Monday, March 23, 2009

Planning summer CE

The CMRLS summer Continuing Education workshops begin June 1. That gives us just 2 months to decide on programs, contact speakers, produce the CE catalog and get it into members' hands in time to register for the earliest of the offerings. Each consultant will be coming up with creative ideas in his or her area.

So, my question to you is What do you think CMRLS should offer in the area of Technical Services? There are programs on bibliographic records in general, MARC records, Dewey Decimal System that I teach regularly. Something on Resource Description and Access (RDA - the new, revised version of cataloging rules) is probable since if/when it is implemented will change cataloging - maybe drastically.

What would you like to learn more about? What would you attend? It doesn't have to be limited to Tech Services as I can always forward ideas on to my colleagues.

Please let me know!

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

A New Book

When I first began working at CMRLS, I spent a lot of time and the organization's money updating the Professional Collection (also known as RCO) with Technical Services books. Fortunately, for our budget, there aren't a lot of T.S. books published in a year, so I'm still able to purchase the ones that are.


Recently, I received a copy of the 3rd edition of The Organization of Information by Arlene Taylor and Daniel Joudrey. It is now cataloged and ready for information hungry tech services librarians to borrow.


Who'll be the first?

Monday, March 9, 2009

The Massachusetts Library Association Conference

The program catalog for the Mass. Library Association conference if out and the Tech Services Section of MLA has done another fine job.

Most Technical Services programs will be held on Thursday, May 7 beginning at 8:30 a.m. when LibraryThing's Tim Spalding will be talking about community content.

Immediately on Tim's heels is a program entitled “Next Generation” Cataloging and Metadata Creation Pilot with speakers Renee Register and Maureen Huss, both from OCLC.

That program is followed by Barbara Tillett, Chief of the Policy and Standards Division of the Library of Congress talking about Resource Description and Access (RDA). All in all, a very full morning.

There will, of course, be other programs of interest to Tech Services-types like the mini-conference on Manga to be held all day Friday. For anyone who has ordered, cataloged, classified and generally had to organized Manga, knowing more about it can only help. In fact, just about everything being offered at the MLA conference has some relationship to Technical Services which does not exist in isolation.

I'll be giving a presentation at the conference on Friday on Public Speaking. While you may not have to expound at your local Town Meeting, basic public speaking skills are also important when defending the value of Technical Services in your own library. Too many people, other librarians included, do not understand all that happens "behind the scenes." Informed, articulate Technical Services Librarians are an integral part of any library meeting its patrons needs.

Friday, March 6, 2009

Don't forget the NETSL Conference

Registration opened recently for the annual spring NETSL conference to be held April 17 at Holy Cross College.

It's going to be a great program (aren't they all?) so don't miss it.