Current Digital Information Landscape

Morgan, Eric Lease. "Today's Digital Information Landscape" Musings on Information and Librarianship (01 December 2007)(http://infomotions.com/musings/digital-landscape/). - Eric Lease Morgan of the University Libraries of Notre Dame wrote a lecture for the University of North Texas on the landscape of today's library in a digital word. He puts into words something that I've recently addressed in a workshop for cataloging electronic resources: "Libraries are still about the processes of collection, preservation, organization, dissemination, and sometimes evaluation of data and information. While the mediums, environments, and tools have dramatically changed, the problems and services the profession addresses remain the same." In this lecture, Morgan brings together XML, indexing, social software, and open source catalogs and repositories. A great introduction to the issues that technical services departments are facing right now. I wish I could have attended this lecture and listened to the question and answer period!
--Reprinted by permission from Current Cites 18(12) (December 2007)

E-only Tipping Point for Journals

Johnson, Richard K., and Judy Luther. The E-only Tipping Point for Journals: What's Ahead in the Print-to-Electronic Transition Zone Washington, DC: Association of Research Libraries, 2007.(http://www.arl.org/bm~doc/Electronic_Transition.pdf). - Based on interviews with librarians at research libraries and representatives of various publishing industry sectors (excluding commercial publishers), a literature review, and their own extensive experience, the well-known authors of this report predict that the end is near for the print journal: "The role of the printed journal in the institutional marketplace faces a steep decline in the coming 5 to 10 years. Print journals will exist mainly to address specialized needs, users, or business opportunities. Financial imperatives will draw libraries first--and ultimately publishers also--toward a tipping point where it no longer makes sense to subscribe to or publish printed versions of most journals."
--Reprinted by permission from Current Cites 18(12) (December 2007)

Survey of Library Blogosphere

Farkas, Meredith. "The Bloggers Among Us: A survey of the library blogosphere shows the mainstreaming of the medium" Library Journal (15 December 2007)(http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6510669.html). - Farkas, a long-time and well-respected library blogger, surveyed library bloggers (also called by some the "biblioblogosphere") to get a better sense of who is blogging and why. Having performed a previous survey, she compares numbers to detect trends. To no one's surprise, Farkas found many more bloggers than before, and women have begun to close the blogging gap with their male counterparts. The number of public librarians blogging have also increased in comparison to academic librarians. Many more statistics as well as insights gleaned from the data can be found in this article that tells us a lot about who we are as a blogging community.
--Reprinted by permission from Current Cites 18(12) (December 2007)

New Online Journal on Library Technology

The Code4Lib Journal (1)(17 December 2007) - This is the inaugural issue of the Code4Lib Journal, and if the beginning is any indication it will definitely be worth following for anyone interested in the topics we try to cover in Current Cites. Largely written by the library coders who are building new kinds of systems and infrastructure for libraries, you can't get any closer to the technology action without getting hit with shards of subroutines. The articles in this first include "Beyond OPAC 2.0: Library Catalog as Versatile Discovery Platform," "Facet-Based Search and Navigation With LCSH: Problems and Opportunities," "The Rutgers Workflow Management System: Migrating a Digital Object Management Utility to Open Source,"Communicat: The Next Generation Catalog That Almost Was"," "Connecting the Real to the Representational: Historical Demographic Data in the Town of Pullman, 1880-1940,". Add an editorial introduction, a book review, and a column, and there is much here to edify and entertain not just the geekiest among us, but civilians too. May it live long and prosper.
--Reprinted by permission from Current Cites 18(12) (December 2007)

RDA Developments

"The Joint Steering Committee for Development of RDA (JSC) is pleased to announce that a draft of RDA Sections 2-4 and 9 has been made available for comment. Please see the following Web page for the draft and details on making comments:"

http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/jsc/rdadraftsec2349.html

"Following the October 2007 JSC meeting, the Prospectus for RDA has been fully revised to reflect the new organization of RDA."

http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/jsc/rda.html#prospectus

(AUTOCAT e-list)

OCLC to Conduct New Cataloging and Metadata Pilot

"OCLC is conducting a pilot project to explore the viability and efficiency of capturing metadata from publishers and vendors upstream and enhancing that metadata in WorldCat, an approach that could provide added value to libraries and publishers by enhancing and delivering data that can work in multiple contexts and systems. The pilot will begin in January 2008."

http://www.oclc.org/news/releases/200688.htm

(AUTOCAT e-list)

AALL Comments on Draft Report on the Future of Bibliographic Control

AALL's official response to the draft report of the Library of Congress Working Group on the Future of Bibliographic Control is now available at:

http://www.aallnet.org/aallwash/lt12152007.pdf

OCLC's response (written by Karen Calhoun) to the draft report is available at:

http://staff.oclc.org/~levan/LC%20WG%20Report%20Comments%20OCLC%2020071214.pdf

(Posted to TS-SIS e-list)

OCLC Publishes 40th Annual Report to the Membership

"Jay Jordan, OCLC President and Chief Executive Officer ... noted that the outstanding accomplishment for the cooperative was the launch of the WorldCat.org Web site, which makes collections of OCLC member libraries visible on the Internet to people everywhere. ... In addition, Jordan said that the cooperative's long-term strategy is to provide local, group and global nodes that work together symbiotically to pursue the mission of furthering access to the world's information and reducing the rate of rise of library costs." (OCLC Abstracts)

http://www.oclc.org/news/publications/annualreports/2007.pdf

Draft Report Available from Working Group on the Future of Bibliographic Control

"The Working Group on the Future of Bibliographic Control has released its draft report on the future of bibliographic description in light of advances in search engine technology, the popularity of the Internet and the influx of electronic information resources. ... The report is available for public comment through Dec. 15. The final report will be released by Jan. 9, 2008, in time for the midwinter meeting of the American Library Association."

See http://www.loc.gov/bibliographic-future/news/draft-report.html

(Library of Congress press release posted to multiple e-lists)