Thursday, June 11th, 2:00-3:00 p.m CST, the Creative Ideas in Technical Services Interest Group (CITSIG) will host a collection of 5 lightning talks focused on a variety of creative ideas and practices in technical services. Topics cover adapting workflows or taking on entirely new projects for the rapidly-changing work environment of the Covid-19 pandemic, as well as non-pandemic topics. The specific talks include:
Everybody grab a shovel! Library-wide catalog clean-up in the age of COVID
The clean-up projects that tend to get pushed off the longest are those that require large amounts of human time and attention-most of us just don't have the resources to tackle those in the way we'd like... except perhaps during pandemics, and especially when people throughout the library are willing to pitch in. At George Mason University we identified post-migration clean-up projects that could be taken on by anyone in the library, put together documentation, and set up training sessions to get everyone up to speed. In the months since our shut down began we've already reviewed tens of thousands of records! Presented by Kimberley A. Edwards, Head, Database Integrity & Analysis, & Emily Nilson, Database Integrity & Analysis Specialist, George Mason University
Digital collections at a distance
What happens when you no longer can digitize new content for your digital collections? The University of Alabama Libraries Special Collections responded with the creation of Still Tide Together: Documenting Life during the COVID-19 pandemic, whose submissions will represent the first intake of born-digital content without having an established born-digital program in place. Attendees will learn about the decision-making process to make this project doable and the planning of a makeshift born-digital workflow. Besides this project, the staff is completing a migration of existing digital content to a new digital content management system, reusing grant-funded digital content to create new digital collections, and revamping its digital preservation processes and workflows. Presented by Laura M. Gentry, Special Collections and Digital Initiatives Librarian, The University of Alabama Libraries
Workflow for providing HathiTrust access for brittle books
HathiTrust provides limited access to online versions of works for member libraries when current or previously held print copies fall under Section 108 conditions: when print copies of works are damaged, deteriorating, lost or stolen, and a copy is not available on the market at a fair price. To qualify for access, the library must demonstrate that it previously owned a print version. Preservation, acquisitions, and cataloging staff at the University of Washington Libraries partnered on a workflow for adding structured notes to item and holding records for withdrawn brittle volumes in a batch job. After 24 hours, the notes are permanently available via the analytics module of the LMS, and the records are deleted. An analytics report provides next steps for staff to remove OCLC holdings, edit holdings statements for multipart monographs where only some volumes are withdrawn, and notify acquisitions to handle attached purchase lines. Presented by Erin Grant, Director of Cataloging and Metadata Services, University of Washington
Uncovering hidden gems: How our library reached out to improve the discovery and use of departmental collections
Departmental and subject-specific libraries and collections are tucked away all over our campus. We reached out to the directors of two of these collections to offer assistance in the maintenance and management of their heavily-used, growing collections. This discussion will highlight the steps we took to communicate with these directors and implement management tools and strategies and how librarian expertise and library-supplied resources helped ease the management burden for their directors and make these resources more user-friendly. Presented by Sarah Mazur, Head of Resource Management and Discovery, Louisiana State University Shreveport
From data entry to MARC: Transforming Excel spreadsheets into MARC records using MARCEdit
The University of the District of Columbia had a problem; a backlog of old manuscripts were taking up space in the library's small Technical Services area, and no one with the appropriate training had the time to process them, or to train another in original cataloging. Thankfully, one doesn't need much training to do data entry! This presentation describes how the UDC Library used staff knowledgeable in data entry to enter manuscript metadata into Excel, which was then transformed by the Cataloging Department into MARC21 records using MARCEdit's Export Tab Delimited program. Presented by Jacqueline Saavedra, Cataloger/Metadata Librarian, University of the District of Columbia
Registration is free and meetings are open to all.
To register for this and other Interest Group sessions: http://www.ala.org/alcts/events/virtualigweek
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Jennifer Maddox Abbott
Collection Management Librarian
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
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