Upcoming next week: the 2008 LITA Election podcast series! Last year we serenaded you with the dulcet tones of our nominees, to try and help you make informed choices about next year’s LITA Leadership. This year, we will do the same. All of the nominees were asked to participate in a question and answer session, and 6 of them took us up on the offer. With the help of the amazing David Lee King, we’re processing those interviews now, and will begin rolling them out next Monday, March 10th. We’ll have all of the audio out before the opening of the polls on March 17th, and we can all exercise our voting privileges. So make sure and swing by on Monday the 10th, and stay tuned all through the week. If you have any questions or problems with the podcasts as they are posted, please leave a comment and we’ll…
Tag: unt
ISO Guidelines for the Creation of a Metadata Crosswalk
Folks, this is the first of a rash of announcements about NISO votes and the solicitation of comments prior to those votes. Some of them have very short deadlines, unfortunately. I hope that the expressions of interest received on some of the earlier calls for comments continue! Although the following standard is particularly targeted at records management, it surely could have some relevance to any of us concerned with metadata crosswalks. These have as usual been forwarded from Cindy Hepfer, ALA Representative to NISO. This one is concerning an ISO Committee Draft of an International Standard issued for ballot: ISO NWI, Document management — Guidelines for the creation of a metadata crosswalk. Comments and vote recommendations from NISO members are due to NISO by Feb. 15, 2008, but as Cindy has three NISO voting deadlines on the 15th, she needs any responses for this standard by Feb. 11. Information provided…
Real-World Metadata Management
Speaker: Mark Phillips, University of North Texas Mark discussed the experienced he has had as manager of the Digital Projects Unit at the University of North Texas Libraries. Their projects include the Portal to Texas History, a multi-institutional repository of approximately 20,000 items relating to Texas History; the CyberCemetery, a collection of websites from defunct government agencies; Congressional Research Service reports; and other digital collections from the UNT libraries. All together, he said that they manage approximately 70,000 items, with a total of around 500,000 pages, and they expect to double that number within the next year. Mark described their technical environment. They use an open-source asset management system, Keystone from Index Data, which they have heavily customized. They use the same modified Dublin Core metadata in all their collections, which has allowed them to maintain consistency of cataloging, but he admitted that many of their controlled vocabulary and…
First Days on the Job as LITA President
The ALA Annual Conference in New Orleans was an awe-inspiring experience on many levels. I was so overwhelmed by the gratitude of the New Orleaneans who could not have done a better job of making the 16,000+ visitors comfortable. New Orleans has a huge struggle ahead as the recovery has only begun. ALA set the example to the world that we believe in the city and want to help as much as possible in its recovery. Librarians not only helped economically by coming to the city, but many donated time and energy through volunteer service. I am proud to have attended the conference and even prouder that ALA chose to keep the conference in New Orleans. I began my LITA Presidency at the end of the day on Tuesday, June 27. I want to thank Pat Mullin for all he did in the past year as President. He has been…