All Sessions

This full-day workshop provides concrete examples and hands-on exercises for practical applications of coding with library data. Session topics include XML and XSLT for streamlining and scaling up metadata and cataloging workflows; RDF/XML for serializing MODS-RDF and BIBFRAME; XQuery for extracting, manipulating, and constructing library metadata; and PyMARC for accessing and manipulating MARC records. Attendees are encouraged to bring a computer with XML-aware and Python software as well as questions for group discussion.

The key audience for this preconference is cataloging and metadata librarians or paraprofessionals and information science students having some familiarity with metadata creation and/or descriptive cataloging practices, and at least one or two formats such as MARC, Dublin Core, MODS, METS, RDF. This preconference may also be useful for digital scholarship librarians and library technology staff. Sessions are oriented towards those who have some familiarity with the technologies covered however it is not required.

To get the most out of the presenters' illustrations, examples, and hands-on exercises we recommend participants pre-install XML-aware, Python, and MarcEdit software on their computers prior to arrival. Current versions of Chrome, Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, and Opera are able to display XML files and will largely suffice for the first session, but in order to follow-along with the later examples and hands-on exercises participants will need to be able to do more than just view XML. We recommend installing fully-featured XML editing tools such as oXygen XML Editor (Syncro Soft), XML Spy XML Editor (Altova), Stylus Studio XML Editor or XML-compatible text editors such as Brackets, Notepad++ for Windows, and GNU Emacs as well as MarcEdit and the Python 3.4.1 shell. Instructions on installing these programs will be provided on the ALCTS Workflow Efficiency Interest Group ALA Connect page prior to the preconference.

This preconference workshop will provide practical information on the descriptive cataloging of children's materials, using RDA and MARC21. Attendees will participate in hands-on exercises which will include using tools and documentation in support of cataloging with RDA. The following children's materials types will be covered: video recordings, sound recordings, video games, three-dimensional objects, kits, books with accompanying material in a special format, games, and two-dimensional materials such as pictures and flash cards.

The preconference workshop will provide an overview of cataloging videorecordings using Resource Description and Access (RDA), MARC21, and the newly-issued Online Audiovisual Catalogers (OLAC) best practices cataloging guides for DVD/Blu-ray discs and streaming media. Through presentations and hands-on exercises, participants will learn to catalog current video formats such as streaming video, DVD, and Blu-ray. Specialized materials such as filmed performances (dance, music, theatre, etc.) and older video formats will also be addressed.

This preconference is intended for Technical Services librarians and cataloging staff from academic, public, school, or special libraries who catalog video formats such as streaming video, DVD, Blu-ray, VHS, etc.

Current discussion puts undue emphasis on the philosophy and technology of linked data. Yes, it's cool and demands to be played with. And yes, the library community is late to the party. But what is required for success besides an interesting idea?

Join us to explore ontology design and data modeling in the real world. Learn about the people, processes, metrics, and yes the technology, needed to succeed.

This preconference is intended for Non-IT library staff that have a general understanding of linked data, and are ready to engage further in learning and applying data modeling concepts that are central to using/creating linked data in a production environment. Some knowledge of XML and HTML will be assumed (although not required).

You’ve heard about hackathons--but have you ever heard of a Janeathon? Drawing on the hackathon model of bringing people together to explore new ideas by setting them to task equipped only with software and their collective gumption and enthusiasm, ALA Publishing and the RDA Development Team announce the first ever event designed to catalog Jane Austen resources with software specifically designed to use RDA. In addition to building practical experience with ‘native’ (not MARC-based) RDA, participants will explore the very real issues inherent in using Resource Description Framework (RDF) statements in aggregated “packages” ready to contribute to the Linked Data world.

Meeting of the interest group

The Enhance and Expert Community Sharing Session is a forum for Q&A and for the exchange of information concerning OCLC's Enhance program and Expert Community.

Three librarians in the first five years of their careers will discuss how their cataloging coursework did (or did not) help prepare them for their cataloging duties in their current professional roles. We will hear our three presenters focus on their respective cataloging courses and what they learned from them, what kind of experience they have had either before or after library school, and what kind of additional educational or experience-centered background they feel could have been useful to them, if any.

Our speakers:

* Sarah Hovde, Cataloger & BIBCO Liaison, Folger Shakespeare Library

* Tim Kiser, Special Materials Catalog Librarian, Michigan State University Libraries

* Patricia Guardiola, Reference and Instruction Librarian, Yale University

Our session will also feature an update on developments since our Midwinter interest session on the Cataloging Competencies effort.

News, information and discussion related to the training activities of the Program for Cooperative Cataloging

Update from the Library of Congress
Presenter: Angela Kinney, Chief, African, Latin American and Western European Division (ALAWE), Library of Congress

Fighting the Hydra: or, Revising a Complex Quality Control Workflow
Presenter: Autumn Faulkner, Assistant Head of Cataloging and Metadata Services, Michigan State University

Michigan State University Libraries receives thousands of shelf-ready monographs from approval plans each year, which are accompanied by matching copy records located by the vendor. A recent overhaul of the quality control procedure for these records presented several challenging decisions, including what types of issues could be resolved by initial copy catalogers in Acquisitions, which errors should be passed along to an "advanced problem solver" in Copy Cataloging, and best methods for distilling many-layered, complicated instructions into a concise and user-friendly document. This presentation discusses the entire range of considerations encountered, from workloads, pay grades, and RDA training, to technical writing, formatting, and accessible web design!

Using XSLT for Automated Quality Control for Vendor Provided Records
Presenter: Dominique M. Bortmas, Complex Cataloging & Metadata Specialist, Florida State University

Vendor records, ideally, should meet quality standards and be free of error. However, records do not always meet an institution’s standards. Errors ranging from multiple 049s, 245 indicators, missing LOC call numbers 9or call numbers without cutter numbers), and many other problems produce incorrect records which create multiple conflicting issues for the library, staff, and patrons. In order to save time and resources while still producing high quality vendor records, the presenters uses an XSLT script to address these and many other problems found within vendor records. The vendor supplied MARC records are converted to XML using MarcEdit and an XSLT script is run on the records to identify problems with the records. Rather than have catalogers search through each record for accuracy, the result from this script flag the problem records; in turn, the staff is informed about records that need correction. This presentation demonstrates how to utilize xml technologies in order to automate the quality control review of vendor supplied catalog records. There will be an overview of the problems with some vendor records and why automation needs to be implemented.

Lessons Learned from Managing Multiple Shelf-Ready Cataloging Projects
Presenter: Angela Kinney, Chief, African, Latin American and Western European Division (ALAWE), Library of Congress

The presenter describes her experiences at the Library of Congress of working with international vendors to implement and manage shelf-ready cataloging projects. It includes a description of the steps that can be taken when instituting such projects, the challenges and positive aspects of outsourcing cataloging, and the resources needed to do it. The presentation will discuss training issues, including the need for distance learning, and the impact of importing vendor-provided records on the roles of cataloging staff. Also included will be information about how vendor records are treated as copy cataloging at the Library of Congress, and the importance of quality control and of developing efficient workflows in order to reap benefits from shelf-ready cataloging projects.

This program will introduce participants to Library of Congress Genre/Form Terms for Library and Archival Materials (LCGFT) and Library of Congress Demographic Group Terms (LCDGT) and explain how to use them to catalog and provide access to materials for children. LCGFT and LCDGT will be placed into the context of existing practice, and the relationships among subject headings, genre/form terms, and demographic terms will be discussed. Real-world examples and hands-on exercises will be provided.

Linked Data Love: research representation, discovery, and assessment

Kristi Holmes, PhD
Director, Galter Health Sciences Library
Associate Director of Evaluation, NUCATS
Associate Professor, Preventive Medicine-Health and Biomedical Informatics
Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine

The explosion of linked data platforms and data stores over the last five years has been profound – both in terms of quantity of data as well as its potential impact. Research information systems such as VIVO (www.vivoweb.org) play a significant role in enabling this work. VIVO is an open source, Semantic Web-based application that provides an integrated, searchable view of the scholarly activities of an organization. The uniform semantic structure of VIVO-ISF data enables a new class of tools to advance science. This presentation will provide a brief introduction and update to VIVO and present ways that this semantically-rich data can enable visualizations, reporting and assessment, next-generation collaboration and team building, and enhanced multi-site search. Libraries are uniquely positioned to facilitate the open representation of research information and its subsequent use to spur collaboration, discovery, and assessment. The talk will conclude with a description of ways librarians are engaged in this work – including visioning, metadata and ontology creation, policy creation, data curation and management, technical, and engagement activities.

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VIVO and BIBFRAME: Understanding People through Linked Data

Steven Folsom
Discovery Metadata Librarian
Cornell University Library

Linked Data for Libraries (LD4L) is a collaboration of the Cornell University Library, the Harvard Library Innovation Lab, and the Stanford University Libraries, and is funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The project attempts to illustrate the value of linked data through a number of use cases; the focus of LD4L Use Case 2 is to “See and search on Works by people to discover more works and better understand people”. To this end, LD4L has experimented with connecting university faculty profiling systems with library data about the intellectual output of the university. This presentation will describe a pilot to preprocess MARC records for Cornell theses for conversion to BIBFRAME with VIVO URIs, ultimately providing greater context to student theses and more fully reflecting faculty service to the university.

The Cataloging in Publication Advisory Group (CAG) is open to anyone who is interested in learning about the latest developments with CIP records. Discussion topics will include the revision of the CIP Data Block, growth of the CIP E-book program, and the ECIP Cataloging Partnership Program.

Describing Resources with BIBFRAME at the National Library of Medicine
Nancy J. Fallgren, Metadata Specialist Librarian, National Library of Medicine

NLM has been collaborating with George Washington University, University of California, Davis, and Zepheira to draft an experimental common, core BIBFRAME data model and vocabulary that would be useful for bibliographic cataloging and beyond. With the draft at a comfortable level of completeness, we are using that BIBFRAME model in further experiments to convert existing description from a variety of XML schema and to catalog new bibliographic materials using RDA rules. This presentation will discuss the status of NLM’s practical experimentation using BIBFRAME for resource description, including some examples, and discussion of tools we are using and/or planning to use.

Skill Sets for Technical Services Staff
Roman S. Panchyshyn, Assistant Professor, Kent State University

As the nature of the work in technical services changes, technical services managers and library administrators need to evaluate and project what type of skill sets must be added or changed to meet the needs of future projects and workflows. My presentation will identify eight areas of competence, or skill sets, which will need to be present in technical services for the department to remain viable during the period of transition from current cataloging practices to a linked data environment. The presentation will be given from a management perspective, outlining the need for establishing a training timetable, prioritizing skill set training, and justifying the costs and resources necessary for training to library administration. The presentation will be based on my book chapter, recently accepted for publication, in the monograph titled: Creating the 21st Century Academic Library: Volume 6: Rethinking Technical Services, edited by Bradford Lee Eden.

What Can We Do about Our Legacy?
Diane Hillmann, RDA Development Team

Underlying many of the recent conversations about new options for description is the fear that we could lose access to our legacy of MARC records, or compromise the transition from MARC to RDA sufficiently that we lose the value of those records. There are options for bringing that data with us as we move ahead, but there will need to be better understanding of what those options might be and how to make appropriate decisions for individual libraries or consortia for those conversations to proceed effectively.
The notion of pursuing ‘integration’ of MARC and RDA records, using the RDA fields brought into MARC, is often brought up, prompted by the early decisions of the RDA effort to pursue a ‘middle ground’ option, but better understanding of what is really different about RDA has made that option less attractive. Diane Hillmann, for many years a cataloger and tech services manager, and now a member of the RDA Development Team, will discuss the issues around these decisions, and suggest possible paths for librarians.

Linked data implementers will share their stories about what has worked and what hasn’t, problems faced and solved, and remaining challenges and opportunities. Speakers will be drawn from major library linked data initiatives and their focus will be on practical considerations of linked data implementations. Presenters will speak briefly about their experiences to allow time for discussion with the audience.

Join us to hear how libraries and consortia have simplified their workflows with OCLC’s cloud-based WorldShare Management Services—from managing e-resources to cataloging to acquisitions. Libraries will share their experiences with WMS and discuss how streamlined, more efficient workflows have saved time and money, and allowed them to do more. Andrew K. Pace, OCLC, will provide an overview and update.

Meeting of the ANSS Subject & Bibliographic Access Committee. For more information see: http://anssacrl.wordpress.com/committees/subject-bibliographic/

SESSION MOVED -- Join us for a joint program with ALCTS CaMMS CMIG and LITA MSC

Data Clean-Up: Let's Not Sweep It Under the Rug

Date: Saturday, June 27, 2015
Time: 1:00 – 2:30 pm
Location: MCC - 2022 (W) (Moscone Convention Center – West Building)

Description:
Data migration is inevitable in a world in which technological infrastructures and data standards continue to evolve. Whether you work in a catalog database or a digital library/archives/institutional repository, working with library resource data means that you will eventually be required to usher data from one system or standard to another. Three speakers working in different library contexts will share their data normalization experiences.

Speakers:
Amy Rudersdorf
Assistant Director for Content
Digital Public Library of America

Amy will address data normalization from the digital library perspective.

Terry Reese
Head Digital Initiatives, Associate Professor
Ohio State University

Terry will address the role that tools such as MarcEdit can play in the context of data normalization and cleanup.

Kyle Banerjee
Digital Collections and Metadata Librarian
Oregon Health and Science University

Kyle will address the role data normalization is playing in the Orbis Cascade Alliance.

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Program planning co-chairs:

Jennifer A. Liss
Head, Monographic Cataloging Image Unit
Indiana University Libraries
jaliss@indiana.edu

Roman S. Panchyshyn, MLIS
Catalog Librarian, Assistant Professor
Kent State University Libraries
rpanchys@kent.edu

Jenn Riley
Associate Dean, Digital Initiatives
McGill Library
jenn.riley@mcgill.ca

Cathy Weng
Head of Cataloging
The College of New Jersey Library
weng@tcnj.edu

Meeting of the joint ALCTS/LITA interest group