[Metadatalibrarians] ALCTS Creative Ideas in Technical Services discussion topics at ALA Annual 2018

[Timothy R. Mendenhall]

*Please join the ALCTS Creative Ideas in Technical Services Interest Group
ALA Annual, an open forum for discussion of all things technical services!
Everyone is welcome to participate in any of the 9 exciting roundtable
discussions being held on Saturday, June 23rd, from 4-5 pm in Room 398 of
the Morial Convention Center in New Orleans.  Add the session to your
conference scheduler:
https://www.eventscribe.com/2018/ALA-Annual/fsPopup.asp?Mode=presInfo&PresentationID=380451
<https://www.eventscribe.com/2018/ALA-Annual/fsPopup.asp?Mode=presInfo&PresentationID=380451>
We are proud to present the following discussion topics for our session at
ALA Annual 2018: Millennial Leadership Shaping the Future of Technical
ServicesPresenters: Elyssa M. Gould, University of Tennessee & Erin E.
Boyd, Irving Public Library, erineboyd at gmail.com
<erineboyd at gmail.com>Retirements, transitions, and promotions are affecting
technical services just as much as they are affecting libraries at large.
As a result, formal leadership opportunities are now being filled by
millennials. While every leader handles the leadership role and its
challenges in different ways, several characteristics of millennials make
for unique generational challenges: the desire to do meaningful work;
obsession with staying connected; and need for instant gratification. This
roundtable discussion will explore how millennials can use their unique
strengths through leadership opportunities, as well as managing individuals
from all generations, including other millennials. Sample questions
include: Millennials are often stereotyped as wanting to do important,
meaningful work. How can a millennial leader translate this desire to the
priorities of other generations? How can a millennial leader learn how to
effectively communicate in a clear, non-social media way? Leaders often
have to "manage up" as well as "manage down." How can a millennial leader
be successful at this? Linked Data Implementation: How Can the Rest of Us
Get Started?Presenter:  Jodene Pappas, Stephen F. Austin State UniversityIf
we had no limitations and could start now, what might we do to get started?
Take a metadata class? Find out what the competencies are? Network and
engage with a partner to collaborate? From another department? Another
school? Another library type? What else?  We will be discussing the
following questions: 1. The concept of Linked Data has been around since
about 2006, yet it has not proliferated, why do you think that is? 2.
Should all libraries necessarily transform their data to Linked Data? Why
or why not? 3. Many larger libraries use Linked Data. What can we learn
from libraries who have already implemented Linked Data?Technical Services
Staff Continuing Education with No BudgetPresenter:  Liza Hickey, Peoria
Public LibraryA discussion on the options and creative ideas for offering
technical services staff continuing education opportunities when there is
no budget. Potential questions include: 1) Keeping staff up to date and
engaged is difficult enough without letting continuing education fall by
the wayside due to budget cuts. How does your library deal with these
challenges? 2) What are some free online resources for webinars and/or live
online training that you have used? 3) What other creative ways do you keep
your staff up to date and engaged in their work?Managing Projects, Managing
ChangePresenter:  Jennifer Maddox Abbott, University of Illinois at
Urbana-ChampaignAs libraries continue to rapidly evolve, technical services
units are finding ways to reinvent themselves, tackling new tasks,
developing workflows, and shifting responsibilities. This is an opportunity
to discuss the benefits of framing work as a project, as well as sharing
successes and lessons learned through a variety of technical services
projects, such as cataloging backlogs, collection shifts or moves, weeding,
reclassification, or digitization. Potential questions will include: What
projects have your technical services departments taken on? What made them
successful? What problems or surprises did you encounter? Now that a
project is complete (or underway), what do you wish you had known before it
began? What work does your library or department do that you would like to
see framed as a project that isn't currently? What steps could be taken to
make that happen?You Can't Touch These : Ebook and Streaming Media
Acquisitions and Cataloging WorkflowsPresenter: Mary Konkel, College of
DuPageThere are a myriad of acquisition models for acquiring these
non-tangible e-resources-- from firm order and packages to PDAs. Once you
have purchased, what's the best model for your users to discover them? Come
share your trials, tribulations, and successes. Questions to be discussed
include: 1) How is your library acquiring Ebooks? Streaming Video? (Talk
about who's selecting, how they are ordered, and where you're vending.) 2)
Okay, you've purchased and "received" them, how do you let your users know
you have them? (Talk about vendor MARC records, vendor portals, discovery
systems like OCLC Collection Manager) 3) Is your acquisitions and
cataloging workflow changed or modified when purchasing eresources? Why and
how?Collaboration, Metadata, and DiscoveryPresenter:  Jeanette Norris,
Brown UniversityWe're increasingly moving towards integrating metadata from
a variety of systems to improve navigation and discovery throughout the
platforms (ex. institutional repositories, digital collections, catalogs,
faculty profiles, journal article indexes, electronic databases) that are
of interest to our users. This conversation will be focused on exploring
strategies to improve those integrations, both based in metadata and in
organizational collaboration. Questions to be discussed include: From a
user interface perspective, what are the benefits and drawbacks to
providing deeper integration of catalogs, licensed eresources, local
digital collections and faculty profiles? What are the metadata barriers to
providing meaningful integration of content in these systems? What are you
doing (or would you like to do) to overcome those barriers? What are the
organizational challenges to providing meaningful integration of the
content in these systems? What are you doing (or would you like to do) to
overcome those barriers?Creating and Maintaining DocumentationPresenter:
 Stacie Traill, University of MinnesotaDocumentation of local policies,
workflows, and procedures is extremely important for technical services
units. Accurate, up-to-date documentation facilitates staff training, acts
as a record of institutional memory, encourages consistency, and aids data
analysis efforts. But creating and maintaining local documentation is a
huge task that is often not a high priority in day-to-day work. The goal of
this discussion is to share successful strategies for creating and
maintaining documentation and learn from each other how we might improve
our own documentation practices. Sample questions: 1. How well do you feel
your institution manages technical services documentation? What areas do
you see for improvement? 2. Keeping documentation up-to-date is especially
challenging in an era of library management systems that are constantly
enhanced/upgraded and cataloging standards that evolve quickly. What
strategies do you employ to keep local documentation "in sync" with
frequent changes to systems and standards? 3. What technologies and/or
tools do you use to manage local documentation?Collection Services and Next
Generation Integrated Library System DesignPresenter: Christine Dunleavy,
University of South Florida St. PetersburgAll around, teams of
administrators, cataloging, acquisitions, serials, systems, and public
services providers of library services are considering to change, or are
changing, or have recently changed from their current integrated library
systems (ILS). Years are spent evaluating new systems, followed by more
time migrating data and discovery configuration. Training and working in
the system takes additional time. A lot of consideration is paid to
maintaining the quality of integrating and migrating data based on
workflows that are in place at the time of implementing new systems.
Concurrently, a lot of new library initiatives that need new workflows and
customized data entry points are introduced. New metadata models and
vendors’ initiatives demand ILS flexibility for automation. How can
libraries’ anticipated needs be served by current or future ILS design?
Some questions to consider might be: How can librarians communicate to ILS
vendors that we need automated systems that can be tailored and customized
to fit special demands? How do technical services librarians manage the
ever-increasing flow of data and adjust workflows to handle this? What APIs
and third-party workarounds would be useful to you that you would like
available in an ILS?Foreign Language Cataloging: Challenges and
SolutionsPresenter: Danijela Matkovic, Yale UniversityLibraries, which hold
a wide range of foreign language materials in a variety of formats, rely on
the language expertise of their cataloging staff to provide adequate
bibliographic descriptions. The cataloging of foreign language materials
presents a series of unique challenges as it requires not only linguistic
skills, but also cultural knowledge and additional technical skills. The
purpose of the proposed discussion topic is twofold: (1) to identify the
various challenges that catalogers face in dealing with materials in
foreign languages, in particular, with items in unfamiliar languages and
non-Latin scripts; (2) to propose solutions through the exchange of ideas,
useful tools, and workflow strategies. Potential questions are: What are
the challenges in dealing with foreign language materials? What strategies
and types of collaborative approaches to cataloging foreign language
materials work best? How to establish cataloging workflows for materials in
unfamiliar languages?  How best to leverage language and reference tools
for the cataloging of materials in non-Latin scripts?Whitney Buccicone,
Chairbucciw at uw.edu <bucciw at uw.edu> Ryan Mendenhall,
Vice-Chairtrm2151 at columbia.edu <trm2151 at columbia.edu>*