TS/OBS Prepare to Innovate! AALL in Washington, D.C., July 25-28, 2009

Program Proposals for Summit 2010

2009-08-03T18:46:00.001-04:00

To all TS-SIS Members:
For those who attended the AALL Annual Meeting in Washington, DC - welcome back! And for those who were not able to attend, you missed some wonderful educational programs... but we're already hard at work putting together more educational programs and learning opportunities for AALL's 2010 conference in Denver.

If you plan to submit a 2010 program proposal, the TS-SIS Education Committee would like to help give your program the best chance of being approved. Please consult the instructions found at http://www.aallnet.org/sis/tssis/annualmeeting/2009/#programideas.

Then "Share" your program proposal with me at Carol_Nicholson@unc.edu on behalf of the TS-SIS Education Committee by Monday, August 10th.

We look forward to hearing from you!

Carol Nicholson, Chair

AALL TS-SIS Education Committee

Vendor neutral e-monograph record guide

2009-08-03T18:45:00.001-04:00

In anticipation of an implementation date of August 1, 2009, the Provider-Neutral E-Monograph MARC Record Guide has been posted to the BIBCO Web site: http://www.loc.gov/catdir/pcc/bibco/PN-Guide.pdf. Thanks to Provider Neutral Task Force members Becky Culbertson, Yael Mandelstam, and George Prager for preparing the guide. The document contains background information, a metadata application profile (MAP), and examples to guide BIBCO and other catalogers in creating provider neutral e-monograph records.

There is a link to the Provider-Neutral E-Monograph MARC Record Guide on the BIBCO Web site, listed under the BIBCO Participants Manual http://www.loc.gov/catdir/pcc/bibco/bibco.html

The Provider Neutral E-Monograph Task Group Final Report revised July 30,
2009 is available
from: http://www.loc.gov/catdir/pcc/bibco/PN-Final-Report.pdf. Task group members are working on an update of the PCC MARC Record Guide for Monograph Aggregator Vendors to incorporate provider neutral practices and expect to make the revised version available in the next month or so.

Also in anticipation of an August 1, 2009 implementation date, CONSER standard record guidelines
(CSR) (http://www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/conserdoc.pdf) have been revised to incorporate PCC practices for online series qualifiers (for background please see: http://www.loc.gov/acq/conser/Online-Series.pdf).

LCRI 25.5B has been revised to support the CONSER practice of not requiring a uniform title for an online monographic series solely to differentiate online from other physical mediums. This revision is included in the Cataloger's Desktop 2009 Issue 3 released today.

Thanks to Judy Kuhagen of the Library of Congress Policy and Standards Division for working on LCRI revisions and for reviewing the provider neutral record documentation.

Sincerely,
Les Hawkins
CONSER Coordinator
Library of Congress

OCLC Update available online

2009-08-03T18:44:00.001-04:00

The OCLC Update presented at the AALL conference in Washington on July 26 is now available on the OCLC web site at http://www.oclc.org/us/en/news/events/presentations/default.htm.

Glenn E. Patton

Director, WorldCat Quality Management

OCLC

6565 Kilgour Place

Dublin OH 43017-3395

Phone: +1.800.828.5878, ext. 6371 or +1.614.764.6371

Fax: +1.614.718.7187

Email: pattong@oclc.org

Photos from TS/OBS/RIPS/CS-SIS Joint Reception

2009-08-02T16:57:00.014-04:00

Photos from the 2009 Alphabet Soup Reception held at the Renaissance Hotel. Thanks again to Innovative Interfaces for their sponsorship again this year.

Law Library of Congress Tour

2009-07-31T17:13:00.004-04:00

I was one of the 18-20 fortunate members to take the Law Library of Congress tour on Monday morning. I missed several valuable sessions being held at the same time, but decided it was a great opportunity. It turned out to be one of the highlights of the conference.

We left the conference center on the Metro about 8:30am in order to begin our 9:00am tour of the Law Library located in the Madison Building on schedule. This was a good introduction to the Metro rush hour traffic. We started our tour with an overview of the services provided by both the Congressional Research Service (CRS) and the Law Library of Congress itself.

CRS provides research services by librarians and attorneys for members of congress on requested issues
The Law Library provides Guide to Law Online (GLIN), Thomas, Directorate of Legal Research (primarily international), Ask a Librarian (online), to name only a few of their services

I was struck by the enthusiasm of the librarians we met, and came away with the feeling that this would be a great place to work.

Mark Strattner, Chief of the Collections Services Division, provided a tour of the Law Library. He is both enthusiastic and has a great sense of humor. We had a brief tour of the closed stacks and a small number of the 2.65 million volumes. His stories of cataloging backlog and limited resources made our problems pale by comparison.

As a bonus, Mark offered us a tour of the Jefferson Building. In addition to the Great Hall and a peek at the beautiful reading room, we saw the Jefferson Collection and the private Senate and House rooms. Thanks to Mark and all the library staff who made these tour possible.

Petition for free access to PACER

2009-07-30T11:48:00.000-04:00

Hello folks,

Below is an email explaining how you can sign the PACER petition that was mentioned in Sunday’s keynote address at AALL.

Thanks,

Chris

*********************************************************

Chris Long

Indiana University School of Law-Indianapolis

*******************************************************************************************************************

Hey Everyone,

Erika Wayne has asked that we post the message below to our lists. It provides a like to where people can sign the petition asking the government to make PACER access free to depository libraries. Free PACER access is one of the issues being addressed by the AALL Government Relations Office, and this petition was touched on by the AALL Annual Meeting keynote speaker Jonathan Zittrain.

If anyone would like to see (and sign) the PACER petition that Jonathan Zittrain talked about in his keynote address, it is here:

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/improve-pacer

And, if you can, please share this petition with your colleagues, faculty, students and alumni.

Let us make Jonathan Zittrain proud and get a *lot* more signatures!

If you have any questions, please let me know.

Thanks and take care,

Erika

Training at LC

2009-07-30T11:09:00.004-04:00

The Cataloger's Desktop and ClassWeb training sessions held at the Library of Congress on Wednesday were wonderful and well worth staying on for. Thanks to OBS for sponsoring them and especially to Karen Selden for her always impressive organizational skills in pulling it off smoothly.

On the content side, thank you to Bruce Johnson and Patricia Hayward for presenting and to Aaron Kuperman and Paul Weiss for their valuable assistance.

Unfortunately I could not stay for the Library of Congress tour in the afternoon.

Some AALL2009 programs available free on web

2009-07-29T19:24:00.003-04:00

The Capital Crier reports that free video recordings will be available for seven of the sessions from the 2009 annual conference. I was not able to access the seven at the link given in the Capital Crier, but did find everything for sale at AALL2go. Which I suppose is also helpful.

Opening session

2009-07-29T19:11:00.002-04:00

Here's a link to a discussion of the opening session, including a link to the slideshow at the beginning, and also the parts of Zittrain's speech that were expressly about libraries.

I'd forgotten the whole library as noun, verb and adjective thing --

Classification and Subject Cataloging Policy Advisory Working Group

2009-07-28T15:24:00.005-04:00

The CSCPAWG met at 7:30 this morning. Thanks to the Serials Committee for sharing their coffee! We opened with a discussion of the Genre/Form Editorial Group's recent trip to meet with the PSD of LC's ABA (formerly known as CPSO)to discussion the Editorial Group's draft of the Legal Genre/Form terms. Issues resolved at the meeting include:

Editorial Group will submit proposals to remove form terms from LCSH, essentially by changing scope notes.
Since 185s ($v's) wil be around for the forseeable future, the EG will submit proposals to harmonize 185 terms with the proposed 155 (G/F) terms. (It was interesting that LC said that the trend is to make 185s as generic as possible - i.e. maps, not maps, topographic.)
EG will submit proposals to change inverted 150 headings to direct order for terms in which the direct order term matches an inverted order 150 --i.e. there is a G/F term Legislative bills. EG will submit a proposal to change the 150 Bills, legislative to Legislative bills.
EG should make no attempt to cross reference the G/F terms to Subject Headings -- the two thesauri are seen as different species which should not interact.
It's okay to add terms which for us will only be archival -- i.e. Wills, Contracts -- but we should consult with the rare book people in doing so.
We are allowed to include some non-legal terms (i.e. Periodicals) as they are needed for our reference structures. It was recognized that it was not realistic that we have a thesaurus without including some general terms.
PSD approved of the EG's balance of common/civil law and terms as used by various groups -- catalogers, reference librarians, practitioners, students, lay people.
There was some discussion of specific terms which resulted in some terms being bumped up to the general list, one dropped (Fiction (Law)), new references added.
It was a very positive and helpful discussion, and left the Editorial Group with a clear picture of what to do to complete their work on the list.

Additional discussion at the CSCPAWG meeting included

Gabe Horchler at LC Law Library Cataloging is very focussed on getting materials out (40,000 title last year). They don't want to jeopardize that progress. They are worried that applying the terms may slow then down.
We should attempt to contact catalogers at IFLA and see what they think of the list. John Hostage and George Praeger are both going to IFLA and can take it with them.
Implementation should be by machine as much as possible. Yael Mandelstam intends to start figuring out ways to add them to her catalog and is willing to share ways that work. We agree that they will be of little use unless applied retroactively to the whole collection.
A cooperative project -- Perhaps AALL libraries could add them through some kind of cooperative effort on OCLC?
Formats (i.e. electronic resources) are NOT included in new list -- that will be handled through RDA.

The second topic of discussion was what to do with the International Criminal Court, and with the developing concept of international crimes -- including, so far, genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and aggression, and possibly expanding to include crimes against social and cultural interests. Currently the ICC is in KZ, the crimes are scattered throughout K and also the individual jurisdictions. Jolande and Marie proposed developing an international crimes section at the end of KZ which would include both the ICC and theoretical discussion of various international crimes. Jolande will prepare a mockup of what the schedule might look like. We will look at our collections and see what we think about this in the contexts of our own libraries.

Descriptive Cataloging Policy Advisory Working Group

2009-07-28T15:09:00.004-04:00

The Descriptive Cataloging Policy Advisory Group met on Monday. With the retirement of Ann Sitkin the group lacks a head, and in this interim period before LC and other libraries (including 5 law libraries -- Chicago, Columbia, Emory, Northeastern and Stanford) begin testing RDA, we're in a bit of a lull.

A few things we could start to think about, in a desultory sort of way, are the treatment of court reports, and the designation of official court reports, in AACR2 and RDA. We should start to think about the new legal rules under RDA, which are apparently not so different from AACR2 and in some respects go back to AACR. We should look at the treatment of treaties, which is said to be unsatisfactory. We should get ready to think about RDA, because it's coming.

TS-SIS Serials Committee Meeting

2009-07-28T11:21:00.002-04:00

The TS-SIS Serials Committee Meeting was held this morning at 7:30 a.m. in the Convention Center. Under Old Business a report on the Exchange of Duplicates Program was given. There were 36 libraries in the program this year. There was also a report on the work of the Project COUNTER group. They noted that Hein has contact them about becoming COUNTER compliant. We need to speak to our reps at companies, such as CCH and BNA, about providing COUNTER compliant statistics to libraries. Under New Business ideas were discussed for possible program proposals. For TS-SIS sponsorship proposals need to be turned in to the Education Committee by Aug 10. There were ideas about the development of a library of last resort program in coordination with LIPA, what to cut when there is nothing left to cut, and looking at pricing models for electronic resources.

Monday Quote of the Day

2009-07-28T09:19:00.002-04:00

"Everyone benefits from better data."

This is my nomination for quote of the day as stated by Kara Killough (Serials Solutions) in her presentation during the program on aggregator/provider-neutral records. It was a well-attended and timely program, given that the implementation of provider-neutral records for e-monographs is scheduled for August 1st. Congratulations to Karen Selden, coordinator, and to Gene Dickerson, who also spoke. Let's all make a point to extend a special welcome to Gene on his first AALL conference!

Just another thought: Why isn't anyone applying for the OBS/TS Joint Research Grant? Maybe you should apply!

Jolande's power point on linking from class schedules

2009-07-27T22:16:00.002-04:00

As discussed today in the Cat and Class business meeting

The Library of Congress is investigating using the inherent access and linking functionality of the Library of Congress online classification system as a finding tool for web resources, taking the KIA, the new Law Classification for Indigenous Peoples in the Americas as an example. KIA works particularly well for this, since it is jurisdictionally based (allowing searching from an online maps -- very cool), and since many of the resources organized in the schedule are not published in traditional formats but rather available only through websites.

View Dr. Jolande Goldberg's poster on the new possibilities for classification schedules as reference tools here, in PDF. She will present it at the 2009 National Conference of Tribal Archives, Libraries and Museums to be held this October in Portland, Oregon.

Genre/Form Editorial Group meets with the Policy Standards Division

2009-07-27T17:42:00.003-04:00

The Law Genre/Form Editorial Group, chaired by Yael Mandelstam, met with the LC Acquisitions and Bibliographic Access Directorate Policy and Standards Division today to talk about the recently completed draft of the Genre/Form Terms for Law Materials list. It was a very productive meeting. PSD liked the list. We were able to jump into a discussion of unresolved policy issues, which were quickly resolved, and then into a discussion of some individual terms. The Group left with a clear idea of how to tie up the remaining loose ends, after which the list will be handed over and the Group's work will be done.

While we were there, we got a tour of Marie Whited's office. (George Praeger had to leave before the tour.)

And a (blurry) picture of Marie.

Acqusitions Committee Meeting and Roundtable

2009-07-27T10:27:00.002-04:00

The TS-SIS Acquisitions Committee Meeting and Roundtable was held this morning at 7am in the Convention Center - much coffee was consumed and bagels eaten. Heard reports on Old Business concerning ACQWEB and the Collection Development Policies webpage. Talked about possible proposals for AALL 2010. Discussed during roundtable issues of concern about control we have over ILS selection, vendor customer service issues, and pricing negotiations. It was noted that sometime we have to tell sales reps, "We're just not that into you."

Random Thoughts from Sunday

2009-07-27T08:40:00.002-04:00

Attendance at this conference was announced as 2,179. Is that on track with recent years? I know I miss seeing a number of my colleagues who are at home due to budget problems.
Keynote: Libraries tend to let the perfect become the enemy of the good. The social, F2F aspect of libraries is our best quality. There is a huge untapped desire to be part of something.
RDA: How much more will the timeline slip? How/when will we all be trained? How will the relationship with FRBR "manifest" itself? And what if the testing results in a decision NOT to implement?
Library Automation: How painful will the transition from OPACs ("a dying breed") be? The good news is we are seeing innovation in the library automation industry. The bad news is, innovative change is often a challenge to weather.
Food: Why are all the plates in this town square?

Become a blogger!

2009-07-27T08:39:00.001-04:00

Have something you want to contribute to the blog?

Email it to: readersguide.dcblog[AT]blogger.com and we'll post it!

Trapeze School

2009-07-26T21:05:00.001-04:00

This is what's going on outside my window. In the huge vacant lot where the Convention Center used to be.

Keynote speech

2009-07-26T17:05:00.003-04:00

Here's a link to a review of (pretty much) the keynote address. It was an interesting speech.

Link via @zittrain via @robtruman.

And here's an article (and more pictures!) of the Opening Reception last night.

A-6 Here Today, Gone Tomorrow?

2009-07-26T14:31:00.002-04:00

Future of print periodicals session Here Today, Gone Tomorrow? (A-6) covered examples of libraries that are using online access to journal literature through HeinOnline primarily and no longer receiving or retaining print versions of these journals. "Just in Time" service seems well-excepted by patrons generally. Financial pressures and space pressures pushing libraries in this direction. Good points about LONG-Term access needs during questions, which were not really covered during the session. Also a desire for best practices from maybe AALL during questions. Should we be concerned about driving law reviews out of business? (Plug for TS-SIS Serials Committee meeting!)

Opening reception

2009-07-26T08:25:00.001-04:00

NISO Training

2009-07-26T08:13:00.003-04:00

Saturday afternoon I attended the NISO Training session arranged by Mary Alice Baish and sponsored by the OBS, TS, and CS SISs. NISO standards can be offputting because they are often complex and seem almost to be written in another language at times :-) But Karen Wetzel helped us see that the effort is worthwhile because in the long run standards are there to make our work easier and more efficient. Karen is determined to do whatever she can to help AALL participate more in the NISO standards process.

Stay tuned, you'll be hearing more about NISO. Thank you Karen and Mary Alice!

Pictures from Alphabet Soup (more to come)

2009-07-26T08:12:00.003-04:00

Nice ribbons!

CONELL Marketplace

2009-07-25T14:36:00.002-04:00

TS-SIS and OBS-SIS had tables this morning at CONELL Marketplace to introduce our sections to new law librarians. It was great to meet so many people interested in our SISs - including our CONELL Registration Award Recipients! For more information about TS-SIS and OBS-SIS stop by our tables in the Exhibit Hall - there might even be some Skittles left to track with the Skittles Tracker (come by the table to see!)