TX Libraries ROI

This year the Texas Legislature meets, so this info may be useful. TSL&A has released the report Texas Public Libraries Return on Investment Study.

Did you know that for every $1.00 invested in public libraries around the state, Texans receive $4.42 worth of library services and value in return? Or that Texas public libraries provide over $2.4 billion dollars in economic benefit statewide? Get more useful facts and information from the recently-completed study Texas Public Libraries: Economic Benefits and Return on Investment, available online now at https://www.tsl.state.tx.us/roi.

Ulrich's API

Bibliographic Wilderness has a very informative posting Ulrich’s has an API included with your ulrichsweb subscription: A Review.

It turns out if you subscribe to Ulrichsweb, there is an API you are already licensed to use. The API does expose a few key pieces of data you may find useful (such as a boolean value for ‘refereed’). It sadly lacks a few things included in the Ulrichsweb directory itself that would be awfully useful (such as review text).

There is very little evidence on the web that the API even exists.

Good introduction. Provides info on how to get access and what data is available.

Jawi-Pegon (formerly Malay) Romanization Table Revision Approved

News from LC.

The ALA-LC Romanization tables are developed jointly by the Library of Congress (LC) and the American Library Association (ALA). Romanization schemes enable the cataloging of foreign language materials. Romanized cataloging in turn supports circulation, acquisitions, serials check-in, shelflisting, shelving, and reference, particularly in library catalogs that are unable to display non-roman alphabet information.

The ALCTS Committee on Cataloging: Asian and African Materials (CC:AAM) recently received and reviewed a proposal to revise the Malay (in Jawi Arabic script) romanization table. The table has subsequently been renamed "Jawi-Pegon romanization table" and has been approved.

The revised Jawi-Pegon romanization table is now available for downloading from the ALA-LC Romanization Tables webpage http://www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/roman.html.

Treatment of Globes in LCSH and LCGFT

LC has issued Library of Congress to revise the treatment of Globes in LCSH and LCGFT. A couple of major changes "To promote collocation of all of the globes, maps, and atlases of a place, the subdivision –Globes will be cancelled in favor of using the form subdivision –Maps. The fact that a work is a spherical representation will be brought out with the genre/form term Globes." And "Since there are at least two, and possibly three, commonly accepted meanings, the heading for Earth as a planet should be qualified. The heading will be revised to Earth (Planet)."

On May 24, 2012, the Policy and Standards Division (PSD) of the Library of Congress issued a discussion paper entitled “Proposed Treatment of Globes in the LCGFT Environment” (http://www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/genre_form_globes.pdf). The paper explained that currently in Library of Congress Genre/Form Terms for Library and Archival Materials (LCGFT), the term Globes in refers to globes of the Earth, to exclusion of globes of other heavenly bodies (e.g., other planets, comets, asteroids). The paper went on to suggest revisions to both LCGFT and Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) to allow for more accurate and consistent description of all globes.

Nancy B. Olson Award

The Nancy B. Olson Award Committee is now accepting nominations.

The annual Nancy B. Olson award (formerly called "OLAC Award") recognizes and honors a librarian who has made significant contributions to the advancement and understanding of audiovisual cataloging. The Awards Committee selects a recipient based on nominations received, subject to approval by the Executive Board at the midwinter meeting.

Eligibility for nomination is as follows:

• Nominees may be OLAC members, but membership in the organization is not a requirement.
  
• The nomination must be accompanied by a statement that provides supporting evidence of the nominee's qualifications.
  
• Nominees shall have made contributions to audiovisual cataloging by:
  • Furthering the goals of standardization of AV and/or computer file cataloging, including MARC coding and tagging;
    
  • Interpreting AV and/or computer file cataloging rules and developing policies on organization for these materials on the national and/or international levels;
    
  • Promoting the understanding of AV and/or computer file cataloging, coding and data exchange by professionals unfamiliar with these materials and processes.

The award recipient will receive an engraved plaque containing an inscription recognizing his/her special contribution to the field.

Submit all nominations and supporting documentation by Friday, February 15.

Future of Library Systems

The latest issue of Information Standards Quarterly (ISQ) from NISO covers the Future of Library Systems. Some articles inlcude:

• The Future of Library Systems: Library Services Platforms by Carl Grant
• Alma at Purdue: The Development Partnership Experience by Paul J. Bracke
• OCLC’s WorldShare Management: Early adopter experience at a small liberal arts institution by Gentry Holbert
• The Orange County Library System Environment: Connecting Sierra with Custom Applications by William Eric Atkinson
• Kuali OLE: A Community Collaboration in Software for and by Libraries by Michael Winkler and Robert H. McDonald

Off Topic- Contractor

The local TV news program did a story on our problems with the contractor, Ray Hernandez. Did a pretty good job, but I don't think they covered just how much we investigated the contractor before signing the contract. We did check the BBB, Angie's List, did a Google search. Nothing bad turned up. The problem was he had just started the company, so negative reviews didn't have time to appear. Lots of companies don't appear on Angie's list in our area. Also, lots of decent companies don't join the BBB. I guess a personal name search might be useful.

Added 1-13-2013 I've just discovered Hay Hernandez also operated under the names of A.I.G. Construction and Handyman Depot. Both of those get F ratings because of the same scam tactics. The company just prior to us was AF Construction. It has a F rating at the Pasadena TX BBB. I don't doubt he is operating under a different name by now.

Video Language Coding

The Video Language Coding: Best Practices document has been approved by the Cataloging Policy Committee of OLAC and posted on OLAC's website.

The 2006-2007 task force was charged with creating a set of best practices for coding MARC 008/lang and 041 language information for videos, especially DVDs, and with using that exercise to examine whether any changes could be made to the MARC21 format (coding or directions) that would improve access to the multiple types of language information found on videos. The work of that task force resulted in a number of changes to the MARC format, which are described in appendix 1. This current document, completed by the 2012 task force, provides guidance for coding video language information using the current MARC documentation.

RDA Cataloging on Google+

There is a Google+ Community for RDA Cataloging, a place to share ideas. For example, currently there is a template for a corporate body name.

RDA Cataloging is an online community/group/forum for library and information science students, professionals and cataloging & metadata librarians. It is a place where people can get together to share ideas, trade tips and tricks, share resources, get the latest news, and learn about Resource Description and Access (RDA), a new cataloging standard to replace AACR2

SCATNews

The December issue of SCATNews (38) has been published. In this issue:

• Letter from the Chair - Hanne Hørl Hansen
• Bulgarian Cataloguing Practices - Milena Milanov
• MulDiCat - Multilingual Dictionary of Cataloguing Terms - Anders Cato
• An introduction to the ALA-LC Romanization Tables - Bruce Chr. Johnson
• Hacking the OPAC with Excel - Niklas Willén
• Linked Open Data Seminar - Gordon Dunsire
• News from the Library of Congress - Susan R. Morris
• The German Translation of RDA is Online - Susanne Oehlschläger
• Cataloguing Apparantly "A Never Ending Story". The Experience of the Vatican Library In Retrospective Conversion - Luigina Orlandi
• Norwegian National Authorities Included in VIAF (Virtual International Authority File) - Frank B. Haugen
• Open Access to Cataloguing Rules - Marian Violeta Bertolini
• Results from the SCATNews Survey - Agnese Galeffi and Unni Knutsen
• Call for papers - WLIC 2013- Audiovisual and Multimedia Section and Cataloguing Section: Macro and Micro : Ways through the Maze
• LIS´2013- Workshop on Classification and Subject Indexing in Library and Information Science, Luxemburg

MARBI Papers and Agenda Available for Review

Proposal 2013-01: Identifying Titles Related to the Entity Represented by the Authority Record in the MARC 21 Authority Format

Proposal 2013-02: New Fields to Accommodate Authority Records for Medium of Performance Vocabulary for Music in the MARC 21 Authority Format

Proposal 2013-03: Making Field 250 Repeatable in the MARC 21 Bibliographic Format

Proposal 2013-04: Defining New Code for Score in Field 008/20 (Format of music) in the MARC 21 Bibliographic Format

Proposal 2013-05: Defining New Field 385 for Audience Characteristics in the MARC 21 Bibliographic and Authority Formats

Proposal 2013-06: Defining New Field 386 for Creator/Contributor Group Categorizations in the MARC 21 Bibliographic and Authority Formats

Proposal 2013-07: Defining Encoding Elements to Record Chronological Categories and Dates of Works and Expressions in the MARC 21 Bibliographic and Authority Formats

Discussion Paper 2013-DP01: Identifying Records from National Bibliographies in MARC 21 Bibliographic Format

Discussion Paper 2013-DP02: Defining Subfields for Qualifiers to Standard Identifiers in the MARC 21 Bibliographic, Authority, and Holdings formats

Discussion Paper 2013-DP03: Defining a Control Subfield $7 in the Series Added Entry Fields, for the Type and the Bibliographic Level of the Related Bibliographic Record

Discussion Paper 2013-DP04: Separating the Type of Related Entity from the RDA Relationship Designator in MARC 21 Bibliographic Format Linking Entry Fields

The MARBI ALA Midwinter Conference 2013 agenda is available at: http://www.loc.gov/marc/marbi/mw2013_age.html

Christmas Metadata

What is metadata? A Christmas themed exploration by Bonnie Swoger appears as a recent Scientific American weblog post. Cute.

I think we can agree that Santa would use sound data management practices, including the creation and use of proper metadata, to keep track of his gift giving and logistical data. He would want the rest of us to use good metadata so we can always locate that 30 year old picture of him, too.

Be like Santa and make sure your data is findable and re-useable: use good metadata!

Gary Price of InfoDocket brought this to my attention.

GPO to Switch to RDA in April

Another major cataloging institution, the GPO, plans to switch to the RDA standard in April.

The U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO) has created a Resource Description and Access (RDA) implementation team to ensure a smooth transition from AACR2 to RDA. GPO cataloging staff are continuing their training efforts, and are now working on sample record creation, the identification of local practices and formal PCC (Program for Cooperative Cataloging) review. Full implementation is expected in April, 2013.

I was made aware of this by Gary Price of InfoDocket.

NISO Teleconference - NCIP

The next NISO teleconference; will be on the NISO Circulation Interchange Protocol (NCIP).

NISO will hold its next open teleconference in our monthly series this coming Monday, December 10th at 3:00 PM Eastern Standard Time.

The topic for the November call will be NCIP (NISO Circulation Interchange Protocol, also known as Z39.83), which is a North American standard with implementations in the US, Canada, and many other countries around the world. NCIP services facilitate the automation of tasks, the exchange of data, the ability to provide information to library staff, and the empowerment of patrons. Each service is comprised of a request from an initiating application and a reply from a responding application. It is possible for a single software application to play both the initiation and responding roles, but typically there are at least two applications involved.

The Standard itself consists of two parts; Part 1: Protocol defines a protocol that is limited to the exchange of messages between and among computer-based applications to enable them to perform the functions necessary to lend and borrow items, to provide controlled access to electronic resources, and to facilitate co-operative management of these functions. Part 2: Implementation Profile defines a practical implementation structure for NCIP. Version 2.02 of these documents was published in 2012 and is available via http://www.niso.org/workrooms/ncip. The Standing Committee maintains further informational pages at http://www.ncip.info/

Mike Dicus, Product Manager at Ex Libris and chair of the NCIP Standing Committee, will participate on the teleconference to discuss the group's work and answer any questions.

The call is free and anyone is welcome to participate. To join, simply dial 877-375-2160 and enter the code: 17800743#. All calls are held from 3-4 p.m. Eastern time.

searchRetrieve Version 1.0

There was Z39.50, then SRU/SRW, then A9. now comes searchRetrieve V1.0.

searchRetrieve Version 1.0 is a multi-part specification that defines a generic protocol for the interaction required between a client and server for performing searches.

Part 1, the Abstract Protocol Definition (APD) defines a model and a generic protocol for the interaction between a client and server for performing searches. It facilitates interoperability between different search protocols by providing a common framework and terminology for describing these search protocols. The intention is that all search protocols can be regarded as concrete implementations of this definition.

The 60-day public review has started and ends 14 January 2013.

OLAC 2014

OLAC is looking for a host for the 2014 conference.

The Board of OLAC is now accepting proposals to host the 2014 OLAC Conference. If you are interested, please read the summary of guidelines below and at: http://www.olacinc.org/drupal/?q=node/58#committeeformation.

According to our practice of varying the geographical region of the host city, the 2014 conference should be held somewhere in the Midwest.

Hosting an OLAC conference is:

• Detail-oriented: perfect for catalogers
  
• A great way to meet very interesting people
  
• If you’re going to organize a conference, this is a great one to organize, because OLAC is relatively small and very friendly
  
• The OLAC board offers LOTS of support (some call it hand-holding)
  
• You get to spend money that isn’t yours—but you do have to spend it on the conference
  
• You get to tour hotels and make menu choices
  
• If you are shy, you get to adopt the more comfortable role of host
  
• You will be popular—people will gravitate towards you to ask questions—but you do have to solve problems, too
  
• You will make new friends and meet possible collaborators
  
• It looks great on your resume!

We look forward to hearing from interested parties, and to receiving proposals no later than January 18, 2013.

Japanese Romanization Table Revision Approved

News ffrom LC.

The ALA-LC Romanization tables are developed jointly by the Library of Congress (LC) and the American Library Association (ALA). Romanization schemes enable the cataloging of foreign language materials. Romanized cataloging in turn supports circulation, acquisitions, serials check-in, shelflisting, shelving, and reference, particularly in library catalogs that are unable to display non-roman alphabet information.

The ALCTS Committee on Cataloging: Asian and African Materials (CC:AAM) recently received and reviewed a proposal to revise the Japanese romanization table. The table has subsequently been approved. The revised Japanese romanization table is now available for downloading from the ALA-LC Romanization Tables webpage http://www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/roman.html.

The Lizzie Bennet Diaries

Interesting take on libraries, "the books, and the dust and the sadness."

PCC Relationship Designator Guidelines Task Group Report

The PCC Relationship Designator Guidelines Task Group Report was recently published.

It has always been one of the main functions of the library catalogue to relate resources to other entities. Main and added entries express relationships between persons or organizations and the resources for which they are responsible, and other devices such as analytical added entries, uniform titles, linking entries, and series headings are all ways of expressing defined sets of relationships among resources themselves.

The relationship designators in RDA should be seen as an evolution of these devices. But where MARC captures a relatively limited set of relationships, largely those applicable to traditional library collections, the RDA relationship designators establish a framework to express a potentially much richer set of relationships. In addition, the linked data environment in which RDA relationship designators are intended to be implemented may eventually offer more powerful ways of handling relationships.

Off Topic - Allegiance Construction Group

I'm going off topic to warn everyone of Allegiance Construction Group of Houston Texas. This is a new name for them. They used to be AF Construction. Under that name they received a F rating from the Better Business Bureau. Under that name they were also dropped by Service Magic. They changed names and placed ownership of the new company in the name of the wife of the former owner of AF Construction. They very well may have used other names before AF Construction. Reynaldo Hernandez (Ray Hernandez) has a office on 10030 Blackhawk Blvd Houston, TX 77089. If you find any of this matches someone you are considering hiring find someone else.