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Technically Speaking
A Technical Services Newsletter for Nebraska Libraries
Volume 5, number 1, Fall 2002 ISSN
1085-3448
Leading ―
Linking ― Learning
TSRT Conference
Events
Thursday and Friday, all day
- TSRT booth, Exhibits area
Thursday, 1:50 p.m.
- Linking to the Past:
Opportunities through Digitization
Liz
Bishoff, Project Director, Colorado Digitization Project, U. of
Denver
Thursday, 3:00 p.m.
- Western Trails Digitization Project
A
panel of Nebraska project participants
Friday, 8:00 a.m.
- Annual TSRT membership meeting
This
is an open meeting
ALL
ARE WELCOME TO ATTEND
Friday, 9:00 a.m.
- Cataloging and Reference:
Friends or Foes?
Charity
Martin, UNL, & a panel of
colleagues
(Co-sponsored with NMRT)
|
Message
from the Chair
Sue Ann Gardner,
UNL
Welcome to the conference! To go along with this year’s conference theme, we have assembled an issue of
Technically Speaking that addresses LEADING, LINKING
and LEARNING in technical services. Sharon Mason of UNK offers suggestions for getting involved in leadership in tech services,
Joyce Melvin of UNL gives some information on how libraries remain linked with one another via interlibrary loan, and Mary Marchio of
Omaha Public presents her thoughts on training/learning in tech services depts.
In addition, listed above are TSRT’s
conference programs. All are welcome to attend and participate. We’d especially like to extend a warm welcome to those
of you not normally involved in technical services activities in your work, and we’d
also like to meet you if you’re a SCYP or NEMA member.
I need to heartily thank Devra Dragos (incoming
Chair), Mary Marchio (Past Chair), Cecilia Slingsby (Secretary), Charity Martin
(Treasurer), Jean Dickinson (former Newsletter Editor) and Kira Barnes (Web
Coordinator), for all their help this past year. When I was down and out needing surgery in February, they all
pitched in, so we had a spring meeting after all. All best wishes to the incoming and continuing officers for
another fabulous year. And thanks to
all the TSRT members—what a great group!
|
Table of Contents
Message from the Chair—p. 1
TSRT Events at the Conference—p. 1
LEADING: Leadership Opportunities in Professional Organizations for
Technical Services by Sharon Mason, UNK—p. 2-3
LINKING: Technology and Interlibrary Loan by Joyce Melvin,
UNL—p. 3
LEARNING: Learning to be a
Cataloger at the Omaha Public Library
by Mary Marchio, Omaha Public—p.4
|
Leading:
LEADERSHIP OPPORTUNITIES IN PROFESSIONAL
ORGANIZATIONS FOR TECHNICAL SERVICES
by
Sharon Mason, University of
Nebraska at Kearney
Leadership
opportunities abound for technical services librarians from the national to the
local level. Leadership skills are
needed whether serving on a committee, chairing a committee, serving as an
officer or as president of an organization.
How
does a librarian or library staff member find leadership opportunities?
● Attend meetings
and conferences,
get to know people who are
in positions of leadership, ask them to mentor you.
● Look at web pages
of the professional organizations to which you belong or desire to belong. Many will provide information on various
committees and provide names and addresses of those currently serving.
● Visit with your
colleagues in leadership positions at the workplace; ask them for advice and
assistance in learning about leadership opportunities.
If
you are asked to serve on a committee or as an officer, say “yes.” Don’t underestimate your capabilities. Even if the office or committee assignment
may not be quite what you want, if you do the job well, it will open the door
to other opportunities.
At
the state level, the Nebraska Library Association (http://www.nol.org/home/NLA) has several sections and round tables that would be
of interest to technical services librarians and staff. You can choose a section based on the type
of library in which you work (Public, Academic, Special and Institutional, and
School Children and Young People). Any
of the three round tables could be of interest to technical services librarians
(ITART (Information Technology and Access Round Table), NMART (New Members
Round Table), TSRT (Technical Services Round Table)), but especially the
Technical Services Round Table. Join,
then get involved, Attend meetings, sign up for committee assignments through
the NLA membership brochure or contact the NLA President/Elect who works on
committee assignments usually during the summer prior to the NLA
conference. Contact incoming chairs of
the sections for information on running for an office or committee assignments.
At
the national level, ALA (www.ala.org)
offers many opportunities. ALCTS
(Association for Library Collections and Technical Services (www.ala.org/alcts)) is the primary
division of interest to technical service staff. ALCTS offers opportunities in collection development,
acquisitions, serials and cataloging.
Serving on ALCTS committees requires a commitment of time, money and
attendance at the conferences.
Committee work provides networking opportunities that can lead to participating
as an officer. ALCTS also has
discussion groups (loosely organized
with discussion about timely technical service topics). Generally there is a “call” for someone to
volunteer as the moderator for the discussion group at each ALA conference.
Another national organization
is NASIG (North
American
Serials Group (www.nasig.org) that
offers
opportunities in the area of serials.
Regional groups such as MPLA
(Mountain
Plains
Library Association (www.usd.edu/mpla))
also
provide opportunities in its Technical Services
Section.
These are just a few of
the leadership
opportunities in technical services available in
professional organizations and groups.
So find
something of interest and get involved!
Linking:
TECHNOLOGY
AND INTERLIBRARY LOAN
by
Joyce Melvin, University of
Nebraska-Lincoln
The last several years have seen a great deal of
change in the way resources are shared between libraries. Not only are requests handled
electronically, as OCLC ILL has done for years, but library patrons can request
and receive materials directly. In
fact, the user may never have to step foot in the library or even talk to
library staff, in order to access their material.
Almost all services are now offered over the
Web. ILL provides request forms, either
developed locally or using those incorporated into pre-existing products like
FirstSearch. Ariel ®, marketed by RLG,
enables libraries to electronically send documents to other Ariel users as tif
files, reducing delivery time to minutes instead of days or weeks. Recently, the move has been towards
electronic delivery to the end user.
Prospero, developed at Ohio State University, enables libraries that use
Ariel to forward articles to patrons as pdf files on a secure Web server or
attached to an E-mail. Similar options
have been incorporated into Ariel.
Companies that create data management tools for ILL
are integrating the wealth of information available online, and the number of
people with access to the Web. Tools
such as Clio and OCLC’s Illiad not only manage interlibrary loan data for staff
and users, but also can interact with the library’s OPAC to identify call
numbers and holdings. Another more
limited option is shareware like ILL ASAP which can work with the OPAC to
identify holdings and call numbers.
The tools that a library needs depend on the volume
of borrowing and lending business (symbiotic), global resources, and the needs
of the library’s users.
Learning:
LEARNING TO BE A
CATALOGER AT THE
OMAHA PUBLIC
LIBRARY
by
Mary Marchio, Omaha
Public Library
Candidates for cataloging positions at OPL are
expected to have some educational background, preferably at the graduate school
level, and/or on-the-job experience in the basic cataloging tools we use–AARC2,
OCLC, MARC, LCSH, and Dewey. We expect
to provide further training to teach new catalogers how to apply their
cataloging knowledge in our situation.
OPL is fortunate to have a person working as Training
Coordinator. She has designed an
orientation/training course for all newly-hired employees. New catalogers go through the same process
as new public service librarians, spending at least two weeks in public service
and circulation areas at the Main Library and in several of the branches before
coming to the Catalog Department.
During this period, they see the automated catalog–the tool they will
eventually help create and maintain–from a user’s point of view.
Once in the Catalog Department, the new cataloger is
introduced to OPL cataloging practices.
We rely on printed documentation provided by OCLC, Library of Congress,
Epixtech (our automated system vendor) and internal procedure memos. For better or worse, oral tradition and
intuition play a big part in our cataloging knowledge.
Because we are always in production mode (we usually
add over 80,000 new items and over 10,000 new titles every year), our
“cataloging rules” emphasize the practical–cataloging records that work with
our Horizon system for the benefit of our public services staff and customers. Understanding the workings of MARC fields
and tags within Horizon is crucial to cataloging decisions. Our catalogers take
as much pleasure as any in an elegantly tuned original MARC record, but
providing reliable access to the latest bestseller has high priority.
We
rely on outside sources for continuing education. Catalogers are advised to subscribe to relevant online mailing
lists. The library subscribes to
professional journals that are routed through the dept. Membership and
participation in professional organizations is encouraged. NEBASE workshops keep our catalogers
up-to-date in OCLC practices. Epixtech
provides documentation on system updates, but it is usually left up to our
system manager and training coordinator to put together in-house training, and
up to the Cataloging Department manager to present that information to the
Cataloging Department.
Lagniappe:
for some library humor, look at this Web site: http://warriorlibrarian.com/ROFL/opac.html
and for Great Moments in Technical Services see http://sun3.lib.uci.edu/~murrizol/ts_history/tshist.htm
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See you next year!
NLA/NEMA
Annual
Conference
Omaha,
Nebraska
October
2003
Technically Speaking
A Technical Services Newsletter for Nebraska Libraries
Volume 5, number 1, Fall 2002 ISSN
1085-3448