Library staff are no strangers to budget and staffing reductions. Most of us have way too much experience doing more with less, covering unfilled positions, and rigging solutions out of the digital equivalent of chewing gum and bailing wire, because we can’t afford to buy all the tools we need. In the last two years, my department at Northern Arizona University’s Cline Library operated with roughly half the usual amount of staff. In this post, I’ll share a few strategies that helped us get through this challenging time. First, a quick introduction. My department, Content, Discovery & Delivery services, includes the digital services unit (formerly library technology services) as well as collection management (including electronic resources management), acquisitions, cataloging, physical processing, interlibrary loan and document delivery, and course reserves. We are a technology-intensive department, both as users and implementers/supporters of technology. Here are some of the strategies we used to…
Category: Technical services
Greetings from Metadata Management Tools!
Earlier this fall, I taught a 3-week online course titled Metadata Management Tools for LITA. The course was designed for library staff who regularly work manipulating MARC and metadata sets or library school students interested in the subject of metadata management. My goal was for students to finish the course with an understanding of the tools available to them for metadata management, example use cases for each tool, and the resources available to them if they would like to further their knowledge or have any questions regarding any of these tools. A big “Thank you!” to LITA for giving me the opportunity to teach this online course. What is “metadata management”? According to Margaret Rouse of WhatIs.com, [m]etadata management is the administration of data that describes other data. It involves establishing policies and processes that ensure information across the organization can be integrated, accessed, shared, linked, analyzed, and maintained to best…
Thoughts on the 3R Project: Part 2
Thoughts on the 3R Project Part 2 Part 1 of this series is available here. Now that some time has passed since the rollout of the beta version of the new RDA Toolkit, in this section, I would like to look at the conversations around the changes and the implications they have for the cataloging community. Three issues that continued to come up in the discussion around the new version were: The absence of an outline, enumeration, or another organizational schema throughout the toolkit; The absence of embedded AACR2 rule links in the RDA Toolkit; RDA’s role as a cataloging standard. Out of Order On rda-l, the first issue that came up in response to the RSC Secretary’s announcement was regarding the removal of numbering throughout the RDA Toolkit. The original online RDA Toolkit was structured much like a print book would be, with numbered chapters containing series of nested…
Thoughts on the 3R Project: Part 1
Thoughts on the 3R Project Part 1 What is the 3R Project? On June 13, 2018, the RDA Toolkit Restructure and Redesign Project (also referred to as the 3R Project) released an English-only beta version of the new RDA Toolkit in North America. An announcement predating the release, News on the RDA 3R Project beta release, was sent out by the RDA Steering Committee (RSC) Secretary to multiple listservs[1] on June 8th. It included links to a ‘document describing the “Outcomes of the RDA Toolkit Restructure and Redesign Project” by RSC Chair Gordon Dunsire’ as well as an ‘announcement titled “What to Expect from the RDA Toolkit beta site”’ (Barnhart, 2018). One of the listservs to receive this communication was the ALA-hosted rda-l, which I follow. Suddenly, emails about the new release inundated my inbox. The RSC Secretary’s email prompted more than 100 responses on the listserv: at least 25…