ALA BRIEFING

Beacher Wiggins

Acting Associate Librarian of Congress for Library Services

June 11, 2003

Service units and divisions/offices within the Library have submitted the information in this document for the attention and use of Library staff who will be attending the joint Annual Conference of the American Library Association and Canadian Library Association in Toronto, Ontario, June 19-24, 2003.

LC EXHIBIT BOOTH CANCELLED

The Library of Congress regrets that it will not have an exhibit booth at the 2003 ALA Annual Conference in Toronto. We look forward eagerly to full participation in the Midwinter 2004 exhibition in San Diego. To the members of the American Library Association and the Canadian Library Associations, and to all our fellow exhibitors, we wish you an enjoyable and productive conference. Please consult the LC ALA Update at http://www.loc.gov/ala/an03-update.html; for the latest information on various LC initiatives and units.

The Library will not have a representative at the ALA Placement Center at this Annual Conference.

The third National Book Festival is scheduled for October 4, 2003.

CONGRESSIONAL RELATIONS OFFICE

The Library has submitted its formal request to reauthorize the National Film Preservation Board. The current authorization expires September 30, 2003. The Librarian is also submitting this week a request for a proposed new section of section 407(f) of title 17 of the U. S. Code that would permit the Library to acquire digital content from the Internet for the purpose of collecting and preserving such information before such information becomes unavailable.

The amendment submitted by the Library is modeled on the Library’s current authority, under section 407(e) of the Copyright Act, to fix and reproduce television and radio programming. The draft legislation furthers the historical, fundamental mission of the Library while protecting the rights of copyright holders and would apply only to the Library of Congress and not broadly to other libraries and archives. A copy of the draft amendment is attached to this briefing document.

Both bills would be considered by the Senate Committee on the Judiciary and the House Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual Property.

LIBRARY SERVICES/NATIONAL LIBRARY

MINERVA

Collections

The Library of Congress’s MINERVA Web Preservation Project, in collaboration with WebArchivist.org of the State University of New York Institute of Technology and the Internet Archive, created the Election 2002 Web Archive http://www.loc.gov/minerva/collect/elec2002/index.html; with additional funding from The Pew Charitable Trusts through the University of Washington Center for Communication and Civic Engagement.

The Election 2002 Web Archive is a selective collection of nearly 4,000 sites archived between July 1, 2002 and November 30, 2002. The initial March 4th, 2003 release of the Election 2002 Web Archive includes Web sites produced by congressional and gubernatorial candidates. Future releases will include party, interest group, press, government, civic, and other selective Web sites related to the 2002 national and statewide elections. Additional materials will be made available as the collection is processed for long-term preservation.

The MINERVA project has also recently collected Web sites relating to the 107^th Congress, September 11 Remembrance, and the War on Iraq. These collections are currently in production, and will be made available on the MINERVA Web site http://www.loc.gov/minerva as processing, cataloging, and other access-related tasks are completed.

Cataloging

As we collect thematic sites, we create collection level AACR2/MARC catalog records for each theme in order to represent these items in the LC Integrated Library System (ILS). For each theme we have collected thousands of sites. Building upon traditional methods, we are in the process of supplementing the collection level metadata by experimenting with the creation of title-level descriptive metadata for each Web site within the collection using the Metadata Object Description Schema (MODS). (See under Operations Directorate, Network Development and MARC Standards Office.)

Web Site Capture & Archiving Collections Policy Statement

In April 2003, the Library of Congress completed a Collections Policy Statement for Web Site Capture & Archiving. This CPS is available at: http://lcweb.loc.gov/acq/devpol/webarchive.html

International Web Archiving Consortium

Members of the MINERVA team have participated in early discussions surrounding the development and participation of the Library in an International Consortium on Web Archiving.

DIGITAL REFERENCE

The Digital Reference Team is charged with the reference support for the Library’s digital collections and spearheads the Library’s digital reference initiative. With Question Point as the access point for reference inquiries, the team provides both text-based and chat services via the Library’s Web site at http://www.loc.gov/rr/askalib/ and http://www.loc.gov/rr/askalib/ask-memory.html. To this end the team has answered nearly 8,000 queries from Question Point and 773 contacts via chat since January 2003.

Additionally the Digital Reference Team is the public interface for the Library’s digital collections. The team designs and presents demonstrations, on-site and off-site workshops, and video conferences for members of Congress, distinguished guests of the Library, visiting scholars, and educators. Opportunities for video conferencing and Web-casting are continually expanding. In the past four months the team has conducted 30 video conferences for 570 students, teachers, and librarians, including a scheduled session of the annual meeting of the Texas Library Association. On-site presentations and workshops welcomed 40 groups with 670 participants. Working with the Center for the Book the teams continues to create and update the “Read More about It” selections targeted for general readers and younger students http://lcweb2.loc.gov/learn/collections/book/cntrbook.html. Other activities of the team, such as Journeys and Crossings and Telling America’s Stories, are further outlined on the Virtual Programs and Services page http://www.loc.gov/rr/program.

QUESTIONPOINT

Ask A Librarian

The Library of Congress (Public Service Collections and Area Studies Collections) received 31,253 online reference queries through the Library’s Ask A Librarian service from January through May 2003. Reference staff on the Digital Reference Team (DRT), and in the Science and Technical Reports, Prints and Photographs, and Business reading rooms conducted 1,057 live chat sessions with patrons during that same time period. The QuestionPoint Users Group (QPUG) was established in January. QPUG’s charge is to help determine the future direction of the electronic reference environment at the Library of Congress. The QPUG will evaluate, advise and assist in the implementation of the Ask A Librarian project, working under the general direction of Director for Public Service Collections Diane Kresh.

Members of the QPUG are: co-chairs Michelle Cadoree (Science, Technology & Business Division) and Linda J. White (Public Service Collections Directorate); Danna Bell-Russel, DRT; Art Emerson, Humanities and Social Sciences Division; Ernie Emrich, Manuscript Division; Barbara Natanson, Prints & Photographs Division; Ed Redmond, Geography & Map Division; Mattie Laverne Page, African and Middle Eastern Division; Thelma Todd, Serial and Government Publications Division; Abby Yochelson, HSS; and Anne Toohey and Lynn Pedigo for AFSCME 2910.

QPUG’s first task was to help librarians deal with the increasing volume of online reference queries generated by the Ask A Librarian service, and to reduce the number of misdirected questions that patrons submitted to reading rooms. QPUG, with the assistance of staff from the Network Development and MARC Standards Office, established a template for intermediary pages to be placed between the main Ask A page and each Reading Room’s Web inquiry form. These pages are intended to help patrons help themselves to information available on the Library’s Web site, and to introduce them to the collections, programs and services provided by each reading room. To date, 14 intermediary pages have gone up with others in progress. QPUG has just completed a “best practices for digital reference” document, which will be presented to the LC Reference Round Table for final approval. This document will be distributed to LC reference staff and will be placed on the staff electronic reference resources page. It will serve as a model for the best practices document created for the QuestionPoint service and its members.

QuestionPoint

LC is in the second year of its partnership with OCLC for the development of QuestionPoint. Building the Global Reference Network (GRN) remains the first priority for LC’s QP team. Increasing volume, improving workflow and the functionality of the knowledge base component are also goals, as is the development of standard training in the use of QP for librarians worldwide.

More than 400 libraries throughout the world use the QuestionPoint software and network. Since its release one year ago, nearly 110,000 questions have gone through the QuestionPoint network and over 25,000 chat sessions have been logged. Enhancements to QuestionPoint since January, 2003 include improved accuracy in global routing, implementation of a service history function, improvements in the librarian interface, the addition of an optional patron survey, the addition of the expanded N class for profiling and routing, five new language interfaces in French, Dutch, Chinese, German and Spanish, and the ability to create both virtual groups and subject- specific groups within the network to supplement reference coverage and facilitate the exchange of Q&A and other resources.

QuestionPoint is a sponsor of the RUSA/MARS 2003 Preconference: Digital Reference @ Your Library II: Directions and Opportunities. The QuestionPoint Users Group meeting and the two sessions on QuestionPoint Implementation Models originally scheduled for Toronto have been cancelled because of low registration.

ACQUISITIONS DIRECTORATE

Duplicate Materials Exchange Program. The Library’s general international Duplicate Materials Exchange Program is in a transitional period as it moves from a decentralized structure in which the Directorate’s various sections all maintained their own exchange programs to one in which the process is streamlined and centralized for the entire Directorate. General exchanges are maintained with over 2,500 libraries worldwide. The first phase of this transition began in November 2002, with the distribution to our high-volume partners of integrated subject lists of our materials available for exchange. The ultimate goal of this business process improvement is to implement a Web-based customer interface that allows the partner to choose the material they want.

Overseas Operations Library of Congress Overseas Offices. Lygia Ballantyne, formerly Library of Congress overseas office director in New Delhi, was reassigned permanently to Washington last October and is sharing management responsibility for the African/Asian Acquisitions and Overseas Operations Division. Laila Mulgaoakar has accepted a new assignment as Library of Congress overseas office director in New Delhi and reported to that post in January. James Gentner is acting overseas office director in Cairo, with oversight responsibility for the Islamabad office, currently without an American director at post, due to State Department evacuation of non-emergency personnel. James Armstrong has accepted a new assignment as Library of Congress overseas office director in Jakarta and reported to that office in early May. Will Tuchrello, previously director in Jakarta, is on a year sabbatical, which concludes at the end of this calendar year. As of the end of May, all Library of Congress overseas offices remain open, conducting business as usual.

EZB. The Library has joined the Elektronische Zeitschriftenbibliothek (EZB), a consortium of more than 200 libraries in Europe and the United States. It offers the Electronic Journals Library, providing access to over 15,000 scientific and academic journals available in full text on the Internet. More than 5,000 of these e-serials are available free of charge, and they are currently being evaluated individually as possible additions to the Library’s virtual collections. EZB member institutions collect the titles and maintain the bibliographic data for the individual titles. This service was developed in Germany at the Universitätsbibliothek Regensburg (University Library of Regensburg), in cooperation with the Universitätsbibliothek der Technischen Universität München (University Library of the Technical University of Munich).

E-Serials Cataloging Recommendation. This spring, acting Associate Librarian for Library Services Beacher Wiggins charged a study group led by Maureen Landry, chief of the Serial Record Division, to recommend an approach to cataloging the influx of 5,000 to 7,000 new electronic serials that the Library expects to receive in the next few years. The study group included catalogers, acquisitions specialists, reference librarians, and cataloging policy specialists. The group recommended that LC expand the use of the single-bibliographic-record approach to cover all electronic serials, at least for the next three years. (Under this recommendation, LC would not routinely catalog serial titles in aggregators at all, unless the titles themselves met the criteria for inclusion in the LC permanent collections.) The study group considered it essential for "blind" URLs in CONSER records - that is, URLs that are not valid for LC - to be stripped out of the bibliographic records before loading into the LC Integrated Library System. Working, LC-valid URLs would then be added to the holdings records. An implementation group will consider how to accomplish these changes.

AREA STUDIES COLLECTIONS DIRECTORATE

European Division

The Division continued to manage the Meeting of Frontiers project, a Russian-English digital library that chronicles the exploration and settlement of the American West, Alaska, and Siberia and the Russian Far East. In May the project team completed the sixth update and expansion of the site, adding collections from the Library of Congress, the State and University Library (SUB) of Lower Saxony, Göttingen, Germany, the National Library of Russia (NLR), and the Russian State Library (RSL). The largest component of the update was a significant portion of the world-famous Asch Collection from the SUB, the digitization of which was funded by a grant to the SUB by the German Society for Research. The digital images were made available to Meeting of Frontiers under the terms of a cooperative agreement between the SUB and the Library of Congress. With the latest additions, Meeting of Frontiers now includes over 330,000 digital images that are available for use in schools and libraries and by the general public.

The Division continued cooperative work with the Royal Library in the Netherlands on a second digital library project, “The Atlantic World: America and the Netherlands, 1609 to the Present,” that deals with the Dutch presence in North America in the 17^th century and later.

Hispanic Division

The Hispanic Division has completed 44 Portals for countries and areas of Latin America, Iberian and the Caribbean. The Portals to the World project is being coordinated by Everette Larson, Head of the Hispanic Division Reading Room.

The Hispanic Division is preparing a pilot of a Web offering entitled “The United States, Spain and the American Frontier.” It illustrates through rare texts, maps, and images the history of Spain in what today is the United States from 1500 to 1820. The division is also working on another digitization project on “The U.S. and Brazil: Contrasting Cultures,” which is not yet available to the public. The project showcases the parallel development of the U.S. and Brazil in the 19^th century. The Division’s Web page has added cybercasts of two conferences, on politics in the Latin America in the 21^st century and on Haiti.

Office of Scholarly Programs

One of the most significant events in the life of the Library of Congress since the last meeting of ALA was the official opening of the John W. Kluge Center on May 7, 2002. A number of distinguished guests assembled in the Main Reading Room of the Library where they saluted Mr. Kluge for his great commitment to the Library of Congress.

We are happy to report that the John W. Kluge Center at the Library of Congress is quickly becoming one of the most prestigious centers for advanced study in the arts and humanities --- all using the vast and unparalleled collections and resources of the Library of Congress. A number of fellowship and grant opportunities are offered to both senior level distinguished scholars and scholars who are in the early years of their careers.

Among those who have been in residence since 1 January 2003:

Toni Carbo, a recognized leader in the field of information technology

John Hope Franklin, America's most honored historian whose book, From Slavery to Freedom: A History of African Americans, is widely considered to be the definitive work on the subject

Klaus Larres, 2nd holder of the Kissinger Chair and a noted authority on the Cold War

Libby Larsen, one of America's most prolific and most performed living composers

Sir Michael Howard, Great Britain's foremost military historian

John Noonan, Senior judge from the Ninth Circuit who is researching the intellectual history of moral ideas in the West

Robert Remini, distinguished American historian who is writing a history of the US House of Representatives

Romila Thapar, foremost historian of ancient India

Among the significant events hosted by the Kluge Center, the annual Kissinger lecture, given by Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, president of the Convention on the Future of Europe, on 11 February 2003 should be noted.

For more information on the John W. Kluge Center see http://www.loc.gov/kluge

CATALOGING DIRECTORATE

New Hires

The Cataloging Directorate has nearly completed the process of recruiting and hiring approximately 48 new catalogers and two new Dewey classifiers authorized in the fiscal 2002 hiring plan. This is the largest number of “regular postings,” or hiring from applicant pools that included external candidates, that the directorate has had in more than a decade. For each posting, a position description and job analysis were submitted through AVUE, the Library’s automated position management system. Nearly every cataloging team in the directorate will obtain at least one new cataloger through this process. Five new catalogers will be added to the Computer Files and Microforms Team, Special Materials Cataloging Division, including a cataloger with Spanish language expertise. The following teams will gain two new catalogers: Law, Germanic and Scandinavian Languages, and Religion, Philosophy, and Psychology teams, Social Sciences Cataloging Division; Rare Book Team, Special Materials Cataloging Division; Hebraica and Southeast/South Asia teams, Regional and Cooperative Cataloging Division; and Hispanic Team and Children’s Literature Team, History and Literature Cataloging Division. The Special Materials Cataloging Division will hire three new catalogers for music and sound recordings. The directorate chose to recruit catalogers from outside the Library, at the cost of foregoing or postponing needed hiring in other positions, in order to obtain critically needed language skills. As of June 9, 25 new catalogers were on board, including four new catalogers with Chinese language skills and three with Arabic. Overall, our selecting officials report that the quality of the applicant pools has been outstanding.

CD Workflow: The CD Workflow has managed not only to achieve currency in establishing bibliographic control for items new to the Library, but has now begun processing the arrearage collection of some 140,000 discs for which incomplete cataloging and no accurate holdings information exists. These will be re-assign today’s standard shelf numbers, will be searched in our database and provided cataloging if not represented, and all pieces will be accounted for via holdings and item records.

The Library is also facing the influx of new sound recording formats: CD/DVD combo publications will be handled fully in MBRS and giving both sound and moving image descriptive cataloging; Super Audio Compact Discs, MP3 files, DVD-Audio, and other new formats are also making their ways into the workflow. The Library is working closely with the Music Library Association, the Association for Recorded Sound Collections, CC:DA, and the Joint Steering Committee for AACR2 to help determine the best way of describing these new formats.

Bibliographic Enrichment Advisory Team (BEAT) see also Electronic Resources Cataloging

The Bibliographic Enrichment Advisory Team (BEAT) is a Cataloging Directorate initiative aimed at developing tools to aid catalogers, reference specialists, and searchers in creating and locating information. Major components of the team's work are enriching the content of Library of Congress bibliographic records, improving access to the data the records contain, and conducting research and development in areas that can contribute to furthering these efforts. Additional information regarding BEAT and its work may be found at http://lcweb.loc.gov/catdir/beat. Questions about BEAT or its projects may be directed to the BEAT Chair, John D. Byrum, Jr., Chief Regional and Cooperative Cataloging Division, Library of Congress, jbyr@loc.gov.

Here are ten BEAT projects, from among the more than two dozen ongoing at present.

ONIX TOC. ONIX (ONline Information eXchange) is a means of representing book industry product information and is being used by some publishers today to communicate that data electronically. The Library receives this data directly, and with programming developed by a BEAT team member, the project creates Table of Contents (TOC) records that the Library makes available on the Web. Hyper-links are made from this TOC data to the catalog record, and the reverse, thus allowing researchers to move from or to the Library's online catalog where they can make additional searches for related or other material. To date the project has created about 36,000 ONIX TOC records. A fuller description of the ONIX TOC project as well as brief descriptions of some other BEAT TOC initiatives can be found in "Cataloging Electronic Resources at LC" in Volume 9, no. 13 of LC CATALOGING NEWSLINE (the Online Newsletter of the Cataloging Directorate Library of Congress) November 2001, available online at

http://www.loc.gov/catdir/lccn/lccn0913.html

ONIX Descriptions. An outgrowth of the ONIX TOC initiative is the creation of records that contain publisher''s descriptions of books. Based on ONIX encoded materials, file creation and linking is similar to that of the ONIX TOC initiative above, and the project has created approximately 32,000 such records, although links are currently made from the catalog record only in an ongoing fashion. Readers will find a sample at http://lcweb.loc.gov/catdir/beat/onix.descriptions.sample.html

Questions regarding BEAT's ONIX initiatives may be sent to David W. Williamson, project chair, at dawi@loc.gov

Digital Tables of Contents. The Digital Tables of Contents project creates machine readable Table of

Contents (TOC) data from TOC surrogates and these materials are subsequently HTML-encoded and placed on a server at the Library. The process cross-links the TOC to underlying catalog records. Both the catalog records themselves and the linked TOC data may be viewed through a Web browser by accessing the Library's online catalog access options. Almost 15,000 TOCs have been created and linked, in this project and more than 1,500, 000 hits have been recorded on the TOC files section of the Cataloging Directorate Web pages. For information regarding the Digital Tables of Contents project readers may contact Bruce Knarr, project chair at bkna@loc.gov

A cybercast from January 2002 prepared as part of the LC staff Digital-Future-and-You series, containing information relating to all the TOC initiatives may be viewed online at

http://lcweb.loc.gov/catdir/beat/eTOC/jan30-eTOC.html

BECITES+ ((Bibliographies plus: Enhanced Citations with Indexes, Tables of contents, Electronic resources and Sources cited) enhances staff-produced bibliographies, and the catalog records for the titles included in such bibliographies, by adding links to their tables of contents, indexes, and sources cited. Another recent initiative has been the scanning and conversion to text of heavily used, but out-of-print guides to Library collections whose individual items are not easily identified in the Library's online catalog.

The project uses scanning and OCR to substantially enrich these traditional printed bibliographies. Links in the catalog records are made for each type of data file created for the work in question as well as between all the related files for any work for which a Web file is included. Completed works within this project include guides on business history, African American business, Thomas Jefferson, and materials on Immigrant Arrivals to the United States. A number of additional works are in progress, covering additional business resources, guides to microfilm collections, prints and photographs resources, and manuscripts from several Middle Eastern monasteries, as well as a guide to Ladino publications in the Library of Congress.

Information concerning the titles in the project is available online, and further details about the project as well as a full list of completed bibliographies and other work in progress can be found at http://www.loc.gov/rr/business/guide.

Web Access To Publications in Series. This project has several facets, the first of which is to link many "working paper/discussion paper" type serial publications to their Web-based electronic versions. By linking to these electronic versions, LC can provide more timely, comprehensive, and cost effective access to these series.

In a second area of activity the Library's Serial Record Division is creating electronic serial records for a number of high research value monographic series that have not been represented in LC's catalogs, thereby opening up a rich, new source of information for researchers who may now access electronic versions of these items.

So far, these efforts have provided access to the full, electronic texts of more than 18,000 individual monographs As a further enhancement, a pilot project has been launched to create electronic resource records for the individual monographs of selected series. A number of links to examples and further description of this project can be found on the BEAT Web page at http://www.loc.gov/catdir/beat/beat.html. Questions about this project may be directed to project chair, Gabriel Horchler, ghor@loc.gov

Web Access to Works in the Public Domain. BEAT has launched an initiative to link LC bibliographic records to full text electronic copies of these same cataloged materials residing in collections of other institutions. Though these works, all in the public domain, have been digitized by various institutions, many of the original printed works are also in the collections of the Library of Congress. In order for records to qualify for enhancement in these projects, the electronic versions have to be an exact version of a print version represented in the Library''s collection, as established by the presence of an Library of Congress Control Number (LCCN) for the electronic version that matches the LCCN for the print version. By linking LC catalog records to these electronic versions the Library expects to provide users with more unified and centralized access to materials of this nature as well as provide users of the LC collections or of LC catalog data rich and substantive information about the contents of these works as well as access to their texts. The first links to resources come through cooperative agreements with the University of Michigan (for materials digitized in its Making of America project, described at http://moa.umdl.umich.edu/ and Indiana University (works comprising its Wright American Fiction, 1851-1875 project), described at http://www.letrs.indiana.edu/web/w/wright2/. For the University of Michigan materials, it proved possible to enhance 1,267 LC bibliographic records, and for the Indiana University project 653 LC bibliographic records were linked to the online versions. Further description of the project is also available on the BEAT Web page.

The Library is interested in joining with other trusted partners in linking printed and digitized texts. Prospective partners are invited to contact BEAT chair, John D. Byrum, at jbyr@loc.gov

Abstracts and annotations. LC reference staff have created a Web-based annotated bibliography, A Guide to the Microform Collections in the Humanities and Social Sciences Division, (available online at http://www.loc.gov/rr/microform/guide/) describing many of the Library's microform collections. However, the bibliographic records for these collections do not carry the same extremely descriptive data as is found in the online Guide. Accordingly, this project is adding the text of all the annotations to the underlying LC catalog record for those collections that have been assigned a Library of Congress Catalog Card Number (the LCCN). This will result in the record carrying a much fuller description of the collection identified in the catalog record, and should be very useful in helping researchers who find the entry assess and utilize that collection.

Three initiatives adding review data to LC Catalog records:

Best Reference Books. With the permission of the American Library Association, this project has added the annotations with reviews from the "Outstanding reference sources" sections of annual compilations that appear in American Libraries, to LC bibliographic records. The team has just completed work on the 2002-2003 titles, and this marks the fifth year for the project, with reviews from 1999 through 2003 now being available in the corresponding LC catalog records.

HLAS Reviews: BEAT extracts reviews for monographs from a separately maintained database for the Handbook of Latin American Studies(HLAS) at the Library, and inserts them into the corresponding records in the LC catalog. The HLAS Web site address is http://www.loc.gov/hlas/

H-Net Reviews: BEAT has recently undertaken a project to link catalog records for selected materials in the Library’s collections to reviews for them in Michigan State University's H-Net Reviews in the Humanities and Social Sciences, an online resource that contains many scholarly and academic reviews. With the collegial support of the University, BEAT is implementing a process by which the selected LC catalog records will be identified in the H-Net files, and subsequently linked to the relevant review for those resources residing in the substantial body of scholarly review literature on H-Net. The reviews are timely, and many also include footnotes and bibliographies. The reviews also contain LC subject heading terms as well as additional bibliographic information, such as the ISBN. The H-Net Web site is found at http://www2.h-net.msu.edu/reviews/.

Cataloging Policy

MARC Code List for Languages. The 2003 edition of the list includes all valid codes and code assignments as of February 2003. There are 24 code additions and five changed code captions in this revision.

LC Classification.

Obsolete and optional numbers in LCC. The Library of Congress Classification schedules have traditionally used parentheses around certain class numbers to indicate one of two conditions: (1) the number was formerly valid but is now obsolete and no longer used by LC, or (2) the number is an optional number that was never used by LC but is provided for those libraries that wish to follow an arrangement that differs from LC practice. In either case, a see reference or explanatory note generally appears at the location of the parenthesized number to indicate to the user the valid number currently used by LC.

The Library has introduced a change in the display conventions for these two types of numbers. Numbers of the first type continue to be displayed in parentheses, but numbers of the second type are now being displayed in angle brackets. See references or explanatory notes continue to appear under both types of numbers. This change in displays has already been implemented in Classification Web, the Library's online Web-based classification product. It will also appear in new printed editions of the classification schedules dated 2003 or later.

Religious law. Subclasses KB (Religious law in general. Comparative religious law) and KBM (Jewish law) are the most recent of the religious law schedules to be added to the forthcoming hard copy publication of Class KB (Religious legal systems). As part of the development of KBM, major revisions to BM (Judaism) were approved. The volume KB (Religious legal systems), will include KB, KBM, KBP (Islamic law) and the expanded and revised subclasses KBR/KBU for Canon law.

Asian calligraphy. The Library of Congress has revised its classification practice for works of Asian calligraphy. In the past, these works have been classed in either subclass ND (Painting) or in subclass NK (Decorative arts). In addition, calligraphy of some Asian countries has been treated differently from calligraphy of other Asian countries. The following changes in practice will achieve more uniform treatment of these works: 1) The span of numbers ND1454-ND1457 have been made obsolete since calligraphy is generally not considered a type of painting. The Library of Congress has discontinued the use of these numbers. Existing materials in these numbers will not be reclassified. A reference has been added to the classification schedule directing the user to NK3600+ ; 2) The subarrangement of non-Roman calligraphy in NK3633-NK3639 was revised to provide a more comprehensive treatment similar to the subarrangement previously used in ND; and 3) Changes have been made at the beginning of subclass NK to indicate that the subclass also includes certain art forms that are considered to be fine arts.

Decimal Classification (Dewey)

OCLC Forest Press will not be sponsoring a Dewey breakfast/update at this Annual Conference. “Dewey Decimal Classification 22 and Beyond” is the title of the ALCTS CC:DA SAC (Subject Analysis Committee) preconference, Friday, June 20, 7:30 am-5:30 pm, at the Westin Harbour Castle. Instructors for breakout sessions include the Dewey assistant editors, Julianne Beall and Gregory New. Beall will also speak at the preconference on “Social Change and Dewey: A Case Study of Religion and Social Groups.”

Electronic Resources Cataloging

Archiving Projects (see also MINERVA under Library Services/National Library). The Computer Files and Microforms Team (CF&M), Special Materials Cataloging Division (SMCD), has processed collection level records for all the sites submitted to date under the Library’s MINERVA contract. Item-level control is being provided by means of MODS records created under the contract for some collections.

Bicentennial Action Plan. The LC Conference 2000 Action Plan Forum scheduled for this Annual Conference has been cancelled. The Forum will be held during the regular Sunday morning time slot at ALA Midwinter Meeting in January 2004. The Action Plan, “Bibliographic Control of Web Resources: A Library of Congress Action Plan,” has been updated and is available on the Bicentennial Conference Web site at URL http://www.loc.gov/catdir/bibcontrol.

LC Pilot of OCLC’s Connexion Digital Archive System. LC is in the process of testing the OCLC Digital Archive. LC staff from the Congressional Research Service (CRS), the Office of Strategic Initiatives (OSI), the Digital Reference Team (DRT), MINERVA, and SMCD have been testing the system by harvesting and archiving individual sites identified and selected by reference selectors. The outcome of the pilot is to determine if the OCLC system would be useful for the LC archiving projects. The pilot ends this August.

ER Cataloging Expansion. In continuing the expansion of processing electronic/digital resources throughout the Cataloging Directorate, the Computer Files and Microforms Team a total of ten catalogers from divisions throughout the Directorate have now received instruction in cataloging electronic resources from. Therefore Arts and Sciences Cataloging Division, History and Literature Cataloging Division, Regional and Cooperative Cataloging Division, and Social Science Cataloging Division all have staff trained to catalog electronic resources and support the Digital Programs of the Library.

TrackER (Digital Resources Traffic Manager). CF&M has been working with Information Technology Services (ITS) to develop an online workflow system to assist with the distribution of digital resources for cataloging. The design is based on the Electronic Cataloging in Publication (ECIP) traffic manager system. TrackER, the new system, is designed to assist with the distribution of electronic resources and track them from the time they are submitted into TrackER throughout cataloging. TrackER will also generate statistical reports. CF&M coordinated a group of potential users of the TrackER from various divisions across directorates to assist with testing. The group reviewed the first phase of development and submitted comments to the development team. Demos of TrackER’s beta version have been presented by the development team–Allene Hayes (SMCD), Stan Lerner (ITS), and Tanya Brown (PSC). Although it is still in development, the TrackER system is now in production and is indeed a work in progress.

Old Catalog Updates. The old catalog sound recording bibliographic records in LCDB have been undergoing a slow metamorphosis from their misleading “Books” format into the sound recording format, making them available via OPAC searches which employ format limits. With a sound recording format-driven approach, the technician- implemented project has finished most old catalog 78s and most pre-1974 LPs.

National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections (NUCMC)

Since Midwinter Meeting, NUCMC staff have produced 1,630 RLIN bibliographic records describing collections held by repositories located in Connecticut, District of Columbia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Montana, New Hampshire, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wyoming.

“Hits” on the NUCMC Web site HTTP://www.loc.gov/coll/nucmc since the beginning of the fiscal year totaled 50,796. NUCMC continued to receive praise for its provision of the gateways providing free searches in the RLG AMC file and the OCLC Mixed Materials file. Fiscal year to date searches on the RLG gateway alone totaled 69,645.

Montana Union List Project (MULP). By the end of May, NUCMC had produced a total of total of 4241 preliminary (845) and full level (3396) project records in the RLG AMC file.

Cooperative H(istorically Black Colleges and Universities) Archival Survey Project (CHASP). To date 288 collections have been cataloged from twenty-one repositories: Allen University, Arkansas Baptist College, Barber-Scotia College, Benedict College, Bennett College, Bluefield State College, Bowie State University, Claflin College Archives, Clinton Junior College, Delaware State University, Elizabeth City State University, Fayetteville State University, Harris-Stowe State College, Lewis College of Business, Lincoln University, Morgan State University, North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, Paul Quinn College, Southwestern Christian College, University of Maryland, Eastern Shore, and Winston-Salem State University.

Pinyin Romanization

Library staff members are actively pursuing some sixteen pinyin conversion and cleanup tasks. Records for instrumental music, videocassettes and motion pictures are being converted, as are subject headings, chronological subdivisions, and the most frequently used descriptive headings on non-Chinese records. Discrepancies between the results of the machine conversion and the romanization guidelines are being resolved. Search strategies are being pursued that will identify records that have strings of unconverted romanized Chinese text. Former headings on converted authority records will be systematically searched against access points on bibliographic records. A description of all sixteen projects may be found on the Library's pinyin home page, at: http://www.loc.gov/catdir/pinyin/cleanup.html.

Program for Cooperative Cataloging (PCC) Activities

In the first half of fiscal 2003, PCC members created 79,665 new name authorities; 4,769 new series authorities; 1,543 subject authorities; and 1,092 LC classification proposals. Original cataloging from CONSER totaled 10,476 records and BIBCO members created 37,753 bibliographic records.

PCC “new directions.” The semi-annual PCC Participants' Meeting at ALA Midwinter Meeting, convened by PCC Chair Robert Wolven, Columbia University, focused on the results of the November 2002 PCC Policy Committee (PoCo) meeting. Wolven noted that the theme of "new directions" for the Program for Cooperative Cataloging resulted from the PCC’s already having achieved milestones during its development and growth and that the PCC is now charting new paths with a diversification of directions. The PCC is now concentrating on strengthening the underpinnings of the program and building for the future: broadening coverage of needed records; improved training for all catalogers; adapting standards to meet changing needs. At the May 2003 Operations Committees meetings for CONSER and BIBCO, these themes re-appeared as the newly revised PCC Strategic and Tactical Plans were reviewed for action items by both groups. Issues included standards for new types of materials, membership types and recruitment for coverage of certain topical or language expertise, numerical quotas, and costs of maintaining members.

BIBCO Operations Committee meeting, May 2003. BIBCO is the monograph bibliographic record component of the PCC. Much discussion on electronic and integrating resources resulted in the addition of “PCC practice” notations to applicable LCRIs and in a review of draft documentation on cataloging of Integrating Resources. A sidebar discussion on differing practices for 5XX notes order has led to a draft LCRI to allow for optional order of notes. The BIBCO Ops Committee proposed, and the PCC Policy Committee later approved, the establishment of a Task Group to Survey PCC Libraries on Cataloging of Remote Access Electronic Resources with a charge to develop and conduct a survey of all PCC libraries to determine the extent of current cataloging of remote access electronic resources. The survey should elicit information on the selection criteria and decision process and identify areas where there is a perceived need for more access to be provided. The final report with survey results and recommendations is to be submitted in time for the Policy Committee meeting to consider at its 2003 annual meeting. The BIBCO Training Manual is under review, with a May 2004 deadline. At the May 2003 meeting, charts defining “Identification and Authentication of BIBCO Records” were singled out for discussion and clarification. Further concerns include incorporating the impact of the revision of AACR2 Chapter 12 on series and a module on uniform titles into the training manual.

At a joint session with CONSER, members considered pursuing a change in PCC and OCLC policies that call for changing non-English catalog-language records found on OCLC to English as part of the authentication process. There has been a great deal of discussion of this issue at other forums, particularly regarding Spanish catalog-language records. The policy may be a barrier to expansion of PCC participation in non-English speaking countries. CONSER and OCLC have the precedent of accepting French and English language records for the same title, identified by a language code in the 040 $b. There was agreement that the issue should be put placed on the upcoming PCC Steering Committee meeting agenda. Until PCC policy is changed however, the status quo for changing such records will be followed.

CONSER Operations Committee meeting, May 2003. CONSER is the cooperative cataloging program for serial bibliographic records. The CONSER Operations Committee in early May agreed to a new approach to cataloging online serials. Rather than create separate records for each aggregation, CONSER catalogers will create an “aggregator-neutral” record that will represent all of the online manifestations of a serial. The record will be neutral as to which aggregations the serial is contained in, with the exception of certain URLs. Details will be posted on the CONSER Web site ( http://www.loc.gov/acq/conser) and documented in the CONSER Cataloging Manual. The new policy will take effect July 1.

The Serials Cataloging Cooperative Training Program Integrating Resources Cataloging Workshop is now available from the Cataloging Distribution Service. Prepared by Steven J. Miller (University of Wisconsin), the workshop includes instructions for cataloging Web sites, databases, and loose-leafs that are updated over time. It will debut as a preconference at ALA, along with the Electronic Resources workshop. The Advanced Serials Cataloging and Electronic Serials Cataloging workshops have recently been revised; the new files will be available in June.

An SCCTP assessment survey was completed in May that solicited feedback from both trainees and their supervisors on the effectiveness of SCCTP workshops. Results are overwhelming supportive of the program and its ability to enhance cataloging skills. Future directions and the development of distance learning will be the topics of a continuing education forum at ALA on Sunday, June 22^nd from 4:00-5:30.

A CONSER task group to study the role of publication pattern data for electronic journals, headed by Yumin Jiang, University of Pittsburgh Health Sciences Library, also completed a survey in April. Results show that few respondents think pattern data is necessary for electronic journals, even though a number suggested potential uses for such data. A summary will be posted on the CONSER Web site and an article is expected in the Serials Review.

Abstracting and indexing coverage notes (field 510) were removed from CONSER records by OCLC during March. The presence of the fields was controversial, CONSER could no longer maintain the data, and it was determined that there were better sources for such information.

Jean Hirons, CONSER Coordinator, and Sue Fuller, University of Texas, Austin, attended a session at the FORO conference in College Station, Texas in late March to share information about CONSER with Mexican serials librarians. Hirons and Fuller learned about a variety of serials databases in Mexico and also held discussions on the development and coordination of SCCTP in Mexico.

In March, Jean Hirons announced that she will retire at the end of June in order to pursue her work as an artist. She will work part time between July and December.

Standing Committee on Automation (SCA). The Standing Committee on Automation has been asked to investigate the way that ILS's make use of linking entry fields, and to make suggestions for possible improvements. A Task Group on Linking Entries is charged to examine how ILS's make use of linking entry fields in records for serials and other resources and establish criteria for assessing their effectiveness in handling this data; determine the types of functionality that are needed to use such links effectively; develop a list of "best practices" for ILS's in making use of linking entry fields in order to optimize access; as appropriate, consider the recommendations of the JSC task group on expression level cataloging in regard to links and how these recommendations might impact on the work of this group. A progress report is to be submitted by the SCA meeting in Toronto, with the final report to follow no later than the 2004 ALA Midwinter Meeting.

Standing Committee on Standards (SCS). The SCS Task Group on Conference Publications issued its final report at ALA Midwinter, Jan. 17, 2003. Also issued is the final report of the SCS Task Group on the Function of the Authority File, April 1, 2003. Both reports, available through the PCC home page, offered a series of recommendations for rule or LCRI revisions to address practical difficulties in dealing with their subjects.

Standing Committee on Training (SCT). A joint ALA-Subject Access Committee/PCC Standing Committee on Training Subject Training Materials Committee has begun working collaboratively on the development of a subject cataloging course based on the SCCTP model. A draft new section in the BIBCO Training Manual on the cataloging of Integrating Resources, prepared by a task group chaired by Diane Boehr and Alice Jacobs of the National Library of Medicine, was presented at the BIBCO Operations Committee meeting in May 2003. An ALCTS Task Force on Continuing Education for Catalogers (LC Action Plan Item 5.3) headed by the former chair of the SCT will continue to report on the progress of this effort to the SCT. The Task Group should submit an interim report to the chairs of the Standing Committee on Standards and the Standing Committee on Training by the Annual ALA Meeting in June 2003, and a final report to the chairs by September 30, 2003.

NACO. Two new libraries have joined NACO (the name authority component of the PCC), and two existing funnel projects have recruited one new member each. NACO-MEXICO and the Virginia NACO Project were created, bringing 19 new institutions into the PCC.

Following the October course “Train the NACO Trainer,” regional NACO trainers have begun to apply their skills in the classroom for their own and other libraries. Of particular note is the activity in South Africa, where Hester Marais offered retraining to her GAELIC South Africa Project and did a NACO orientation session for the University of Botswana. New trainers at LC are delivering NACO-based name authority training to new LC hires on a regular basis.

NACO training documentation and sessions are constantly revised by LC and PCC staff to meet the needs of groups receiving training. A subcommittee of the Standing Committee on Training is preparing the third edition of the NACO Participants’ Manual.

In line with the new PCC procedures adopted in 2002, the NACO program is increasing communications with its members. Every NACO institution can monitor its contributions on the statistics page of the PCC Web site. Institutions with low production have received letters to encourage them to reach their contribution goals for the year.

A “Train the PCC Series Trainer” course is scheduled for late October 2003, followed by a PCC NACO Series Institute. The goal is to equip experienced PCC catalogers to share the responsibility for series training, following the models of NACO and BIBCO.

SACO. SACO is the subject authority component of the PCC. A PCC Task Group on SACO Program Development, charged with examining present and future parameters of the program for participants, is to make its preliminary report by ALA Annual, June 2003 with a final report to be submitted in time for consideration at the annual

PoCo meeting, November, 2003.

Training in subject analysis and Cataloger’s Desktop has been conducted at the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of California, Davis. UC, Berkeley also received training in LC classification in a separate workshop on the use of LC call numbers, and a demonstration of Classification Web. A SACO funnel for Hawaii is contributing proposals.

INTCO (international PCC activities). PCC programs in the current fiscal year include 57 member institutions outside the U.S.; approximately one-half are individual members, the others participate through funnels. Fifty-three members contribute to NACO. Ten contribute to both NACO and SACO. Four members are SACO contributors only. Three institutions are members of CONSER. Countries represented by participants are Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Costa Rica, Egypt, Hong Kong, Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, Mexico, New Zealand, Poland, Singapore, Swaziland, Union of South Africa, United Kingdom (members in England, Scotland, and Wales), and Venezuela.

Midyear statistics for fiscal 2003 show international PCC participants contributing 20.3% of new name authority records; 29.2% of the revisions to existing name authority records; 31.2% of the new subject headings contributed by the PCC to LCSH; and 17.7% of the revisions made to existing LCSH. International CONSER members performed 15.1% of the program’s authentications.

A NACO training workshop at the Universidad Autónoma de San Luis Potosí (UASLP), originally scheduled so that UASLP could be admitted into NACO, resulted in the creation of a funnel of nine Mexican libraries. The BIBCO and CONSER Operations Committees have asked OCLC to allow for parallel existence of non-English catalog language records in its database. This will save bibliographic information not included in English-catalog language records for the same title. The South African funnel has done expansion training for NACO of both current and new members and information sessions for neighboring states such as Botswana; the funnel director attended recent series training. The British Library continues to be the largest single NACO contributor. The British Library and Edmonton Public Library remain annually among the largest SACO contributors.

Strategic Plan

The Cataloging Management Team held a facilitated retreat on March 10 and 11, 2003, to develop a strategic plan for fiscal years 2003 through 2008. The plan, which has been approved by the acting Associate Librarian for Library Services and was presented to staff on May 20, includes six strategic goals and thirty initiatives. The six strategic goals are: I. Provide national and international leadership in the development and promotion of cataloging policy, practice, standards, and programs; II. Provide appropriate and quality bibliographic and inventory control data for onsite and remote resources; III. Attain cataloging currency and meet arrearage reduction targets; IV. Provide leadership in the application of bibliographic control/access to digital content; V. Develop staff resources and provide effective personnel management; and VI. Ensure secure environment for Directorate staff, collections, and data. The six goals state the work that the Cataloging Directorate needs to do to carry out its mission during this entire period, covering both new initiatives and the ongoing operations of the directorate. Ongoing operations include cataloging production, support for cooperative cataloging programs, leadership in cataloging policy, and support for all Library programs, particularly affirmative action, effective staff management and recognition, the Library’s security plan, and professional development.

Cataloging (Books and Serials) Production

FY03 Oct.-April FY02 Oct.-April FY02

LC Full/Core-Level Cataloging 98,918 94,504 199,586

Copy Cataloging 18,441 17,870 49,576

Minimal-Level Cataloging 21,230 18,511 38,328

Collection-Level Cataloging 2,176 2,409 4,259

TOTAL records created 140,765 133,294 291,749

TOTAL volumes cataloged N/A N/A 310,235

Authority Records

Names 45,861 45,159 88,475

Series 4,622 4,092 8,909

Subjects 4,197 3,702 7,365

TOTAL 54,680 52,953 104,749

For more information contact: Judith A. Mansfield, Action Director for Cataloging, Library of Congress, LM 642, Washington, DC 20540-4300 (telephone: 202-707-5333 or Internet: juma@loc.gov).

NATIONAL SERVICES DIRECTORATE

Cataloging Distribution Service

Cataloger’s Desktop Web-Based Training. The Cataloging Distribution Service (CDS) and the Technical Processing Automation Instruction Office (TPAIO) have developed an online course called Cataloger’s Desktop Web-Based Training. This course covers all the features, contents, and functions of Cataloger’s Desktop, a CD-ROM cataloging tool marketed by CDS that contains virtually all of the documents and resources consulted regularly by catalogers.

Cataloger’s Desktop Web-Based Training is hosted on the CDS Web site at http://www.loc.gov/cds/desktop-training. Users may access the site at any time, at no charge, (no registration is required), from any computer (at home or office) that is connected to the Web. It isn't necessary to have Cataloger’s Desktop installed on the computer used for taking the course. The course simulates Cataloger’s Desktop and provides extensive feedback if steps are not performed correctly. The course works best with the Internet Explorer browser, but is accessible with Netscape 4.73.

The entire course takes approximately four to six hours to complete. It includes four modules: Introduction (including a syllabus menu), Navigation, Searching, and Settings. Trainees may work sequentially or select a particular module or topic within a module for additional practice. Working in 20 to 30 minute increments is recommended.

Both new and experienced users of Cataloger’s Desktop will benefit from Cataloger’s Desktop Web-Based Training. The course includes an online evaluation form. TPAIO hopes that users will take the time to share their experiences. The feedback will help TPAIO design other online training courses.

Cataloger’s Desktop contains the full text of AACR2 (2002 revision) and virtually all of LC’s cataloging manuals on a single CD-ROM. A Web version is planned for 2004. Cataloger’s Desktop is sold on an annual subscription basis. A demonstration CD-ROM is available free on request from CDS ( cdsinfo@loc.gov).

Integrating Resources Cataloging Workshop Training Manuals. Training manuals for the newest Serials Cataloging Cooperative Training Program course, Integrating Resources Cataloging Workshop, were published in May. Under the auspices of the CONSER Program, SCCTP provides authoritative training materials and trained serials experts to enable broad-ranging education in the field of serials cataloging. CDS publishes the training manuals in PDF format so that libraries and networks offering the courses may replicate the desired number of manuals for participants in a class.

Pricing and order information for Integrating Resources and other SCCTP training manuals in PDF format may be found on the CDS Web site at http://www.loc.gov/cds. Instructions for sponsoring an SCCTP training session and arranging for a trained instructor are available at http://www.loc.gov/acq/conser/scctp/home.html.

Library of Congress Subject Headings, 26^th edition (2003). Library of Congress Subject Headings are published annually in printed form. The five-volume 26^th edition includes a new section listing all of the LCSH free-floating subdivisions. The new subdivision section appears after the AC [Juvenile] Subject Headings in Volume I. Both the AC Subject Headings section and the new Free-floating Subdivisions section are tabbed for easy reference. LCSH 26 is scheduled for shipment to subscribers in late July 2003.

Understanding MARC Bibliographic and Understanding MARC Authority Records. A new edition of the popular Understanding MARC Bibliographic booklet has just been published. The 2003 edition is available now from CDS. The first edition of a brand new publication, Understanding MARC Authority Records, will also be available in June. These publications are especially useful for library school students, system vendors, and others in search of a concise, easy-to-understand introduction to MARC. The booklets are sold as single copies or in packs of 25. For price and order information see the CDS Web site at http://www.loc.gov/cds.

New Edition of LC Classification Outline. The seventh edition (2003) of the LC Classification Outline will be available from CDS in late June. The 2003 edition is the first new print edition in 13 years. The last print edition was published in 1990. In recent years the Outline has been available on the Web, but customers have repeatedly requested an updated print edition. The Cataloging Policy and Support Office reviewed and updated the content for the new edition. The Web version of the Outline is available at no charge at http://www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/lcco/lcco.html. Copies of the 2003 print edition may be ordered from CDS at http://www.loc.gov/cds or cdsinfo@loc.gov.

FLICC/FEDLINK (Federal Library and Information Center Committee)

FEDLINK is in the process of reissuing over 70 contracts with online retrieval services for FY2004. One change will be the expansion of a streamlined contracting process for agencies that want to use FEDLINK contracts but do not need to transfer funds to us and have FEDLINK pay their bills. The latter method, traditional “transfer pay” services, will continue, but what is called “direct pay” is being replaced with “DirectExpress” for the online services. (Payment for books and serials will not change yet.) Agencies do not register with FEDLINK for DirectExpress, but just cite FEDLINK contract numbers on their purchase orders; the vendor then pays FEDLINK a small fee based on the amount billed to the agencies. This process is similar to what happens with GSA schedule contracts. FEDLINK successfully tested the process this fiscal year with five vendors: West, ProQuest, Lexis-Nexis, Gale and Ebsco Online.

FEDLINK and Contracts staff have completed reissuing new contracts for the 50+ transfer pay accounts formerly with Faxon. Existing subscription agents with FEDLINK contracts are American Overseas Book Company, Ebsco, and Swets-Blackwell. About 20 libraries for whom payments were made are now claiming issues from the publishers who agreed to participate in the bankruptcy settlement by supplying titles to participating libraries and taking a small settlement from the Court in lieu of full payment.

OPERATIONS DIRECTORATE

LC ILS (Integrated Library System)

The Integrated Library System Program has been successful in expanding access and improving service for external users of the Library of Congress Database. Over the past twelve months the Library has increased the number of external user sessions for the Library of Congress Online Catalog (catalog.loc.gov) and improved service for Z39.50 users. Reports from users having difficulty accessing the Catalog have decreased significantly as a result of these actions. The Library will continue to explore ways to improve the capacity of its integrated library management system (ILMS) to keep up with the ever-increasing demand for the system.

The Integrated Library System Program is currently planning to upgrade to the 2001.2 version of Voyager by the end of this calendar year. The Library plans to implement the Unicode standard in its ILMS in 2004. As part of that effort, the Library is working in strategic partnership with its vendor, Endeavor Information Systems, Inc., to test the Unicode conversion of MARC 21 records in the Library of Congress Database. In preparation for the implementation of Unicode, the Library has identified bibliographic records for correction, which are being re-distributed by the Cataloging Distribution Service.

July 1, 2003 will mark the first anniversary of the Library of Congress Authorities (authorities.loc.gov), a permanent service that provides free access to LC’s authority data via the Web.

In January, 2003 the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped (NLS) migrated to LC’s ILMS environment. The NLS Database became available via the Web in May, 2003.

Network Development and MARC Standards Office (NDMSO)

Z39.50 International Next Generation. The Library of Congress has organized a series of initiatives, collectively referred to as “ZING” (Z39.50-International: Next Generation), to evolve Z39.50 to a mainstream, contemporary information retrieval protocol. One of these initiative is SRW (Search and Retrieval Web Service), a Web platform protocol intended to be attractive to information providers, vendors, and users. It lowers the barrier to implementation, but preserves the existing intellectual contributions of Z39.50 that have accumulated over 20 years, discarding aspects no longer useful or meaningful. After starting the SRW initiative with a small international development and implementation group in June 2001, the initial specifications (version 1.0) were finalized and announced in November 2002. Version 1.0 will remain stable for a test and implementation-experience period of about nine months. Version 1.1 will be released in early Fall 2003.

MARC 21 Records for Acquisitions. The Library of Congress now receives MARC 21 bibliographic records for non-U.S. imprints from 24 sources covering 29 countries. All of these sources are booksellers who have developed the ability to export bibliographic data in the MARC 21 format. LC is working with its new vendor in Serbia to assist them in producing MARC 21 bibliographic records for the titles they supply. LC is also working with East View, its vendor in Russia, to help them expand their MARC 21 records service to include titles in languages other than Russian and Ukrainian. Test records for titles in Belorussian and Moldavian have recently been analyzed. Some work on character encoding remains to be done. East View also supplies materials in languages of Central Asia.

All of LC’s foreign MARC distribution services have been retired, the flow of records having changed so that most of these records now go into OCLC and/or RLIN for use by libraries in copy cataloging. Some of the vendors whom LC has assisted in developing a MARC capability also provide resource data to the utilities for copy cataloging and other functions.

Copyright Records. LC is progressing with work to migrate copyright registration descriptive information from a proprietary non-MARC system to a standard MARC 21 platform by the end of calendar 2004. The records, after migration, should be more compatible with traditional MARC 21 records. The Copyright file includes more than 30 million records.

Unicode implementation. LC is actively testing the results of character conversion of its MARC 21 bibliographic, authority, and holdings databases as part of a project to migrate to Unicode sometime in calendar 2004. LC is working with Endeavor Information Systems, Inc., its library system vendor, to test the conversion to Unicode, as well as system functionality in a Unicode environment. Part of the testing involved the creation of a robust set of test records to test the MARC 21 format and MARC-8 character repertoires.

MARCXML NDMSO has developed a new XML Schema and toolkit (MARCXML) for working with MARC metadata in XML. The schema uses a slim approach to describe MARC data and as a result provides a flexible “bus” through which metadata can be transformed and manipulated in various ways. Users can now convert MARC data to and from various descriptive metadata standards such as Dublin Core, ONIX, and MODS. MARC data encoded in the slim schema can easily be used to display MARC records on the Web in HTML. The toolkit is being developed in a modular fashion while emphasizing the use and promotion of freely available open-source tools. MARCXML is approved as an extension schema for descriptive metadata in METS (Metadata Encoding and Transmission Standard) objects and for use with Open Archives Initiative (OAI). LC supports OAI harvesting of records from several American Memory collections in MARCXML.

Metadata Object Description Schema (MODS). MODS version 2.0 of the schema was made available in Jan. 2003. MODS is a lightweight version of MARC using language based tags rather than numeric ones (e.g. “Title” rather than “245"), that is intended to carry selected data from existing MARC 21 records as well as supporting original resource description records. It targets applications that require richer resource descriptions than simple Dublin Core

but not as complex as full MARC. It is more compatible with library data than other metadata schemes such as ONIX. MODS is intended to be a compliment to other metadata formats. (See: http://www.loc.gov/standards/mods)

Several projects using MODS have been initiated inside LC, including the Audio-Visual Prototype Project, MINERVA (Mapping the Internet Electronic Resources Virtual Archive), and I Hear America Singing. MODS has been endorsed as a Z39.50 Next Generation specified format (for SRU/SRW) and as an extension schema for descriptive metadata in METS (Metadata Encoding and Transmission Standard) objects. In addition, LC is now exposing records from several American Memory collections in the Open Archives Initiative harvesting project with MODS as an alternative metadata format.

Version 2.1 will be available in June and will include several corrections and enhancements. This is not a major release, since it will not invalidate existing MODS records. The most important additions will be the ability to version the schema and records, some additional date types, and parsed citation information to allow for identifying a part being described that is in a larger work. The latter will facilitate use with OpenURLs.

Metadata Encoding and Transmission Standard (METS). NDMSO staff participated in the development of the Metadata Encoding and Transmission Standard (METS), an eXtensible Markup Language (XML) schema for creating XML documents that express the hierarchical structure of digital library objects, the names and locations of the digital files that comprise those objects, and the associated metadata. NDMSO is the maintenance agency for the METS standard which is being taken up by many digital library projects, worldwide. The official METS Web site and listserv is maintained by NDMSO. In the past year about 20 institutions implemented METS. These projects are listed at http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/mets/registry/. In October NDMSO will host a “METS Opening Day” conference for current and prospective METS implementors at the Library of Congress.

PRESERVATION DIRECTORATE

On April 20, 2003, Mark Sweeney was appointed to the position of Chief of the Preservation Reformatting Division. Mr. Sweeney was formerly Coordinator of the U.S. Newspaper Program and Head of the Newspaper Section in the Serial and Government Publications Division at the Library of Congress.

Book Storage Modules at Fort Meade, Maryland. The first book storage module of a thirteen-module facility that the Library is preparing on a military base outside of Washington opened in November of 2002. General collection books are currently being inventoried, cleaned and processed into the first book storage module. The 50 degree Fahrenheit, 30% relative humidity high-bay storage modules will store books in covered boxes. Books stored in the facility since it’s opening are being retrieved twice daily for use on Capitol Hill. The second module will open in 2005, with two additional modules and a cold storage facility for photographic materials opening in 2007. Programming and design of these modules will be completed in 2003. Two of the modules will also house boxed paper-based Special Collections materials and the cold storage facility will house photographic collections including the extensive microform collections of the Library of Congress.

National Audiovisual Conservation Center in Culpeper, Virginia. The new National Audiovisual Conservation Center due to open in two phases in 2004 and 2005 will enable the Library for the first time to consolidate its existing moving image and recorded sound collections in a single, centralized facility. Currently these collections are housed in four states and the District of Columbia. The NAVCC will have Preservation Laboratories for all audiovisual formats. The Center will include a Digital Audio-Visual Preservation System that will preserve and provide research access to both newly acquired born-digital content, as well as digitized analog legacy formats. This new Digital Preservation System is contributing greatly to the Library's overall development of a digital preservation strategy and content repository. It is serving as a test bed for research and innovation of the Digital Lifecycle for audio-visual formats, and as such is a key asset in advancing the goals of the NDIIPP (National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program).

LC/Getty Fellowship Program. The Conservation Division is in the second year of the Getty Grant Program/Library of Congress Preventive Conservation Fellowship. The current Fellow has completed projects in two major surveys of important collections, has carried out a full-cycle of monitoring in the on-going integrated pest management and insect eradication program and has carried out training in the Library of Congress emergency preparedness program. The current Fellow will continue the institutional survey of preventive conservation activities in libraries and other institutions, which serve the preservation of cultural heritage.

Preventive Conservation. In the first year and a half of a special allocation from Congress for Preventive Conservation, the Preservation Directorate stabilized collections, monitored and improved collection storage environments, specified storage furnishings and transport mechanisms, and examined the potential of a new paper-strengthening technique to rescue collections that are too brittle to serve. Over 60 proposals, submitted from 11 Divisions, were identified as candidates for stabilization and rehousing. Twelve new staff were hired to assist in this work. To date, approximately 33,000 items have been rehoused . Staff have also identified sixty sites that are being monitored on a quarterly basis. To round out the project, a consultant has been hired to develop specification s for furniture and transport systems that meet preservation requirements.

Conservation Treatment. Approximately 100,000 items from 16 collections have been treated in the Conservation Division so far this fiscal year. The items have ranged from the highly important and valuable Waldseemuller Map of 1507 (considered America's birth certificate), to Thomas Jefferson letters (for an exhibition on Lewis and Clark), William Blake's Songs of Innocence proofs, a six foot long 17^th century Armenian scroll, two Hebraic books (one showing censorship from the 15th century and the other incorporating an early Hebraic manuscript to line its binding), and several important photograph collections. In addition, over 100,000 photographs were surveyed for housing needs, and preservation priority surveys were completed for over 60 collections in 12 Curatorial Divisions.

Paper Strengthening Pilot-Program. The Library of Congress has contracted the Zentrum fur Bucherhaltung (ZFB) in Leipzig for the treatment of 15,000 newspaper sheets in FY 2003 as part of a paper strengthening pilot program. The Library has finished the analysis of ZFB treated sample material and completed a comprehensive research project comparing various methods of washing prior to strengthening. The paper strengthening will be accomplished by paper splitting, a process in which the paper gets split laterally and a new core paper is inserted between and adhered to the two sheet halves. Accelerated aging tests conducted at the Library have confirmed that the lifespan of these brittle papers increases dramatically after paper splitting treatment.

Mass Deacidification. Since the 1970's, the Library has provided international leadership in solving the worldwide problem of deteriorating, acidic paper. With a successful mass deacidification program in place since 1996, the Library has extended the useful life of more than 600,000 books through utilization of this new preservation technology that neutralizes the acid in paper. During fiscal 2002, the Library ramped up treatment to 150,000 books, achieving the second year goal of a five-year contract that will enable the Library to deacidify 1,000,000 books. 200,000 books will be deacidified this fiscal year. Initiating another important objective of its Thirty Year (One Generation) Mass Deacidification Plan, the Library negotiated with the deacidification contractor to build at its own expense a new single-sheet treatment cylinder. This equipment, installed late in fiscal 2002 in the Library’s chemistry lab, provides onsite paper deacidification that meets all of the Library’s technical, environmental, and safety requirements. The Bookkeeper treater is now being operated and maintained by the contractor, Preservation Technologies, enabling the Library to obtain onsite deacidification services to ensure the longevity of non-book collection materials that are too invaluable to be transported to the vendor plant near Pittsburgh where the Library’s books continue to be deacidified. The single-sheet treater, tested at the end of 2002, is permitting the Library to deacidify annually 1,000,000 pages of non-book, paper-based materials at an estimated cost between 18 and 26 cents per sheet. For more information, see: http://www.loc.gov/preserv/carelc.html.

Research and Testing. In the Preservation Research and Testing Division, a significant project on the development of a new accelerated aging test in collaboration with CCI as part of the American Society for Testing and Materials program on development of standards tests to assess the stability of paper products was completed. This report along with the reports of the other associated projects is available from ASTM at nominal cost. To advance ongoing work in the area of media longevity testing, the division began a collaboration with the National Institute of Standards and Technology to assess the stability of DVD and CD media.

PUBLIC SERVICE COLLECTIONS DIRECTORATE

Humanities and Social Sciences Division

Telephone Reference Referral Service: Due to lack of staff and the increased number of questions coming to the Library via the Internet, telephone reference service has been discontinued on a 90 day trial basis. The service will be evaluated following the pilot. Reference service is available via the Internet, mail or fax.

Motion Picture, Broadcasting, and Recorded Sound Division (M/B/RS)

Audio-Visual Prototyping Project. The Audio-Visual Prototyping Project in the Motion Picture, Broadcasting, and Recorded Sound Division continues to explore new avenues for the preservation of sound recordings in the form of digital files, and to discuss options for applying the same approach to video. The work proceeds in a collaborative undertaking with the American Folklife Center, which is preserving content in the Save Our Sounds project. The motives for the entire undertaking include the fact that the customary approach for reformatting endangered recorded sound and video content--copying to analog tape--is no longer practical since the manufacture of analog tape and tape recorders has virtually ceased, replaced by digital formats. A second important factor is that the Library of Congress will open the new National Audio-Visual Conservation Center for its recorded sound and moving image collections in 2005, at Culpeper, Virginia, seventy miles from Washington. The new facility will include an entirely new laboratory for reformatting audio and video materials, and the prototyping project is informing the planning for the new Center.

One key focus for the Audio-Visual Prototyping Project is the specialized metadata needed to shape and administer digital content over the long term. The project uses a contractor-produced software system that creates metadata conforming to the Metadata Encoding and Transmission Standard (METS), an XML structure capable of holding a rich mixture of descriptive and administrative metadata. The production process combines the digital audio files and the XML metadata to create a "digital object" for long-term management. The AV Prototyping Project's use of METS packaging is intended to fit the needs of the Library's future digital repository, as well as to permit the interim management of content in the current generation of storage systems.

During the last year, the Motion Picture, Broadcasting, and Recorded Sound Division has prepared sample preservation objects for a set of radio broadcast logging tapes, recordings on obsolete Memovox discs, and copies of a set of Magnabelts from a manuscript collection. The American Folklife Center has largely completed work on a collection of folk music from New England originally recorded in the 1940s and 1950s.

Moving Image Section. The Moving Image Section of the Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division acquired a complete run of The Ed Sullivan Show (1948-1971), the seminal American television variety program, as well as on-going additions to the Fred Wiseman and Coca-Cola Television Advertising collections. The Division also acquired another 430 reels of nitrate film from the Bucks Laboratory in the U.K., as part of the Raymond Rohauer Collection. The MBRS Division continued to participate in such key organizations as the Association for Recorded Sound Collections, Association of Moving Image Archivists, International Federation of Film Archives, International Federation of Television Archives, Music Libraries Association, Audio Engineers Society, and National Television and Video Preservation Foundation.

Prints and Photographs Division

Recent Acquisitions. Important additions to the division’s collections since January, 2003, include:

Eight large color photographs by the internationally-acclaimed Canadian photographer, Edward Butynsky, who focuses on industrial sites in North America, Italy, Bangladesh, India, and China and paradoxically discovers a sense of awe and beauty amidst scenes of nature’s degradation;

Twelve works by Cuban-born and Bauhaus-inspired caricaturist, publisher, and graphic designer, Abril Lamarque (1904–99);

71 drawings made during the weeks leading up and after the Allied D-Day invasion of France (1944)

60 photographs of the World Trade Center towers from uncharacteristic viewpoints and during different effects of light that were included in the exhibition Twin Towers Remembered;

16 intaglio prints by artist, author, and film maker Camille Billops;

42 original drawings by Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist Pat Oliphant from 1971–72;

Five outstanding drawings by celebrated Jazz Age cartoonist and magazine cover illustrator John Held, Jr. made between 1915 and 1931.

Serial and Government Publications Division

Collection. Serial and Government Publications Division continues to work with the Preservation Directorate on two new treatment strategies for select original issues of newspapers and comic books with high archival value. A sample of comic books and 9/11 newspaper issues was sent for mass deacidification under an existing LC contract with PTLP, and SER, in conjunction with the Preservation Directorate expects over 10,000 endangered comic books this Fiscal Year. Test issues of newspapers will be treated by ZFB’s innovative production paper-strengthening technology and evaluated. In order to house the Division’s gold collections of newspapers and comics, a new Secure Storage Area has been approved and AOC is scheduled to begin construction before the end of FY 2003. Once construction is completed, all Division gold collection items will be housed together. Completion of the Secure Storage Area and additional controlled electronic access to Library collections will allow better service and better collection security.

Recent acquisitions include: 377 issues of Union newspapers containing important Civil War battlefield and military campaign maps; 50 rare newspaper issues of the Vermont Gazette (Bennington, Vermont) covering the period June 20, 1785-May 29, 1786; an exceedingly rare volume of Vermont’s first newspaper, published just two years earlier on June 5, 1783. These early Vermont newspapers contain news, reports, and notices and ads not found in any other New England newspapers.

The Division expects its first digital collection to be released on July 4, 2003. Based on an unsolicited gift of the collected issues to the Newspaper Section, the digital version of the Stars and Stripes, the Official Newspaper of the American Expeditionary Forces Printed in France from February 8, 1919 to June 13, 1919, will become part of American Memory. Edited by enlisted men for the soldiers serving on the front, this newspaper documents the first time the United States sent troops to fight overseas. The newspaper was edited by several experienced journalists, and a number of the men who produced the newspaper went on to prominent careers in journalism. SER will also be digitizing the pictorial supplements that appeared in the New York Times and the New York Tribune, 1914-1919. The pictorial process used to produce these supplements, the rotogravure process, was a stunning improvement in picture quality in newspapers. Adding these to the American Memory Web site will improve the Library’s digital material

OFFICE OF STRATEGIC INITIATIVES

STRATEGIC INITIATIVES/NATIONAL DIGITAL LIBRARY PROGRAM

National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program

The Office of Strategic Initiatives is leading the development and implementation of a National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program (NDIIPP). The program is funded by a congressional appropriation of $99.8 million. The program’s goal is to develop, in collaboration with other institutions and stakeholders, a national strategy to collect, archive and preserve the burgeoning amounts of digital content, especially materials that are distributed primarily in digital formats, for current and future generations. Extensive fact-finding and planning has taken place over the part two years with a variety of stakeholders in preparation for submission of a plan to Congress for its approval.

Legislative background: In December 2000, the 106th Congress appropriated $100 million for this effort, which instructs the Library to spend an initial $25 million to develop and execute a congressionally approved strategic plan for a National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program. (A government-wide rescission of .22 percent in late December 2000 reduced this special appropriation to $99.8 million.) Congress specified that $5 million of the appropriation could be spent during the initial phase for planning as well as for the acquisition and preservation of digital information that may otherwise vanish. The legislation authorizes as much as $75 million of federal funding to be made available as this amount is matched by nonfederal funds, including in-kind contributions. A “Plan for the National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program” was submitted to Congress in October 2002. On Jan. 6, 2003, the Library received congressional approval for the NDIIPP plan.

The Web site for the NDIIPP program is at http://www.loc.gov/digitalpreservation. The Plan and its Appendices are available from this Web site.

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY SERVICES

To ensure long-term viability of the Library’s digital collections, Information Technology Services stores one complete set of backup tapes in the Library’s John Adams Building. The Library also has a contract with a major commercial "vaulting" service that provides for a weekly transfer of backup tapes to the vendor for storage in a secure local facility.

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108TH CONGRESS

1st SESSION H.R.______

To amend title 17, United States Code, to enable the Library of Congress to acquire digital content from a digital online communications network for the purpose of preserving such materials, and for other purposes.

______________________

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE UNITED STATES

[date]

Mr. _____ introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Judiciary

______________________

A BILL

To amend title 17, United States Code, to enable the Library of Congress to acquire digital content from a digital online communications network for the purpose of preserving such materials, and for other purposes.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

SEC. 1. SHORT TITLE.

This act may be cited as the ‘Library of Congress Digital Acquisition Act of 2003'.

SEC. 2. DIRECT ACQUISITION OF WORKS FROM THE INTERNET BY THE LIBRARIAN OF CONGRESS. – Section 407 of title 17, United States Code, is amended by adding after section 407(e) the following:

“(f) With respect to works made accessible to the public in the United States through a digital online communications network, the Register of Copyrights shall, after consulting with the Librarian of Congress and other interested organizations and officials, establish regulations governing the acquisition, through deposit or otherwise, of copies or phonorecords of such works for the collections of the Library of Congress.

(1) The Librarian of Congress shall be permitted, under the standards and conditions set forth in such regulations, to reproduce directly from

a digital online communications network a copy or phonorecord of a work made accessible to the public in the United States through a digital online communications network.

(2) Such regulations shall also provide standards and procedures by which the Register of Copyrights may make written demand, upon the copyright owner or owner of the right to make accessible to the public in the United States, for the deposit of a copy or phonorecord of a specific work made accessible to the public in the United States through a digital online communications network. Pursuant to such regulations, the Register of Copyrights may demand a copy or phonorecord that is not subject to any technological measure that controls access to the work or protects a right of the copyright owner under this title in the work or a portion thereof. The regulations established under this clause shall provide reasonable periods of not less than three months for compliance with a demand, and shall allow for extensions of such periods and adjustments in the scope of the demand or the methods for fulfilling it, as reasonably warranted by the circumstances. Failure or refusal to comply with the conditions prescribed by such regulations shall subject the copyright owner, or owner of the right to make the material publicly accessible, to the provisions of section 407(d). All deposit copies and phonorecords obtained pursuant to this clause shall be transferred to the Library of Congress.

(3) With respect to copies or phonorecords of works obtained under clause (1) or (2), the Librarian of Congress shall be permitted to reproduce such additional copies or phonorecords as are necessary for purposes of preservation and security by the Library of Congress and research use within the premises of the Library of Congress. The Librarian of Congress shall also be permitted, under the standards and conditions set forth in such regulations, to publicly perform and display copies or phonorecords of a work obtained or made under this subsection, solely for research use within the premises of the Library of Congress.

(4) No activity undertaken in compliance with regulations prescribed

under clauses (1) and (2) of this subsection shall result in liability if intended solely to assist in the acquisition of copies or phonorecords under this subsection.”

"

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