Core Creative Ideas in Technical Services Interest Group

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Purpose: Provides a forum for discussion of issues within the field of technical services which are relevant to library staff at all levels, particularly those issues relating to the evolution of technical services as it affects and is affected by technology and greater interdependency among all library departments.

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This interest group is part of Core's Metadata and Collections Section.

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Session report: Midwinter 2019

  • 1.  Session report: Midwinter 2019

    Posted Feb 13, 2019 09:35 AM

    At the ALCTS-Creative Ideas in Technical Services Interest Group session at ALA Midwinter 2019, over 50 participants joined 13 facilitators for eight discussions relating to many different aspects of technical services in libraries, ranging from critical cataloging and linked data work, to the interplay interlibrary loan and collectiond development. Below are brief reports on each of the eight discussions; slides and handouts from the different roundtables are attached.

    Table 1: Critical cataloging and faculty engagement
    Proposal by: Susan Ponischil (Grand Valley State University)
    Facilitators: Violet Fox (OCLC), Mira Greene (Rice University)

    Critical cataloging (#critcat) involves incorporating social justice into our metadata work; one discussion participant teaches cataloging in an MLIS program and about half of final papers she now receives are related to social justice. Potential strategies for advocacy within and outside of the library include emphasizing the important role that metadata has in facilitating access to information and writing/presenting about the changes we're making in non-cataloging forums. Framing your authority control work as a chance for outreach to faculty and others, as well as reaching out to faculty specifically to demonstrate inadequate cataloging on their publications (then showing the improvements your library has made) can clearly demonstrate cataloger impact.

    Table 2: Understanding and Managing the Changing Landscape of Technical Services
    Facilitators: Dan Tam Do (University of Vermont) and Lihong Zhu (Washington State University)

    Major drivers of change identified by roundtable participants include: money (particularly when funds are not adequate to meet needs), university goals (e.g., emphasis on assessment and public-facing initiatives), emerging standards and tools (e.g., RDA 3R Project), staffing (loss, change, or integration), new systems, automation, policies governing the function of sections of the library, ways of learning current skills, and technology associated with the Semantic Web as well as with emerging practices in licensing, open metadata, open access, and teaching and learning. It was noted that new library management systems tend to reduce the need to perform work of a less knowledge-intensive or creative nature, and that staff might be better prepared for such changes if their skills sets are expanded and their anxieties (concerning job security, for example) reduced. When providing training, managers and supervisors are advised to remember that paraprofessional positions often cannot be upgraded, nor pay increased, in spite of expectations to do more. Tips include: supporting professional development, centering staff members' specific needs and strengths, encouraging them to share their ideas, using a team-based approach, keeping staff up-to-date on developments in the field, following national-level standards and training materials, communicating that it is okay to make mistakes while learning, and cultivating problem-solving skills.

    Table 3: Embracing Technical Service's Public Service Role
    Facilitator: Jeffrey Mortimore (Georgia Southern University)

    Nine participants shared their experiences providing direct and indirect customer service to public services personnel and patrons from a technical services perspective. Participants discussed the challenges and importance of building trust and a shared vocabulary across technical and public services, and shared a variety of strategies for achieving both. Furthermore, participants considered changing roles of librarians, and how such change creates new opportunities to break down traditional silos library-wide.

    Table 4: Tools and workflows for enhancing discoverability of linked data and other library resources on the web
    Facilitators: Theodore Gerontakos, Crystal Clements, Benjamin Riesenberg (University of Washington)

    The University of Washington's workflow for producing and publishing RDF metadata for digital image collections using the DPLA MAP v5 data model was briefly discussed, as well as the National Library of Medicine's publication of its widely-used MESH vocabulary in RDF format on the web for other institutions to use. An attendee from Google Books mentioned that they are keeping track of libraries' move from MARC to BIBFRAME, and provided insights about making library-published RDF more discoverable by web crawlers by embedding Schema.org metadata in HTML pages, and including sitemaps--another attendee mentioned that the University of Montana had reported very successful results from those same strategies at an earlier Midwinter session. Participants discussed aspirations for the future of library linked data, including actually linking the linkable data we're producing and consuming by matching entities and asserting relationships between them, internationalizing access to our data and digital collections, the benefits and drawbacks of various data models, and hopes for linked data integration with user interfaces. Participants briefly discussed a common desire to share this work across institutional boundaries, and the potential benefits of linked data practitioners widely sharing not only their successes, but their failures as well.

    Table 5: Team building in technical services: how to boost morale and motivate staff
    Facilitators: Laura Evans and Rachel Turner (Binghamton University)

    This discussion centered around how to motivate a group of coworkers with diverse personalities, backgrounds, and different years of experience. A key point was the idea of trying to find an enjoyable way to get people to work as a team and become more invested in the undertaken projects. This was approached in a variety of ways, from workshops that brought together people who normally don't work together, to games such as This or That, to getting people to contribute their expertise to a project and take a more leadership role, even if their job title wouldn't necessarily recommend them for it. An important thread throughout these ideas was that voluntary activities often become popular. Finally, participants discussed how to include introverts in these activities without making them uncomfortable.

    Table 6: Technical Services in a Startup University
    Facilitator: Raymond Pun (Alder Graduate School of Education)

    Facilitator Ray Pun gave a lightning talk at the start of the session, since no one joined the table to discuss the proposed topic.  The lightning talk focused on a few key points: the challenges and opportunities of transitioning from a public services to a technical services role, the experience of being a lone librarian at a small startup academic institution, and the potential application of methodologies from startup culture to library settings.

    Table 7: Evaluating technical services operations
    Facilitator: Jennifer Sweeney (San Jose State University)

    This discussion centered on identifying bottlenecks in technical services operations.  A few were identified: approval processes and review are located outside of technical services, issues with licensing, and an imbalance in resources between e-resources and physical collections.  Some possible solutions discussed included helping staff recognize the strengths they have to contribute elsewhere, compiling a strengths deployment inventory or a strengths finder, and "interrogating our structures."

    Table 8: Collection Development and Interlibrary Loan: Open Communication
    Facilitator: Alison Armstrong (Radford University)

    This discussion focused on the challenges and opportunities of integrating interlibrary loan and collection development.  Major topics covered during the discussion included the implications of request-based collection development for ILL and collection building, the roles and responsibilities of staff and the importance of protecting the political capital of staff members, and conducting proactive analysis of ILL to fill in gaps in collections.



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    Timothy Mendenhall (he/him/his)
    Metadata Librarian
    Columbia University
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