Library of Congress ALA Midwinter Update

CONGRESSIONAL RESEARCH SERVICE

Placing Congressional Research Service (CRS) Product Links on Congressional Web Sites

Directive Issued by the Committee on House Administration. The Committee on House Administration recently replaced a pilot effort in the House, under which a small number of Members were able to disseminate a limited number of CRS products electronically through their Web sites, with a new system available to all Members and committees. This new arrangement, which utilizes a mirror site created by the Office of House Information Resources (HIR), makes it possible for all congressional offices to place links on their Web sites to an even greater number of CRS products of their choosing than were available under the pilot. Such links will access the most up-to-date version of each product. Congressional offices will use the CRS Web Site to find the products they deem suitable for dissemination.

Statutory Restriction. The prohibition on publication of CRS products without oversight committee approval appears in the annual appropriations acts for the Legislative Branch. This provision is intended to preserve the role of CRS as a confidential resource solely available to the Congress. The appropriations acts, supplemented by congressional guidance that CRS has received over the years, and supported by judicial opinions, leaves to the Members and committees the decision whether, on a selective basis, to place CRS products in the public domain. Members have long made CRS products available to interested persons directly, by inclusion in congressional publications, or through their own Web sites.

Risks of Wholesale Publication Without Selectivity. Wholesale public dissemination would raise several policy and institutional concerns:

®Impairment of Member communication with constituents – The danger of placing CRS, a support agency, in an intermediate position responding directly to constituents instead of preserving the direct relationship between constituents and their elected representatives. This threatens the dialog on policy issues between Members and their constituents that was envisioned by the Constitution.

®Risk to protection of confidentiality – The current judicial and administrative perception of CRS might thereby be altered, putting at risk speech or debate protection for confidential work.

®Change in mission and congressional focus – Over time, CRS products might come to be written with a large public audience in mind and could no longer be focused solely on congressional needs.

®Reduction in service to Congress – Wholesale dissemination would inevitably generate a significant number of comments, questions, and concerns from the public regarding content. In addition to placing a burden on congressional offices, responding to such correspondence would require CRS to shift significant resources away from direct service to the Congress.

U.S. COPYRIGHT OFFICE

Rulemaking/Studies

DMCA Anticircumvention Rulemaking. On October 28, the Librarian issued a Final Rule under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. § 1201(a)(1)©), pursuant to the recommendations of the Register of Copyrights, exempting four classes of works from the prohibition against circumventing technological protection measures that control access to those works. The Copyright Office had conducted the rulemaking, which commenced with publication of a notice of inquiry in October, 2002. The Office received 51 written comments proposing a class or classes of works for exemption. Supporters and opponents of these proposals filed 338 reply comments. Six days of public hearings were conducted in Spring 2003 in Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles, California. Following the hearings, the Office sent follow‑up questions to some of the hearing witnesses, and responses were received during the summer. The entire record in this and the previous section 1201(a)(1)©) rulemaking are available on the Office’s Web site.

The four exempted classes are:

®Compilations of Internet locations that are used by filtering applications for blocking access to domains, Web sites or parts of Web sites.

®Computer programs protected by dongles that prevent access due to malfunction or damage and which are obsolete.

®Computer programs and video games distributed in formats that have become obsolete and which require the original media or hardware as a condition of access.

®Literary works distributed in ebook format when all existing ebook editions of the work contain access controls that prevent the enabling of the ebook’s “read-aloud” function and that prevent the enabling of screen readers to convert the text to speech or some other “specialized format.”

A number of other classes of works that were proposed were rejected by the Register in her recommendations.

Legislation

H.R. 3261 – Database and Collections of Information Misappropriation Act. This is the current version of database legislation that has been under consideration in one form or another since 1996. The current version is limited to a prohibition on republication of time-sensitive data that was generated or gathered through a substantial expenditure of money or time. It contains a number of fair use-like exemptions, and the prohibition does not cover government-generated databases. The bill has been marked-up by the Subcommittee on Intellectual Property, and is likely to pass the full Judiciary Committee, as its Chairman, Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.), is a co-sponsor

and supporter of the bill.

ALA’s position on the legislation is that, “if passed, H.R. 3261 would protect anyone who either creates or maintains a database from unauthorized use of the information included in it. This bill challenges the traditional notions of "fair use" and seeks copyright‑like protection for the facts within the database. Facts have never been eligible for copyright protection. Furthermore, the bill could create perpetual ownership rights in a wide variety of data.”

H.R. 1066 – “BALANCE” Act. This legislation, which was introduced by Representatives Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) and Rick Boucher (D-Va.), would amend section 107, the fair use provision of the Copyright Act; add a new exemption for works in digital form; introduce a “digital first sale” doctrine; and add a general “fair use” style of exemption to the anticircumvention provisions of section 1201. It has not been taken up by the IP Subcommittee, and is unlikely to move in this Congress.

H.R. 2601 – Public Domain Enhancement Act. This bill, which was introduced by Representatives Lofgren and John T. Doolittle (R-Calif.), would impose a maintenance fee of one dollar that is due fifty years after publication of a work and every ten years thereafter until the copyright expires. Failure to pay the maintenance fee would result in termination of copyright protection. Since the imposition of a maintenance fee to retain copyright is incompatible with the Berne Convention, the fee would not apply to foreign works. The bill has been referred to the House IP Subcommittee, which has taken no action.

Cases

Kelly v. Arribasoft. This case involved a photographer who objected to the inclusion of some of his photographs in a visual search engine on the Internet. The search engine database included copies of the photographs that had been reduced in size (“thumbnails”), and also displayed full-sized images that were retrieved from the photographer’s Web site without any of the surrounding context.

The district court found both activities to qualify as fair uses of the photographs. The court placed great emphasis on what it considered the “transformative” nature of the defendant’s use of the images. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the district court as to the thumbnails, but reversed as to the display of the full-sized images, holding that the district court should not have reached that issue at that stage of the proceedings.

The fair use analysis applied by the district court and the court of appeals – particularly its statements equating repurposing with transformative use – is somewhat unorthodox when viewed alongside most other fair use cases.

Amendment to Copyright Deposit Law. The Librarian has requested Congress to permit the Library to collect and preserve digital materials by capturing or “harvesting” them directly from the Internet before they become unobtainable. This would be accomplished by creating a new section under the copyright act to enable the Library of Congress to reproduce copyrighted works from the Internet for preservation purposes and use in the Library’s collections. This request is modeled on the Library’s current authority to fix and reproduce television and radio programming. Congress created this authority in 1976 because it believed the Library of Congress should be authorized to acquire and preserve “a permanent record of television and radio programs which are the heritage of the people of the United States and to provide access to such programs to historians and scholars without encouraging or causing copyright infringement.” The requested language also adapts the mandatory deposit provisions of the copyright act to new electronic technologies and media of expression – where the ability of the Library to collect preserve the materials is all the more important due to the inherently ephemeral nature of electronic works.

USA Patriot Act Amendments. Section 15 of the USA Patriot Act, enacted soon after the events of 9/11/2001, permits law enforcement officials to seek a wide variety of records, including library patron records, without formal judicial supervision. The ALA, in consultation with a group of civil liberties organizations, has urged Congress to narrow the scope of some of the authority included under the USA Patriot Act. Several bills to accomplish this purpose, some with bipartisan support, have been introduced, including: S. 1158, the Library and Bookseller Protection Act (Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif.); S. 1552, the Protecting the Rights of Individuals Act (Sens. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, and Ron Wyden, D-Ore.); S. 1507, the Library, Bookseller, and Personal Records Privacy Act (Sen. Dianne Feingold, D-Calif., and others); S. 1709, the Security and Freedom Ensured Act, (Sens. Larry Craig, R-Idaho; Dick Durbin, D-Ill.; and others); and H.R. 1157, the Freedom to Read Protection Act (Rep. Bernard Sanders, I-Vt.).

GPO (U.S. Government Printing Office). On May 3, 2002, the Office of Management and Budget issued a memo declaring that executive branch agencies are no longer required to acquire printing services from GPO. OMB cited a 1996 Department of Justice legal opinion that concludes that Congress could not constitutionally require executive branch agencies to use GPO’s printing services. After strong Congressional challenges to OMB’s position, in the Summer of 2003 OMB and GPO arrived at an agreement to continue procurement of printing services through GPO, provided GPO create a Web-based ordering system that allows agencies to deal directly with printing contractors. The system will operate on a pilot basis until October 2005, when GPO plans to implement it government-wide. Meanwhile, OMB and GPO also agreed that agencies would curtail their use of in-house printing. ALA strongly supported this agreement.

NATIONAL BOOK FESTIVAL

The third National Book Festival took place on the National Mall on October 4. Organized by the Library of Congress and hosted by First Lady Laura Bush, the festival attracted an estimated 70,000 attendees to hear approximately eighty authors, illustrators, and storytellers.

The fourth National Book Festival is scheduled for Saturday, October 9, 2004, on the National Mall.

LIBRARY SERVICES

Deanna Marcum became Associate Librarian for Library Services on August 11. Beacher Wiggins was named acting Deputy Associate Librarian for Library Services in August. .

CULPEPER AND FORT MEADE

By the close of fiscal 2003, a total of 653,783 volumes had been transferred to Module 1 of the off-site storage facility at Fort Meade, Maryland. Requests for items housed at Fort Meade continued to increase as the number of items stored there increased. During the fiscal year, an average of sixteen requests per day were retrieved, with a 100 percent retrieval rate--i.e. every requested item was found.

Accommodating the rapid growth in the general collections continued to be a great challenge. After the initial transfer of blocks of materials from the stack areas to the Fort Meade facility, plans were developed to select materials for the facility from areas throughout the stacks, thus allowing us to use a “thinning” approach in the most crowded areas. Under the initial phase of this program, additional copies of monographs will be inventoried and sent to Fort Meade.

The Chief of the Collections Access, Loan, and Management Division, serving as the Library’s program manager for Fort Meade, worked closely with the architectural and engineering firm hired by the Architect of the Capitol (AOC), with the AOC, with the Army Corps of Engineers, and with other Library managers to complete the design of Module 2, and to continue to work on the design for Modules 3 and 4.

Throughout fiscal 2003, intensive planning continued for the National Audio-Visual Conservation Center (NAVCC) in Culpeper, Virginia. The new Center is being developed in collaboration with the Packard Humanities Institute (PHI). By the end of the year, 100 percent of the Construction Drawings had been issued for Phase 1 of the project, covering the existing Collections building that will be retrofitted entirely for collections storage, plus the Central Plant. Progress Design Development Drawings were completed for the rest of the campus, Phase 2, which includes the new Conservation building and Nitrate film vaults.

In August 2003, the Library, the Packard Humanities Institute, and the Architect of the Capitol completed a three-way Implementation Agreement governing the project. This agreement covers the construction of the NAVCC by PHI and its transfer to the government when construction is completed. Construction work on the NAVCC site began immediately following the signing of this agreement. The Collections building and Central Plant will be completed in June 2005, at which time the Motion Picture, Broadcasting, and Recorded Sound Division will be able to relocate its recorded sound, videotape and safety film collections to Culpeper. Phase 2 is scheduled for completion in March 2006, at which time MBRS staff and the nitrate film holdings will be relocated from Washington and Dayton to the new facility.

A Concept of Operations for the NAVCC was produced in September. This document describes the Center’s new business and operations models, and presents a number of innovative operational scenarios for enhanced national-level services.

DIGITAL REFERENCE

The Digital Reference Team handles the reference support for the digital collections and the Library’s digital reference initiative. After the inauguration of the Ask A Librarian service in June 2002, the team provides both text-based and chat service via direct access from the Library’s Web site at <http://www.loc.gov/rr/askalib/>. The team continues to test and build the knowledge base that is available to QuestionPoint member libraries and a global network. To this end the team has answered over 14,000 inquires and conducted 1600 live chat sessions.

Additionally the Digital Reference Team is the public interface for the Library’s digital collections. The team designs and presents demonstrations, on-site workshops, and video conferences for a wide audience. Opportunities for video conferencing and webcasting are continually expanding with 2800 college and K/12 educators and students participating in 90 video conferences in the past year. Working with the Center for the Book, the team continues to create new “Read More about It” bibliographies with the new feature of direct links to the LC Online Catalog. The Virtual Services and Programs page at <http://www.loc.gov/rr/program/> lists the activities of the team including two new video conferences “The Spy Map and George Washington” and “Gathering Your Community’s Stories.”

MINERVA

The 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 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 3,000 sites archived between July 1, 2002 and November 30, 2002. During the course of the project, the LC MINERVA team worked closely with WebArchivist.org to manage the collection and permissions process, catalog the Web sites and develop an browse interface to provide access to researchers of the collection. On Election day, the team’s reference specialist traveled to the State University of New York Institute of Technology to monitor the elections and to select additional content. A snapshot of the home pages of these Election Day sites was generated throughout the day to create an exciting look at the day’s activities.

The initial March 4th, 2003 release of the Election 2002 Web Archive included Web sites produced by congressional and gubernatorial candidates, and featured a unique “Drill search” interface developed with WebArchivist.org, allowing access to Web Archive Records and archived sites. In July 2003, the Library of Congress began hosting the archive directly from LC servers, a major accomplishment done with the support of staff in the Information Technology Services office (previous collections had been temporarily hosted by the Internet Archive).

In fiscal 2003 the MINERVA project also collected Web sites relating to the 107^th Congress and the War on Iraq. The MINERVA team also focused this year on the cataloging of 2500 September 11 Web Archive sites (in collaboration again with WebArchivist.org), and worked on other issues related to access and searching of the LC’s Web archives with ITS and cataloging staff, in particular.

In order to better manage the labor-intensive notification and permissions process necessary for creating LC Web archives, the MINERVA team worked with staff from the Office of Strategic Initiatives to develop an online database system to enable more efficient mailing and tracking of Web sites identified for collection. This system was first used for the War on Iraq collection and further development to improve and refine the tool will continue into the next year.

Collection-level AACR2/MARC catalog records were created for each thematic Web site collected in order to represent these items in the ILS. 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).

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

The MINERVA team initiated and coordinated a test of the OCLC Digital Archive, a component of the OCLC Connexion system. This service integrates the processes of cataloging, harvesting, ingesting, and disseminating into a service package. Originally contracted to test from February 2003 through May 2003, approximately 20 testers from a variety of LC teams and units were assembled. New developments were implemented to the OCLC system as a result of LC testing. OCLC managers came to meet with the LC Test group in September and the testing contract was extended until the end of November 2003.

Area Studies

LC Mission to Baghdad. From October 25-November 4, 2003, a three-person LC team led by an Arab World specialist in AMED was in Baghdad with the support of the Pentagon and the Cultural Property Office of the State Department. The LC team advised the Coalition Provisional Authority, and the Ministry of Culture on the reconstruction of the National Library of Iraq, the preservation of flooded documents of the library, and the relocation of the Islamic manuscripts from the House of Manuscripts. Upon their return, they prepared a report with their recommendations which were accepted by the CPA and the Ministry of Culture. The report may be found at http://www.loc.gov/rr/amed/iraqreport/iraqreport.html.

Collaborative Digital Project. On November 17, the Library of Congress and the National Library of the Netherlands launched a joint digital library, “The Atlantic World: America and the Netherlands,” that deals with the Dutch presence in America from Henry Hudson’s voyage of 1609 to the sale of New Amsterdam to the British in 1664 and the Dutch influence in America. The site is available at http://international.loc.gov/intldl/awkbhtml/ and is part of the Library's Global Gateway initiative of digital library collaborations with leading libraries and cultural institutions from around the world. The site includes more than 70 items totaling some 11,737 images from the collections of the Library of Congress, the National Library of the Netherlands, and four other Dutch institutions that are cooperating with the National Library on the project: the National Archives, the Municipal Archives of Amsterdam, the Plantage Library of the University of Amsterdam, and the National Maritime Museum.

CATALOGING DIRECTORATE

Judith A. Mansfield continues as acting Director for Cataloging while Beacher Wiggins is detailed as acting Deputy Associate Librarian for Library Services.

The Cataloging Directorate has completed a two-year effort to recruit and hire 51 new catalogers and two new Dewey classifiers, the largest infusion of new cataloging staff in more than a decade. The quality of the applicant pools was outstanding, leading the directorate to cancel plans to fill vacant supervisory positions in order to free resources to hire more cataloger applicants. The new hires bring valued skills in Asian and European languages, music, law, and other subject areas.

The Cataloging Directorate staff home page received its 200,000th access in December. The home page provides access to minutes of various management and consultative groups; administrative documents; forms for printing; news of staff; and miscellaneous other information.

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 projects may be found at http://lcweb.loc.gov/catdir/beat. Updates on several of the 18 projects now underway are given below.

Pre-1970 Congressional Hearings. This recently approved project will improve access to approximately 2,000 pre-1970 Congressional hearings, improving service to the Congress and thus addressing an important objective in the Cataloging Directorate’s strategic plan. Other benefits to be derived include central, as opposed to dispersed availability of the hearings, better access to the content of the items, improved cataloging describing these hearings, and the addition of other information concerning alternate data source availability.

The initiative will be undertaken through the collaborative efforts of four Library units: Collections Access, Loan and Management, Congressional Research Service, the Cataloging Directorate, and the Law Library. The methodology to be employed consists of identifying and retrieving approximately 2,000 items that make up the body of these hearings, reclassifying them into class KF in the Law schedule and upgrading the cataloging for the items. In addition, the project will arrange to make digital copies available for hearings in poor physical condition.

ONIX TOC/Publishers Descriptions. ONIX (ONline Information eXchange) is a means of representing book industry product information, used by some publishers today to communicate that data electronically. The Library receives these data directly, and with programming developed by BEAT, the project creates Table of Contents (TOC) and Publisher Description 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 43,000 ONIX TOC records and 64,000 ONIX Descriptions records.

Links to Book Jackets. BEAT staff plan to link images of dust jackets to titles in the ONIX Descriptions and ONIX TOC initiatives. Initially, there will be links to approximately 2,300 dust jacket images, and it is anticipated that the number will grow as publishers can provide that data through existing BEAT channels. This further enriches the data that LC provides to searchers about cataloged materials. This project will be implemented in early January 2004.

ECIP Tables of Contents (TOC). In a new aspect of this project, using programming by three BEAT Team members, a Web-based TOC is created for virtually all ECIP records that contain TOC data. A hot-link in the TOC file is made to and then from the underlying record in the LC Catalog. The programs handle most diacritical marks, and also enrich the TOC Web display by adding such LC subject headings as were applied by cataloging staff.

In addition to this new development, table of contents data are added in about 30 percent of the bibliographic records by staff in the course of the regular ECIP cataloging process. This means that for some titles, data will be available on the Web as well as within the record itself. As of December 2003, approximately 12,000 ECIP TOC records had been added to the Web server.

Web Access to Works in the Public Domain. This project makes links from the LC Catalog to full electronic texts of items represented in the LC collections. Two recent additions are noted.

In the most recent development, 379 titles represented in the Library's collections were linked to The California Digital Library ( http://www.cdl.org) to eScholarship texts that have been made publicly available through the Library. The texts to which LC was granted permission to link are mostly recent imprints and current scholarship, whereas prior Public Domain projects were for retrospective material primarily of historical value. In another addition to this project, BEAT has added links to bibliographic records for more than 35 titles from Indiana University's Victorian Women Writers Project, which includes anthologies, novels, political pamphlets, religious tracts, children's books and volumes of poetry and verse drama.

H-NET Reviews. To enrich access to scholarly materials, BEAT has recently undertaken a project to link catalog records for selected materials in the Library's collections to reviews for them in H-Net Reviews in the Humanities and Social Sciences, the online journal of H-NET: Humanities and Social Sciences Online, a resource that contains many scholarly and academic reviews. The reviews cover contemporary publications as well as classic publications in a variety of academic fields. Many of the reviews, in addition to containing relevant Library of Congress subject headings, include footnotes and bibliographies.

The initial phase of the cooperative project resulted in 6,173 links from Library of Congress catalog records to corresponding H-Net reviews. An estimated 1,000 to 2,000 additional reviews will be added each year.

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 of Congress 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, three guides to Prints and Photographs Division collections, manuscript collections from several Middle Eastern monasteries, and a guide to Ladino publications in the Library of Congress.

Cataloging in Publication Division (CIP)

For CIP galleys received after January 1^st, the Library will suspend the addition of juvenile headings and summaries for non-fiction juvenile titles. These non-fiction juvenile titles will continue to receive regular CIP cataloging, with adult Library of Congress Subject Headings as appropriate. The Library has taken this step because of the large increase in applications for CIP data for juvenile materials while the staff resources to process these titles remain stable or even decrease.

A total of 55,001 titles from approximately 3,500 publishers was processed in the CIP program this year, a significant increase from the 53,733 CIP titles in fiscal 2002. The number of publishers participating in the Electronic Cataloging in Publication (ECIP) program increased by 636, to a total of 2,858, and nearly half of all CIP galleys were received through ECIP.

New Books, a project to link highly desirable auxiliary information such as author biographies, images of book jackets, and summaries or additional subject terms to the catalog records for forthcoming books, got underway this year with the selection of two developers, Patricia Hayward and Eugene Kinnaly, on September 22. The CIP Division consulted closely with the library and publishing communities to resolve issues essential to the development of New Books. Based on this input, CIP staff, with Information Technology Services, reached two decisions about the direction of New Books. First, the New Books system would use the unabridged Book Industry Standards and Communications subject terms for subject access to New Books records. Second, New Books would be integrated into the ECIP home page, effectively converting the ECIP home page to a New Books/ECIP home page. This approach should require less initial investment than developing a separate site and separate workflow; more important, the integrated approach will be more user friendly for both publishers and catalogers.

Cataloging Policy

Unicode planning and multi-script decisions for cataloging policy. In September and October 2003, the Cataloging Policy and Support Office (CPSO) initiated preliminary meetings with the Regional and Cooperative Cataloging Division and the Serial Record Division team leaders, assistant chiefs, and other key cataloging staff handling non-roman materials to begin discussing plans for LC’s policies regarding including original scripts in authority records, reviewing non-roman script policies for bibliographic records, and working with RLG and OCLC on those policies to stay in synchronization nationwide. The Library of Congress reaffirms its goal to provide non-roman data in its bibliographic and authority records. During several decades of card production, the Library provided original scripts in bibliographic description and lost that capability when automation was introduced in the late 1960’s. Since the mid-1980’s, the Library has input parallel original script descriptive data into bibliographic records created through RLIN for monographs (JACKPHY languages, i.e. those in Japanese, Arabic, Chinese, Korean, Persian, and Hebrew/Yiddish scripts ) and OCLC for serials (CJK languages and Arabic). CPSO, the Cataloging Distribution Service, and the Network Development and MARC Standards Office are finalizing plans for the inclusion of non-roman captions and possibly other data using Unicode in the LC Classification schedules. As CPSO prepares to develop the cataloging policies related to Unicode implementation, it proposes to involve all stakeholders in the decision process to prepare for this opportunity. Comments and suggestions are most welcome and should be sent to Barbara Tillett, Chief, CPSO <btil@loc.gov>.

Descriptive cataloging. The 2003 Update to the 2002 AACR2 and its related Library of Congress Rule Interpretations (LCRI) are now available in Cataloger's Desktop. Printed copies of the LCRIs have also been distributed by the Cataloging Distribution Service. (Printed copies of the 2003 Update AACR2 are available from the American Library Association, the Canadian Library Association, and the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals.)

Kurdish orthographic table. A draft revision of the Kurdish romanization table prepared by LC cataloger Michael Chyet (Regional and Cooperative Cataloging Division), will be available for comment in the Winter 2004 issue of Cataloging Service Bulletin (CSB) , Number 103. After the April 30, 2004, CSB deadline for comments, the orthographic table will be forwarded to ALA CC:AAM (Committee on Cataloging: Asian and African Materials) for its review and approval.

Modern Greek romanization table. CPSO will be working with the National Library of Greece to review the ALA-LC Romanization table for the Greek alphabet and changes to Modern Greek orthography made about twenty-five years ago. This review will begin in February 2004.

LCRI 25.5B on uniform titles for motion pictures, television programs, and radio programs. Since the Library of Congress Motion Picture, Broadcasting, and Recorded Sound Division (MBRS) uses Archival and Moving Image Materials , 2nd ed. (AMIM2) in cataloging moving image materials, there has been little guidance in LCRI 25.5B with respect to the AACR2 approach to the application of uniform titles to these materials. CPSO has been aware of this lacuna for some time, the most recent reminder being questions stimulated by an attempt by LC's Cooperative Cataloging Team to develop an FAQ on uniform titles and a paper written by Greta de Groat, Stanford University. (Discussion Paper--Uniform Titles for Moving Image Materials, OLAC Meeting, ALA Midwinter, 2001). CPSO, working with the Program for Cooperative Cataloging (PCC) Standing Committee on Standards (SCS) has attempted to address this lacuna for PCC libraries. A revised draft of LCRI 25.5B attempts to address the concerns expressed in comments on a first draft reviewed at the beginning of 2003 and is available for comment at http://lcweb.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/25_5b2.html. Comments should be sent by January 15, 2004 to the CPSO email account, cpso@loc.gov.

Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH). In consultation with the National Library of Australia, the Library of Congress changed the subject headings “Australian aborigines” and “Tasmanian aborigines” to “Aboriginal Australians” and “Aboriginal Tasmanians.” Other headings that included the terms “Australian aborigines” or “Australian aboriginal” were also changed. For example, “Australian aboriginal poetry” was changed to “Aboriginal Australian poetry.” Approximately ninety subject authority records were changed. The changes appeared on Library of Congress Subject Headings Weekly List 30 (July 23, 2003). Using newly developed methods for changing large numbers of bibliographic records, the Library has updated and redistributed approximately 4,500 bibliographic records that were affected by this change.

LC Classification. New print editions of Subclass KF (Law of the United States) and Class Q (Science) will be published in January 2004 and will be available in Spring 2004.

Electronic Resources Cataloging

Allene Hayes has been detailed as the Digital Projects Coordinator for the Cataloging Directorate; she will provide the cataloging expertise for the numerous projects and programs related to electronic resources and the digital library expansion with the Library as well as to programs both nationally and internationally.

As part of the directorate’s mandate to increase the availability of cataloging and metadata for digital content, the acting director charged the Goal IV Management Group (Goal IV of the directorate’s strategic plan addresses digital content) with recommending ways to identify all digital content to be cataloged by the Cataloging Directorate; establish processing rules; propose the best workflow; recommend automated tools for generating cataloging or metadata, if and when such tools become available; and prepare for training and implementation.

Pinyin Romanization

Pinyin cleanup activities continue. The names of geographical features were converted so that they conformed to the romanization guidelines. The serial records which were marked for review were converted. Bibliographic records for instrumental music and moving pictures were converted; also, Chinese titles found on Mongolian records and many Chinese personal names with religious titles. Staff in CPSO completed the conversion of subject headings and chronological subdivisions on non-Chinese records. The most frequently used romanized Chinese headings were converted on approximately 7,000 non-Chinese and PREMARC bibliographic records.

Portals Application

Library of Congress Portals Applications Issues Group (LCPAIG), a group charged with pursuing work item 2.1 in the Cataloging Directorate’s Action Plan to address the challenges of providing access to Web resources, has had an active agenda in the latter half of 2003. Since the ALA Annual Conference in Toronto in June, LCPAIG members completed and issued two key documents:

· List of Portal Application Functionalities for the Library of Congress, First Draft for Public Comment, issued on July 15, 2003

· Functional Requirements for an OpenURL Resolver for the Library of Congress, issued November 4, 2003

Both of these documents are available on the documents page within the LCPAIG Web site, <http://www.loc.gov/catdir/lcpaig/documents.html>. This page also includes links to additional resources which staff may consult for further information about the LC Portals Applications Issues Group and its activities and to learn more about portals and OpenURL:

· PowerPoint presentations from LCPAIG’s fall program: “Finding It Faster: Portal Applications for Information Discovery and Retrieval” presented on November 24, 2003 by several LCPAIG members.

· “Starting Out with Portals and OpenURL: An Introduction”

The Web site is divided into sections which include the goals, tasks, documents and members of LCPAIG. This is followed by other pages with numerous links to federated search portal and OpenURL resolver products and the vendors and organizations which supply them, portal products used by academic and educational institutions, and a selection of Federal government agency and academic institution Web portals and subject "gateways." The Web site also includes sections devoted to portal and OpenURL standards, reports and information about portals available online from several national and international library organizations, and links with abstracts of dozens of Web articles on portals and OperURL resolvers.

Program for Cooperative Cataloging (PCC) Activities

In fiscal 2003 PCC participants contributed 166,625 new name authority records (NARs); 9,300 new series authority records (SARs); and revised 49,729 NARs and SARs. Participants contributed 3,509 new subject authority headings; revised 420 subject headings; and successfully proposed 1,763 new classification numbers for inclusion in LCSH and LCC. The PCC libraries contributed 74,471 monograph bibliographic records. .Since the inception of the NACO program, cooperative cataloging partners have contributed more than two million name authority records to the authority file

The work of the Cooperative Cataloging Team, Regional and Cooperative Cataloging Division, revolved around two major duties: the support of the Program for Cooperative Cataloging in both cataloging and administrative areas, and in training and catalog maintenance activities within LC. The PCC focused its attention in fiscal 2003 on managing the growth and measuring the progress of its component parts. This resulted in the creation of a myriad of task groups (each with a Coop Team member) charged with examining the Program and reporting to the PCC Policy Committee (PoCo). High on the fiscal 2003 PoCo agenda was the decision to re-institute numerical goals for NACO participants. As a result of the monitoring of production levels, six NACO institutions formally concluded membership in the PCC. One was also a BIBCO library.

NACO (name authority component of the PCC). The Coop staff conducted a Training the NACO Trainer workshop for 5 catalogers from PCC libraries and 7 LC catalogers. The inclusion of LC staff fulfilled Coop’s function in the Cataloging Directorate’s strategic plan of helping to meet training needs of new catalogers.

Coop staff continue to collaborate with the cataloging specialists in the Cataloging Policy and

Support Office (CPSO) on the development of documentation for the LC Supplement to the MARC 21 Format for Authority Data (“blue pages”) as well as the DCM Z1 (yellow pages). The Coop Team continues its outreach efforts and support of Historically Back Colleges and Universities (HBCUs).

SACO (subject and classification authority component of the PCC). The SACO Program also focused on documentation and training. The changes in AACR2 and their impact on series and on the cataloging of integrating resources continued to hold center stage. As with other PCC documentation, new SACO training materials were developed as PowerPoint files. These materials will become the core of a standardized SACO curriculum.

BIBCO (monograph bibliographic record component of the PCC). BIBCO spent an intensive year dealing with documentation and training issues resulting from the revision of AACR2, Chapter 12, to incorporate integrating resources. With the support of CPSO, LC and PCC practice were reconciled in draft LCRIs through review and discussion at the BIBCO Operations Committee meeting in May. This also necessitated new modules in the BIBCO Participants' Manual (BPM) that were accomplished with the help of members of the BIBCO OpCo and the Standing Committee on Training, among others. The BIBCO-commissioned workshop manual for integrating resources was tested at a first presentation at the University of California, Los Angeles.

CONSER (serial bibliographic record component of the PCC). In June 2003, CONSER members agreed to guidelines for the creation and modification of aggregator-neutral records for serials in electronic aggregations. The aggregator-neutral record is separate from the record for the print version, and is intended to represent all online manifestations of a serial. Information that is specific to particular electronic providers is not included in the record, except in the source of description note and URLs. CONSER members and OCLC have begun consolidating multiple records for the online versions distributed by different providers. Guidelines for creating and modifying aggregator-neutral records have been incorporated into CONSER documentation.

CONSER is restructuring membership categories by revising its transaction requirements for the associate and enhance member levels. This will allow participants at the current enhance level to contribute authenticated records as associate members. A CONSER funnel is being developed with public libraries participating in Cooperative Computer Services.

The Publication Patterns Initiative added four new members in the past year. A survey to examine the use of holdings information for electronic journals showed that holdings information for electronic journals is being recorded by libraries in a variety of ways. Developments in OpenURL, serials management systems, ILS functionality, and archiving initiatives are trends that will have an impact on holdings for electronic resources and are being closely watched by libraries.

A new Serials Cataloging Cooperative Training Program (SCCTP) workshop on cataloging integrating resources was developed in cooperation with BIBCO and released during the past year. The workshop was prepared by Steven J. Miller (University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Libraries) with additional loose-leaf material by Rhonda K. Lawrence (UCLA Law Library). Two SCCTP train-the-trainer sessions for the Basic Serials Cataloging Workshop were given fall 2003.

The CONSER Summit on Serials in the Digital Environment will be held in Alexandria, Virginia, March 18-19, 2004 and will bring together members of the serials industry and the library community to help determine the future needs for bibliographic and holdings data in the management of electronic serials.

International PCC Participation. International membership in the PCC expanded dramatically in fiscal year 2003 through the formation of the 11 member NACO‑MEXICO funnel, which included members from libraries in Colombia, Costa Rica, and Venezuela as well as Mexico. Sixty‑three non‑U.S. institutions, working individually or in funnel projects, contributed a total of 36,288 new name authority records (21.7 percent of total PCC production), 14,579 revised name and series records (28.54 percent of total modifications); 1,013 new subject authority records (28.87 percent), and 53 revised subject authority records.

The British Library, as part of its preparation for a new integrated library system in 2004, began a project of contributing new or revised headings for place names within the United Kingdom. The final report of the Task Group on International Participation in the PCC has been issued and is now on the agenda of the PCC Steering Committee.

Cataloging (Books and Serials) Production

FY03 FY02

LC Full/Core-Level Cataloging 185,363 199,586

Copy Cataloging 39,015 49,576

Minimal-Level Cataloging 34,696 38,328

Collection-Level Cataloging 4,268 4,259

TOTAL records created 263,342 291,749

TOTAL volumes cataloged 269,568 310,235

Authority Records

Names 84,822 88,475

Series 8,762 8,909

Subjects 7,242 7,365

TOTAL 100,826 104,749

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

NATIONAL SERVICES DIRECTORATE

Cataloging Distribution Service (CDS)

Cataloger’s Desktop on the World Wide Web. CDS is developing a Web version of Cataloger's Desktop. The beta version will undergo several months of testing. CDS plans to release the fee-for-service product at the American Library Association Annual Meeting in June 2004.

MARC Distribution Services in MARC XML
CDS plans to offer all of its MARC Distribution Services (MDS) in MARC XML beginning January 1, 2004. The MARC XML files will be offered in addition to the MDS MARC 21 files currently available. Information on obtaining MARC XML test files is available from http://www.loc.gov/cds/mds.html#test. Interested MDS subscribers should contact CDS at cdsinfo@loc.gov for additional information regarding switching to MARC XML files.

National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped (NLS)

The National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped (NLS), Library of Congress, completed the five-year development phase of digital talking book technology during fiscal year 2003 and began the conversion phase to implement the new digital talking books and playback machines by 2008.

Analog cassette to digital format. In moving the talking-book program from analog cassettes to a digital format, NLS faces two major constraints: simplicity and cost. First, the program must be kept simple and easy to use because its primary focus is reading for pleasure. Second, NLS has an inventory of more than 700,000 players and 20,000,000 copies of books on cassettes. The cost of replacing this inventory is estimated at $150 million.

The program must be available to and usable by all patrons at no charge. NLS provides some services to specialized groups (Web-Braille users, for example), but only when the basic product (embossed braille editions) is available through the collection. As NLS develops the digital talking book (DTB), the primary focus must remain on service to all patrons.

Digital technology can make a book a complex artifact. It allows for many new features. The challenge is to incorporate the complexity of the format and provide the features it makes possible without destroying the simplicity of the basic reading experience. The following sections illustrate some aspects of this challenge.

Digital audio environment. NLS will ensure that the path chosen is the right one for its patrons and at the same time is similar to the one the rest of the industry is following. To do so, NLS collaborates with others in the industry, both in the United States and abroad. NLS initiated and led the effort to develop a national standard to ensure that DTBs will be the same no matter who provides them and to facilitate resource sharing among those serving blind readers. A study has been undertaken to gather data on user demographics and physical and cognitive abilities. NLS has developed a model to project program costs under different scenarios.

Audio books. NLS has set a target date of 2008 to have 20,000 DTB titles and 50,000 players ready for initial distribution. The first request for proposals (RFP), including detailed specifications on procurement and quality assurance, has been issued. Contractors will begin producing DTBs according to those specifications in 2004. Conversion of 10,000 of the 40,000 analog recorded catalog titles to DTB format is planned, and an RFP for the pilot conversion of 200 titles has been issued. NLS also sponsored the development of a system whereby network libraries can duplicate analog cassettes from digital masters and convert analog recordings to digital format. It is currently defining the hardware and software needed to manage book files during recording and quality assurance.

DTB players. While some patrons may read books online or download them to their own systems, NLS will continue to distribute players to its patrons well into the future. NLS is putting significant effort into the design of the DTB player. It must be easy to use and maintain but also provide certain basic navigation features, such as a mechanism for moving from chapter to chapter.

NLS sponsored a Digital Player Design contest in conjunction with the Industrial Designers Society of America, and innovative elements from the 146 entries will be included in the final design of the player. An RFP for player development was issued in late 2003.

Audio delivery systems. NLS has made significant progress in defining how to build and store the DTB collection. A more pressing issue is how to get the DTBs to more than half a million patrons. Since online access and downloading are not an option for most, NLS expects to provide books and players through the mail for the immediate future. Today each book is sent as a container of cassettes. For the 2008 target date, it is probable that each book will still be sent on its own physical medium--most likely a nonvolatile memory (flash memory) cartridge. Over time, NLS foresees a steady increase, however, in the number of users who access books over the Internet. NLS is also investigating producing books on demand. The cost of establishing collections in network libraries at the levels currently maintained for cassettes may be prohibitive. Also, because the space to house and the staff to circulate book collections from network libraries are particularly burdensome, NLS is evaluating an automated system that would accept a list of books to be mailed to patrons, write the books to memory cartridges, label them, and prepare and address their mailing containers. When returned, the books would be recycled. With such a system, only a few cartridges would be required.

NLS is also exploring the feasibility of using on-demand technology at national distribution centers. Network libraries would house and circulate only the 20 percent of the collection that is in high demand. The requests for the rest of the collection would be sent to distribution centers, where on-demand technology would be used to produce the books and mail them. Furthermore, given the growing availability of unabridged commercial audio books, NLS is assessing the feasibility of purchasing, rather than producing, audio books formatted to NLS standards. Several such books have already been acquired and distributed.

Braille books. In the early 1990s, NLS instructed braille contractors to provide electronic copies of the books they produced. Those books and all new braille books and magazines are now available to users online through the Web-Braille system at <www.loc.gov/nls/braille>. Also thanks to this system, a library that has lost a volume can now order a new embossed, bound copy and put the title back in circulation.

Network library operations. NLS sees the network libraries as partners and has investigated and developed technology to help them. A Web service now relieves libraries of much of their NLS paperwork: that is, they can use the Internet to identify and order books, obtain bibliographic data, order supplies, update their own data, send forms, and retrieve publications. This site also supports an interlibrary loan service that currently processes 10,000 transactions a month.

General program direction. The Digital Long-Term Planning Group, which consists of two members from consumer groups, three state librarians, eight network librarians, and the director of the library of the Canadian National Institute for the Blind, was formed so NLS could work more closely with the network on DTB planning and also investigate other parts of the digital world.

Other alternatives. NLS evaluated a number of technological approaches: CD–ROMs, hard-disk systems, and commercial off-the-shelf players. However, because all would have required extensive modification, NLS plans instead to produce a machine based in commercial technology but designed specifically for NLS patrons.

Throughout this technological revolution and its attendant changes, NLS will continue to focus on serving its patrons, and those patrons can continue to depend on NLS to provide high-quality reading materials.

OPERATIONS DIRECTORATE

Encoded Archival Description Finding Aids (EAD)

The Library lists its EAD finding aids at <http://lcweb2.loc.gov/faid/faidfrquery.html>. Recently improved searching and display features provide access to almost 14 million items in more than 200 online finding aids from 7 special collection divisions in the Public Service Collections Directorate. In addition to the Manuscript Division (MSS, the main contributor), the EAD approach is working well for the Performing Arts and Folklife archives, and for extensive contents and folder lists of Prints and Photographs, Geography and Map, and Recorded Sound collections. The LC ILS provides collection level summary records that point to the finding aids. RLG harvests the documents for its Archival Resources site to provide a 'union catalog' of finding aids. Next steps include upgrading to the new XML version of EAD and providing PDF paper copies for reading rooms. For additional information, contact LC's EAD Technical Group, co‑chaired by Ardie Bausenbach (Automation Planning and Liaison Office; email <abau@loc.gov> and Mary Lacy (MSS).

LC ILS (Integrated Library System)

The ILS Office has continued success in expanding access and improving service for users of the Library of Congress databases. The introduction of new hardware to support the ILS has improved overall performance. Specifically, the implementation of a second copy of the Online Public Access Catalog (OPAC) on a new more powerful server made possible a 64 percent increase in the number of simultaneous OPAC users, while the number of customers who could not be accommodated has declined by 80 percent

Efforts continue to improve the Z39.50 module to accommodate more users in an efficient manner. A second full copy of the LC Database (LCDB) is maintained in a separate partition of the ILS server. All incoming Z39.50 traffic is directed to this second copy while all Web OPAC traffic is directed to the “live” copy.

Although plans for implementing the 2001.2 version of Voyager are currently suspended, the Library has moved forward in testing the Unicode release of Voyager, now in the Early Release stage of development. Two staff members are on the Endeavor Acquisitions Task Force that is providing guidance for Voyager Release 5.0, which will follow the Unicode release.

The CRS Voyager application ramped up to full production in fiscal 2003, now utilizing the acquisitions module and the “New Books” add on feature. The ILS Office is assisting the Copyright Office in its plans to migrate from the current COPICS environment to a Voyager database.

At the beginning of fiscal 2004 the ILS staff completed testing of hardware and software for use by LC teleworkers. It is expected that teleworking will expand somewhat in fiscal 2004 as additional hardware and software become available.

In response to the changing demands of our digital library and in recognition of the inherent limitations of a single ILS application, the Library purchased the ERMS module from Innovative Interfaces in September, 2003. It will be used to track over 20,000 subscriptions for electronic resources used by the Library. The module will note both acquisitions information and licensing rights; it is based on the evolving Digital Library Federation standards.

Staff in the ILS Office have completed functional requirements for the acquisition of OpenURL software, considered to be a vital architectural piece for future implementation of a portal project. ILS funds have been committed to complete the purchase of this software in early fiscal 2004. (See also “Portals Application” under Cataloging Directorate.)

Network Development and MARC Standards Office (NDMSO)

NDMSO is the focal point for technical library, network and digital standards and related planning in Library Services. Highlights of fiscal 2003 included: 1) increasing use of the MARC Toolkit, which includes MARCXML, MODS and various transformations; 2) endorsing the Metadata Object Description Schema (MODS), a simpler XML companion to MARCXML, and Metadata for Images in XML (MIX) bu the METS Editorial Board, as an extension schema; 3) development and maintenance responsibilities for the Metadata Encoding and Transmission Standard (METS), an important standard for repository management of digital objects, working with the METS Editorial Board in the release of version 1.3; 4) finalizing version 1.1 of the Z39.50-International Next Generation (ZING) protocol, SRW, that evolves the widely implemented Z39.50 information retrieval protocol to a new Web definition service; 5) assuming coordinating responsibility for four areas assigned to the Library of Congress as part of the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions/Conference of Directors of National Libraries Alliance for Bibliographic Standards (ICABS): Marc 21, Z39.50/SRW, metadata and XML schemes, and persistent identifiers; 6) completing requirements for a content management system for Library Services’s Web site, in collaboration with the Office of Strategic Initiatives; 7) opening the “Courage, Patriotism, Community” Web site with a new experimental approach to the underlying technology, to make the digital items more easily repurposed and open the way to support various object behaviors; and 8) further developing an Internet Technical Training curriculum for LC staff.

PRESERVATION DIRECTORATE

Overview

During 2003, the Library’s Preservation Directorate provided a comprehensive range of services to preserve, protect and make available collections in all formats. Through the coordinated efforts of staff in the Directorate’s four divisions and two special programs, 1,873,453 items were preserved at a total cost of $12,164,716. The average per-item cost was $6.49, a dramatic decrease of $3.46 from fiscal 2002.

Notable accomplishments included the provision of 35,000 hours of conservation for custodial division collections, including the selection and stabilization of 600 items for the National Digital Library; the successful completion of year two of a five year preventive preservation initiative; deacidification of 223,575 books and one million sheets of paper; completion of the second year of a multi-year project to determine the life expectancy of compact disc media; and the preservation microfilming of 2.1 million exposures (4.3 million pages) for service to the public. Digital preservation activities within the Directorate included hosting visits to LC by national and international digital preservation experts and contributing to the efforts of the National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program.

Preserving and Protecting the Library’s Collections

The Preservation Directorate participated in the work of the Library’s Emergency Management Team and the Collections Security Oversight Committee. Guidelines for responding to water-related emergencies were revised and included in the Library’s Comprehensive Emergency Preparedness Plan. Key areas in the directorate received security upgrades, and the Library’s Top Treasures list was reviewed. A mobile flash freezer unit to stabilize water- damaged library materials was installed.

Preservation of Digital Assets

To support the Library’s digital preservation efforts, the directorate developed a technical plan that employs digital tools extending the range of preservation services and options available to collection stewards. The plan focuses specifically on the development of digital reformatting capabilities; hybrid approaches to preserving content that use both analog and digital approaches; and applied digital preservation research.

Building partnerships is a top priority in the plan, and during 2003 several important collaborations were forged. The first of these involved a collaboration with the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory to develop a proposal for a two-dimensional imaging device for horizontally modulated recording media. The second involved an interagency agreement with the National Institute of Standards and Technology to conduct a series of life-expectancy tests on compact disc (CD) and digital versatile disk (DVD) media. The third collaboration involved a series of planning meetings with scientists from the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. These discussions focused on developing tools and strategies for preserving and providing sustained access to diverse databases, and the commissioning of research regarding preservation repository architecture, including definition of aspects that constitute a “trusted repository.” Planning is underway for a series of pilot projects and position papers on these topics.

In September, the Preservation Directorate issued a paper reporting its research on the life expectancy and aging of CD media. The paper is available on the directorate Web site at <http://www.loc.gov/preserv>

Conservation

In fiscal 2003, conservators surveyed 7,074,700 special collection items for treatment, digitization, exhibition, and relocation to off-site storage. Staff treated 12,000 books, paper, photographic and mixed media materials and rehoused 313,000 items. The 1507 Waldseemuller Map of the World (Cosmographia Mundi) was analyzed and placed into a preservation-quality protective housing for exhibition and storage. The exhibition case uses passive methods to achieve environmental stability. Fiber optic lights were used in the exhibition to assure long-term preservation of the map.

To support the Library’s exhibition and loan program, conservators processed more than 310 items from eight divisions for 34 external loans and more than 500 items for eleven exhibitions at the Library.

The second year of the Paper Strengthening pilot program saw the conclusion of a comprehensive testing program and the start of the treatment of Library collection material. A process called mechanical paper splitting was selected as the best candidate for increasing the strength and life span of brittle paper. Samples treated by the vendor were thoroughly tested, and additional research into pre-splitting treatment was conducted in collaboration with the Preservation Research and Testing Division. The research and analysis resulted in the definition of a treatment protocol to be used by the vendor in the treatment of the Library’s collection material. Approximately 1,500 pages of the New York Journal were treated, resulting in dramatic improvement of the newspapers’ durability and usability.

Work continued on the development of written preservation specifications for equipment and furnishings for collections. An environmental monitoring project continued with the Image Permanence Institute (IPI) to optimize collection environments using existing equipment. An additional 62 Preservation Environment Monitors were added to 22 earlier installations, bringing the total to 84 monitors throughout collection storage areas in all custodial divisions, including Fort Meade and at Culpeper.

The second Getty Grant Program Fellow completed collection and item-level surveys in the pre-Meiji collections of the Asian Division and the French Law Rare Book collections in the Law Division, where an environmental survey of the Rare Book vault was also undertaken.

Binding and Collections Care Division

The Binding and Collections Care Division (BCCD) labeled a total of 166,906 volumes, reviewed the quality of 219,187 volumes, and prepared 94,355 volumes for binding. The division also bound 6,274 pamphlets and sent 221,053 volumes for commercial binding. The workflow of the Library’s Mass Deacidification Program was merged with the Binding Preparation Section workflow so that books could be identified for deacidification upon return from the bindery.

The BCCD Collections Care Section repaired 2,867 volumes and constructed 10,357 boxes. The section hosted four interns and volunteers who contributed to the preservation of the Library’s collections.

Preservation Research and Testing Division

Research carried out in the Research and Testing laboratory produced a new technique that could discern and quantify the aging of paper over weeks and months instead of decades. These techniques were applied to the aging of several different papers at and above room temperature. These studies will make lifetime projections of various papers possible with a much higher degree of confidence than ever before. Results of this work were to be published in fiscal 2004.

Work on development of preservation standards included: participation in the Association for Image and Information Management's (AIIM) Standards Board, to develop a PDF standard for archival or permanent documents; chairing the American Society for Testing and Materials Subcommittee D14.50 for Hot Melts, Pressure Sensitive and Archival Adhesives, to develop international standards for label and pressure-sensitive adhesive materials for libraries and archives; development of specifications for permanent and durable materials to house LC collections; participation in DVD Association meetings held to form a Government-wide special interest group (SIG) dedicated to addressing longevity issues as DVD technology develops and matures.

Preservation Reformatting Division (PRD)

The preservation reformatting program successfully preserved 4,348,720 pages of Library material through microfilming (2,190,702 exposures or 4.3 million pages), preservation facsimile (39,722 pages), and digitization (8,998 pages) in fiscal 2003 for service to the public. The reformatted material was drawn from three Area Studies Collections divisions, 7 Public Service Collections divisions, and the Law Library.

PRD staff continued working with the Photoduplication Service (PDS) to process brittle materials for filming, collating over 312,000 pages of foreign language material.

The preservation facsimile program replaced 75 embrittled reference volumes (39,722 pages) from the Library’s reading rooms with preservation‑quality, acid‑free paper facsimile volumes bound to the Library’s standards. Efforts were taken to begin transforming this existing analog preservation process into a hybrid analog/digital solution.

The digital preservation reformatting component of PRD went into production with its Interlibrary Loan Brittle Book digitization project. Working collaboratively with the Collections Access, Loan and Management Division (CALM), PRD staff digitally processed more than 100 public domain items (8,998 page images), too brittle for traditional interlibrary loan delivery mechanisms, making them available to the original requester and other future users via the Web.

In an effort to better preserve important characteristics of large format color materials acquired by the African/Asian Acquisition and Overseas Operations Division’s Rio de Janeiro office, PRD arranged for the digitization of posters and microfilming of text documents comprising the eleventh supplement of the Brazil’s Popular Groups. This unique collection of newsletters, house reports, brochures and educational materials from all regions of Brazil documents the ideas and activities of organizations and popular movements not available from traditional publications.

Mass Deacidification Program

With a successful mass deacidification program in place since 1996, the Library has extended the useful life of more than 775,000 books through utilization of this new preservation technology that neutralizes the acid in paper. During fiscal 2003, the Library ramped up treatment to 200,000 books, achieving the third-year goal of a five-year contract that will enable the Library to deacidify one million books. Achieving another important objective of its Thirty Year (One Generation) Mass Deacidification Plan, the Library used the new onsite single-sheet treatment cylinder, installed late in fiscal 2002, to deacidify 1,000,000 pages of non-book, paper-based materials this year.

United States Newspaper Program

Fiscal 2003 marked the 20th anniversary of the United States Newspaper Program (USNP). During the past twenty years, access to newspapers was greatly enhanced through the program’s effort to catalog over 167,700 titles and to preserve on microfilming an anticipated 65.8 million newspaper pages. The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) expected to conclude the existing USNP by 2007; the Library and NEH staff engaged in intensive discussions during 2003 on how best to make the fruits of the USNP microfilming effort digitally available. Negotiations with NEH were ongoing at the close of the fiscal year.

Grant awards from NEH of $1.67 million in fiscal 2003 funded continuing projects in three states: California, Illinois and Virginia. State projects were completed in Arizona. Active projects continued in Michigan, New York and Tennessee. To date, NEH provided $49.2 million in support of USNP projects. Non‑federal contributions totaled approximately $19.6 million.

PUBLIC SERVICE COLLECTIONS DIRECTORATE

Save Our Sounds. Since 2000 the AFC, in coordination with the Smithsonian Institution, has been establishing standards and best practices for the digitization of multi‑media ethnographic collections. Under a grant from the Save America's Treasures program administered by the National Parks Service, the two institutions are digitizing 8,000 sound recordings and accompanying photographic and manuscript materials. The AFC has begun or completed work on eight collections: American Dialect Society Collection (in progress), International Storytelling Foundation Collection (in progress), Pearl Harbor Attack Collection (completed), Don Yoder Pennsylvania German Collection (in progress), Zuni Storytelling Collection (in progress), Eleanor Dickinson Holiness Churches Collection (completed), Eloise Linscott New England Folksong Collection (completed), and James Madison Carpenter British and American Folksong Collection (in progress). Many of the digitized files are already accessible in the AFC reading room. The Pearl Harbor Attack Collection is online in American Memory.

Baseline Inventory Program (BIP)

The BIP project was established to inventory the Library’s collections, beginning with the general collections, Area Studies Collections, and the Law Library collections. This effort is part of the Library’s collections security effort. Productivity metrics for the second year of BIP show a substantial increase. In the first full year of a contract with Library Systems and Services, Inc., two teams worked in the Jefferson and Adams Buildings, respectively. The total number of volumes inventoried by LSSI contract staff was 480,681 volumes. An additional 105,000 volumes were inventoried by Law Library staff prior to shipment to the Fort Meade off-site storage facility. Of the total inventoried, twelve percent required some problem resolution.

Collections inventoried through September include classes PZ 3-90, non-Asian MLC, and class E98 and higher, all from the Jefferson Building; Asian MLC, selected Chinese volumes in classes Q through T, and selected Japanese volumes in class PL, from the Adams Building; and the Law Library collections. Except for class E, all these were sent to Fort Meade.

Geography and Map Division

The year ending September 30, 2003, was a momentous one for the Geography and Map Division (G&M). Among the highlights of this year included the successful completion of the efforts to acquire the world treasure, the 1507 world map by Martin Waldseemüller, of which only one copy in the world exists. That map is the first document on which the name ‘America’ appears and the first to show a Western Hemisphere sided on both shores by oceans.

In addition to the Waldseemüller map acquisition, the Geography and Map Division acquired the archives of the C.S. Hammond Map Company, a century old map and atlas producer considered one of the two most noteworthy American map firms. The extraordinary collection was in the process of being reviewed and arranged at the end of the year.

Humanities and Social Sciences Division (HSS)

Reference Service. Because of the increased number of questions coming to the Library via the Internet and the lack of staff, centralized telephone reference service has been discontinued on a trial basis. Reference service is available via the Internet, mail or fax. Local History & Genealogy & Main Reading Room staff received over 4,333 Question Point requests from June to November, 2003.

OFFICE OF STRATEGIC INITIATIVES

The Office of Strategic Initiatives (OSI) was established as a service unit in the Library of Congress during fiscal 2001 to oversee institution-wide digital initiatives and lead the national program to build a preservation network and infrastructure for the nation’s important digital assets.

The Office of Strategic Initiatives consists of Information Technology Services (ITS), the Directorate for Digital Resource Management and Planning (DRMP) and Digital Initiative offices established to oversee the life cycle management of the Library’s digital assets and implementation of the Library’s cross-institution digital initiatives. The purpose of these organizational units is to provide Library-wide leadership and integration among the Library’s technology and digital initiatives as part of its continuing mission-critical services and operations.

ITS supports the technology needs of the Library and the specific goals and programs of OSI. The programs of OSI are collaborative in nature, requiring the service unit to work with other units of the Library as well as with external partners and other institutions.

As in the previous fiscal year, OSI’s major focus in fiscal 2003 was the National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program (NDIIPP). The program is funded by a fiscal 2001 appropriation of $99.8 million (originally $100 million before a rescission was imposed) from Congress. Congress has asked the Library to lead this nationwide effort “in collaboration with other federal and nonfederal entities.” The goal of NDIIPP is to:

®encourage shared responsibility among many institutions and organizations for the collection, storage and preservation of digital content,

®seek national solutions for the continuing collection, selection and organization of historically significant cultural materials regardless of evolving formats,

®ensure the long-term storage, preservation and authenticity of those collections, and

®work toward persistent, rights-protected access for the public to the digital heritage of the American people.

In October 2002, “Preserving Our Digital Heritage: Plan for the National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program” was submitted to Congress for approval, which was received in December 2002. The plan, the result of extensive fact-finding, planning and consultation with a broad range of stakeholders, outlines the steps the Library will take as it leads the national effort to develop a digital preservation infrastructure consisting of:

· a network of committed partners and

· the technical architecture to support long-term digital collection, storage and preservation.

Concurrent with the plan’s approval was the release of $35 million to begin the program’s next phase.

As part of that next phase, in August 2002, the National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program issued an announcement seeking applications for projects that will advance this nationwide program.

This first set of projects will focus on two major NDIIPP goals:

· the selection and collection of at-risk and historically significant digital materials for which no analog equivalent exists and

· the development of a network of committed NDIIPP partners with defined roles and responsibilities to support the long-term collection and preservation of digital content.

These project applications will develop and test models for the collection of digital materials, specifically those that are historically significant and at risk of disappearing if they are not captured. Project applications were to be postmarked by November 12, 2003. Four to six awards were to be made in February 2004.

Details of NDIIPP are on the program’s Web site at <www.digitalpreservation.gov>.

National Digital Library Program

During fiscal 2003, the National Digital Library Program (NDL) continued to receive widespread praise as a provider of free, high-quality, educationally valuable American cultural and historical resources on the Library’s American Memory Web site. Digital conversion activities at the Library of Congress are the product of an integrated program coordinated by the Public Service Collections, Area Studies Collections and OSI in cooperation with other Library divisions and other repositories. At year’s end, more than 8.5 million items from the Library of Congress and other institutions were available online or in digital archives.

In fiscal 2003, seven new multimedia historical collections were added to the American Memory Web site, bringing the total to 123. Seven existing collections were expanded with approximately 344,000 digital items.

One of the seven new American Memory collections this year was the result of a Library of Congress-Ameritech award. The new presentation brings the total number of collections made available through this program to 23 and concludes the LC-Ameritech project. Beginning in 1997, the Library of Congress sponsored this three‑year competition with a gift from the Ameritech Corporation to enable public, research and academic libraries, museums, historical societies and archival institutions (with the exception of federal institutions) to digitize American history collections and to make them available on the Library’s American Memory Web site. Those digital collections complement and enhance the Library’s online resources. Thirty‑three institutions received $1.75 million of support to digitize 23 projects.

New American Memory collections from the Library of Congress added in fiscal 2003 were: The Pearl Harbor Attack Collections; American Notes: Travels in America: 1750-1920; Macao Maps; Wilbur and Orville Wright Papers; American Women’s History; and Stars and Stripes: The Official Newspaper of the American Expeditionary Forces Printed in France from February 8, 1919, to June 13, 1919. The new Ameritech collection added was

Chinese in California, 1850-1920.

In addition, five new Library exhibitions were mounted on the Library’s Web site by the ITS Digital Scan Center and three continuing exhibitions were updated. More than 45 online exhibitions are now available from the Library’s Web site.

The new online exhibitions were: Earth as Art: A Landsat Perspective; Ancient Manuscripts: From the Desert Libraries of Timbuktu; Herblock's Gift: Selections from the Herb Block Foundation Collection; Rivers, Edens, Empires: Lewis & Clark and the Revealing of America; and Creative Space: Fifty Years of Robert Blackburn’s Printmaking Workshop.

Meeting of Frontiers

The Library’s international cooperative digital library projects expanded this year to include both new projects and new partners. The National Library of Russia and the Russian State Library continued to contribute digitized historical materials to Meeting of Frontiers, a Russian-American bilingual Web site. Launched in 1999 and funded by congressional appropriation, Meeting of Frontiers is part of the Library’s Global Gateway Web site, a portal to the Library’s unparalleled global information that also provides links to information from other sources worldwide. Global Gateway is an initiative to create digital partnerships between the Library of Congress and leading libraries around the world.

Recent additions to the Meeting of Frontiers collections are from the Library of Congress; the State and University Library of Lower Saxony of Göttingen, Germany; the National Library of Russia; and the Russian State Library. The site now includes more than 330,000 digital images. Meeting of Frontiers is the world’s largest bilingual collaborative library site.

Library of Congress collections added to Meeting of Frontiers in fiscal 2003 include the Kiowa Stories from the papers of Hugh Lenox Scott and the Eleanor L. Pray Album. Scott was a West Point graduate and career military officer who served at various Western posts between 1876 and 1897. In 1892, he was assigned to Fort Sill, Okla., and given command of Troop L of the 7th Cavalry, a unit consisting of Kiowa, Comanche and Apache. The Eleanor L. Pray Album features images from Vladivostok in 1899-1901 and the life of an American merchant family living in the city at that time.

The latest Meeting of Frontiers update also includes, from the State and University Library of Göttingen, a large portion of this institution’s extraordinary Asch Collection. The collection, which is a creation of Georg Thomas von Asch (1729-1807), a German who studied medicine at Göttingen and then entered the Russian National Service, is a comprehensive record of Russian expeditions to Siberia in the second half of the 18^th  century.

Project partners since 1999, the Russian State Library and the National Library of Russia contributed rare books, maps and manuscripts to their already extensive collections of digitized materials on the Meeting of Frontiers site. The additions include unpublished memoirs of Russian exiles in Siberia, Russian documentation about the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905 and the 1837 translation into Aleut of the Russian catechism by Ioann Veniaminov (St. Innocent).

Educational Outreach

The Office of Strategic Initiatives continued to reach out to the education community through its electronic programs. Web sites such as America’s Library, the Wise Guide (a joint project with the Public Affairs Office), Today in History and the Learning Page provide educational materials to teachers and their students as well as the general public.

The Learning Page Web site redesign continued in fiscal 2003 to enhance the user experience. Nine new lesson plans, designed by educators who have participated in the Library’s American Memory Fellows Program, were made available.

The Learning Page's Immigration feature presentation continued to add major sections of content that demonstrate how various ethnic groups shaped America. A Community Center was implemented as an interactive section of the site. Eleven discussion themes were introduced. In addition, eight interactive activities were created for teachers’ use with their students, and seven Collection Connections were added to provide activities for using the Library's digital materials in the classroom. Learning Page staff made presentations, led workshops and demonstrated the Learning Page at various conferences nationwide.

America's Library continued to serve children and their families with new stories based on the collections of the Library and new interactive activities for users of the site. The site has won numerous awards and is one of the most popular online offerings of the Library.

The Library's newest Web site, the Wise Guide, continued to serve as a gateway to all of the Library's online initiatives by offering monthly articles based on those other Web offerings.

In fiscal 2003, the Adventure of the American Mind (AAM) program grew to include a total of 17 partners in five states. This program was created by Congress, and implemented by the Library of Congress with the Educational and Research Consortium of the Western Carolinas. Its purpose is to bring the riches of the Library’s online collections to students in the classroom by providing educators with the tools and training to integrate electronic primary sources into their teachings.

As a part of AAM, the final Thomas Jefferson Summer Institute was held, featuring several workshops and tours at the Library of Congress and at Thomas Jefferson’s home, Monticello. The experience allowed teachers to view firsthand many of the materials they have brought to their students through the American Memory Web site.

Several partners joined the AAM program in fiscal 2003. New program directors from Loyola University, DePaul University, Governor's State University, the Federation of Independent Illinois Colleges and Universities and Southern Illinois University, Carbondale (all from Illinois); from the University of South Carolina in Spartanburg; from Brevard College in North Carolina; and from the Arlington, Alexandria and Falls Church school systems in Virginia attended a two-day orientation to the Library as an introduction to the AAM program.