Open source Library Management Systems (LMS).
- Awareness of RDA.

Fwd: [OCLC-CAT] ALCTS 2010 Web Course Schedule

2010-01-26T08:18:00.001+08:00

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Whitacre,Cynthia <whitacrc@oclc.org>
Date: Tue, Jan 26, 2010 at 5:18 AM
Subject: [OCLC-CAT] ALCTS 2010 Web Course Schedule
To: OCLC-CAT@oclc.org

Posted for Julie Reese and the ALCTS office:

ALCTS 2010 Web Course Schedule

Fundamentals of Acquisitions
The Fundamentals of Acquisitions (FOA) web course focuses on the
basics of acquiring monographs and serials: goals and methods,
financial management of library collections budgets, and relationships
among acquisitions librarians, library booksellers, subscription
agents, and publishers. In this course, you will receive a broad
overview of the operations involved in acquiring materials after the
selection decision is made. Note that in FOA, we distinguish between
collection development, which involves the selection of materials for
the library; and acquisitions, which orders, receives, and pays for
those materials.
Session 1: February 15th – March 12th (space is still available;
register by February 12th)

Session 2: March 29th – April 23rd

Session 3: May 3rd – May 28th

Session 4: September 6th – October 1st

Session 5: October 11th – November 5th

Fundamentals of Collection Development and Management

The Fundamentals of Collection Development and Management addresses
the basic components of these important areas of responsibility in
libraries. Components include complete definition of collection
development and collection management; collections policies and
budgets as part of library planning; collection development (selecting
for and building collections); collection management (e.g., making
decisions after materials are selected, including decisions about
withdrawal, transfer, preservation); collection analysis—why and how
to do it; outreach, liaison, and marketing; and some suggestions about
the future for collection development and management.
Session 1: February 8th – March 5th (space is still available;
register by February 5th)

Session 2: March 15th – April 9th

Session 3: May 3rd – May 28th

Session 4: August 9th – September 3rd

Session 5: October 4th – October 29th

Session 6: November 15th – December 17th

Fundamentals of Electronic Resources Acquisitions

The Fundamentals of Electronic Resources Acquisitions (FERA) Web
course will provide an overview of acquiring, providing access to,
administering, supporting, and monitoring access to electronic
resources. It will provide a basic background in electronic resource
acquisitions including product trials, licensing, purchasing methods,
and pricing models and will provide an overview of the sometimes
complex relationships between vendors, publishers, platform providers,
and libraries.

This course is sponsored by Harrassowitz.
Session 1: February 8th – March 5th (space is still available;
register by February 5th)

Session 2: March 15th – April 9th

Session 3: April 19th – May 14th

Session 4: August 16th – September 10th

Session 5: October 4th – October 29th

Registration Fees & Details

Ø Registration fees per session: $109 ALCTS Members; $129 Non-members

Ø Registration is now open for sessions 1 and 2

Ø The sessions are limited to 20 people.

Ø Sign up for 1 session per course.

To Register or to Learn More about ALCTS CE Events:
Click on the links above or go to the ALCTS Web site
(www.ala.org/alcts) and click on 2010 Web Course Schedule link under
Conferences and Events.

==========

Julie Reese, CMP
Association for Library Collections & Technical Services (ALCTS)
American Library Association (ALA)
50 E. Huron St.

Chicago, IL 60611

Ph: 312-280-5034

F: 312-280-5033

Email: jreese@ala.org

ALCTS Web site: www.ala.org/alcts

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http://www.oclc.org/oclc/forms/listserv.htm.

2010-01-19T10:46:00.008+08:00

SILAS Knowledge Sharing Session #04 FY 2009

The SILAS Knowledge Sharing Session #04 FY2009 was held on 15 Jan 2010 at National Library Building Imagination Room, level 5. It was attended by a total of 62 members from various libraries and institutions. The session lasted from 2.00pm-5.30pm. The special guests for this session were Mr Andrew Wang, Vice President, OCLC Asia Pacific and Ms Tsai Shu-En, Executive Director, OCLC Asia Pacific presented on WorldCat.org/lWorldCat Local and CONTENTdm.

To kick off the session, Henry provided the history and background when and how OCLC was first introduced to Singapore and to the SILAS members. He further explained the advantages of OCLC software and products, which OCLC developed over the last decade.

In the first session, Andrew outlined the features of OCLC WorldCat local and explained how libraries from all over the world could participate. In his presentation, he listed 12 weaknesses of the traditional integrated library system viewed in the age of the web. He also listed 15 functions that OCLC WorldCat Local provides to strengthen all the weaknesses mentioned. He highlighted the characteristic of OCLC WorldCat Local.

In the second half of the session after the networking tea break, Shu-En gave a 20 mins demonstration on the WorldCat Local, followed by the presentation on the CONTENTdm - a complete digital content management software system designed for digital collections. The features highlighted are: imports digital objects, creates metadata, indexes, stores, queries and displays. CONTENTdm also integrates text, images, audio and visual collections, including documents, postcards, slides, maps and many others.

Librarian Blogs

2010-01-12T15:25:00.008+08:00

LISNews "10 Librarian Blog to Read in 2010".

The 'M' Word - Marketing Libraries blog looks interesting.

SILAS Knowledge Sharing Session #03/2009 for School libraries

2009-11-30T14:55:00.001+08:00

The SILAS Knowledge Sharing Session #03 for FY 2009 was held on 13 Nov 09 at National Library Building Possibility Room, level 5.

This sharing session was specially organised for school librarians and was attended by a total of 16 members. Out of the 16 members, 5 were invited guests from Catholic High, Catholic JC, Hwa Chong Institution and Hwa Chong College. The duration for this sharing session is three hours, from 2.00pm-5.00pm.

There were two parts in the session; the first half was the presentation by Florence Lee, SCGS on collection management and Kim Wong, SILAS on “Common errors spotted while reviewing the bibliographic record”.
Florence outlined six key points: evaluation, community analysis, selection policies, selection, acquisition and weeding. She broke down each category with examples.

Kim outlined the requirement set by OCLC and SILAS when cataloguing on OCLC WorldCat Connexion. In her presentation, she pointed out some common errors made and provided the correct examples with rules based on AACR2 and Marc 21 format.

In the second half of the session after the tea break was the round table discussion, which was chaired by Mr Beh. He started the discussion by sharing and highlighted the importance of policy making for collection management in order to meet the expectation.
Library skill training for students and corporate membership of NLB (for ILL purposes) were the topics raised during the discussion session.

SILAS followed up and directed the school librarians to email Reference Point regarding the issue on NLB corporate membership for the application of the membership form. As for the Library skill training for students, SILAS gave the school contacts to NLBA to liaise directly with them.

Google Books bibliography

2009-10-20T11:56:00.001+08:00

Google Book Search Bibliography

Charles W. Bailey, Jr.

Version 5: 9/14/2009

This bibliography presents selected English-language articles and other works that are useful in understanding Google Book Search. It primarily focuses on the evolution of Google Book Search and the legal, library, and social issues associated with it. Where possible, links are provided to works that are freely available on the Internet, including e-prints in disciplinary archives and institutional repositories. Note that e-prints and published articles may not be identical.

==> http://www.digital-scholarship.org/gbsb/gbsb.htm

Henry

A Library to Last Forever - an op-ed opinion piece by Sergey Brin (Google co-founder) via NGC4LIB post

2009-10-11T06:26:00.003+08:00

Although digitisation is not a good solution of preservtion, it would help to prevent a library become diminished by disasters. --- henry, SILAS

[For full version of the article from New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/09/opinion/09brin.html]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: MULLEN Allen <Allen.MULLEN@ci.eugene.or.us>
Date: Sat, Oct 10, 2009 at 11:23 PM
Subject: [ACAT] A Library to Last Forever - an op-ed opinion piece by Sergey Brin (Google co-founder) via NGC4LIB post
To: AUTOCAT@listserv.syr.edu

http://bit.ly/1qHqfR

On the rosy side?
" In the Insurance Year Book 1880-1881, which I found on Google Books, Cornelius Walford chronicles the destruction of dozens of libraries and millions of books, in the hope that such a record will "impress the necessity of something being done" to preserve them. The famous library at Alexandria burned three times, in 48 B.C., A.D. 273 and A.D. 640, as did the Library of Congress, where a fire in 1851 destroyed two-thirds of the collection.

I hope such destruction never happens again, but history would suggest otherwise. More important, even if our cultural heritage stays intact in the world's foremost libraries, it is effectively lost if no one can access it easily. Many companies, libraries and organizations will play a role in saving and making available the works of the 20th century. Together, authors, publishers and Google are taking just one step toward this goal, but it's an important step. Let's not miss this opportunity."

Allen Mullen
Cataloger, Eugene Public Library
Allen.Mullen@ci.eugene.or.us

"The writing of the future in and out of libraries is to be done largely by machines just as sewing is now. The hand needle has and will always have a mission but the silly prejudice against legible writing done on a machine with no individuality is yielding very quickly as the machines themselves are so nearly perfected."

from Library Notes (edited by Melvil Dewey)

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2009-09-23T15:43:00.012+08:00

SILAS Knowledge Sharing Session #02/2009

The SILAS Knowledge Sharing Session #02 for FY 2009 was held at National Library Building, Visitor’s Briefing Room on Sept 11, 2009. It was attended by a total of 60 members from various libraries and institutions. The session started at 2.00pm and ended at 5.00pm. There were altogether 5 programmes presented in that afternoon.

Kim, the first presenter kicked off the session by sharing on the topic of Authority Control, a brief introduction. She outlined the function of library catalogue, purposes of authority control, advantages and disadvantages of authority control and the types of AC. She provided the available tools and resources to use in order to create an authorized record.

Followed next was the presentation by Radha. She talked on the Library of Congress Cooperative Programmes; it’s backgrounds, Name Authority Cooperative Programme (NACO) and Name Authority Records (NARs). Topics covered were: the definition of NACO, the components of NARs by showing the example of a NARs record. What role does SILAS play to support the contribution to NACO, and how to become a member of NACO.

Saralee, the third presenter for the session focused on corporate name headings. During the presentation, she showed some examples and explained the reason how and why certain corporate headings were formulated.

The last presenter before tea break was Jennifer. She shared on the function and role of SILAS Approves Subject Headings (SASH) and Subject Cooperative Programme (SACO). She described the function and procedure on how to submit the proposed subject headings to Library of Congress. She highlighted some SASH, which were more suitable and pertaining to Southeast Asian context to the group.

In the second session after the networking tea break, Malar, Senior Librarian, NLB, shared on the overview of the Indian names. She explained how the Indian names were formulated according to the religion, by the profession and by the states. The Indian names by religion are Hindu names, Sikh names, Jain names, Muslim names and Christian names. The names by profession, as explained by Malar, were names attached to their profession, such as Rajesh Pilot and Engineer Asghar Ali. The third category was name by states. Under this category, she included Indian names from the North and South, East and West regions. During her forty-five minutes of presentation, Malar gave plenty of examples on these three categories.

The sharing session ended at 5.00pm with many happy attendees as they found this sharing session very informative.

Video Use and Higher Education: Options for the Future

2009-08-18T09:54:00.002+08:00

Forwarded from OCLC Abstract:

New York University Libraries, the Copyright Clearance Center (CCC) and Intelligent Television embarked on a study to investigate video use across university departments and disciplines. The Video Use and Higher Education Project interviewed 45 faculty in 18 disciplines and departments across 20 institutions about the ways they use video now; where their video use is heading; and how best to develop potential new video service offerings. The project also interviewed 12 librarians and university administrators who in many respects are the gatekeepers for media rights bought by universities and help to orchestrate campus policies regarding display and distribution. The project found data to support the following:

The educational use of video on campus is accelerating rapidly in departments across all disciplines—from arts, humanities and sciences to professional and vocational curricula.

Faculty, librarians and administrators expect their use of video in education to grow significantly over the next five years.

Technology, legal concerns and other barriers continue to thwart faculty finding and accessing the segments of video they want for teaching and lectures.

University libraries contain significant video repositories, but the majority of the content is in analog (VHS) format and/or is not networkable.

The majority of video usage today is still confined to audiovisual viewing equipment in classrooms or at the library.

Faculty and administrators expect the sources of their video to shift from offline analog storage to online delivery.

The demand for educationally targeted video archives and services is high.

View report ››

The 1st SILAS Knowledge Sharing Session #01/2009

2009-07-22T14:27:00.007+08:00

The 1st SILAS Knowledge Sharing Session for FY 2009 was held at National Library Building, Imagination Room on July 10, 2009. It was attended by a total of 38 members from various libraries and institutions. The session lasted for approximately 3 hours, from 2.15pm-5.00pm. There were 3 programmes for that afternoon. Goh Su Nee, Head, Bibliographic Services Division presented first part on “AV cataloguing in a web X.o environment” which she attended the 13th OLAC-MOUG 2008 Conference at Cleveland, Ohio last September.

The topics discussed in this session were the new challenges and issues for video and sound recordings cataloguing, integrating and electronic resources, scores cataloguing, form/genre headings etc. based on the presentations and workshops at the Conference. Su Nee showed on ppt. some latest equipment such as shaped CD, audio book on thumbdrive, etc. found in public libraries in USA. She also highlighted that tag 300 could have different description of the materials.

In the second session, after the networking tea break, Henry presented the video by “Tim Berners-Lee on the next Web”. The video presentation was taken from the “TED Conference 2009”, which was held in March. In brief, the video was about Tim, who invented the World Wide Web twenty years ago, highlighted his upcoming project is to build a web for open, linked data that could do for numbers what the Web did for words, pictures and video, which enables to unlock the data and reframe the way we use it together.

Lastly, Henry also shared with the members the importance and relevance of “linked data” for libraries and cataloguers.

SILAS Steering Committee on RDA Implementation

2009-05-27T15:52:00.001+08:00

SILAS has formed a Steering Committee on RDA Implementation. The members of the committee are:

Chairperson:
Henry Lam, SILAS Secretariat

Representatives:
Nanyang Polytechnic (NYP): Shareen Ng
Nanyang Technological University (NTU) : Goh Su Nee
National Institute of Education (NTUNIE) : Yvonne Yin
National Library Board (NLB) : Low Eik Sin
National University of Singapore (NUS) : Tan Kah Ching
Ngee Ann Polytechnic (NP) : Lilian Foo
Singapore Polytechnic (SP) : Wan Ho Wah
Temasek Polytechnic (TPL) : Clara Yap

We have had our first meeting on 12 May. Here is the minutes of the meeting:
http://docs.google.com/View?id=df24h26b_98f5qh6xfv.

SILAS will continue to monitor the progress of RDA and keep its member informed.

OCLC report: "Online Catalogs: What Users and Librarians Want"

2009-04-23T11:13:00.002+08:00

Hi all

In 2008, OCLC conducted a world-wide focus group survey on Online Catalogs. The study is to understand from users and librarians what are the quality of data on Online Catalogs. The full report is released. It is available from this web page:
http://www.oclc.org/reports/onlinecatalogs/default.htm.

Here is the excutive summary, copied from
http://www.oclc.org/reports/onlinecatalogs/summary.htm:

An end user's expectations and work practices on the Web influence his or her decision to use a library online catalog.

Catalog interfaces matter, but catalog data quality is also a driving factor of the catalog's perceived utility—and not only for end users, but also for librarians and library staff. To gain a rounded, evidence-based understanding of what constitutes "quality" in catalog data, OCLC formed a research team to:

Identify and compare the data quality expectations of catalog end users and librarians.
Compare the catalog data quality expectations of types of librarians.
Recommend catalog data quality priorities, taking into account the perspectives of both end users and librarians.
Readers who are seeking to define requirements for improved catalog data (exposed in both end-user and staff interfaces) may find this report helpful as a source of ideas. The same is true for readers who have a part to play in contributing, ingesting, syndicating, synchronizing or linking data from multiple sources in next-generation library catalogs and integrated library systems.

Selected key research findings:

The end user's experience of the delivery of wanted items is as important, if not more important, than his or her discovery experience.
End users rely on and expect enhanced content including summaries/abstracts and tables of contents.
An advanced search option (supporting fielded searching) and facets help end users refine searches, navigate, browse and manage large result sets.
Important differences exist between the catalog data quality
priorities of end users and those who work in libraries.
Librarians and library staff, like end users, approach catalogs and catalog data purposefully. End users generally want to find and obtain needed information; librarians and library staff generally have work responsibilities to carry out. The work roles of librarians and staff influence their data quality preferences.
Librarians' choice of data quality enhancements reflects their understanding of the importance of accurate, structured data in the catalog.

The findings suggest two traditions of information organization at work—one from librarianship and the other from the Web. Librarians' perspectives about data quality remain highly influenced by their profession's classical principles of information organization, while end users' expectations of data quality arise largely from their experiences of how information is organized on popular Web sites. What is needed now is to integrate the best of both worlds in new, expanded definitions of what "quality" means in library online catalogs.

The report concludes with recommendations for a data quality program that balances what end users and librarians want and need from online catalogs, plus a few suggestions for further research.

Happy reading!

Regards
Henry

Library of Congress on YouTube

2009-04-09T08:47:00.003+08:00

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Library of Congress <loc@service.govdelivery.com>
Date: Tue, Apr 7, 2009 at 10:07 PM
Subject: YouTube, and Now We Do Too

YouTube, and Now We Do Too
Tue, 07 Apr 2009 08:49:31 -0500

Well, this is a day that has been a long time in coming. The Library of Congress has been working for several months now so that we could "do YouTube right." When you're the stewards of the world's largest collection of audiovisual materials (some 6 million films, broadcasts and sound recordings), nothing less would be expected of you, and our own YouTube channel has now gone public.

We are starting with more than 70 videos, arranged in the following playlists: 2008 National Book Festival author presentations, the Books and Beyond author series, Journeys and Crossings (a series of curator discussions), "Westinghouse" industrial films from 1904 (I defy you to watch some of them without thinking of the Carl Stalling song "Powerhouse"), scholar discussions from the John W. Kluge Center, and the earliest movies made by Thomas Edison, including the first moving image ever made (curiously enough, a sneeze by a man named Fred Ott).

But this is just the beginning. We have made a conscious decision that we're not just going to upload a bunch of videos and then walk away. As with our popular Flickr pilot project, we intend to keep uploading additional content. We're modifying some of our work-flows in modest ways to make our content more useful and delivered across platforms with built-in audiences of millions.

Not so incidentally, all of the videos we post on YouTube will also be available at LOC.gov (and many, many more, of course) on American Memory, many of which are newly digitized in much higher resolution by the fine Motion Picture, Broadcast and Recorded Sound conservators in Culpeper, Va.

And now for something completely different: boxing cats!

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