December 2009 Archives
As part of its series of programs on technical services, OCLC has assembled a panel focusing on the theme "Dollars and sense: paying for the collaborative national bibliographic framework."
The panel was inspired by sections of the report "On the Record" (http://www.loc.gov/bibliographic-future/news/lcwg-ontherecord-jan08-final.pdf) produced by the LC Working Group on the Future of Bibliographic Control, which includes the recommendation:
"Increase the efficiency of bibliographic production for all libraries through increased cooperation and increased sharing of bibliographic records, and by maximizing the use of data produced through the entire "supply chain" for information resources."
In addition, this panel was developed to explore issues raised in a subsequent report commissioned by the Library of Congress and produced by R2 Consulting, entitled "Study of the North American MARC Records Marketplace" (http://www.loc.gov/bibliographic-future/news/MARC_Record_Marketplace_2009-10.pdf). The report explores the economics of current practices for producing and sharing cataloging records in the U.S. and Canada, including existing incentives and barriers to both contribution and availability. The R2 report includes the statement
"Cataloging backlogs continue to grow in many areas and market segments: as outlined in the library survey responses, non‐Roman languages, maps, and DVDs pose particular problems. But to our surprise, many libraries are also losing ground on mainstream materials such as English‐language monographs."
The R2 report also notes that cooperative cataloging systems have yet to reach their full potential; that LC bears a disproportionate share of the costs for producing records in North America; that incentives to stimulate original cataloging are insufficient; and that significant resistance remains to accepting the cataloging of another library.
Hosted by Karen Calhoun, Vice President of OCLC WorldCat and Metadata Services, the panel features:
- Alasdair Ball, Head of Collection Acquisition and Description for the British Library. Mr. Ball, whose professional background includes change management, has led a redesign of cataloging workflows at Boston Spa.
- Ruth Fischer, half of the R2 Consulting team that prepared the report (http://www.loc.gov/bibliographic-future/news/MARC_Record_Marketplace_2009-10.pdf) cited above.
- Brian E. C. Schottlaender, the Audrey Geisel University Librarian at the University of California, San Diego. Among other professional honors he is a winner of the Margaret Mann Citation for outstanding professional achievement in cataloging and classification. Mr. Schottlaender will provide an update on the University of California's "next-generation technical services" initiative.
The session will be held Saturday, January 16, 2010, 8:00-10:00 AM, Boston Convention & Exhibition Center, Room 104 A/B.
We hope you will join us. More information on OCLC activities at Midwinter:
http://www.oclc.org/info/ala/.
This session will be recorded and made available on the OCLC Web site after the conference.
By Karen Calhoun and John Chapman
Recently, LIBER (Ligue des Bibliothèques Européennes de Recherche/Association of European Research Libraries) published new strategy documents outlining a vision for 2009-2012. The Strategic Plan identifies five priorities for this time period:
Scholarly communication
Digitisation and resource discovery
Heritage collections and preservation
Organisation and human resources
LIBER services
Last month, staff from OCLC and LIBER met in London to discuss how OCLC--a LIBER Gold Sponsor--can best support LIBER's plans. The group identified three of the above LIBER priorities as opportunities for fruitful collaboration.
Digitisation and resource discovery
EuropeanaTravel is an EU-funded project that will channel digital content from European national libraries and LIBER institutions into Europeana.eu, the portal providing access to Europe's digital cultural heritage. The project, described in an English-language fact sheet available from http://www.europeanatravel.eu/multilingual-resources.php started on 1 May 2009 and will run for two years. A joint LIBER-OCLC pilot study was suggested and is being explored. The purpose would be to look at technical and operational issues related to making EuropeanaTravel metadata visible in WorldCat as well.
Heritage collections and preservation
Building from OCLC's role as a service provider for CERL's HPB (Heritage of the Printed Book) database and existing cooperation between CERL and LIBER on the Heritage Collections and Preservation steering committee, a working group with members from CERL, LIBER and OCLC was suggested. The working group would initially focus on improving the HPB through better data synchronisation techniques.
Organisation and human resources
Due to mutual interest in the evolving roles of librarians in research libraries, it was suggested that LIBER and OCLC examine opportunities for collaborative investigation in this area, perhaps taking advantage of work done or underway in OCLC Research. Topics of possible interest include information literacy, librarians as liaisons, librarians in data-centric environments, bibliometrics, and library publishing roles.
