Friday, October 26, 2012
New Bibliographic Framework: Update with Eric Miller
On July 16, 2012, Eric Miller of Zepheira made a presentation at the Library of Congress entitled "Bibliographic Framework Initiative Update: MARC Linked Data Model." Miller is co-founder and president of Zepheira, which "provides solutions to effectively integrate, navigate and manage information across boundaries of person, group and enterprise." Miller urges his audience to be active participants in the shaping of the new bibliographic framework by learning everything we can about linked data, and sharing it with others so that they too can get involved. We should look outside the library community for answers to some of the questions that arise as we work to develop the new framework. You can access the video of Miller's presentation at http://www.loc.gov/today/cyberlc/feature_wdesc.php?rec=5605. The slides that accompanied the presentation are available at http://de.slideshare.net/zepheiraorg/bibliographic-14207718.
Tuesday, October 16, 2012
E-Books in Libraries
O'Brien, David R., Urs Gasser, and John Palfrey. E-Books in Libraries: A Briefing document developed in preparation for a Workshop on E-Lending in Libraries. Cambridge, MA: The Berkman Center for Internet & Society, 1 July 2012. At: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2111396
A good overview of the current state of e-book industry and the licensing of e-bboks in libraries.
From the Abstract:
"This briefing document was developed with helpful inputs from industry stakeholders and other practitioners in preparation for the “E-Books in Libraries” workshop, hosted on February 24, 2012, by the Berkman Center for Internet & Society with the generous support of the Charles H. Revson Foundation....Beginning with a brief overview of the history and the current state of the e-book publishing market, the document traces the structure of the licensing practices and business models used by distributors to make e-books available in libraries, and identifies select challenges facing libraries and publishers. Where possible, we have made an effort to incorporate stakeholder perspectives and real-world examples to connect analysis to the actual questions, issues, and challenges that arise in practice. The document concludes with a number of informative resources – including news articles, whitepapers, stakeholder and trade association reports, and other online sources – that might inform future conversations, investigations, pilot projects, and best practices in this space."
Friday, September 28, 2012
TERMS: Techniques for Electronic Resource Management
Jill Emery of Portland State University, and Graham Stone of the University of Huddersfield have created a lovely wiki of best practices in electronic resources management. For each segment of the electronic resources management life cycle, investigation, acquisition, implementation, evaluation, review and cancel/replace, a complete menu of steps is presented.
This is an evolving project intended to to updated and edited by contributors.
Illustration taken from TERMS website.
Friday, September 21, 2012
Phones as scanners
Ever need to scan something without removing it from the stacks? Or is the book just too unwieldy to put on the scanner? You could use a wand scanner or try lugging a portable scanner around, but a recent article on ArsTechnica.com discussed a different possibility – using a mobile phone as a document scanner. (http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/09/the-power-of-two-use-your-phone-as-a-document-scanner/ ) In the article, Andrew Cunningham discusses the different apps that are available and their advantages and disadvantages, including how to use direct on-device OCR to create documents on the fly from photos. Other such apps include FasterScan, TurboScan, and Prizmo. The functionality is even available through the Google Drive app by creating a document from a photo.
Thursday, September 13, 2012
[alcts-eforum] TS Stats & Assessment - Final Summary
ALCTS eforum hosted a two-day discussion on technical services statistics and assessment during Aug. 22-23, 2012. Here is the final summary posted by Buddy Pennington, Director of Collections and Access Management, University of Missouri-Kansas City:
Turning Statistics Into Assessment : How can Technical Services Measure the Value of Their Services?
Moderated by Sarah Simpson (Tulsa City-County Library) and Buddy Pennington (University of Missouri – Kansas City)
The topic of “Turning Statistics Into Assessment : How can Technical Services Measure the Value of Their Services?” generated 160 messages from 55 participants during the e-forum held August 22-23, 2012. The moderators wanted to discuss with others how technical services departments collect and utilize statistics to measure their value.
Day one began with a lively discussion about the statistics we keep. Many of us do count almost everything anyone does – there is a sense that counting production is the bottom line. We count orders placed, items received, titles cataloged, items processed, serials added, and on and on. There were discussions of additional things that can be tricky – keeping track of money spent by subject area or department, OCLC cataloging and authority work, usage statistics, and how to deal with tracking our work on electronic resources – they give us a whole slew of new processes to count! This also led to a brief discussion of numbers we wish we had, like turnaround time, cost/item, and catalog use, with some people offering up their own methods of procuring these numbers, which was very helpful.
Another discussion focused on the complexities of using our ILS systems to pull these statistics, with some people noting that they still relied on manual counting, and others offering help with using the system to get those numbers. It became very clear that this is something that varies wildly from ILS to ILS, and can involve 3rd party software as well. However, manual counting definitely has its challenges – in both validity and time spent.
Reasons for collecting statistics included making collection decisions about what to buy and what to weed, assessing staffing levels, evaluating staff, justifying funding, demonstrating productivity, and making information available to many of the stakeholders for our organizations.
The second day turned toward the assessment component. We started the morning out by discussing how we use the statistics we collect for internal assessment activities. It is critical that we ask ourselves why we are collecting the data in the first place. Statistics can be utilized to establish production benchmarks that can be used to determine staffing needs and/or training priorities. It is difficult to compare different libraries so many establish internal benchmarks.
We also discussed reporting. Many of us issue reports and include statistics in those reports. Reports and statistics can be used to highlight accomplishments as well as trends from year to year. North Carolina State University posts there statistics on the open web (http://www.lib.ncsu.edu/cataloging/stats/), pointing out that potential recruits can get an informed sense of the technical services operations from such information. Many of us are issuing reports to collection development librarians and/or to fulfill accreditation reporting needs.
Discussion on reporting inevitably turned toward discussing the impact or value of technical services. Assessment is turning into demonstrating the value of services to various stakeholders (Megan Oakleaf, The Value of Academic Libraries: A Comprehensive Research Review and Report (Chicago: Association of College and Research Libraries, 2010. Available at http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/acrl/issues/value/val_report.pdf). How well do our statistics and reports do that? Demonstrating value can be done, but it can also be more challenging particular when trying to demonstrate technical services value to stakeholders outside the library. Technical services can demonstrate the value of services internally by educating other library departments on technical services through tours, cross-training, open houses and orientations.
The moderators thank Kristin Martin for her support as e-forum coordinator, and the participants for a thought-provoking discussion, and for some great ideas to consider moving forward!
Turning Statistics Into Assessment : How can Technical Services Measure the Value of Their Services?
Moderated by Sarah Simpson (Tulsa City-County Library) and Buddy Pennington (University of Missouri – Kansas City)
The topic of “Turning Statistics Into Assessment : How can Technical Services Measure the Value of Their Services?” generated 160 messages from 55 participants during the e-forum held August 22-23, 2012. The moderators wanted to discuss with others how technical services departments collect and utilize statistics to measure their value.
Day one began with a lively discussion about the statistics we keep. Many of us do count almost everything anyone does – there is a sense that counting production is the bottom line. We count orders placed, items received, titles cataloged, items processed, serials added, and on and on. There were discussions of additional things that can be tricky – keeping track of money spent by subject area or department, OCLC cataloging and authority work, usage statistics, and how to deal with tracking our work on electronic resources – they give us a whole slew of new processes to count! This also led to a brief discussion of numbers we wish we had, like turnaround time, cost/item, and catalog use, with some people offering up their own methods of procuring these numbers, which was very helpful.
Another discussion focused on the complexities of using our ILS systems to pull these statistics, with some people noting that they still relied on manual counting, and others offering help with using the system to get those numbers. It became very clear that this is something that varies wildly from ILS to ILS, and can involve 3rd party software as well. However, manual counting definitely has its challenges – in both validity and time spent.
Reasons for collecting statistics included making collection decisions about what to buy and what to weed, assessing staffing levels, evaluating staff, justifying funding, demonstrating productivity, and making information available to many of the stakeholders for our organizations.
The second day turned toward the assessment component. We started the morning out by discussing how we use the statistics we collect for internal assessment activities. It is critical that we ask ourselves why we are collecting the data in the first place. Statistics can be utilized to establish production benchmarks that can be used to determine staffing needs and/or training priorities. It is difficult to compare different libraries so many establish internal benchmarks.
We also discussed reporting. Many of us issue reports and include statistics in those reports. Reports and statistics can be used to highlight accomplishments as well as trends from year to year. North Carolina State University posts there statistics on the open web (http://www.lib.ncsu.edu/cataloging/stats/), pointing out that potential recruits can get an informed sense of the technical services operations from such information. Many of us are issuing reports to collection development librarians and/or to fulfill accreditation reporting needs.
Discussion on reporting inevitably turned toward discussing the impact or value of technical services. Assessment is turning into demonstrating the value of services to various stakeholders (Megan Oakleaf, The Value of Academic Libraries: A Comprehensive Research Review and Report (Chicago: Association of College and Research Libraries, 2010. Available at http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/acrl/issues/value/val_report.pdf). How well do our statistics and reports do that? Demonstrating value can be done, but it can also be more challenging particular when trying to demonstrate technical services value to stakeholders outside the library. Technical services can demonstrate the value of services internally by educating other library departments on technical services through tours, cross-training, open houses and orientations.
The moderators thank Kristin Martin for her support as e-forum coordinator, and the participants for a thought-provoking discussion, and for some great ideas to consider moving forward!
Friday, August 31, 2012
ALA's Association for Library Collections & Technical Services hosts YouTube channel
http://www.youtube.com/user/alctsce/
ALA's Association for Library Collections & Technical Services (ALCTS) launched a YouTube channel in February 2012 to host its growing collection of webinar presentations. Currently, there are five playlists available (some webinars are featured on more than one playlist): Collections, Cataloging, Preservation, Institutional Repositories, and RDA Series Webinars. Within each playlist is a wide variety of presentations; on the "Preservation" playlist, for example, you can find videos addressing topics such as disaster preparedness, mold prevention and remediation, and digital preservation. The topics covered on the "Collections" playlist include effective subscription management, the rise and fall of reference collections, evaluating e-resources, and buying library materials on the out-of-print market. The "Cataloging" playlist includes a presentation with the memorable title "Cataloging Icky Things, or, If You Can Catalog a Book, You Can Catalog Anything!" Those who are preparing for the implementation of RDA will appreciate the 19 webinars featured in the RDA Webinar Series, including "Cataloging Law Materials with RDA."
ALA's Association for Library Collections & Technical Services (ALCTS) launched a YouTube channel in February 2012 to host its growing collection of webinar presentations. Currently, there are five playlists available (some webinars are featured on more than one playlist): Collections, Cataloging, Preservation, Institutional Repositories, and RDA Series Webinars. Within each playlist is a wide variety of presentations; on the "Preservation" playlist, for example, you can find videos addressing topics such as disaster preparedness, mold prevention and remediation, and digital preservation. The topics covered on the "Collections" playlist include effective subscription management, the rise and fall of reference collections, evaluating e-resources, and buying library materials on the out-of-print market. The "Cataloging" playlist includes a presentation with the memorable title "Cataloging Icky Things, or, If You Can Catalog a Book, You Can Catalog Anything!" Those who are preparing for the implementation of RDA will appreciate the 19 webinars featured in the RDA Webinar Series, including "Cataloging Law Materials with RDA."
Wednesday, August 15, 2012
Print Management at "Mega-scale"
Lavoie, Brian F. Print Management at "Mega-scale": Regional Perspective on Print Book Collections in North America. Dublin, Ohio: OCLC Research, c2012. At: http://www.oclc.org/research/publications/library/2012/2012-05.pdf
Using a mega-regions ("geographical regions defined on the basis of economic integration and other forms of interdependence") framework to model regional consolidation of shared print book library collections, this report explores a counterfactual scenario where local US and Canadian print book library collections are consolidated into regional shared collections. The analysis in this paper builds upon findings from the OCLC Research report, Cloud-sourcing Research collections: Managing Print in the Mass-digitized Library Environment (2011), and draws upon bibliographic and library holdings data from the WorldCat database.
Using a mega-regions ("geographical regions defined on the basis of economic integration and other forms of interdependence") framework to model regional consolidation of shared print book library collections, this report explores a counterfactual scenario where local US and Canadian print book library collections are consolidated into regional shared collections. The analysis in this paper builds upon findings from the OCLC Research report, Cloud-sourcing Research collections: Managing Print in the Mass-digitized Library Environment (2011), and draws upon bibliographic and library holdings data from the WorldCat database.
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