Deanna Marcum, Associate Librarian for Library Services
Service units, divisions, and offices within the Library have submitted the information in this briefing document for the attention and use of Library of Congress staff who will attend the American Library Association (ALA) Annual Conference in New Orleans, Louisiana, June 23-28, 2011. The document covers initiatives undertaken at the Library of Congress since the ALA Meeting in San Diego, Calif., in January 2011. Information in the printed document is valid as of June 1, 2011. This document will be updated regularly until the close of the Annual Conference.
Library of Congress Exhibit Booth
Visit the Library of Congress Exhibit Booth #2856 at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center
located at 900 Convention Center Boulevard, New Orleans. The exhibit booth coordinator
is Jane Gilchrist.
Exhibit hours are:
- Friday, June 24 5:30 - 7:30 p.m.
- Saturday-Sunday, June 25-26, 9:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.
- Monday, June 27, 9:00 a.m. - 2:00 p.m.
Library of Congress staff making presentations in the booth theater include: Matthew Barton, Anne Boni, Colleen Cahill, Ana Cristan, Karl Debus-López, Linda Geisler, Rebecca Guenther, Patricia Hayward, Ahmed Johnson, Judy Kuhagen, Everette Larson, Cheryl Lederle-Ensign, Guy Lamolinara, Laverne Page, Dave Reser, Regina Reynolds, Caroline Saccucci, Donna Scanlon, Lisa Taylor, George Thuronyi, Peter Vankevich, Camilla Williams, David Williamson, and Michael Womack.
A complete schedule of booth theater presentations is available at URL <www.loc.gov/ala/an-2011-booth.html>. Of special note are showings of the HISTORY Modern Marvels program featuring the Library of Congress that aired on June 10, 2010 (Friday at 5:30 pm; Saturday at 4:30 pm; Monday at 1:00 pm). National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature Katherine Paterson will speak at the booth on Sunday, June 26, at 12:00 pm.
Two new CDS promotional brochures are available at the booth: one for all LC Classification publications and products and one for LC’s subject headings authority control publications. A full-page, full-color ad will appear in American Libraries Journal advertising Cataloger’s Desktop and Classification Web. Available free to booth visitors while supplies last: LC Classification posters and single copies of the pocket-sized LC Classification system, Understanding MARC Bibliographic, Understanding MARC Authority Records, and What is FRBR? All attendees of the Cataloger’s Desktop and Class Web booth presentations will receive a CDS promotional tote bag.
CONGRESSIONAL RESEARCH SERVICES
Dan Mulhollan, director of the Congressional Research Service since 1994, retired April 2. Librarian of Congress James H. Billington appointed Mary B. Mazanec as acting director of the Congressional Research Service (CRS), effective April 3. Mazanec has served since August 2010 as CRS deputy director. She will serve as acting director until the Librarian selects a new director.
U.S. COPYRIGHT OFFICE
Librarian of Congress James H. Billington appointed Maria A. Pallante as the 12th Register of Copyrights and director of the United States Copyright Office, effective June 1, 2011. Pallante served as the Acting Register for the past five months, following the retirement of Marybeth Peters on December 31, 2010. Pallante’s wide-ranging experience in copyright transactions, policy and litigation includes several key positions within the Copyright Office: Associate Register for Policy and International Affairs (2008-2010), Deputy General Counsel (2007-2008), and Policy Advisor (1996-1997). She spent much of her career in New York, working there from 1999-2007 as intellectual property counsel and director of the licensing group for the worldwide Guggenheim Museums, where she advised on programmatic and business initiatives related to publishing, product development and branding. She has led two national author organizations, working as Executive Director of the National Writers Union (1993-1995) and as Assistant Director of the Authors Guild (1991-1993), and was associate counsel at the Washington-based law firm and literary agency, Lichtman, Trister, Singer and Ross. Pallante is a 1990 graduate of the George Washington University Law School. She earned her bachelor’s degree in history from Misericordia University, where she was also awarded an honorary doctorate of humane letters. She completed a clerkship in administrative law under the Hon. G. Marvin Bober, appellate division, U.S. Department of Labor. Pallante has been a frequent speaker on copyright law at events in the U.S. and abroad, and has testified before Congress several times, including on the Copyright Reform Act (1993); Orphan Works (2006) and Online Enforcement of Rogue Websites (2011). She was a member of the Librarian’s 1993 Advisory Committee on Copyright Registration and Deposit and is currently serving on the Department of Education’s Advisory Commission on Accessible Instructional Materials in Post-Secondary Education for Students with Disabilities.
LAW LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
The Friends of the Law Library of Congress presented the 2011 Wickersham Award for exceptional public service and dedication to the legal profession to former Supreme Court Associate Justice John Paul Stevens on June 13. Justice Stevens served on the Supreme Court from Dec.19, 1975, until his retirement on June 29, 2010. Following the award presentation, Justice Stevens was interviewed by Gwen Ifill, moderator and managing editor of Washington Week and senior correspondent for PBS NewsHour. For broadcast information, visit URL <www.pbs.org/newshour
>.
Also receiving an award from the Friends of the Law Library of Congress for his dedication to the Law Library of Congress was William C. Burton, Esq., a partner in Sagat|Burton LLP., New York, and the founder and chairman of the Burton Awards for Legal Achievement. Burton received the inaugural Blackstone Award for his significant contributions to advancing the mission and activities of the Law Library of Congress.
The Law Library of Congress has acquired two volumes of an extraordinarily rare 1478 edition of the "Casus breves" of Johannes de Turnhout (c. 1446-1492), printed by the Brotherhood of the Common Life at their Brussels press, Te Nazareth Gheprint. The "Casus breves" reports the observations of major 14th-century civil law commentators. Only 13 copies of the 1478 edition of "Casus breves"—the oldest—are known to exist in the world. The Law Library of Congress’s edition will be the only copy in the U.S. The acquisition was made possible through the generosity of Julie Chrystyn Opperman in honor of her husband, Dwight D. Opperman.
OFFICE OF THE LIBRARIAN
Congressional Relations Office (CRO)
The following are recent legislative activities relating/of interest to the Library since the ALA Meeting:
Outreach to 112th Congress. Since January, CRO has contacted all new members’ offices, provided a new guidebook to the to the Library, as well as a new edition of the reference card for key congressional and constituent services, and conducted individual meetings with 34 new member offices in the House and Senate. New and continuing members have been visitors to the Library for numerous events, tours, exhibits, concerts, behind-the scenes looks at requested collections, and book talks. Many offices are making regular trips to select surplus books to send to their districts. The Gateway to Knowledge traveling exhibit has visited 43 congressional districts between the start of the 112th Congress and the ALA annual meeting in New Orleans, with another 34 stops projected by the time it reaches D.C. for the National Book Festival.
CRO held the first event for the Congressional Library of Congress Caucus, working with the staff of co-chairs Reps. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) and Robert Aderholt (R-AL). On June 1, the Caucus co-hosted with the Librarian an evening with author David McCollough to discuss his new book, The Greater Journey. At least 25 House Members and 35 Congressional staff attended, along with other guests.
Joint Committee on the Library of Congress [JCL]. While the JCL has not yet held its organizing meeting to elect a Chairman and Vice-Chairman, the membership for the 112th Congress is: Sens. Charles Schumer (D-NY); Richard Durbin (D-IL); Patrick Leahy (D-VT); Lamar Alexander (R-TN); and Thad Cochran (R-MS); and Reps. Daniel Lungren (R-CA); Gregg Harper (R-MS); Ander Crenshaw (R-FL); Robert Brady (D-PA); and Zoe Lofgren (D-CA).
Library Appropriations. The Library, like most of the federal government, operated under FY2010 funding levels through April 15, by operation of a series of Continuing Resolutions (CR). On April 15, President Obama signed P.L. 112-10, the Department of Defense and Full-Year Continuing Appropriations Act, 2011, which funded the federal government through the end of September and avoided a temporary Government shutdown. The appropriations act cut $38.5 billion in overall spending. The Library received an appropriation of $628.7 million – a reduction of $14.7 million, or 2.3 %, from the base appropriation for the previous fiscal year.
The Library is expecting a difficult FY2012 budget process with continuing pressure on Congress significantly reduce the federal budget. The Library, in recognition of this extraordinarily challenging budget environment, submitted a budget request for FY2012 that includes very few requested increases from the FY2010 enacted level, with a hope of avoiding diminution of its core activities and those national resources and services that the Library uniquely provides. The Librarian presented the budget request at a hearing before the House Appropriations Subcommittee on March 11; the Senate subcommittee hearing was held March 31.
Our request reflects a 3.4 percent increase overall from the FY2010 enacted level;
- 77% of that ($18 million) is for mandatory pay and price level increases ($18 million), allowing the Library to sustain our staffing levels.
- Of the $ 5.5 million requested for program increases, slightly more than half of that ($2.8 million) is a response to a federal government-wide IT security requirement: to increase the level of our IT security for incident response, to address new threats, and to ensure the confidentiality of communications with the Congress.
- The other half ($2.7 million) is to sustain CRS's services to the Congress. As with the broader Library, CRS has experienced effective cuts in personnel and expertise over the last years, and needs to broaden its expertise and strengthen analytical capacity in the critical areas of science and technology, health care, financial economics and accounting, and social policy related to employment, immigration, and the workforce. CRS estimates that this funding would allow them to add 17 FTE's.
The funding request for our other top priority, Ft. Meade module 5, is contained in the AOC's budget request, under "Library Buildings and Grounds". The Library has asked the AOC to request $8.9 million for Collection Storage Module 5, Phase I, Ft. Meade, which would allow the Library to take the next step in the Ft. Meade master plan, which is integral to sustaining the Library’s core mission.
The House Subcommittee markup, previously scheduled for June 16, has been postponed until after the July 4 recess.
Library of Congress Legislative Requests. The Congressional Relations Office has briefed the House and Senate oversight committee staff on our requests for legislation, including: authorization to use proceeds from the sale of surplus or obsolete property; accepting travel funding from foreign governments; authorizing travel funding for congressional committee-related travel; amending the Library’s revolving fund to allow collection of fees for storage of audio/visual media, traveling exhibits and training; and updating archaic statutes governing Cataloging Distribution Service. The request also includes language to tighten reduction-in-force procedures and to clarify the authorizing statute for the Inspector General.
Government Printing Office; Appointment of Public Printer. On April 19, 2010, President Obama nominated William J. Boarman, of Maryland, to be Public Printer, to replace Robert Tapella. Mr. Boarman’s nomination was not acted on by the Senate prior to the end of the 111th Congress, and President Obama placed him at GPO via a recess appointment in December. He resubmitted the nomination in the 112th Congress, and the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration has recommended confirmation.
On March 10, Rep. Robert Brady (D-PA) placed a statement in the Congressional Record regarding the five new appointees Mr. Boarman made to the Depository Library Council for the June 1, 2011-June 1, 2014 term. They are: Stephanie Braunstein, Assistant Librarian at the Troy H. Middleton Library at the Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge; Donna Lauffer, County Librarian for the Johnson County (KS) Library system; Susan Lyons, Reference and Government Documents Librarian at the Rutgers University Law School Library; Mark Phillips, Assistant Dean for Digital Libraries at the University of North Texas in Denton; and Arlene Weible, Government Documents and Technical Services Librarian at the Oregon State Library in Salem.
A number of bills and amendments have been offered to curtail the printing and distribution by GPO of hard copies of the Congressional Record and other legislative publications:
H.R. 292, as introduced, requires the Public Printer to make bills and resolutions available for the use of the House of Representatives and Senate only in an electronic format accessible through the Internet (with a few specified exceptions). The bill does not change other obligations to distribute bills in hard copy under Title 44; for example, the Library receives copies under several provisions, not amended by this bill, including "by-law," depository copies and International exchange. S. 210 is the Senate companion version of the bill.
H.R. 1626 and S. 674 prohibit the Public Printer from printing the daily Congressional Record, except a minimum number of copies for archival purposes (as determined by the Public Printer and submitted in a report to Congress). Senate Amendment 237, proposed to be offered to S. 493, a bill relating to small business programs, would prohibit GPO from printing any hard copy versions of the Congressional Record, but instead would make it available to the Secretary of the Senate and the Chief Administrative Officer of the House of Representatives in an electronic form in a timely manner to ensure its availability online. As a result of this amendment, the Library would not receive either daily hard copies of the Record or bound versions. The House Committee on House Administration is reviewing closely the documents provided to the Library for purposes of acquisition and exchange.
9/11 First Responders Oral History Project. H.R. 1455 requires, within the limits of available funds, the Librarian of Congress to establish an oral history project to: (1) survey collections of audio and video recordings (as well as ongoing documentary work) of the reminiscences of 9/11 first responders housed in archives, libraries, museums, and other educational institutions; and (2) solicit, reproduce, and collect video and audio recordings of personal histories and testimonials of 9/11 first responders. This collection would be made publicly available. The bill was introduced on April 8 by Rep. Steve Israel. CRO is working with the American Folklife Center on a 9/11 project with State University of New York at Stony Brook that is narrower in scope and can proceed without legislation.
Online access to federal government information. S. 717 and H.R. 1349, companion versions of the Public Online Information Act of 2011, would establish a Public Online Information Advisory Committee to: (1) coordinate and encourage the government's efforts to make information from all three branches of government available on the Internet, and (2) issue and update nonbinding guidelines on how the government should make public information available. The bills direct the government to make public records permanently available on the Internet at no charge, with some exceptions grandfathered in. Each agency must publish on the Internet a comprehensive, searchable, machine processable list of all records it makes publicly available.
Constitutional authority for legislative proposals. New in the 112th Congress, Constitutional Authority Statements are required to accompany House bill and resolutions at the time of introduction. The Congressional Relations Office worked with ITS, the Law Library, CRS, GPO and the House Clerk’s office to enable the Constitutional Authority Statements to be included in a bill’s status on THOMAS and LIS.
OFFICE OF SECURITY AND EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS (OSEP)
The Office of Security and Emergency Preparedness continued developing the Library’s security and emergency programs, with a focus on enhancing the emergency preparedness program, updating Continuity of Operations (COOP) plans, enhancing electronic and security controls protecting collections and assets, conducting additional Site Assistance Visits, and planning new collections security-awareness initiatives.
The Office of Emergency Preparedness successfully conducted building evacuation drills at all eight of its facilities this past spring. The office continued to focus on improving the way the U.S. Capitol Police and D.C. Fire Department synchronize their efforts to assist mobility-impaired staff to egress safely and expeditiously from Library buildings. Additionally, emergency planners recently activated a Librarywide emergency alert system, known as Everbridge Aware, designed to quickly notify staff of time-sensitive emergencies such as severe weather, hazardous chemical releases, or law enforcement activity on campus. Everbridge will alert those who enroll via any device the user chooses, to include mobile phones, desk phones, pagers, email, test messaging, or other “smart phone” devices. The Everbridge alert system supplements several notification systems already in place for emergency communications at the Library of Congress.
The Protective Services Office continued enhancing electronic and physical security controls to protect collections and assets in all Library buildings on Capitol Hill and at the Library’s annexes. The office conducted additional Site Assistance Visits in collaboration with senior librarians/collections management specialists to ensure that divisions continued meeting minimum standards established in the Library’s Strategic Plan for Safeguarding the Collections. The Collections Security Oversight Committee launched a new collections security-awareness campaign in April during National Library Week. The campaign consists of quarterly presentations concerning development of the Library’s collections security program since 1992 and covering the three components of collections security: physical security, preservation, and inventory management.
LIBRARY SERVICES
Personnel Changes
Desiree Woodard, former senior copyright registration specialist in the U.S. Copyright Office, was appointed selection librarian, US and Publisher Liaison Division, on March 28.
Frank Kurt Cylke retired as director of the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped (NLS) at the end of February 2011. Ruth Scovill, director for technology policy, is also acting head of NLS.
Adrija Henley will serve as Acting Preservation Reformatting Division chief for 120 days, effective June 20.
Bibliographic Framework Transition Initiative
On May 23, 2011, Associate Librarian of Congress for Library Services Deanna Marcum announced an initiative at the Library to analyze the present and future environment for bibliographic data, identify the components of the bibliographic framework to support library users, and plan for the evolution from the present framework to the future—not just for the Library of Congress, but for all institutions that depend on bibliographic data shared by the Library and its partners. The Library of Congress has invested considerable resources in the development of broadly implemented encoding standards such as MARC 21, as well as cataloging standards and vocabularies such as the Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules, 2nd Edition (AACR2), RDA, and the Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH). Spontaneous comments from participants in the recently concluded US RDA Test show that a broad cross-section of the community feels budgetary pressures but nevertheless considers it necessary to replace MARC 21 in order to reap the full benefit of new and emerging content standards. The Library now seeks to evaluate how its resources for the creation and exchange of metadata are currently being used and how they should be directed in an era of diminishing budgets and heightened expectations in the broader library community.
The Library of Congress’s process will be fully collaborative with partners and customers in the metadata community, standards experts in and out of libraries, and designers and builders of systems that make use of library metadata. The Library intends to host meetings during conferences of the American Library Association, specialized library associations, and international organizations, as well as special “town hall” meetings open to the metadata community, to gather input from all interested parties. A series of invitational meetings of experts and stakeholders is envisioned for 2012 and 2013.
The Library has established a Website at URL <www.loc.gov/marc/transition> that will be the central place for plans, news, and progress of the MARC Transition Initiative. It will indicate formal channels established for working with the community, receiving feedback and input from various sources and stakeholders, and proceeding in this major undertaking. The Library has also established BIBFRAME, an electronic discussion group for constant communication during the effort of reshaping our bibliographic framework. Interested colleagues may subscribe to BIBFRAME from the Website at URL <www.loc.gov/marc/transition>.
Collection Development Office Initiative
For the past sixteen years, the Library has not had a central collections development coordinating office. Under the direction of the Associate Librarian for Library Services, work has been underway to re-establish such a unit, to be called the Collection Development Office (CDO). In August 2010, Library Services issued a document titled, Authorities and Responsibilities of the New Collection Development Office. Currently, administrative steps are being taken to formally establish the Office as an independent entity within Library Services, with completion targeted for later in this calendar year.
CDO Responsibilities. Specific responsibilities for the CDO will include the following:
- Coordinates collection development activities for all formats, subjects, languages, custodial units, and sources of acquisition.
- Prepares acquisitions plans, annual budgets and collection development targets.
- Creates, reviews and updates, as needed, all collections policy documents.
- Coordinates and/or conducts collection assessments.
- Manages collection development agreements between Library Services and external entities.
- Manages contracts and licenses for electronic materials.
- Coordinates and plans training for all staff directly involved in collection development.
- Provides guidance to Recommending Officers.
- Provides analytical reports and data about the Library’s collections.
- Monitors and reports on the use of all acquisitions funds.
Staffing. The Collection Development Office will be established initially with a staff of five individuals. Long range, staffing of the Office may grow to nine individuals. Initial staffing will consist of a Collection Development Officer, Senior Collection Planning Analyst, and three Collection Development Specialists.
National Book Festival
Associate Librarian for Library Services Deanna Marcum now has ongoing responsibility for the management of the National Book Festival. The 2011 Festival will be held Sept. 24-25. The expansion to a two-day program is possible with the assurance of long-term funding from the donation announced May 6, 2010, of $1 million per year for the next five years from David M. Rubenstein, co-founder and managing director of The Carlyle Group.
RDA Implementation Decision by U.S. National Libraries
The Library of Congress, National Agricultural Library, and National Library of Medicine announced on June 13, 2011, that they intend to adopt the new cataloging instructions, Resource Description and Access (RDA), with certain conditions and that implementation will not occur before January 1, 2013. The intervening period will allow time for work to begin on the following tasks to meet the required conditions for implementation:
- Rewrite the RDA instructions in clear, unambiguous, plain English.
- Define process for updating RDA in the online environment.
- Improve functionality of the RDA Toolkit.
- Develop full RDA record examples in MARC and other encoding schemas.
- Announce completion of the Registered RDA Element Sets and Vocabularies. Ensure the registry is well described and in synchronization with RDA rules.
- Demonstrate credible progress towards a replacement for MARC.
- Ensure and facilitate community involvement.
- Lead and coordinate RDA training.
- Solicit demonstrations of prototype input and discovery systems that use the RDA element set (including relationships).
The three libraries, in their announcement (see, URL: http://www.loc.gov/bibliographic-future/rda/) recognized that “Even though there are many in the library community who would like to see a single “yes” or “no” response to the question should we implement RDA, the reality is that any standard is complicated and will take time to develop.” As part of addressing the conditions identified, LC will have a small number of staff members who participated in the U.S. RDA Test resume applying RDA, probably in autumn 2011. This will allow LC to prepare for training, documentation, and other preparatory tasks related to the further development and implementation of RDA. The executives of the three libraries intend for the U.S. RDA Test Coordinating Committee to continue in an oversight role to ensure that the conditions are met. Dr, Marcum and the Test Coordinating Committee will consult with the LC Working Group on the Future of Bibliographic Control, the group whose report stimulated the US testing of RDA. Dr. Marcum convened the Working Group in November 2006 to address how the Library of Congress and the library community should address the popularity of the Internet, advances in search-engine technology, and the influx of electronic information resources. The Working Group's final report and recommendations, published in January 2008 as On the Record, are available at URL <www.loc.gov/bibliographic-future/>.
The Library of Congress, National Agricultural Library, and National Library of Medicine based their decision on the analysis of the U.S. National RDA Test that was formally conducted from July 1 through December 31, 2010. Twenty-three other institutions in the U.S. participated with LC, NAL, and NLM by creating or updating bibliographic and authority records using the RDA cataloging instructions. For a small common set of 25 resources, the test institutions created records under both RDA and AACR2 or other current cataloging standards. Testers also completed questionnaires to document their experiences in applying RDA. The U.S. RDA Test Coordinating Committee analyzed the records and questionnaire responses during the first four months of 2011 and submitted its report and recommendations to the senior management of LC, NAL, and NLM on May 9. The U.S. National Libraries RDA Test Steering Committee is co-chaired by Christopher Cole (National Agricultural Library), Jennifer Marill (National Library of Medicine), and Beacher Wiggins (Library of Congress). Other members from LC are Judith Kuhagen, Susan Morris, Regina Reynolds, and Barbara Tillett.
Documentation for the US National Libraries RDA Test and handout materials and PowerPoint slides from training sessions are posted at <http://www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/RDAtest/rdatest.html>. The full announcement by LC, NAL, and NLM, an executive summary of the U.S. RDA Test Coordinating Committee report, and the full report of the Coordinating Committee are available on the Testing Resource Description and Access (RDA) Website at URL <www.loc.gov/bibliographic-future/rda/>
West Africa Project
Congress and the Government Accountability Office asked the Library to explore options for reducing the costs of the overseas field offices. The Library responded to this request, in part, by acknowledging the need to test new models for obtaining materials from important but difficult to access regions of the world.
The Library is currently testing a new model in West Africa. West Africa has long been a region from which the Library and other U.S. research institutions have had considerable difficulty obtaining materials. The Library has not had the funding to open a new field office in West Africa and has had mixed success using traditional means to acquire materials there.
The new model builds on existing U.S. research networks in West Africa to acquire needed materials. The Council of American Overseas Offices (CAORC) is coordinating the work of the West African Research Association (WARA) and the West African Resource Center (WARC) in Dakar, Senegal to acquire materials from eleven, mostly Francophone countries: Benin, Burkina Faso, Chad, Côte d’Ivoire, Gambia, Guinea Conakry, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Senegal, and Togo.
A significant portion of the first year has been dedicated to building infrastructure and training. CAORC, through WARA/WARC, has been able to identify leading archivists, librarians, and researchers to acquire materials in each of the countries. These representatives have been trained and are beginning to collect materials. The Library has received the first shipment of materials collected. The quality of the materials collected thus far is good. It will take two to three years to evaluate the model’s success at consistently obtaining the most difficult to acquire materials, such as periodicals and other serials. If the model succeeds, the Library anticipates that it can serve as a more cost effective model for other regions of the world where there is need.
ACQUISITIONS AND BIBLIOGRAPHIC ACCESS DIRECTORATE (ABA)
Cataloging Distribution Service – see under PARTNERSHIPS AND OUTREACH PROGRAMS DIRECTORATE/BUSINESS ENTERPRISES
Cataloging in Publication (CIP) Program
Karl Debus-López, chief of the US General Division and acting chief of the US and Publisher Liaison Division, is currently responsible for the Cataloging in Publication program.
The CIP Advisory Group will meet on Saturday, June 26th from 10:30 am-12:00 pm in the Marriott at the Convention Center in the New Levee Room. The agenda includes a discussion on new CIP initiatives and details on a pilot to expand the scope of CIP to include e-books. There will be a short celebration of the 40th anniversary of CIP at the end of the meeting. Karl Debus-López will chair the meeting. Michael Womack, Camilla Williams, and Caroline Saccucci will present information on the potential e-book expansion.
E-book pilot. The Cataloging in Publication Program staff began work on a pilot project that would expand the scope of the CIP Program to include e-books simultaneously published with their print counterparts. Further details on the pilot will be discussed at the CIP Advisory Group Meeting in New Orleans.
ECIP Partnership Program continues to grow. The new subject-based focus of the ECIP Cataloging in Publication Partnership Program has proven to be of great interest to many of our ECIP partners. The Queens Public Library is now independent in ECIP cataloging of selected children’s literature titles. Northwestern University is now cataloging all African Studies ECIPs. Cornell University is cataloging ECIP titles that focus on Southeast Asian studies. The University of Chicago is cataloging ECIP titles that focus on classics, linguistics, classical music and the following area studies: Pakistan, Mongolia, and Russia. The University of Wisconsin-Madison is cataloging titles published by the American Society of Microbiology. CIP Program staff are in discussions with the Getty Library about joining the ECIP Cataloging Partnership Program.
Medical ECIP Processing Changes. The Library of Congress (LC) will stop assigning Library of Congress Classification (LCC) and Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) to clinical medicine titles not added to the Library of Congress’ permanent collection, on a six-month trial basis effective July 1 through December 31, 2011.
Specifically, the Library of Congress will cease assignment of LCC and LCSH to medical ECIP (Electronic Cataloging in Publication) titles cataloged by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) at the ECIP pre-publication stage. Library of Congress staff will continue to fully catalog medical titles received through the CIP Program post-publication that are selected for the LC permanent collections, regardless of whether they received pre-publication cataloging by the National Library of Medicine.
LC’s collection policy is highly selective in the area of clinical medicine. In fiscal year 2010 (ending September 30, 2010), LC assigned subject headings and class numbers to 2,262 medical titles not kept by LC for its collections. The Library’s principal selection officer estimates that 60–70 % of the medical titles processed by the National Library of Medicine at the ECIP stage were not added to the LC collections. The Library of Congress’ sole expert cataloger of medical titles retired in December 2010. While LC would like to continue to provide LCC and LCSH for medical ECIPs processed by NLM, we must reduce workload in areas that do not directly support LC’s permanent collections. Most of the clinical medicine titles sent to the Library of Congress through the Cataloging in Publication Program are eventually transferred to the National Library of Medicine. The net result of this proposal would be that neither LCC nor LCSH assignments would be provided in NLM CIP records or printed in their corresponding CIP text blocks. Library of Congress staff will continue to assign Dewey Decimal classification numbers to clinical medicine titles.
We have queried the Cataloging in Publication Advisory Group, the Association for Library Collections and Technical Services (ALCTS) Technical Services Directors of Large Research Libraries Discussion Group, and the Chief Officers of State Library Agencies (COSLA) about this proposed change. These groups have representation from publishers, vendors, medical libraries, and library systems that include medical libraries. While some concerns were raised by members of the CIP Advisory Group and the ALCTS Technical Services Directors of Large Research Libraries Discussion Group, in general there was support for the Library of Congress discontinuing this service.
While we realize that implementation of this change will result in a transfer of work to medical libraries that catalog clinical medicine titles with LCC and LCSH, the Library of Congress has recently enhanced Classification Web to assist those libraries that wish to continue to add LCC and LCSH to clinical medicine titles. Included in the Classification Web enhancement package that was sent out on February 19, 2011 is an expansion of the existing correlations feature, which allows users to run correlations between Library of Congress classification numbers and Library of Congress Subject Headings and National Library of Medicine classification numbers. This assists staff that assign LC class numbers to bibliographic records that only contain NLM class numbers, which is often the case for clinical medicine ECIPs. While correlations are not intended to provide authoritative, one-to-one matches, and are only as good as the bibliographic records that the data are run against, they do serve as an efficient guide to class number assignment, as evidenced by the popularity of the long-existing feature of LC class-Dewey class correlation. Library of Congress Classification number assignment will also assist staff in assigning Library of Congress subject headings.
We are interested in hearing from our constituencies about how this change affects their work. Please send comments directly to Karl Debus-López, Acting Chief, U.S. and Publisher Liaison Division at kdeb@loc.gov.
ONIX/MARC converter program moved into production. With the next ILS upgrade later this summer, ABA will move the ONIX/MARC converter into production. Over the last two years, USPL and USGEN staff have been involved with a pilot designed to make ONIX data received from publishers available for use by the Electronic CIP (ECIP) program. The results of their testing found that when the records received from the publishers were accurate, the new ONIX/MARC conversion process was twice as fast as the former TCEC process. Since fiscal 2009 there has been a significant increase in the quantity of titles that have received descriptive cataloging via the ONIX/MARC converter program. In fiscal 2009 532 records were added, in fiscal 2010, 2,810 records were added, and during the first six months of fiscal 2011, 3,131 records have been added. After all catalogers who work with ECIPs are trained in use of the ONIX/MARC converter, we expect these numbers to grow exponentially.
Subject vocabularies in ECIP records.The USPL Division continues to examine the American Mathematical Society (AMS) subject headings populating select ECIP records. The pilot began mid-August 2010 to evaluate the feasibility of incorporating the AMS classification schemes in bibliographic records through an automated subject heading generation process. The Library of Congress also now includes BISAC subject headings within ECIP records.
Cataloging Policy – see Policy and Standards
Cooperative Cataloging Programs/Cooperative and Instructional Programs Division
Program for Cooperative Cataloging
The Cooperative Programs Section of the Cooperative and Instructional Programs Division of ABA provides the secretariat for the Program for Cooperative Cataloging (PCC). The PCC includes a name authority cooperative, NACO; a subject and classification authority cooperative, SACO; and two bibliographic record programs for monographs—BIBCO—and serials—CONSER.
NACO news. Coop Section NACO staff conducted six online training sessions with the American University of Nigeria in April and May 2011. The online sessions covered basic NACO procedures (NACO principles, NACO parameters, etc.) and NACO Personal Names. These sessions will be followed by additional NACO online sessions in the summer of 2011.
Three online training sessions for new NACO reviewers were held in 2010-2011. These sessions were conducted by Coop Section NACO staff and associates. Coop also created a NACO Reviewers Manual to be used in conjunction with the online sessions. As a result of these sessions, the NACO Program has recruited a new cadre of NACO reviewers to assist new institutions in becoming independent in NACO work.
SACO news. A new SACO funnel for law and legal materials was formed in February 2011. This funnel is an outgrowth of a task force on the Technical Services Special Interest Section (TSSI), Classification and Subject Cataloging Policy Advisory Group (CSCP) of the American Association of Law Libraries. The funnel is coordinated by Suzanne Graham, Cataloging Services Librarian, University of Georgia School of Law Library.
PCC Operations Committee Meeting. Representatives of the BIBCO, CONSER, NACO and SACO programs met at the Library of Congress May 5-6, 2011. The representatives were given overviews of RDA and discussed strategies for working with records created according to those rules.
PCC/BIBCO members in attendance at the PCC Operations Meeting unanimously supported continued investigation and identification of RDA issues that will affect PCC members. The PCC Policy Committee is currently coordinating PCC groups to explore RDA issues that impact PCC.
CONSER members shared experiences with RDA records currently entering CONSER workflows and the CONSER database. Attendees discussed ideas for the type of support needed for working with RDA records. Ideas included guidelines, training tips, and an online forum for sharing documents and questions.
NUCMC (National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections)
New outreach activities included the first installment, “A Southern Confederacy will be Formed!” (see URL <www.loc.gov/coll/nucmc>), of a projected five year Web observance of the sesquicentennial of the Civil War; an initiative centering on Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs); and a mailing to the individual state coordinators for the Library of Congress Center for the Book. Ongoing initiatives included sending copies of newly created bibliographic descriptions of papers relating to nine Members of Congress to the Archivist of the Senate or the House Office on History and Preservation and reporting alumni collections to the relevant university archives.
Accessions of incoming cataloging data totaled 896 since October 1, 2010. Repositories reporting to the program for the first time included: Baltimore Museum of Industry; Brooks Memorial Library (Brattleboro, Vt.); Fairfield Historical Society (Fairfield, Me.); Gardiner Public Library (Gardiner, Me.); Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Historical Society (San Francisco, Calif.); Lincolnville Historical Society (Lincolnville, Me.), Little Big Horn College Archives (Crow Agency, Mont.); Rokeby Museum (Ferrisburgh, Vt.); San Jacinto Museum of History (La Porte, Tex.); and Skowhegan History House and Research Center (Skowhegan, Me.).
NUCMC catalogers produced 1,100 records in OCLC that describe collections held by repositories in Arkansas, Connecticut, District of Columbia, Florida, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Montana, New Jersey, Ohio, South Carolina, Texas, Vermont, Washington (State), Wisconsin, and Wyoming.
Highlights included journals (1979-1985) of naturalist Byron Weber describing life along the Bitterroot River bottom in Missoula, Mont.; photographs (1898-1900) of Theresa Parker Babb depicting domestic and community life in Camden, Me.; papers (1956-2006) of Dorothy Young Sale, women’s rights leader and social rights activist; letters (1824-1880) of Rowland T. Robinson, a Quaker active in the anti-slavery movement, who operated a merino sheep farm at his home in Ferrisburgh, Vt., which was also used as a stop on the Underground Railroad; an oral history (1996) of Patricia A.Golden detailing U.S. Coast Guard search and recovery operations for TWA Flight 800; and a muster roll (ca. 1857-1858) of the Pottawatomie Rifles, a group of about 100 abolitionist settlers in Franklin and Anderson counties, Kan., formed in the fall of 1855, as an armed militia to counter the growing pro-slavery presence in the area and along the Missouri border. A University of Michigan spring break intern identified documents and related visual content for the second installment of the Civil War observance, to be launched in January 2012.
Dewey Program
On May 12th, the US General Division Dewey Section celebrated the implementation of DDC23, the 23rd Edition of the Dewey Decimal Classification. The online version of DDC23, WebDewey 2.0 became available on May 23rd, at URL <dewey.org/webdewey
> (please note: login required). The new edition includes several major changes held for simultaneous publication in the print and Web versions of the DDC plus many interim updates already distributed to users in WebDewey 2.0.
Dr. Rebecca Green, Dr. Julianne Beall, and staff of the LC Dewey Section contributed extensively to the new edition. Dr. Green posted six entries on the Dewey blog for newly-available training modules: DDC Online Training: 900 and Table 2, DDC Online Training: 800 and Table 3, DDC Online Training: 700, DDC Online Training: 400 and Tables 4 and 6, DDC Online Training 300 and Table 5, DDC Online Training: 000-100-200 http://ddc.typepad.com/025431
while Dr. Beall wrote the following entries for the Dewey blog:
"DDC 23: Preview of 610 Medicine and health"
http://ddc.typepad.com/025431/2011/04/ddc-23-preview-of-610-medicine-and-health.html ![]()
"DDC 23: 800 Literature (Belles-lettres) and rhetoric"
http://ddc.typepad.com/025431/2011/04/ddc-23-800-literature-belles-lettres-and-rhetoric.html ![]()
Decimal Classification Translations. The Dewey Section continued to assist OCLC staff on the development of several translations of the Decimal Classification. They moved forward on the Arabic, Swedish, Norwegian, and Spanish translations.
eDeposit Serials
February saw the first delivery of eDeposit serials from the Copyright Office to the US General Division within ABA. Technicians in the USGEN U.S. Serials-Arts, Humanities, and Sciences and U.S. Serials-Social Sciences Section began processing the first eDeposit issues, examining receipts from five publishers. The results of their work are already being used in defining further development requirements for the eDeposit system. Through May 2011, 186 eDeposit serials have been processed within USGEN.
HACU National Internship
Daniella Ramos, a graduate student at the University of Texas, Austin in Information Science Studies, with librarian and teacher experience in the Austin public school system, will work as a HACU (Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities) intern in the ALAWE and USPL divisions from June 22, 2011, through mid-August. In USPL she will assist in developing the Children's and Young Adult Cataloging Web page while in ALAWE she will perform Spanish acquisition and bibliographic activities.
ISSN (International Standard Serial Number) Program
ISSN-L seeding of WorldCat completed. In January the US and Publisher Liaison Division completed the work to seed titles within the OCLC WorldCat database with more than one million ISSN-L. The addition of the linking ISSN to these records will serve the worldwide library community as the ISSN-L facilitates linking of different formats of a serial title.
ISSN core e-journals project. In June the ISSN Center began a project to assign ISSN to as many as 2,800 core e-journals of high research value identified by the ISSN International Centre as having a print ISSN but lacking an ISSN for the e-version.
HathiTrust, PEPRS and ISSN. U.S. ISSN Center staff has begun discussions with Peter Burnhill, director of the UK PEPRS project and others about how the ISSN Network could work with HathiTrust to begin assigning ISSN to serials digitized by Hathi, a shared digital repository that LC joined in 2010.
Law Library Support
Work on the retrospective conversion project to assign K schedule classification to previously unclassified legal documents continued within the Law Section of the U.S. Publisher and Liaison Division. As of the end of May, 7,190 items had been reclassed this fiscal year.
The USPL Law Section will begin assigning selected Genre/Form Headings established by the Policy and Standards Division to English language titles received within the Section. Foreign language titles will receive Genre/Form headings on a limited basis.
The bibliographic records of 24,000 Congressional hearings that were previously reclassed have now been made available via FTP to the University of Florida Library, which has a large collection of uncataloged hearings. In addition to using these records to place their collection of hearings under bibliographic control, the University of Florida will add the Superintendent of Documents numbers and other data to the records, and then return them to us, so that we can programmatically add the enhancements to their corresponding Library of Congress bibliographic record.
Policy and Standards Division
Policy and Standards: Bibliographic Description
ALA-LC romanization tables. The following Romanization tables have been approved and posted on the Policy and Standards Division Website: Vai and Judeo-Arabic. Revisions to the Thai romanization table are currently being reviewed by CORMOSEA (Committee on Research Materials on Southeast Asia, Association for Asian Studies) and CC:AAM (ALCTS Cataloging and Classification: Asian and African Materials). The Library has also developed a searching guide for Judeo-Persian and Tajik materials. PSD staff are also currently working on converting older romanization tables to Microsoft Word document format. This will produce much more legible romanization tables for online consultation and will facilitate any future revisions as the need is identified. The first seven enhanced romanization tables will be available on the PSD Website shortly. Questions or comments may be sent to Bruce Johnson at bjoh@loc.gov.
Library of Congress Policy Statements. Now that plans are underway towards implementation of RDA, the Policy and Standards Division will resume work with the Program for Cooperative Cataloging to review and update the current Library of Congress Policy Statements (LCPSs) to reflect decisions informed by the US RDA Test. As a reminder, the LCPSs are freely available from the Library (see URL <www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/RDAtest/rda_lcps.html>) and through Cataloger’s Desktop, as well as through the RDA Toolkit (no subscription is required to access the LCPSs in the RDA Toolkit).
VIAF (Virtual International Authority File) <viaf.org
>. The Library of Congress is one of the principals in the development of VIAF, along with the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek, the Bibliothèque nationale de France, and OCLC. There are now 18 participants with another 4 in the test stage. In addition to authority data for persons, corporate bodies and those geographic areas that are jurisdictions have also been added to the system. All the identified entities have VIAF URIs and are part of the Linked Data environment of the Semantic Web. During 2011 OCLC has agreed to take on formal administration of VIAF and assure its long-term free availability on the Web. The participants will discuss the transition and future governance in Puerto Rico at the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions World Library and Information Conference in August.
Policy and Standards: Subject Cataloging
Classification and Subject Heading Lists. Effective with classification and subject headings weekly list 1121 (dated June 15, 2011), the Policy and Standards Division changed the frequency of the tentative and the approved weekly lists to a monthly schedule. This is an experimental change and may be revised as circumstances dictate. The upcoming implementation of a new system for creating subject heading proposals, similar to the current system for making classification proposals, makes this an opportune time to realign workflows to increase efficiency in all division operations. The review process for new and change proposals has not changed; proposals will be reviewed by subject cataloging policy specialists and by SACO liaisons as appropriate. The tentative lists posted to the Web for comments, the red marked-up copies of the tentative lists that contain the revisions to the lists, and the final approved lists will continue to be distributed as before: posted to the same Websites or emailed. This experimental change may result in longer throughput times for proposals, ranging from eight to twelve weeks (currently there is a targeted six-week turnaround time).
SACO libraries may continue to use “pre-approved” subject headings in their cataloging, in accordance with the policy outlined in the SACO Participants’ Manual. Therefore, a library need not hold an item it is cataloging to await approval of the proposal. It remains the proposing library’s responsibility to revise any bibliographic records that have been contributed to a bibliographic utility in cases where the form of the headings was changed during the approval process (see the SACO Participants’ Manual, the section entitled “Practicalities”).
Because of the change in frequency of the lists, subscribers to the weekly distribution of subject authority records via the Cataloging Distribution Service’s MARC Distribution Service: Subject Authorities will notice that the weekly distribution file will vary in size much more than in the past due to the change in frequency of the lists. It may happen that some weekly distribution files do not contain any records.
New System for Creating LCSH Subject Heading Proposals. PSD will implement a new system for creating online subject proposals in Minaret no earlier than July 18, 2011. This new system is similar to the classification proposal system in that it uses the same login and password currently used for classification proposals and will streamline the process for proposing new and revised subject headings.
Genre/form update. Since January 2011, the MARC coding for Library of Congress Genre/Form Terms for Library and Archival Materials (LCGFT) has been revised and the authority records reissued, terminology for law materials has been implemented, and two further disciplines are in development.
Revision of MARC coding. On May 24, 2011 more than 700 existing genre/form authority records were cancelled and reissued with new MARC coding. LCGFT authority records now have an 008/11 value of “z” (other) and an 040$f value of “lcgft.” PSD also took this opportunity to change the LCCN prefix in the records to “gf” from “sh.” The revised MARC coding will enable automatic validation of LCGFT terms applied in bibliographic records, and the new LCCN prefix is an additional marker indicating that the terms are from the new thesaurus.
The revision to the MARC coding also required that the coding of LCGFT terms in bibliographic records be updated. As of May 24th the correct coding is: 655 #7 $a [term]. $2 lcgft. PSD has begun to undertake the bibliographic file maintenance necessitated by this change and expects to complete it before the end of 2011.
All of the approved LCGFT terms can be searched and browsed in Classification Web. LCGFT authority records are distributed as part of the MARC Distribution Service Subject-Authorities product. They may also be downloaded from the Library's Authorities and Vocabularies service, URL <id.loc.gov>, and from Library of Congress Authorities, URL <authorities.loc.gov>.
Law project. In November 2010, PSD approved approximately 80 genre/form terms for law. This marked the culmination of a successful partnership between PSD and the American Association of Law Libraries (AALL), whose members developed a thesaurus of law genre/form terms and presented it to PSD for inclusion in Library of Congress Genre/Form Terms for Library and Archival Materials (LCGFT). On June 15, 2011 the Library of Congress will begin to apply law genre/form terms to new cataloging, chiefly for English-language works. LCGFT terms for law that appear on copy cataloging will be retained and/or revised as necessary, in accordance with LC’s standard copy cataloging procedures.
Music project. The Music Library Association (MLA) has partnered with PSD to develop genre/form terms in the area of music. The parties have agreed to a list of more than 1,000 genre/form terms and are now developing the syntactic structure. They are also developing a list of mediums of performance and discussing where the mediums should be coded within the MARC record, since they will not be included in LCGFT. In support of this project, MLA’s Subject Access Subcommittee has presented a MARC discussion paper entitled “Additional means of identifying medium of performance in the MARC21 bibliographic and authority formats.” Numbered 2011-DP05, it is on MARBI’s agenda for this conference.
Religion project. The American Theological Library Association (ATLA) and PSD have partnered to develop the genre/form terms in the area of religion, and ATLA is also coordinating the participation of smaller library organizations organized around religion, such as the Catholic Library Association. ATLA has created a wiki for interested parties to suggest terms and discuss issues related to them.
Further information. Further information on LC’s genre/form projects, including an extensive FAQ, timeline, discussion papers and announcements, is available on PSD’s Website at URL <www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/genreformgeneral.html>.
HIVE at LC. The Library of Congress launched an experiment this past year to use HIVE (Helping Interdisciplinary Vocabulary Engineering, see URL <ils.unc.edu/mrc/hive/
> to automatically generate subject headings for LC's Web Archives. The experiment is starting with the public policy Web archives, led by librarian Rick Fitzgerald from ABA's Electronic Resources Management System Pilot Team (US/Anglo Division) in collaboration with Libby Dechman, senior subject policy specialist, and Loche McLean, senior library information system specialist of LC's Policy and Standards Division and Dr. Jane Greenberg, Ryan Scherle, and Craig Willis at the University of North Carolina, Metadata Research Center. Additionally, Ed Summers from LC's Repository Development Center helped with the subset creation and further assistance continues from Nicholas Taylor and Pranay Pramod from the LC's Web Preservation and Engineering Team. The HIVE software is expected to "learn" relevant vocabulary based on these Web pages to offer ever-better suggestions to assist catalogers.
LC Classification. Available from the Cataloging Distribution Service cdsinfo@loc.gov is the new print 2011 edition of E-F (History, America).
KZ Classification for International criminal law and the International Criminal Court (ICC; 2002- ). The Policy and Standards Division (PSD) has implemented a new schedule, KZ7000-KZ7500, International criminal law, following up on the development of this distinct sub-discipline of International Law. The new classes in this schedule closely follow the principles and doctrines of international criminal law, which were worked out over the last decades by scholars, political scientists, and international organizations. The focus of the new schedule is on the International Criminal Court (ICC) established by the Rome Treaty (1998/2002) as well as the procedures governing the international investigation and prosecution of conduct viewed by the international community as international crimes. The first objective of the broad expansion of KZ (KZ7000- KZ7500) was to create a subject arrangement for the ICC and its body of rules and adopted principles, following general patterns of the K and KZ classes. The widening catalog of crimes against humanity, war crimes, and genocide, forms the center of the substantive development. Hand in hand with the new development, new subject headings were created and older subject headings were revised. The second objective was to create a single place for the subject and its topics, as it is now recognized by the UN doctrine and regimes. Therefore, the original and outdated ranges in Class KZ for International criminal courts and procedure, KZ6304-KZ6332, have been closed, as well as the classes for reports, digests, and pleadings of the newly erected court, KZ219-KZ220.2. The new KZ range for the ICC and procedure are KZ7230-KZ7490. The corresponding numbers in the new class for reports, digests, and pleadings of the ICC are provided at KZ7295-KZ7310. Furthermore, the original numbers in Class K (Law in general. Comparative law) for those subjects that are governed by international criminal law and under the jurisdiction of the ICC, i.e., genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes, have been closed or revised. These affected classes are: K5256 (Terrorism); K5258 (Human trafficking); K5277 (Piracy at sea); and K5301-5304.5 (Crimes against humanity. War crimes). References have been provided in all the above cases, as well as in other places of the K classification affected by this new development, to direct users of the schedules to the new numbers. As a consequence, a substantial number of titles (mainly monographic literature), have been reclassed and the works transferred to their new KZ classification numbers. This new classification, however, does not preclude developments on International criminal law, courts and procedure, and prosecution of international crimes in the regional or national law classification schedules if it should become necessary. Updated print editions of K and KZ, as well the publication, JZ and KZ: Historical Notes and Introduction to Application, will be available from CDS soon.
Netherlands Antilles. The Netherlands Antilles, an autonomous country within the Kingdom of the Netherlands, was dissolved on October 10, 2010. The islands of Bonaire, Saba, and Sint Eustatius are now special municipalities of the Netherlands proper. Curaçao and Sint Maarten are constituent countries within the Kingdom of the Netherlands. The dissolution affects jurisdictional qualifiers, broader terms, and scope notes in LCSH. The subject heading revisions will appear on Tentative Subject List 22, dated July 18, 2011. Revisions to authorized name headings were completed in December 2010.
Tibet. Late in 2010, PSD was asked to consider reevaluating subject cataloging practice as it relates to Tibet. After consulting with experts in Tibetan studies, the cataloging policy specialists in PSD agreed to revise the name authority headings for the jurisdiction of Tibet and also to establish a new subject heading. The headings and their assignment now conform to international descriptive cataloging rules as set forth in the Anglo-American Cataloging Rules, 2nd Edition, and to policies governing the assignment of Library of Congress Subject Headings as described in the Subject Headings Manual.
Tibet (LCCN n2011015804): This name heading refers to the governmental jurisdiction of Tibet before September 1, 1965. It may be applied as a descriptive access point to works emanating from or published by the government of independent Tibet. It may not be assigned as a subject heading or geographic subdivision, because in the case of linear jurisdictional name changes the most current place name is used in subject analysis (see SHM H708 for more information about linear jurisdictional name changes in subject cataloging practice).
Tibet Autonomous Region (China) (LCCN n 79100917): This name heading refers to the current province-level governmental jurisdiction within the People’s Republic of China that was formalized on September 1, 1965. It may be applied as a descriptive access point to works emanating from or published by the government of Tibet after that date. It may also be assigned as a subject heading for works about Tibet as an independent country and as a jurisdiction within China.
Tibet Region (LCCN sh2011001106): This subject heading refers to the geographic region of Tibet, sometimes referred to as “Greater Tibet.” The geographic extent of this region is much larger than the governmental jurisdiction of Tibet. It corresponds to the traditional regions of Ü-Tsang, Ngari, Amdo, and Kham, which are chiefly within the borders of China and also extend into India, Nepal, Bhutan, and Burma. The heading should be applied to works about that region instead of about the jurisdiction of Tibet.
Tibet, Plateau of (LCCN sh 86005180): This subject heading refers to a geographic feature. The qualifier “China” has been removed from the existing heading to reflect the extent of the plateau, which is not only in China but also extends into Nepal and India. Geographically, the Plateau of Tibet is similar to, but not coextensive with, the Tibet Region. The heading Tibet, Plateau of should chiefly be applied to scientific works that discuss the Plateau of Tibet from a geological or natural history standpoint.
Program for Cooperative Cataloging – see Cooperative Cataloging Programs/Cooperative and Instructional Programs Division
US General (USGEN) and US and Publisher Liaison (USPL) Divisions
Organizational Review
A USGEN/USPL reorganization proposal has been completed and delivered to Library of Congress management for review. The reorganization proposes: 1) creation of a new U.S. Arts, Sciences, and Humanities (USASH) Division to focus principally on subject expertise, production work, and serve as the principal ABA liaison to the Copyright Office and the new Collection Development Office; and 2) creation of a new U.S. Programs, Law, and Literature Division (USPRLL) to focus principally on support of the Cataloging in Publication (CIP), Children’s and Young Adults’ Cataloging (CYAC), Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC), International Standard Serial Number (ISSN), and Electronic Preassigned Control Number (EPCN) programs and serve as the principal ABA liaison to the Library of Congress Law Library. The reorganization will ultimately provide greater support for the critical program and production areas that build the Library of Congress’ core collection of U.S. national imprints.
ABA Production
| Bibliographic Records Completed | FY11 Sep-Mar |
FY10 | FY09 | FY08 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Original* | 80,732 | 188,843 | 171,124 | 208,321 |
| Collection-level cataloging | 1,100 | 3,694 | 3,618 | 3,895 |
| Copy cataloging | 30,986 | 64,797 | 56,308 | 71,790 |
| Minimal level cataloging | N/A | 15,088 | 12,834 | 29,307 |
| Total records completed | 112,818 | 272,422 | 243,884 | 313,313 |
| Total volumes cataloged | N/A | 365,725 | 313,182 | 350,631 |
| Authority Work | FY11 Sep-Mar |
FY10 | FY09 | FY08 |
| New name authority records | 40,556 | 103,525 | 111,727 | 91,016 |
| New LC Subject Headings** | 2,764 | 53,900 | 22,344 | 35,748 |
| New LC Classification Numbers | N/A | 2,674 | 2,800 | 1,818 |
| Total authority records created | 43,320 | 160,099 | 136,871 | 128,582 |
- *Bibliographic Standard Record as of FY11.
- **FY10 includes subject-subdivision strings to support automated validation.
COLLECTIONS AND SERVICES DIRECTORATE
Geography and Map Division
The Geography and Map Division in fiscal 2011 has noted an increase in access to its hidden collections, through the African Set map project funded by the Council on Library and Information Resources, the collaboration with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency to scan and to inventory its more than 32,000 Coast and Geodetic Survey chart holdings, and through the continuing inventory of its foreign nautical chart holdings. To date more than 150,000 sheets from the three projects are now inventoried and in the Library’s catalog database.
The Division is pleased to report the completion of the Congressional Geospatial Data System, through which basic Geographic Information Systems functions are provided to staff, Congressional Research Service, and eventually, Congressional staff.
About 20 percent fewer items were acquiredin fiscal 2010 (26,823 items) than in fiscal 2009 (35,000). The division noted a 16 percent increase in the number of items cataloged in fiscal 2010, 7,437 items cataloged with some 66% non-English language items as we maintain and enhance our global holdings. An increase of more than 60 perceent in researcher usage was noted with some 17,740 researchers using the G&M Reading Room.
Among the Division’s 27 public programs, a notable event was the May 20-21, 2011 Philip Lee Phillips Society Annual Conference, “Re-imagining the U.S. Civil War: Reconnaissance, Surveying, and Cartography.” For the maps from that conference, see URL <memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/civil_war_maps/>. In the first half of fiscal 2011 the division added more than 5897 scanned images to its Website, which now holds more than 31,000 scanned maps (see URL <blogs.loc.gov/loc/2011/05/the-view-from-30000-maps/>) and added some 57,000 newly cataloged (7,437) and inventoried (50,000) items.
The division displayed the 1784 Abel Buell map of the United States, the first map of the U.S. printed in the U.S.; the map has been deposited in G&M by David Rubenstein, who purchased the item at an auction in December 2010. The Division also opened a year-long exhibition, “Earth As Art 3” in the G&M corridor of the James Madison Memorial Building on Capitol Hill (see URL <eros.usgs.gov/imagegallery/collection.php?type=earth_as_art_3>). The exhibition was prepared by the US Geological Survey and NASA and has become part of the Division’s permanent collection.
The G&M staff has remained active in the work of the U.S. Board on Geographic Names and the Federal Geospatial Data Committee, helping to develop Federal policies in both areas. The continuing work of the Division’s Digital Team has placed increased items on the Web, for global access; the map library community depends upon the Cataloging Team of the Geography and Map Division to provide records for the collection, especially for items from outside of the U.S. The broader research community calls upon the Division for assistance and guidance; internationally, the Division remains a much used source for the study of boundary issues and its collections, built up over a century, are unique for that very important work. The Reference Team provides highly specialized assistance to researchers who use the collection, either in person or from afar. It assists the work of other Federal agencies, especially the US Department of State, the Department of Defense, the U.S. Geological Survey, and others, as well as the Congress of the United States; it is addressing geospatial needs of those bodies.
One of the most important efforts and challenges that the Division faces is the integration of digital cartography with the traditional paper cartography in our collections in order to create a seamless body of data over the history of the field. We have been approached by both institutional and commercial bodies who wish to work with us or assist us to capture portions of our historical map collection in digital form. As examples of these projects are those with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency regarding the scanning of Coast survey and Lake survey charts and the project to inventory African set maps funded through a grant from the Council on Library and Information Resources. For some time we have had an agreement with Readex who is involved in a project to capture the colored maps in the US Congressional Serial Set. At this moment, some 9000 colored maps in that Set have been scanned in the Geography and Map Division. In addition, the Division embarked on the Tangible Media Project, through which digital data on CD and DVD are being migrated to servers in order to provide increased security for the items and provide greater access.
Our program is directed towards a continuing desire to create greater access to our unparalleled collections, to acquire increasingly digital geospatial data for a whole new body of users, and to improve access to our collections among traditional users. With increased use and dependence of researchers using collection content on the internet it is apparent to all of us that there is a whole new community of casual and serious researchers who will benefit from knowledge about maps, map holdings, and reproduction of maps for a whole range of uses. While traditional users will continue to find utility in historical and contemporary materials, it is expected that new applications of geographic information system by traditional scholars and traditional disciplines will bring a whole host of new users who will be encouraged to integrate cartographic objects in their research.
The G&M Division collected contemporarily relevant geospatial items, as well as historical items to fill in gaps in its collection. The Division expended its entire acquisition budget of appropriated funds, as well as, the special allotment from the Phillips Society, and continued to receive materials from the Foreign Map Procurement Program at the State Department (for which the Library pays an annual fee). It continued to build on its outstanding collection of U.S. county atlases and maps and panoramic maps of American cities. The Division reached broadly in its efforts to collect and to preserve the cartographic/geographic record of America’s creativity and the world’s knowledge through acquisition efforts that included the use of other Federal and State mapping agencies, the Library’s Overseas Offices, purchases, and donations. The Division oversaw the completion of the 5 year rehousing of its U.S. map collections, with more than 185,000 items rehoused. Through its African Set Map Project, G&M has created records for more than 70,000 sheets of multi-sheet maps sets on Africa; some 4000 of its +32,000 Coast and Geodetic Survey Chart colleciton has been scanned. The Division’s scanning team has scanned more than 5890 maps this fiscal year, with an online total of more than 30,000 maps on its American Memory Website. The Reference Team, with the valued work of Diane Schug-O’Neill in the Digital Team, posted the Sanborn Fire Insurance Map holdings list on line, a listing in excess of 700,000 individual map sheets related to coverage of U.S. cities; in addition, the data base is used to point to digital images of Sanborn map sheets prepared by the Digital Team. The Reference Team has begun a new on-line source of information, “Places in History”, with the initial effort directed towards weekly postings of maps of Civil War actions as they occurred 150 years ago, in recognition of the 150th anniversary of the U.S. Civil War, see URL <www.loc.gov/rr/geogmap/placesinhistory/>. The Congressional Cartography Program completed the release of the Congressional Geospatial Data System, a Geographic Information Systems program for Congressional use. That Program completed more than 200 maps in response to Congressional requests.
Humanities and Social Sciences Division (HSS)
Only a Driver’s License (photo identification) is required to register to use Library’s Reading Rooms!
Outreach: Connecting Users with LC’s Collections. HSS staff taught a total of 217 research orientation classes to 3,175 researchers in both regularly scheduled programs offered by MRR and LH&G as well as special request subject orientations. Almost all librarians gave subject orientations in their field to a wide variety of university and institutional research groups including: directors of the Model United Nations Conference; librarians from the National Gallery of Art; Director of Library and Institutional Technology, Otis College of Art and Design, Los Angeles, CA; Howard University; New England Historic and Genealogical Society; Heritage Foundation; United States Naval Academy, and George Mason University. HSS staff provided tours, orientations, and occasional reference services to Members of Congress, and to their staff and families.
On February 1, Elizabeth Davison presented a lecture entitled "A True North Britain" - Hidden Messages and Meaning in John Shearer's Furniture. On May 23, HSS sponsored a panel discussion, "History in the Mystery.” Maureen Corrigan moderated the topic of researching and writing historical mysteries with authors Louis Bayard, Ellen Crosby, and Daniel Stashower.
Main Reading Room Open House. On Presidents Day, Monday, February 21, 2011, HSS staff welcomed 4,256 visitors into the Main Reading Room between 10 a.m. and 3:15 p.m. (an average of 788 people per hour or 13 people per minute). Large screens displayed excerpts from National Treasure: Book of Secrets and the History Channel's Modern Marvels episode on LC, and PCs were used to demonstrate the LC catalog and Website. HSS staff created QR codes to link users to the Library’s electronic resources, and used iPads to demonstrate catalog searching and to highlight the Library’s Web-based collections. Science Reading Room staff displayed a collection of cookbooks that have been digitized. The public could peruse the print version and then use a Kindle to view the digital version. Local History & Genealogy Reading staff discussed family history research at the Library.
Fairs and exhibitions. Local History & Genealogy Reading Room staff participated as an exhibitor in the National Archive’s seventh Annual Genealogy Fair, “Become Your Family’s Detective,” on April 20-21, 2011 at the National Archives Building, Washington, DC. NARA staff estimated that over 5,000 people attended the fair including the general public, the press, prominent genealogists, researchers, and professional genealogical societies and organizations.
Reference on the Mezzanine. Local History & Genealogy and Science Reading Room staff participated in several pilot outreach efforts in the Great Hall of the Thomas Jefferson Building. The reference booth was staffed by LH&G and Science reference librarians and included a large screen ticker-tape of QuestionPoint questions set to a loop, display carts exhibiting collections, and iPads for highlighting the Library’s Web-based resources. The purpose of the pilot is to: 1) show that library technology is making a connection to LC collections; 2) demonstrate the commonalities of LC collections; and 3) exhibit the accessibility of librarians and collections.
Main Reading Room staff represented the Library at Capitol Hill’s first book festival, the "LiteraryHill Bookfest," on Sunday, May 15, in the North Hall of Eastern Market by staffing an information booth, and using iPads to demonstrate access to the Library’s services and collections.
Digital Projects. Reference specialists are involved with the e-Deposit Project that is creating a system for receiving electronic materials being submitted to Copyright and ultimately LS for compliance with the mandatory deposit requirements of the Copyright Act and also Copyright registration; and to revise the Best Edition Statement in the Copyright Act to better accommodate electronic materials; and with the Electronic Resources Management Group that will manage policy and budgetary issues for acquiring, cataloging, and serving electronic resources.
Collection Development and Acquisitions.
Growth of the Microform Custodial Collections: After the receipt of 210,657 items in FY2010, the Microform Reading Room custodial collection grew to an estimated 8,398,776 items. This increase included 155,000 Phonefiche telephone directories from 1997-2005.
Growth of the Machine-Readable Custodial Collections (MMRC): During fiscal 2010, the Machine-Readable custodial collections received 4,345 items, of which 2,800 were printed monographs and serials with disks and 1,545 were computer file CD-ROMs. The MRC collection at the end of FY2010 totaled 87,370 items. The MMRC received 883 requests for MRC items.
Gifts: During FY2010, HSS received 529 gift books and periodicals including Esperanto publications, local histories and genealogies, and catalogs from Ginsburg LLC (costumes & textiles).
Key acquisitions. During fiscal 2010, LC received the following electronic databases that were recommended by HSS staff: State Papers Online (UK) 1509-1714; ShipIndex.org;
Short Story Index Retrospective; Century of Social Sciences-Social Sciences Citation Index (new backfile 1898-1955); Readex's African American Newspapers, 1827-1998;American Periodicals from the Center for Research Libraries; Library Literature & Information Science Retrospective 1905-1983; and JSTOR, complements V and VIII.
National Audio-Visual Center/Packard Campus
The Library opened a 200-seat theater in the state-of-the-art Packard Campus of the National Audio-Visual Conservation Center on Mount Pony, near Culpeper, Va., on Sept. 4, 2008. The theater is one of only five in the U.S. equipped to show original classic film prints on nitrate film stock as they would have been screened in theaters prior to 1950. The Mount Pony theater also features a custom-made organ that can rise from a pit in the stage. The theater is located on the ground floor of the Packard Campus of the National Audio-Visual Conservation Center, 19053 Mount Pony Rd., Culpeper, Va.
All Packard Campus programs are free and open to the public. For reservation information, call (540) 827-1079 extension 79994 or (202) 707-9994 during business hours beginning one week before any given screening. For further information on the theater and film series, visit URL <www.loc.gov/avconservation/theater>.
Prints and Photographs Division (P&P)
The division offers many services via their reading room home page at URL <www.loc.gov/rr/print/>. For ongoing information about newly available collections and recent and upcoming activities, see "What's New" at URL <www.loc.gov/rr/print/whatsnew.html>.
Prints & Photographs Online Catalog. Easy-to-use features for searching, browsing, and sharing are now available at URL <www.loc.gov/pictures>. The visually inviting design and improved indexing resulted from a rapid rescue project to replace 15-year old software.
Flickr Commons Pilot Project. New sets feature “Civil War in 3D,” “Gottlieb Jazz Photos,” and “Civil War Faces” at URL <www.flickr.com/photos/library_of_congress/sets/
>. For background on the Flickr project, see URL <www.loc.gov/rr/print/flickr_pilot_faq.html>.
New Collections Online: African American military photographs. The William A. Gladstone Collection provides almost 350 images showing African Americans and related military and social history. The Civil War era is the primary time period covered at URL <www.loc.gov/pictures/collection/gld/>.
Civil War soldiers. The Liljenquist Family Collection of Civil War Photographs offers more than 700 ambrotype and tintype photographs highlighting both Union and Confederate enlisted men at URL <www.loc.gov/pictures/collection/lilj/>.
Sikkim photographs. This selection of 300 images from the Dr. Alice S. Kandell Collection portrays the people and places of a kingdom high in the Himalaya Mountains, primarily 1965-1971 at URL <www.loc.gov/pictures/collection/kskm/>.
Online Reference Aids: Illustrated English Language Periodicals. This overview lists some of the most popular illustrated periodicals, offers information on how to find pictures in them, and provides a select bibliography about their development. View online at URL <www.loc.gov/rr/print/coll/illperiod.html>.
Women Photojournalists: Jessie Tarbox Beals. Known as America's first female news photographer, Beals’ tenacity and self-promotion in her later freelance work set her apart in a competitive field through the 1920s at URL <www.loc.gov/rr/print/coll/womphotoj/bealsessay.html>.
New Acquisition: Civil War Stereoviews. More than 1,000 rare early stereograph views by George Stacy document scenes in New York City and parts of New York State, as well as the Civil War. More than fifty stereograph cards from the Civil War era have been digitized. View a sampler of 50 Civil War images online.
Serial and Government Publications Division (SER)
Collection Activities. The Serial & Government Publications Division completed a retrospective conversion project to create publicly available holdings statements in the LC integrated library system (ILS) for all United States newspaper microfilm held in the division, converting a manual card file dating back to the division’s first newspaper filming efforts of the mid-twentieth century. As a result of this project, more than 5,500 U.S. newspaper holdings records were created or updated, representing over 590,000 reels of microfilm.
Work continues on the transfer of US bound newspaper volumes from the Landover Annex to the new climate-controlled Ft. Meade high-density storage facility. The complete US newspaper transfer will be completed by December, 2011.
Newspaper Topic Guides. The Serial & Government Publications Division continues to develop short newspaper collection research guides called Topics in Chronicling America,in support of the National Digital Newspaper Program. The pages represent widely covered historic subjects and social phenomenon in the American press. Subjects are as varied as baseball’s Bloomer Girls, the Sinking of the Titanic, The Roller Skating Craze, Butch Cassidy, Serge de Diaghilev and the Ballet Russes (Russian Ballet), and Lizzie Borden. Topics Pages offer students, teachers, genealogists, and scholars an introductory access point to Chronicling America’s digitized pages, but are also complimentary to Library of Congress newspaper holdings that aren’t yet digitized.
RSS feed. Chronicling America offers a weekly notification service. Readers may subscribe for free to this RSS (Really Simple Syndication) service, which provides updates on new content, points of interest, research, and re-use of the Chronicling America digitized newspapers (see the Subscribe feature or go to URL <www.loc.gov/rss/ndnp/ndnp.xml>) and recent additions can be monitored using the “Recent Additions” RSS feed at URL <chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/newspapers/feed/>. To subscribe to a feed, select the Subscribe button under the blue Chronicling America search bar. Users can select the RSS link to access regular updates through an RSS reader (or RSS-enabled Web browser) or click on the e-mail link to subscribe to regular e-mails about the site.
National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP) – Chronicling America. The National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP), a partnership between the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and the Library of Congress (LC), is a long-term effort to develop an Internet-based, searchable resource for U.S. newspaper bibliographic information and selected digitized historic content through the Chronicling America (see URL <chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/>) Website. This site is hosted by the Library of Congress and made freely available to the general public. This rich digital resource will eventually include content contributed by all U.S. states and territories.
Chronicling America now provides access to more than 3.7 million newspaper pages, digitized by 22 states and the Library of Congress. These historic newspapers include over 500 titles published between 1860 and 1922 in Arizona, California, the District of Columbia, Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, Virginia, and Washington. The site also includes an extensive Newspaper Directory of US newspaper titles published between 1690 and the present (approximately 140,000 bibliographic records) as well as associated library holdings information, and linked to digitized pages, when available. In May 2011, the Website was upgraded to take advantage of technology advances and provide new ways to access the newspapers. Features of the site include 100 Years Ago Today; full-text search from every screen; tools to connect with social networks; a downloadable "All Digitized Newspapers" list of available digitized titles with start and end dates, LCCNs, and ISSNs; full-screen views, and improved navigation between search results, as well more than 300 contextual essays regarding the historical significance of each digitized newspaper.
To encourage a wide range of potential uses, Chronicling America provides content through open protocols and an API and publishes the application as the LC Newspaper Viewer on the SourceForge open-source software directory. The site is updated every two months with new content received from NDNP awardees and LC collections. By the end of 2011, the site will include more than 4 million pages, published between 1836 and 1922 from 25 states and the District of Columbia.
Additional information about the program is available from the NDNP Website (see URL <www.loc.gov/ndnp>) describing the program, current awardees, selection guidelines, technical conversion specifications for historic newspapers, and sustainable development plans. In addition, the site provides access to the program and technical guidelines for the annual NEH program competition currently underway. In July, NEH will announce 2011 awardees. The next competition (2012 awards) will open in September.
PARTNERSHIPS AND OUTREACH PROGRAMS DIRECTORATE
American Folklife Center/Veterans History Project (AFC/VHP) – see Veterans History Project (VHP)
Business Enterprises – see also Library of Congress Exhibit Booth
The Office of Business Enterprises was created to merge and manage three of Library Services’ fee-based services: Cataloging Distribution Service, The Library Shop, and Duplication Services. All three business units that make up the Office of Business Enterprises (BE) were represented for the first time at the LC booth at ALA Annual Conference in Washington, DC, in June 2010.
The Library Shop features both Library of Congress-related items and other items of interest to Library visitors. Visit the Library Shop online at URL <www.loc.gov/shop> or visit the shop in the Thomas Jefferson Building, ground floor, just inside the main entrance. Duplication Services provides expanded access to the collections of the Library of Congress through a wide variety of high quality reproduction services. These services are designed to meet the needs of scholars, publishers, libraries, institutions, researchers, and the general public for photocopies, photographs, microfilm, or digital copies of materials in the Library of Congress (see URL <www.loc.gov/duplicationservices/>).
Cataloging Distribution Service. Cataloging Distribution Service (CDS), a unit of the Office of Business Enterprises (BE), packages, publishes, and distributes the Library’s cataloging records and cataloging-related publications, tools, and resources for the catalogers within the Library and for libraries around the world. CDS presents its products and services in the LC exhibit booth.
New U.S. Toll-Free Telephone Number. The new U.S. toll-free telephone number for CDS is 855-266-1884. The new number is activated now. The current toll-free number, 800-255-3666, will be disconnected on July 1, 2011.
Cataloger’s Desktop. This Web-based subscription service provides cataloging and metadata documentation. With more than 300 resources and multi-language interfaces, Desktop incorporates the most up-to-date searching and navigation and is updated quarterly. Extensive, free online learning aids and practical tips are available. Visit URL <www.loc.gov/cds/desktop> for the latest news or for a free 30-day trial. Product demonstrations can be seen throughout the day at the booth on a walk-in basis and at scheduled LC booth theater presentations. The daily Desktop booth theater presentation is titled “Getting the most out of RDA with Cataloger’s Desktop.” All visitors who attend one of the presentations will receive a CDS promotional tote bag.
Classification Web. This Web-based subscription service features all LC classification schedules and all subject headings and name headings and is updated daily. Records display non-Roman captions where applicable. For a free 30-day trial subscription visit URL <www.loc.gov/cds/>. Product demonstrations can be seen throughout the day at the booth on a walk-in basis and at scheduled LC booth theater presentations. The daily Class Web booth theater presentation is titled “Getting the most out of Classification Web”. All visitors who attend one of the presentations will receive a CDS promotional tote bag.
Classification Schedules. A new print edition of D-DR, History (General) and History of Europe will be published in mid-July 2011. A new edition of Library of Congress Classification, JZ and KZ: Historical Notes and Introduction to Application, last published in 1997, will also be available in July. Visit URL <www.loc.gov/cds/products/lcClass.php> for the latest information on LC Classification.
Library of Congress Subject Headings, 33rd Edition: The six-volume LCSH 33rd edition will be available in mid-July. Visit URL <www.loc.gov/cds> for price and shipping formation.
Free-Floating Subdivisions, 23rd Edition is now available.
Subject Headings Manual, Update No. 1 (2011) will be available in mid-July.
CONSER Editing Guide, Update No. 20 (2011) is now available.
Center for the Book
National Book Festival. The Center for the Book is well on the way to completing the roster of authors for the National Book Festival, Sept. 24-25. Star authors include Nobel Prize winner Toni Morrison; Pulitzer Prize winners David McCullough, Eric Foner, Siddartha Mukherjee and Jennifer Egan; and National Book Award winners Katherine Paterson and poet Terrance Hayes.
Young Readers Center. As part of the Library’s increased interest in sharing its resources with young people, the Center for the Book oversees and operates the Young Readers Center in the Thomas Jefferson Building, which opened in October 2009. Attendance at the YRC averages 300-400 per day. The center is headed by Jane Gilchrist, who has been the Library’s ALA exhibit booth coordinator from 2007 through this conference.
Read.gov Website. The Website at URL <www.read.gov>, which is overseen by the Center for the Book, has been a huge success and continues to increase its usage. An exclusive story, written for the site, was “The Exquisite Corpse Adventure,” which will be published as a book by Candlewick Press this August. A companion Facebook page, the Books & Beyond Book Club (see URL <www.facebook.com/booksandbeyond
>), complements the Center for the Book’s Books & Beyond author series at the Library with discussions and links to author Webcasts.
National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature. Katherine Paterson is now in her second and final year as National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature, a program co-sponsored by the Center for the Book and the Children's Book Council, one of the center’s national reading promotion partners. Paterson has always been an extraordinary advocate for the importance of reading in young people’s lives, and she chose “Read for Your Life!” as her platform theme. Paterson is also one of the authors of “The Exquisite Corpse Adventure.” Her new book (written with her husband, John Paterson) is The Flint Heart. She will discuss her work, her role as National Ambassador for Young People's Literature and other topics in the Library’s exhibit booth on Sunday, June 26, at 12:00 noon.
Letters About Literature. The Center once again co-sponsored with Target the Letters About Literature contest for children in grades 4 though 12, encouraging them to write a letter to an author (living or dead) explaining how that writer’s work affected them. Winners and their schools receive cash awards at the state and national levels. Approximately 70,000 letters were received for the 2010-2011 contest. For more information, go to URL <www.lettersaboutliterature.org
>.
Federal Library and Information Center Committee (FLICC)/FEDLINK
The FLICC Awards Working Group announced the winners of its national awards for federal librarianship, which recognize the many innovative ways that federal libraries, librarians and library technicians fulfill the information demands of government, business and scholarly communities, and the American public.
- 2010 Federal Library/Information Center of the Year in the Large Library/Information Center Category (with a staff of 11 or more employees): Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) National Library Network, Washington, DC
- 2010 Federal Library/Information Center of the Year in the Small Library/Information Center Category (with a staff of 10 or fewer employees): Medical Library, U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, Ft. Detrick, MD
- 2010 Federal Librarian of the Year: Eleanor G. Frierson, Deputy Director of the National Agricultural Library (NAL), Beltsville, MD
- 2010 Federal Library Technician of the Year: Laura (Layne) Bosserman, Library Technician, U.S. Department of Justice, Washington, DC
The FLICC Education Working Group continues to present a variety of seminars, workshops, and institutes which are designed to support the professional development needs of the newly revised competencies document. In Fiscal year 2010, FLICC offered a total of 32 seminars, workshops and lunchtime discussions to nearly 1,500 members of the federal library and information center community. Two upcoming programs of note include a three-day Institute for Library Technicians beginning September 28, and information technology update. Plans for the fall and winter include a program on RDA testing, information analysis, and information technology update and basic level courses in collection management, content organization, knowledge management and reference services.
The Human Resources Working Group revised its competencies for federal librarians and launched a mentoring and coaching program initiative. They will hold their fourth annual networking fair for those interested in positions as a federal librarian on August 16 at the Library of Congress.
New Librarians Workng Group. To drive innovations in succession planning and knowledge management in the federal information community, FLICC formed a New Librarians Working Group, NewFeds, to support the development and advancement of early career professionals with less than five years of federal service. NewFeds will enhance the visibility of their interagency collaboration and bringing new ideas and energy to the community while an opportunity for these new librarians to build their leadership capacity, create targeted professional development and training programs and keep the entire community current with the latest competencies, best practices and developing issues.
FLICC/FEDLINK programs. The Library of Congress and FLICC are in the preliminary stages of exploring the creation of a shared remote print repository for Federal libraries and information centers. At a May meeting, federal library leaders reviewed an LC/FRD report on shared repositories and began work on a charter that federal agencies could use as a foundation for the effort. Meeting will continue during the summer months.
FLICC has also commissioned FRD to build a census of federal libraries and collect data on basic sizes, locations and collections of its community members. When complete, the data will be available publicly and presented in a GIS format.
FLICC's cooperative network, FEDLINK, ended Fiscal Year 2010 by providing its members with $87.3 million in Transfer Pay services, $6.7 million in Direct Pay services, and an estimated $34.9 million in the Direct Express services, saving federal agencies more than $17.6 million in vendor volume discounts and approximately $17.7 million more in cost avoidance. On average, this saved federal agencies 20 percent on their information purchases and 80 percent on their purchasing time requirements. New services for this year are foreign language software vendors, expanded book and electronic database vendors, and an integrated library system for National Defense University.
Interpretive Programs Office
Gateway to Knowledge Traveling Exhibition. The Library of Congress Gateway to Knowledge exhibition tour was launched September 25, 2010, from the National Book Festival held in Washington, D.C. The traveling exhibition, made possible by the generous support of the Rapoport family, is mounted in a customized eighteen-wheeled truck that expands to 1000 square feet of exhibition space. During each stop, the mobile unit is parked for two days at a school, library, community center, or other public venue. Free and open to the public, the Gateway to Knowledge exhibition brings high-quality facsimiles of many of the Library’s treasures and information about the millions of resources in its collections to cities, small towns, and rural communities across the South, East, and Midwest.
The exhibit includes programming especially for teachers and students and provides engaging learning experiences for lifelong learners. The unit is operated by a driver-and-docent team that assists visitors in interpreting the exhibition and familiarizes them with the Library of Congress and its vast collections.
To date, the exhibition has been featured at 65 venues in 26 states, attracting nearly 60,000 visitors and extensive media coverage for the Library of Congress and the host venues. The exhibition has recently received supplemental private funding that will enable it to reach 95 locations before the tour concludes at the 2011 National Book Festival in September.
Note: The Gateway to Knowledge mobile unit will be available for viewing in the Ernest M. Morial Convention Center exhibition hall during the 2011 American Library Association meeting in New Orleans.
Veterans History Project of the American Folklife Center (VHP)
The Veterans History Project (VHP) is now in the 11th year of its Congressional mandate to collect, preserve and make accessible the first hand accounts of American war veterans. VHP holds approximately 75,000 collections, of which 10,000 are digitized. All are searchable on VHP’s Website at URL <www.loc.gov/vets> and served in the American Folklife Center Reading Room.
There are 46,000 collections from WWII; 12,500 from the Vietnam War; 9,000 from the Korean War; 2,300 from the Persian Gulf War; 1,500 from the Iraq/Afghanistan Wars; and 325 from WWI (including Frank Buckles, the last American WWI vet). The remaining collections are from Cold War veterans and civilians who worked in support of war efforts.
More than ten percent of VHP collections represent veterans who self-identified as belonging to a minority population, including women. VHP recently published a Spanish language version of its field kit in an effort to increase participation from veterans and their loved ones who are of Hispanic or Latino descent.
In the past three years, VHP has received collections from more than 60 local libraries across the country. Libraries are a valuable resource in VHP’s efforts, as they distribute information, coordinate VHP events, and allow local VHP volunteers to use their facilities for interviews.
VHP is among the organizations playing a key role in the Department of Defense’s 50th Commemoration of the Vietnam War, to include a series of events over multiple years. VHP recently hosted an all-day meeting with the Vietnam War historians and authors.
VHP is working with several Congressional offices and organizations to create multiple “11-11-11” campaigns for the upcoming Veterans Day season. Activities will include print and broadcast news releases, workshops, ceremonial collection submissions, and more.
For more information, visit VHP’s Website at URL <www.loc.gov/vets> or call (202) 707-4916.
PRESERVATION DIRECTORATE
Since the start of fiscal year 2011 last October, the Preservation Directorate has undertaken a review of its programs, with the result that adjustments will occur in several of its four preservation divisions to improve operations through rebalancing supervisor/staff ratios and incorporation of workflow efficiencies. One such action has already been accomplished: the Mass Deacidification Program now operates through the Binding and Collections Care Division. To mark the occasion of the Library’s midpoint in its 35-year "One Generation" Mass Deacidification Program to treat 35 million items, a review of publications has been posted online: Mass Deacidification Annotated Bibliography 1990-2010 (see URL <www.loc.gov/preservation/resources/deacid>).
The Library also supported several programs on this topic, along with a number of other collaborative outreach initiatives and highlights.
Special preservation highlights since January include a full and thorough assessment of the Abel Buell Map in preparation for design of a protective display encasement to reduce degradation from light during long-term exhibition; a breakthrough demonstration to access experimental sound recordings of Alexander Graham Bell, composed of emulsion on glass, using the IRENE machine; and a demonstration for Annie Lebovitz of the Library’s hyperspectral imaging capabilities associated with the Gettysburg address.
Preservation Research and Testing Division Scientist, Fenella France, was named a finalist for the prestigious Samuel J. Heyman “Service to America Medal” for 2011 in the science and environment category, for work advancing preservation science at the Library of Congress (see article in The Washington Post
).
Disaster preparedness and response initiatives
The Library’s recent Collections Emergency Response Contract was developed into a generic version shared with other institutions through a FLICC/PD Safety Net Program entitled After the Disaster: Replace, Recover, or Digitize? The generic disaster recovery contract (see URL <www.loc.gov/preservation/emergprep/plan>) addresses needs for emergency response, stabilization and recovery in the event of a natural or man-made disaster. The contract describes services and requirements for an institution’s collections when confronted with a disaster that outstrips institutional resources. While the majority of emergencies are water-incursion events, the contract covers all scenarios including more catastrophic events such as earthquakes, fires, floods, major biological infestations (e.g., mold, insect, vermin infestations), acts of terrorism, etc. The contract outlines services a contractor should be expected to provide.
A special workshop on emergency salvage for collections is also planned in collaboration with the National Diet Library in Japan, in response to recent devastating earthquakes and tsunamis.
Interns, fellows, and visiting scholars
During the year, the Preservation Directorate is hosting approximately 20 visiting students and professionals in its divisions for Conservation (CD), Binding and Collections Care (BCCD), and Preservation Research and Testing (PRTD). In addition to the continuation of CD’s three year-long conservation graduate students, CD will host German student Katharina Siedler; BCCD will host Sasha Lamb; and PRTD will host more than a dozen fellows, interns, visiting scientists and volunteers, including those listed below with their projects:
- CLIR/Mellon Fellow Amy Brady, University of Mass, Amherst, Ph. D. student: Federal Theatre Project
- Jr. Fellow Jessica Knebel, University of Illinois, Library Science: Technical Study of a 1513 Ptolemy Altas
- Jr. Fellow Samantha Skelton, University of South Carolina, BA (Art History, minor Chemistry): Magnetic Tape Degradation Identification
- Jr. Fellow Megan Massanelli, University of Arkansas, BA (Art history): Digital Center-Library Science Studies CLASS-D
- Jr. Fellow Alice Han, St. Mary’s College of Maryland, BS (Chemistry): Elemental Analysis of Special Paper Collections
- Jr. Fellow Meaghan Potter, University of Maryland, BS (Chemistry): Testing of Optical Discs
- HACU Intern Alexandra Galindo Estronza, University of Puerto Rico at Mayaguez, BS (Chemistry): Hand sanitizers, Validation of test for compatibility with organic heritage materials
- Visiting Scientist Dr. Roger Easton, Rochester Institute of Technology, Professor of Imaging Science: Hyperspectral Imaging of Watermarks
- Visiting Scientist Dr. Jan Wouters, PhD Chemist: Colorant Analyses
- Volunteer Delia Tizwell, School Without Walls, High School Senior: CLASS - Barrow Book Collection
- Volunteer Corinne Kasura, Mary Baldwin College, BA (Communications): Virtual Lab Tour
- Volunteer Alexandra Duroc-Danner, University of Denver, BA (Anthropology major, Museum Studies minor): CLASS Barrow Book Collection
- Volunteer Shuk Chaen Melissa Tan, New York University, Bachelors (Art History and Chemistry): Iron gall ink studies
- Imaging Associate Meghan Hill, MICA, BA: Hyperspectral Imaging and Processing
New fellowships
The Preservation Directorate developed two new Fellowship initiatives. The first (in partnership with Council on Library Information Resources/Mellon Fellow for Dissertation Research in Original Sources) enables Digital Humanities scholars to work with the Library’s scientists in newly upgraded labs to access obscured information using the Library’s advanced technological instrumentation (such as hyperspectral imaging, X-ray fluorescence, and other devices) to tap the Library’s rich primary source documents in ways never before possible. The first Fellow, Amy Brady of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, will start this fall, working with the Library's American Federal Theater Project collections and the Preservation Research and Testing Division (see URL <www.clir.org/fellowships/mellon/preservation.html
>). The second new Fellowship (funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation for Library and Archives Conservator Training, in partnership with the University of Delaware’s Winterthur Museum, Garden & Library; the Simmons College Graduate School of Library and Information Science) will support students working with the Library’s Conservation Division (see URL <www.artcons.udel.edu/news/2011/01/30/art-conservation-programs-receive-mellon-foundation-funding
>).
New preservation courses
In January, Preservation Directorate staff completed team-teaching a new 18-unit Preservation graduate-level course for library and archives students at the University of Maryland. This summer, staff will team-teach a revised week-long FLICC Summer Preservation Institute for federal libraries (July 18-22), covering preservation management, assessment planning, risk mitigation, handling, housing, treatment, storage, history and technology for all formats of collections, emergency response, environmental risk evaluation, exhibits, collections reformatting, and preservation research and testing including quality assurance for supplies, analytical studies, materials science research, and mass deacidification. This fall, for the first time, staff in collaboration with the Library’s Open World program are developing a preservation course for 25 Russian museum and library specialists (Oct. 3-5).
Preservation Week, April 24-30, 2011
Preservation Week Program Chair Jeanne Drewes, along with IMLS’s Karen Motylewski, moderated an ALA/ALCTS sponsored e-Forum advocating participatory activities. Preservation Directorate staff collaborated with the Young Readers Center for school visits and with the National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program for Personal Archiving Day, as well as presented lectures on bookbinding and on Saving Grandma's Love Letters at Topeka and Shawnee County Public Library, Kansas.
Public Future Directions Symposia
In March, occasioned by the Library’s Mass Deacidification Program mid-point milestone, the Library completed the second of a special three-part Future Directions Symposia (co-sponsored with CLIR) on Preservation Roadmaps (following its first program on advancements in environmental studies), with Assessing Options for Caring for Large Collections. Senior preservation administrators, scientists, digital collection experts, and conservators provided perspectives from the Library, the US and abroad on three options: the long-term effectiveness of mass deacidification and next steps in research, as envisioned by LC and colleagues in Europe; low-temperature and high-density repositories at LC and Harvard; and large–scale mass digitization repositories at LC and the University of Michigan and HathiTrust. These topics, as well as the economic sustainability of the three options, were discussed by colleagues from the National Archives, University of Texas and Delaware, and Microsoft. This symposium clarified the Library’s 3-prong approach: it is (1) mass deacidifying 35 million items, while continuing to utilize other options including (2) constructing multiple low-temperature/high-density remote storage repositories slated to eventually hold 25 million items, and (3) supporting an active digital conversion program of legacy collections for electronic access, which, along with acquisition of electronic copyright deposit, electronic serials and other digital assets, continues to expand the Library’s digital holdings (see URL <www.loc.gov/preservation/outreach/symposia/assess/>).
In October, the Future Direction Roadmap series plans to conclude with The Relationship Between Legacy and Digital Collections Preservation, featuring leaders from the National Archives and Records Administration (David Ferriero, Archivist of the United States), Smithsonian Institution (Richard Kurin, Under Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution for Art, History, and Culture), and National Park Service (Jonathan Jarvis, Director of the National Park Service), hosted by the Library’s James Billington and Deanna Marcum. The speakers will provide perspectives on preservation priorities in their own institutions, focusing on highest risk collections, including audiovisual materials, and the need for collaborative strategies for national collections, through cooperative preservation research, storage, access, treatment, and preventive care projects. A panel representing the Kress and other foundations will guide discussions on scaled down solutions benefiting smaller collections and institutions (see URL <www.loc.gov/preservation/outreach/symposia/roadmaps.html>).
Public Topics in Preservation Series (TOPS) Public Programs
Starting in January 2011, a new series of four TOPS Webinars focused on funding for training. Video tapes will soon be available at URL <www.loc.gov/preservation/outreach/tops/> on the following programs:
January 13, 2011: FAIC Strategic Planning for the Future. Eryl P. Wentworth (Executive Director of the American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works) discussed the Foundation’s strategic plan.
February 10, 2011: Library Conservation and Scholarly Communication. Donald J. Waters (Program Officer for Scholarly Communications and Information Technology, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation) discussed rapid changes in modes of scholarly communication that affect roles, priorities, and collections of research libraries and their contributions to conservation of academic and cultural heritage.
April 14, 2011: The Marriage of Preservation and Access. Nadina Gardner (Director of the Division of Preservation and Access, National Endowment for the Humanities) discussed the close alliance between preservation of cultural heritage collections and the provision of access to them, referencing the need for grant programs to exemplify that alliance, based on through results of a recent strategic planning effort on the relationship of physical preservation to preservation of digital cultural records.
May 26, 2011: Help! Preservation Training Needs Here, There, and Everywhere. Debra Hess Norris (Chair, Art Conservation Department and Professor of Photograph Conservation, University of Delaware) discussed the need to connect tailored graduate-level educational programs and collections care workshops to the cultivation of new donors and the engagement of public audiences, and cultural heritage preservation to issues relevant to international social and economic development and civil society.
Special Preservation and Access Project for the Library’s Barrow Books Collection
A special project to make accessible the Library’s important Barrow Books Collection resulted in the assessment and rehousing of 1000 volumes from 1507-1899, used by William James Barrow (1904-1967) in a series of scientific studies on the degradation of paper (research originally funded by the Council on Library Resources). Data associated with this collection sample set, now stored and available to historians and materials scientists in the Center for the Library’s Analytical Science Samples (CLASS) (see URL <www.loc.gov/preservation/scientists/projects/class.html>), includes extensive fiber analysis; physical testing for fold endurance and tear resistance; chemical testing for pH (cold extraction); chemical spot testing for aluminum, rosin, and ground wood; and chemical testing for the presence of carbonates. Results from Barrow’s original research were published in Permanence/Durability of the Book (V and VII), significant definitive documentation for librarians and archivists on the negative impact of acidity for the longevity of paper, from increasing use of alum and rosin sizing, and decreasing levels of carbonates (alkaline reserve). Barrow's data also showed that for wood vs. rag papers produced during the 16th-early 20th centuries, acidity overwhelmingly determines the strength of the papers, not the quantity of wood pulp present (see URL<www.loc.gov/preservation/scientists/projects/barrow_books.html>).
Website updates
The Preservation Directorate launched a new Website at URL <www.loc.gov/preservation> with sidebars for Collections Care, Conservation, Emergency Preparedness, Outreach Opportunities, Preservation Science, and other resources. In response to recent devastating earthquakes and tsunamis, the directorate allowed its collections emergency response Website pages to be translated into Japanese (see URL <www.tokushu-papertrade.jp/digimon/mon-blog/2011/04/post-124.html
>). In addition, the new emergency salvage contact will be added, and translated into Japanese. Another new addition to the Preservation Directorate Website is a section describing nine notable Library conservation projects, on Congressional local legacy collections as well as globes, scrolls, albums, music motets, law books, Herblock cartoons, marriage documents, and wall plaques (see URL <www.loc.gov/preservation/conservators>). Finally, to provide preservation research updates, the directorate developed new Websites describing projects researching corrosive iron gall and verdigris media, and indigenous storage materials (see URL <www.loc.gov/preservation/scientists/projects>).
TECHNOLOGY POLICY DIRECTORATE
The Technology Policy Directorate consists of the Automation Planning and Liaison Office (APLO), the Network Development and MARC Standards Office (NDMSO), and the Integrated Library System Program Office (ILSPO). The three offices work closely together and with the staff of the Information Technology Services Directorate in the Office of Strategic Initiatives.
Integrated Library System Program Office (ILSPO)
The Library upgraded its integrated library system, the LC ILS, to the Voyager 7.2.0 release in November 2010, without significant disruption in service to Online Catalog users or other customers. The Library is planning to implement a re-design of the LC Online Catalog (catalog.loc.gov) in late summer with modern LC branding, look and feel. The LC ILS currently has over 16 million bibliographic records representing over 22 million items.
LC Finding Aids. In 2011, Library Services Collections and Services Directorate divisions created nearly 250 new EAD (Encoded Archival Description) archival finding aids, bringing the total number of LC EAD finding aids to 1,417. At URL <www.loc.gov/findingaids> or URL <findingaids.loc.gov>, users can access 38.2 million archival items in LC's collections through these documents, an increase of nearly 5 million archival items this year. In September 2010, the Library released a completely redesigned finding aids search application. The new finding aids search application wraps the EAD XML documents into METS objects, then stores, indexes, and displays these objects from a native XML data store platform using a search language called XQuery. As METS objects, finding aids can be easily ingested into the new National Library Catalog/XML data store, as well as into external systems like OCLC’s ArchiveGrid that indexes finding aids and metadata from institutions around the world.
LC Persistent Identifiers. To persistently identify and manage LC-generated e-resources, Library staff registered nearly 200,000 handles this year. As of June 2011, the Library's handle server contained 2,863,121 handles. Over the past year, LC handles were assigned, for example, to materials digitized in a number of LC cooperative projects, to U.S. legislation searchable in THOMAS, and to digital books created by the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped.
LCCN Permalink. The Web service, at URL <lccn.loc.gov>, allows users to create permanent URL links to records in the Library's Online Catalog (see URL <catalog.loc.gov>), continues to be popular. Nearly 10,000 daily requests enable researchers to reference materials from the Library's collection in their blogs, reference guides, Web pages, emails, bibliographies, databases, and more. LCCN Permalink is completely standards-based, leveraging widely used XML technologies, Z39.50/SRU, and metadata schemas.
Electronic Resources Online Catalog. In September 2010, Electronic Resources Online Catalog was made available to the public on the Library of Congress Website (see URL <eresources.loc.gov>). Web logs show a six-fold increase since the system was opened to external use. With this new catalog users can browse LC's subscription databases alphabetically or by subject area; search for journals by title, subject, keyword or browse alphabetically and see the coverage dates available as well as which of LC's subscription resources hold the title. There are a number of freely accessible Websites recommended by staff and a selection of e-books, both subscription and free public access.
While free public access resources are available anywhere, LC's subscription resources are available only on-site within one of our reading rooms at the Library of Congress. However, the new ER Online Catalog will help remote users plan their visit to the Library to ensure the best use of resources and time; discover titles within a database to which their local library may subscribe; identify resources that may be requested via Inter-Library Loan (ILL); and discover a wide variety of vetted “free” resources useful for research.
The Library upgraded the ERMS in February 2011 to Millennium version 2009B. At the end of May 2011, records in the system stood as follows: 107,664 bibliographic, 163,373 holdings, 854 and resource records.
Network Development and MARC Standards Office (NDMSO)
“audioMD” and “videoMD”. The Library began hosting a Website for audioMD and videoMD, XML schemas that detail technical metadata for audio- and video-based digital objects. They are intended to serve as extension schemas within the Metadata Encoding and Transmission Standard (METS) administrative metadata section or in PREMIS version 2.0, among other current and planned uses. They are also suitable for use as standalone metadata documents or may be considered for incorporation into other structures, e.g., as embedded metadata in Material eXchange Format (MXF) files.
The schemas were originally developed by LC but were extensively revised in 2010 by Karin Bredenberg of the National Archives of Sweden. In 2011, she turned them over to the Network Development and Standards Office at LC for ongoing maintenance in collaboration with the larger METS community and implementers. NDMSO has created a listserv for fostering discussion.
Bibliographic Framework Transition Initiative – see under Library Services
Digital portal projects. The Performing Arts Encyclopedia (PAE), Veterans History, and other portal projects continue to enable the Office to investigate new approaches to digital site creation and delivery to end users. Recent releases in the Performing Arts Encyclopedia, at URL <www.loc.gov/performingarts>, are the Musical Treasures Consortium, a cooperative project providing online access to the world's most valued music manuscripts and print materials, held at the most renowned music archives; It's Showtime! Sheet Music from Stage and Screen, a database of over 18,000 shows and productions dating from the 1690s to the present, containing more than 67,000 songs; and an update to Song of America to add new composers, songs, and multimedia presentations. The Veterans History Project (VHP), at URL <www.loc.gov/vets>, added two new releases: Wings of War (stories of pilots and crew members); and Chaplains: On a Divine Mission.
National Library Catalog - XML Data Store Project. Work was completed on the beta version of the National Library Catalog, an XML-based system whose goal is to provide "seamless access" across all of the types of metadata that describe LC collections. The MarkLogic server, a native XML database that enables the building and deployment of next-generation applications, was loaded with over 17 million OPAC records for this release. It became available within the Library in May and public release is expected in June. The system brings a rich facet driven interface to the data and the displays are enhanced with book covers and digital images. Over the next few months digital collections now residing in separate "silos" will be added and interesting features such as special treatment of geographic entities will be explored.
Search protocol interface improvement. An improved and augmented protocol interface to LC's Voyager databases, Metaproxy, was launched in late 2010. This interface accepts SRU and Z39.50 protocol searches and conditions them for submittal to the limited Z39.50 implementation on the Library's Voyager system. This is important because currently approximately 60% of LC's Voyager OPAC searches come to LC via those protocols. Metaproxy also takes the MARC records retrieved from Voyager and converts them to the format specified in the original protocol search: MARC 21, MARCXML, or MODS. The Library's Voyager files that are accessible through Metaproxy using either Z39.50 or SRU include the Handbook of Latin American Studies and the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped Online Catalog, in addition to the Voyager Catalog. The popular LCCN Permalink service was also switched to go through Metaproxy which helped solve some character set issues. Metaproxy enables Z39.50 and SRU protocol access to name and subject authority records from a database mounted outside Voyager, as Voyager cannot process Z39.50 and SRU protocol searches of authority records.
Standards projects. The PREMIS Editorial Committee (see URL <www.loc.gov/premis>) is working on a version 3 to include preservation metadata for intellectual entities, which was previously out of scope, and to enhance rights information based on user needs. One of the Committee’s working groups is about to release a PREMIS RDF/OWL ontology for preservation metadata to make PREMIS metadata available as Linked Open Data (watch the PREMIS Website for an announcement). Another effort is adding additional PREMIS controlled vocabularies on id.loc.gov, which will work with the ontology.
Additional possible MARC format changes for RDA have been submitted as proposals, based on results of LC's RDA testing project for discussion at the June ALA MARBI meetings. These were previously discussed at the MARBI meetings as discussion papers. They are available directly from the MARC site or via the agenda for the MARBI meetings at http://www.loc.gov/marc/marbi/an2011_age.html.
The MODS Editorial Committee turned its attention to MADS and released a version 2.0, which is a major revision that updates the original MADS schema to be consistent with changes in MODS through MODS version 3.4. It is published on the MADS Website <http://www.loc.gov/mads>. In addition the Network Development and MARC Standards Office, with input from outside experts and wide public review, completed a MADS RDF ontology to enable for MADS authority descriptions as Linked Open Data, also published on the MADS Website.
Vocabularies Service Project. The Authorities & Vocabularies (ID) service at URL <id.loc.gov> is used as a portal for developers – whether local or external to LC – to enable them to programmatically interact with vocabularies commonly found in standards promulgated by LC as “linked data.” The system provides the vocabularies as RDF/SKOS to enable querying and accessibility for semantic Web projects that occur at the Library or in the community. First implemented in April 2009 with LCSH, it was expanded in May 2010 to include additional vocabularies: Thesaurus for Graphic Materials, MARC Relator codes, and three PREMIS-related controlled lists that support preservation of digital objects. Further updates in December 2010 added the MARC Language codes, MARC Country codes, and MARC Geographic Area Codes, along with related IS0's two and three character language codes (ISO 639-1 and 639-2) and the ISO codes for language groups (ISO 369-5). Update of the LCSH file takes place weekly.
The Office completed development and community review of a MADS/RDF ontology based on MADS/XML that carries over much more of the MARC information. MADS/RDF is highly compatible with SKOS, but using the more detailed MADS ontology in the system will enable ID to offer both SKOS and MADS RDF for LCSH and other vocabularies in the future. Enabling more functionality was a common request for the users of the original ID service.
OFFICE OF STRATEGIC INITIATIVES
Information Technology Services Directorate
Congressional Events
The Information Technology Services (ITS) team successfully supported a record number of congressional events January 4-6, 2011 at the start of the 112th Congress. IT Services supported one event the day before swearing-in ceremonies, six the day of, and three the day after. ITS supported a Great Hall event and reception with an estimated 1,300 guests, hosted by the 61st Speaker of the House, John Boehner (R-OH). The group set up and maintaining audio visual equipment, as well as monitoring the US and Early America’s Exhibit and myLOC kiosks during the Boehner Reception. In previous years, ITS support of this event was problematic; this year the meetings all were conducted without a problem reported.
Database Administration Group (DBA)
DBA provides database planning, management, and administration of all major database management systems within LC. The DBA Group provides operations and maintenance for up to 500 databases to support Library critical applications and systems. The group works to deliver and enhance database expertise and support using cutting edge technology in deploying databases using Oracle, MySQL, SQL Server, Postgress and Sybase database management systems across the Library.
Last year, the DBA Group completed major deployments such as United States Capitol Police Momentum and Maximo systems migration to the Library’s Data Center, Copyright Seibel upgrade, National Library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped (NLBPH) database consolidation and upgrade to Oracle version 11g, Central Contractor Registration Connector system (CCRC), Medical Information Management System (MIMS) new module implementation and upgrade implementation, and Oracle Internet Directory implementation. In addition, the DBA Group provided oversight over an enterprise project for collecting requirements for the Library’s Digital Repository that was completed successfully.
In addition to administering and maintaining the enterprise databases, the DBA Group is supporting multiple projects this year including Expert Monitoring System (EMS) implementation, Consolidated Budget Formulation system implementation, enhancements to the Payroll Analysis system (PAM), WebTA (Time and Attendance) upgrade, Asset Management Tracking system implementation, and Capitol Police Maximo security enhancements.
To improve Library database systems operations, DBA Group completed streamlining processes and procedures and established formal processes for receiving and routing service requests from customers to ensure fast service. Also, procedures were established for DBAs to receive automated system notifications for system level database activities. The DBA Group continues to implement a master database relocation and upgrade plan to eliminate database server single point of failure.
Enterprise Systems Engineering Group
The Enterprise Systems Engineering Group (ESE) Group is responsible for systems programming, telecommunications engineering, enterprise and departmental server management, storage management, and capacity planning. In particular, ESE has primary responsibility for engineering the underlying computer systems on which the Library's software systems depend. Since January ESE has been diligently working on a security enhancement project. This project encompassed reviewing our existing security posture, identifying changes to be made and then implementing these changes.
Over many months of review and testing ESE made changes to Active Directory to enhance GPO security and implemented a new EPO system for both servers and workstations. All of these efforts culminated in a weekend maintenance in which all passwords for Windows, UNIX and Linux systems were changed. ESE then worked with system owners to troubleshoot application issues that arose from these changes.
Overall the results of this work were extremely successful. In addition to the aforementioned security enchantments ESE is also working on the final stages of implementing two factor authentications to access Webmail via VPN access. This solution requires the use of a code in order to access resources via VPN, thus further enhancing our security posture.
EUC Enterprise Systems Management Tools
Improvements include the use of Microsoft's System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM) for pushing the latest security patches and updates to end user computers. A second system, McAfee's ePolicy Orchestrator (ePO) was implemented to streamline and simplify security operations for end point systems. The ePO system was implemented with two additional modules: Host Based Security System (HBSS), a suite of software applications used within the Department of Defense to monitor, detect, and counter attacks against computer networks and systems; and Host-based Intrusion Prevention (HIPS), a software package which monitors systems for suspicious activity by analyzing events.
Information Technology Security Group (ITSG)
ITSG performs IT Security Risk Assessment which provides for the strategic review of IT security risks and implementation of appropriate responses to reduce those discovered risks. ITSG has made improvements to the Security Operations Center (SOC) which provides for proactive and reactive activities designed to protect the Library from computer based attackers. We have added additional network protections that allow the SOC to react quickly to virus outbreaks and other malicious activity to reduce the interruption and reduce the cost of remediation. We have improved the Library's Security Awareness and Training by providing Library staff with material that is current and impactful at both work and home.
Metasearch launch
The Library is launching a new metasearch application on May 24, 2011. This application improves the performance and expands the use of facets compared to the previous metasearch. It accomplishes this by creating one, integrated index to search instead of performing a federated search against multiple indexes. In addition, results can be filtered by what is digitized as well as faceted by original format, online format, site, subject, contributor, and date. The presentation interface includes images where possible and offers a gallery and grid view of search results. Much effort was put into insuring this application exceeds accessibility standards. It is available on some mobile devices. The content searched is the Website, Library of Congress Online Catalog, Prints and Photographs Online Catalog, American Memory, and THOMAS.
Multimedia Group
The Multimedia Group consists of the Video Production Section and Digital Scan Section. The Video Production Section produced more than 175 programs for the Library of Congress Website. Videotaped this year were lectures from the African and Middle Eastern Division, Hispanic Division, Kluge Center, Law Library, and the Science, Technology and Business Division; Concerts from the American Folklife Center and the Music Division; and author talks from the Center for the Book. Some special events recorded for the Web were a David McCullough Book Talk, The Book of Khalid Symposium, and the Liljenquist Exhibit of Civil War Images Opening.
Some of the analog collections the Digital Scan Section is digitizing include the Papers of Abraham Lincoln; Early Press of the Nation’s Capitals: Philadelphia, New York and Washington, DC, 1789–1809; World Treasures from the Asian Division; text and image materials from the Veterans History Project; original classical music manuscripts from the Music Division; and rare Gastronomy books from the Rare Book Division.
Research & Development, Congressional Research Service
THOMAS was updated in January to reflect the start of the 112th Congress. In February, to keep a promise House members made to their constituencies, Constitutional Authority Statements were added to the Bill Summary and Status pages for all House Bills and Resolutions. Constitutional Authority Statements are required by clause 7(c) of rule XII of the Rules of the House of Representatives, amended on January 5, 2011 by H.Res.5.
In a coming release will be the Visual Representation of the Bill Status. We are working with the Law Library and CRS to devise an intuitive way for users to better understand both the potential lifecycle of a bill, and the current status of a bill within that lifecycle. This is envisioned as a widget that would display as an expandable icon on the Bill Summary & Status page--the simple icon would indicate current status; clicking on that icon would expand to a map of the lifecycle of a bill, highlighting the current status of this bill. The expanded presentation would also provide additional information, such as votes and links to bill text and bill summary text.
Research & Development, Copyright
The R&D Copyright group is responsible for assisting with the implementation and management of enabling technology for Copyright. This includes performing systems analysis, design, selection, acquisition, development, integration, support, and maintenance. In addition, this group acts as a customer service liaison between Copyright and ITS to coordinate activities with other ITS teams that impact Copyright.
The R&D COP group is supporting Copyright on several major projects in 2011. For the LD Reengineering project, we are assisting the Copyright Licensing Division (LD) with selecting and implementing a new COTS-based online system for performing all of their reengineered business functions. We are also providing assistance to the Copyright Digitization project which is digitizing Copyright’s historical catalog card records, and supporting the eDeposit project which will provide online functionality for receiving and registering electronic serials and other materials into the Library.
Additionally, the team provides ongoing support for Copyright’s eCO system and numerous initiatives related to enhancing the functionality, reliability and performance of this system. In 2011, we have assisted Copyright with implementing multiple enhancement releases, supported migration to Internet Explorer 8, and assisted with successful tests of failing over the public facing functionality of the eCO system to the Library’s disaster recovery Alternate Computing Facility (ACF). Initiatives to improve monitoring, troubleshooting, and fault tolerance of the system are also underway.
Research & Development, Infrastructure (RDI)
The Research and Development Infrastructure (RDI) Group is part of the Research and Development Office (R&D) within the Information Technology Services (ITS) Directorate at the Office of Strategic Initiatives (OSI). It is primarily responsible for software development and maintenance. This includes acquisition, systems analysis, design, development, integration, support, and maintenance. In addition, the RDI Group provides project management and liaison support, including the implementation and management of enabling technologies for support units such as the Office of the Librarian, Office of the Chief Financial Officer, and all units under the Office of Support Operations.
Our application support includes commercial off the shelf (COTS) products as well as in-house developed custom applications. RDI systems projects are deployed using project management techniques (PM) and Systems Development Life Cycle (SDLC) methodology.
Last year, RDI provided a variety of services in support of the Library of Congress. RDI worked with various support units and has successfully implemented numerous large projects that included the migration of the United States Capitol Police financial and asset tracking systems to the Library of Congress, a new Central Contractor Registration Connector system, a major upgrade to our Medical Information Management system, and our Payroll Analysis Module system.
Presently, RDI has made great strides towards the implementation of over a dozen current projects, the operations maintenance & enhancements of approximately 27 production applications, and the coordination of support for an additional 10 special tasks.
Five of our current projects have target implementation dates for this summer and are currently on track to meet the target dates. The key projects for the summer implementation include a financial monitoring system, major enhancements to the payroll analysis system, and implementation of a new consolidated budget formulation system.
Technical Facilities and Services Group
The Technical Facilities and Services Group manages the infrastructure, and provide user services, for the Library’s Voice and data networks. The Chief, Technical Facilities and Services Group, is responsible for coordination of LOC services and operations relating to telecommunications services, telephone operations, network operations, and computer room operations in the Library’s main buildings on Capitol Hill and at remote computer facilities including the Alternate Computer Facility and the NAVCC facility in Culpeper. The group includes two section heads who supervise daily operations of the telephone, data, and cabling support teams, providing user support services including planning, installation, systems maintenance and repairs, systems monitoring, help desk, and telecommunications services including circuit connectivity, internet services, and cellular services.
The group is working on projects to upgrade cabling infrastructure in spaces of the Library of Congress where fresh construction is occurring. TFAS is also continuing work to upgrade the voice switch to bring the current voice technology and revision levels up-to-date to enhance survivability and ensure continuity of services. In addition, the group consistently works on initiatives to keep the data infrastructure upgraded with current technologies and enhances security.
Technology Assessment Group
The Technology Assessment Group is responsible for performing in-depth studies in information technology’s constantly growing and changing hardware and software architecture, programming, and analysis tools and practices. The group recommends to the Director new technology which offers users efficient and effective access to information in a variety of disparate forms and formats.
In the last year, TAG has continued to test the recent Windows 7 and Office 2010 software releases. TAG also continued a project to evaluate and test possible internal LC uses of the iPhone system and began expanding it to include competitive smart mobile devices.
The Accessible Technology Demonstration Center continued to provide Americans with Disabilities Act reasonable accommodations to staff members and also to some reading room patrons. TAG worked with other LC units to improve the accessibility of internal and public Web pages.
National Digital Library/National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program
Common Federal Digitization Guidelines
The Federal Agencies Digitization Guidelines Initiative (FADGI) was launched in 2007 for the purpose of establishing a common set of digitization best practices for federal agencies. Two working groups have been formed to address the major areas of still image and audio-visual material. In 2010, the Still Image Working Group published a comprehensive guidelines document, Technical Guidelines for Digitizing Cultural Heritage Materials. The document includes a detailed treatment of objective, quantifiable measures for scanning performance, which has been a major focus of the group’s deliberations to date. Multiple federal agencies are now using these guidelines.
Two new activities of the Still Image Working Group are of interest. First, on May 12-13, the group hosted the JPEG 2000 summit, with international participation, to discuss the applicability of the JPEG 2000 standard format to the preservation work of memory institutions. Second, the group has been cooperating with the CIE (International Commission on Illumination) on a collaborative effort to research the challenges of color in digital preservation, with the objective of developing practical guidelines for the encoding of color information. The study is international in scope, involving libraries, archives, and museums in the U.S. and Europe.
The Audio-Visual Working Group finalized a specification for a header for Broadcast WAVE audio files and developed BWF MetaEdit, an open source tool to facilitate the editing and inputting of the specified metadata. The Working Group also launched the process to draft an Application Specification related to the Material Exchange Format (MXF) standard, suitable for the creation and management of files for video and other moving image content.
Additional information is available at URL <www.digitizationguidelines.gov>.
Digital Preservation Blog and Twitter Account
NDIIPP has started two new online communication channels. The first is "The Signal," which is a daily blog written by members of the NDIIPP staff. Topics covered include personal digital archiving, analysis of "cloud" digital storage services, digital forensics and teaching school kids about digital preservation. Visit the blog at URL <blogs.loc.gov/digitalpreservation>. The second is a Twitter account that publicizes what the Library and its partners are doing in connection with digital preservation. NDIIPP staff also use Twitter to interact with people from around the world. The NDIIPP Twitter stream can be viewed at URL <twitter.com/ndiipp
>.
National Digital Stewardship Alliance
The Library's National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program (NDIIPP) has launched a National Digital Stewardship Alliance. All organizations with a commitment to collaboration and digital preservation are encouraged to join the NDSA; there are no fees or dues for membership. Members contribute as they are able through in-kind service, including serving on one of five working groups. The groups are content; standards and practices; infrastructure; innovation; and outreach. For more information please see URL <www.digitalpreservation.gov/ndsa>.

