OCLC's Presentation Center offers a wealth of valuable information

For those who missed the OCLC update session at AALL in Philadelphia, the PowerPoint slides from that presentation are available from OCLC at:
http://www.oclc.org/us/en/multimedia/2011/files/OCLC-Update-201107.pdf. OCLC makes slides and/or streaming video from many of its conference presentations available at: http://www.oclc.org/us/en/news/events/presentations/default.htm. Dozens of presentations (dating back to 2000) are available, covering a broad range of topics such as: creating cataloging efficiencies, library management services in the Cloud, CONTENTdm, WorldCat Local, transformational literacy, and digital data curation. Some presentations focus on OCLC products and services, while others, such as the November 2010 session on "The Ethics of Innovation" have less of a "sales pitch" tone to them. OCLC's Presentation Center (http://www.oclc.org/us/en/community/presentations/default.htm) features presentations by OCLC research staff, guest speakers at OCLC (mostly slides are provided), and a "Distinguished Seminar Series" (slides with some video or audio).

Ebooks in Libraries

Ashcroft, Linda. "Ebooks in Libraries: an Overview of the Current Situation." Library Management 32(6/7)(2011). At: http://www.emeraldinsight.com/journals.htm?issn=0143-5124&volume=32&issue=6&articleid=1939757&show=abstract

This article provides an overview of the use of ebooks in academic and public libraries. It reviews results from various published ebook surveys conducted over the past three years, and is a good starting point for librarians who want to learn about ebook use.

First RDA Vocabularies "Published"

Yesterday, the following announcement from the Joint Steering Committee for Development of RDA was shared on the RDA Toolkit News page:

The Joint Steering Committee for Development of RDA (JSC), the DCMI/RDA Task Group (http://dublincore.org/dcmirdataskgroup/), and ALA Publishing (on behalf of the co-publishers of RDA) are pleased to announce that the first group of RDA controlled vocabularies have been reviewed, approved, and their status in the Open Metadata Registry (OMR) changed to ‘published.’

For the full text of the announcement, including links to view the finished vocabularies and more, click here (http://www.rdatoolkit.org/content/221).

Librarians' Assessment of Automation Systems: Survey Results, 2007-2010

For the last four years, Marshall Breeding has conducted an online survey to measure satisfaction with multiple aspects of the automation products used by libraries. In this issue of Library Technology Reports, Breeding and Andromeda Yelton take a deeper look at the survey data, including an expansion of findings based on the 2010 iteration, an examination of trends seen across the four years, and additional analysis not previously published. Brief interpretive narratives help place the data in context.
In this Report, the authors
• Explain the basis and origins of the survey and what it attempts to measure
• Examine the qualitative data to find themes and trends
• Break down the data quantitatively by library size, library type, and more
• Provide profiles of different vendors and how they are reflected in the survey data
• Categorize information to reveal less obvious trends

Authors:

Marshall Breeding, director for innovative technology and research for the Vanderbilt University Library, is a leading authority on library vendors and automation systems.

Andromeda Yelton is a member of the founding team at Gluejar. She is a 2011 ALA Emerging Leader and a 2010 winner of the LITA/Ex Libris Student Writing Award.

from ALA TechSource, June 2011

Culturomics: Word Play

Hand, Eric. "Culturomics: Word Play." Nature 474(7352)(17 June 2011): 436-440. At: http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110617/full/474436a.html

This is an interesting article introducing Erez Lieberman Aiden, one of the developers of the n-grams viewer (a word frequency analysis tool) of Google Books. It has a nice sidebar describing some data mining projects in the humanities databases.

Draft classification schedules KIA-KIK (Law of Indigenous Peoples of in the Americas/North America) now available for review

From Jolande Goldberg at LC:
For your review and input to the draft schedules KIA-KIK (Law of Indigenous Peoples of in the Americas/North America), the Policy & Standards Division posted all draft schedules and tables on the LC/Acquisitions & Bibliographic Access Directorate (ABA) home page under NEWS on top of the page:
http://www.loc.gov/aba/

An extensive Introduction to concepts and principles, as well as an introduction to application is included.
Comments and questions should be directed to: jgol@loc.gov

Two NISO recommended practices due to be published this summer

A number of NISO working groups have reached their last major milestone prior to publication. The working groups are currently reviewing and incorporating the community input for two Recommended Practices, which had been issued for public comment and closed last month: Establishing Suggested Practices Regarding Single Sign-On (ESPReSSO) and a revision of RFID in U.S. Libraries. Final publication is expected this summer.