Interesting blog post re LC

In light of the many references to the Calhoun Report throughout the course, as well as the impact of Google on technical services, particularly cataloging practice, I found this blog posting to be very interesting reading.  It appears to be a written version of a report to Congress by a representative of AFSCME at LC, and it gets to the heart of the issue regarding LC’s focus on building a digital collection and how that relates to its mission and the reality of continuing to collect mostly print-based material.  Here are some quotes that are particularly striking:

“In fact, the Library’’s mission is not the same as Google’’s mission.”

“…it’s [sic] also a fact that the Library cannot digitize the vast bulk of it’s holdings while the U.S. copyright law remains in effect.”

“The point is this: while digitization projects are useful and prestigious, they provide access to only a microscopic portion of the Library’’s collections, and for that reason should not be regarded as core functions that are more important than existing operations, such as our cataloging and classification work. In it’s rush to “transition” to the digital age, the Library should not lose sight of its core mission nor abandon its traditional base.”

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Questions for Karen Calhoun

In yesterday’s class you articulated several questions that you would like Karen Calhoun to address in next week’s class.  Below is a summary list.  If any of you has thought of additional questions, please send them to me via email or comment on this post by the end of the day and I will include them in an email I plan to send to her:

Tell us about the hows and whys of selecting your interview candidates, including the development of the questions you posed to them.

What reaction from public libraries, if any, has your report received?  Or from other areas of librarianship aside from large and/or academic libraries?  What about reactions from co-workers, peers?  Were these reactions expected?

Has the report had the impact you expected?

What do we need to do to further study patron behavior?  Do you agree that decisions with regard to the evolution of the catalog need to be informed by that research?

Have you received feedback indicating what if any of your suggestions are being implemented? Which ones?

How do you hope to build on this study?

How much information, and what kinds, do you think is appropriate for the catalog? We don’t want the catalog to duplicate the web do we?

Library catalogs demonstrate the advantages of a controlled vocabulary over keyword searching. How does you feel about giving that up?

what type of long tail benefits would you like to see if research libraries could make their collections more visible on the web?

Without Web-like enhancements users will continue to evade the catalog. What can libraries do right now, to deal with this?

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MARC Format

Steve has asked a couple of times if everyone is familiar with MARC format.  If you haven’t taken cataloging, here’s a quick tutorial.

 http://www.lib.usm.edu/%7Etechserv/pdc/marc21_tutorial_ie/

GSLIS network down this a.m.

I found out a short while ago that the entire GSLIS network is down for maintenance this a.m.  I have been told to expect access to be restored around noon today, LEEP time.  If you can’t reach the LEEP webspace, don’t panic — this is the reason why.  I don’t understand why I (and at least two others in this class) did not receive advance notice of this work, but oh well.

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wikipedia

an interesting article on wikipedia
http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/060731fa_fact

Reminder re final synthesis paper [Updated]

As a reminder, an outline for your final synthesis paper was due Friday.  Several of you have not submitted the outline yet.  Also as a reminder, to quote from the assignment description:

The written paper must be 10-12 double-spaced pages in length. Depending on the chosen topic or scope, papers that are longer in length may be accepted. Pay careful attention to appropriate bibliographic citations. (This is required for all formal written course assignments.) An outline of the final synthesis paper is due no later than Friday, July 21. The final synthesis paper is due no later than Friday, August 4.

[Updated:  I just noticed that on the Course Calendar there is a strikethrough on the date for the due date for the final synthesis paper.  This will be corrected asap but it may very well have been the reason that some of you were unaware that the outline was due.  No penalties will be assessed for turning the outline in later than Friday; however, if you haven't submitted an outline yet, please do so asap, no later than Wednesday, 7/26/2006.]

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Print-on-Demand

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/20/technology/20basics.html

The above NYT article discusses the growing print-on-demand market, and points out that it is now being used by anyone who would like documents bound. Companies like Blurb.com and Picaboo focus on the individual user, but as this service grows, I wonder if it could be used as an economic way for libraries to bind serials or other documents.

I really like the questions this article raises. Web services like LibraryThing help us tag our own books and become our own catalogers. And now, web print-on-demand is helping us become our own published authors. Is this a sign of a truly selfish society, or self-reliant society? Is print-on-demand just an extension of blogging? Can it have real use for small libraries, or is it just like a Kinko’s?

Demystifying the final synthesis paper assignment

I’ve received many inquiries about the final synthesis paper.  The assignment presents a challenge for many of you in terms of figuring out what you want to write about.  Here is some information that I hope will help to demystify the assignment.

Well, first, to reiterate from the Syllabus, “The purpose of this assignment is to enable you to draw these disparate pieces [of the course] into a cohesive whole; to present a “big picture” view; to articulate your understanding of overarching issues and problems within this side of the profession; and to express your views and interpretations of what you’ve learned throughout the course.”

You might also take a look again at the Course Objectives (http://leep.lis.uiuc.edu/summer06/LIS578LE/objectives.html) and derive some more ideas from some of the ones listed there.

It might be helpful or give you some further ideas if I list some previous students’ choices for a theme for the final synthesis paper.  These have included an examination of the impact of open access publishing on technical services, a discussion about ownership vs. access as it pertains to technical services, and a plan for collection improvements for a library with reasons why improvements need to be made (in other words, articulating bigger picture issues such as shift to e-resources from print).  Here are a few more:  ”Giving Them What They Want: Technical Services and Patron Access” or “Rethinking Technical Services for a Digital World: Academic libraries should consider new ways to integrate and streamline their organization and work processes for effective and efficient service to library patrons.”

Please feel free to contact me if you need more guidance with this assignment.  As a reminder, an outline of what you plan to write for the final synthesis paper is due tomorrow (Friday).

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Open Access Serials & Publishing

An article for this week, “SPARC: Encouraging New Models of Disseminating Knowledge” got me thinking about open access journals.  The SPARC movement is against commercial publishers that maximize prices, causing fewer libraries to subscribe, and therefore effecting the dissemination of scholarly information. 

The problem is serious, as the author Ken Frazier notes, “Many research institutions can no longer afford to buy the information resources that are created by their own scholars and scientists.”  The article, which was written in 2000, stated that SPARC hoped to change scholarly publishing because “the commercialized system is malfunctioning.” Meaning the system is too costly and slow for libraries and consumers. Additionally small publishers have been bought out by large publishers, and “large publishers have merged to form gigantic publishers… the consolidated market has resulted in less competition and increased subscription costs.” 

I went to the SPARC website to see if they were still around, and too see what alternative publishing models they were working on.   Open access journals is on area where SPARC is working.  They have a couple of nice PDF files up on Open Access and Creating Change <www.createchange.org>. 

These articles prompted me to search Google, where I came across the following links, among others:o        Open Access Journals in the Field of Education
http://aera-cr.asu.edu/ejournals/o        Directory of Open Access Journals
http://www.doaj.org/  

I then did a search in
Wilson’s Library Lit and found a bunch of good articles on open access publishing. See below: I will investigate what other libraries are doing to provide access to OA journals in an organized way – and perhaps get something up on the Harper Library site.  

1. Boettcher, J. Framing the Scholarly Communication Cycle. Online (
   Weston, Conn.) v. 30 no. 3 (May/June 2006) p. 24-6
2. Van Orsdel, L. C., et. al., Journals in the Time of Google [Periodicals price survey 2006]. Library Journal (1976) v. 131 no. 7 (April 15 2006) p. 39-44
3. Brynko, B. The Case of Open Access. Information Today v. 23 no. 2 (February 2006) p. 23
4. Albanese, A. Open Access May Heat Up in 2006. Library Journal (1976) v. 131 no. 2 (February 1 2006) p. 18-19

KIM

ArtStor and their License Agreement

I think in class  a few weeks ago we mentioned that it was hard to see sample license agreements (I think we were mainly talking about serials), but ArtStor has theirs posted on their website which you can download if anyone is interested.  It’s about 16 pages long.

www.artstor.org/info/participation_info/license_agreement.jsp