Library of Congress Update for the
Technical Services Directors of Large Research Libraries Group
LC EXHIBIT BOOTH
The Library’s exhibit booth
is no. 1582 in the
In-booth theater
presentations:
Preserving Digital Heritage: The National Digital
Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program: Presenter TBA (Saturday, June 26-Tuesday, June 29,
Cataloger’s Desktop on the Web: Bruce Johnson (Saturday, June 26-Tuesday, June 29,
Classification Web: Now with LC/Dewey Correlations: Cheryl Cook (Saturday, June 26-Tuesday, June 29,
Portals to the World: One Stop Shopping for
International Web Resources: Everette
Larson (Monday, June 28,
Library of Congress Mission to Baghdad: A 30-minute video interview developed by Information
Technology Services on the "Library of Congress Mission to Baghdad,"
a journey to Iraq undertaken by Dr. Mary-Jane Deeb, area specialist for the
Arab world; Dr. Michael Albin, chief of the Anglo-American Acquisitions Division;
and Alan Haley, conservation specialist in the Preservation Directorate, to
make recommendations on rebuilding the
National Library of Iraq. There will be
no commentary; just the 28-minute video.
Sunday, June 27,
Tuesday, June 29,
CONGRESSIONAL RELATIONS OFFICE
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 and preserve the materials is all the more
important due to the inherently ephemeral nature of electronic works. The draft legislation has not been introduced
to date. Some Members are concerned
about setting this type of precedent under copyright law.
Access to Congressional
Information
Just prior to the
congressional winter recess, Reps. Shays and other co-sponsors introduced H.R. 3630,
requiring the Congressional Research Service to make publicly available its
issue briefs, reports, and authorization and appropriations-related products
that are generally available to Members of Congress. Public availability would be accomplished through
the Websites of Members of Congress.
Sen. McCain introduced a similar resolution, S. Res. 54, early in the
108th Congress.
LIBRARY SERVICES
New Personnel and Service
Unit Realignment
Robert Dizard, Jr., was appointed Deputy Associate
Librarian for Library Services on May 24.
James Carroll continues as special confidential assistant to Associate
Librarian Deanna Marcum.
The associate librarian, deputy associate librarian,
and Library Services directors have discussed how to align the service unit’s
top levels to ensure that Library Services delivers the best service and
products to its users. On May 7 Dr.
Marcum presented a preliminary vision of a new alignment featuring five
directorates: acquisitions and bibliographic access, a directorate that would
include both acquisitions and cataloging functions, recognizing that both serve
the goal of providing access to information and knowledge; collections and
services, bringing together all collections divisions; a partnerships and
outreach directorate that will develop relationships with external
organizations and develop educational programs for diverse audiences;
preservation; and technology policy. The
final structure is still under consideration.
Staff within divisions will not be affected in that they will continue
reporting to the same division chief, even though they may be located within a
new directorate. Nevertheless, the
associate librarian has kept staff informed of the planning through her weekly
“Friday’s News” messages, which also provide information about her contacts
with other institutions and links to suggested readings about library service
in the 21st century.
FORT MEADE OFFSITE STORAGE FACILITY
The first book storage module
of a thirteen-module facility that the Library is preparing on a military base
outside of
Module 1
Approximately 930,000 items
have been transferred to Module 1 from the general collections, Law Library
collections, and Area Studies collections.
Module 1 capacity is estimated at 1.2 million items. Module 1 is now approximately 77 percent
full, and will be filled by early calendar 2005. More than 5,000 requests have been received
for items stored at
Module 1 offers excellent
environmental conditions for storage of paper-based collections. The year-round environment is maintained at
50 degrees Fahrenheit, 35 percent relative humidity.
Module 2
Construction has begun on
Module 2, and completion is scheduled for the first quarter of calendar
2005. Like Module 1, Module 2 will house
primarily book items selected from the general collections, Law Library
collections, and Area Studies collections, although there will be a small
number of items from Rare Book and Special Collections and Music. Module 2 capacity is estimated at 1.8 million
items. Environmental conditions are the
same as for Module 1.
The Modules 3 and 4
Program
Design has been completed for
the Modules 3-4 construction program.
Construction of these modules and four cold vaults will address the
needs of the special format collections, e.g., maps, prints and photographs,
microfilm, manuscripts. The initiative
to combine Modules 3 and 4 was chosen as the appropriate course of action
necessary to address crucial crowding in the special format collections. Incorporating four cold vaults (three at 35
degrees Fahrenheit, one at 25 degrees Fahrenheit) is essential to protect media
types that need such an environment, for example our 400,000-500,000 reels of
microfilm masters, many of which are deteriorating under current storage
conditions.
Processing space at the
facility will allow the Library to acquire special format collections and
process them directly into the facility rather than having to ship these back
and forth between Ft. Meade and Capitol Hill.
An isolation room will permit the Library to ensure that newly acquired
collections are free of any insects before the collections are introduced into
the storage modules. A security base of
operation is also being incorporated into this construction project to protect
all Library buildings and grounds on the Ft. Meade campus. Construction and occupancy dates are
dependent upon receipt of construction funding.
NATIONAL AUDIO VISUAL CONSERVATION CENTER
NAVCC in Culpeper
The Motion Picture,
Broadcasting, and Recorded Sound Division continued intensive planning for the
National Audio Visual Conservation Center (NAVCC) in Culpeper, Virginia, the
largest project the Library has ever undertaken with a private donor. The Center is being developed through a
unique partnership with the Packard Humanities Institute, which will construct
the new facility and donate it to the Library upon completion. The NAVCC campus will have four building
components totaling 415,000 square feet of space. Construction on the site
began in August 2003 and remains on schedule.
The facility will be built and transferred to the
government in two phases. Phase 1 includes the Collections Building, an
existing former Federal Reserve Bank facility that will be converted entirely
to storage for all the Library’s sound and non-nitrate moving image holdings.
Phase 1 is scheduled for completion in May 2005, at which time the Library will
be able to move these collections to the renovated building. Phase 2 includes
the Conservation Building, the new main staff building that will house the
Center’s administrative offices, collection processing areas, and the film,
video and sound preservation laboratories.
VETERANS HISTORY PROJECT
The United States Congress
created the Veterans History Project (VHP) in 2000 to preserve the memories of
veterans and those who served in support of them. VHP's collections are a
growing part of the Library of Congress' American Folklife Center, where people
today and future generations can learn history from those who lived it. To
date, more than 16,000 stories and 70,000 items have been collected to reflect
the first hand accounts of Veterans’ war experience.
The Veterans History Project
(VHP) of the Library of Congress participated in the National World War II
Reunion on the National Mall in Washington during Memorial Day weekend, May
27-30. In an unprecedented effort, the Library of Congress collected
on-the-spot interviews from World War II veterans and civilians who served in
support of those veterans during the four-day weekend. In teams of two, more
than 400 Library of Congress staff and other volunteers roamed the National
Mall to record the wartime experiences of World War II veterans and home front
workers. Joining the Library staff were
volunteers from local high schools, universities, civic groups and other
organizations.
ACQUISITIONS DIRECTORATE
Personnel
Nancy Davenport, Director for
Acquisitions, will become president of the Council on Library and Information
Resources on July 5.
Judy McDermott, Chief of the
African/Asian Acquisitions and Overseas Operations Division, has announced that
she will retire effective October 1, 2004.
Recommending Officers
Round Table
The Collections Policy
Committee chair laid the groundwork for the establishment of the Recommending
Officers Round Table. The Round Table
will be a way for ROs to continue discussions held with Sue Martin, former
University Librarian at Georgetown University (1990-2001), who was contracted
by the Library to make recommendations on how to modify the Collections Policy
Statements to include elements of the digital world.
New Subscriptions
Moratorium
A moratorium on new serials
subscriptions, instituted in 2003, has remained in effect, and several hundred
recommendations for new subscriptions are being held indefinitely. The buying power of the Library’s collections
acquisitions budget has diminished over the past several years as prices have
increased and the dollar has weakened.
The Library has asked for a significant increase to the base
acquisitions appropriation in its FY 2005 budget request.
Measuring the Use of
Electronic Resources
Statistical reports showing
monthly usage and subscription costs for the Library’s electronic resources
have been developed. April was the first
month covered by these new reports.
Included are on-site usage figures for the 218 databases to which the
Library subscribes.
AREA
STUDIES COLLECTIONS DIRECTORATE
The Library of Congress and
the National Library of Egypt have agreed to develop jointly a bilingual,
multimedia digital library project.
Selected historical collections from both institutions will be digitized
and made available through the Internet as an LC Global Gateway Website.
The Library of Congress
concluded an agreement with the Bibliothčque nationale de France to launch a
joint digital project titled France in
America. The project will feature rare maps, books, manuscripts, and prints
from the collections of the two institutions relating to the French exploration
and settlement of North America from Cartier to the Louisiana Purchase. A second stage of the project will deal with
U.S.-French interactions in the 19th century.
CATALOGING
DIRECTORATE
New Division Chiefs and
Other Personnel Changes
Dennis McGovern was appointed
permanent chief of the Decimal Classification Division, effective May 16. He had been acting chief since February 2002
and was leader of the Education, Sports and Recreation Team, Social Sciences
Cataloging Division, from November 1999 to February 2002.
Angela J. Kinney was
appointed permanent chief of the Social Sciences Cataloging Division, effective
May 30. Ms. Kinney was leader of the
Southeast/South Asia Team, Regional and Cooperative Cataloging Division, from
September 1996 through 1999 and was a member of the Library of Congress
Leadership Development class of 1999-2000.
Since June 2000 she has been special assistant to the Director for
National Services, Library Services.
Judith A. Mansfield continues
as acting director for cataloging.
Allene Farmer Hayes became
the digital projects coordinator for the Cataloging Directorate on February 23.
The Library mourned the death
on January 14 of Cynthia J. "Cinder" Johanson, assistant chief of the
Regional and Cooperative Cataloging Division, a former ALA Council member.
Bibliographic Enrichment
Advisory Team (BEAT) see also Electronic Resources
Cataloging
The Bibliographic Enrichment
Advisory Team (BEAT), a Cataloging Directorate initiative aimed at developing
tools to aid catalogers, reference specialists, and searchers in creating and
locating information, has realized considerable progress since January
2004. 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 related areas. Additional information
regarding BEAT, its work, and the projects described here may be found starting at the main BEAT Web
page at
http://lcweb.loc.gov/catdir/beat.
Automated Web Cataloging. An outgrowth of
BEAT’s Web Access to Publications in Series project (see below), Web
Cataloging evolved from the experiences
the team gained in providing access at the individual monograph level for
selected series. While effective, the processes utilized heretofore were labor
intensive, and BEAT has now started to use a much more automated approach to
this work. Using programming developed by
team member David Williamson, it has proved possible for a cataloger to
examine the abstract page for a particular monograph on the Web, and by using
computer and programmed functions, effect the creation of a MARC record that is
automatically added to the LC database.
This record includes an abstract of the title represented. A cataloger subsequently enhances that
cataloging data to ensure that name headings are established and to add subject
headings. The capability greatly reduces
manual aspects of the project and allows catalogers to concentrate on the
intellectual work, thus providing an enriched record through largely automated
means. The application is being applied
first to selected series issued by the Federal Reserve Board.
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. In this most recent addition, beginning with
approximately 230 titles represented in the Library’s collections, links have been made to titles in The Harvard
University Library Open Collections Program’s Women Working 1870-1930.
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 provides more timely, comprehensive, and cost-effective
access to these series. In a second area
of activity the 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 20,000 individual monographs.
As a further enhancement, a pilot project has been launched to create
electronic resource records for the individual monographs of selected series.
In addition, a noteworthy enhancement to both the project
and for Business Reference services has been the creation of a Web-accessible
database of Technical Reports and Working Papers in Business and Economics for
series covered by the project. The
database can be accessed at
http://www.loc.gov/rr/business/techreps/techrepshome.php
Pre-1970 Congressional Hearings. This project will result in significantly
improved access to approximately 6,500 pre-1970 Congressional hearings, improving service to the Congress and
addressing an important Cataloging Directorate strategic initiative.
ONIX
Initiatives. 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.
Book Jackets. LC often
receives a number of dust jacket images along with data utilized in the ONIX
TOC and ONIX Descriptions projects (described below). As the provision of the
dust jacket image further enriches the information about an item for the
researcher, BEAT has begun to add links for such data through its book jacket
initiative. The project has some 2,300
images currently on hand. As the
channels through which the Library receives ONIX data are already established,
it is anticipated that this number will grow.
ONIX Author Information. ONIX data
often includes information about authors, and BEAT has undertaken a
biographical information initiative that will make this information available
to researchers. The information is being
linked from the catalog record to data stored on the Web where it is available
for indexing by search engines..
ONIX Descriptions. Another ONIX initiative is the creation of
records that contain publishers' 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 105,000 such records.
ONIX TOC. The Library
receives this data directly, and with programming developed by BEAT, the
project creates Table of Contents (TOC) records that the Library makes
available on the Web. Hyperlinks are
made from this TOC data to the catalog record, and the reverse. To date the project has created about 47,000
ONIX TOC records.
ECIP Tables of Contents. Using programming by three BEAT team members,
this project creates a Web-based TOC for virtually 100% of all ECIP records
that contain TOC data. This data is
created programmatically and a hot-link
in the TOC to and from the underlying record in the LC Catalog is made for
every item. The program handles most
diacritical marks, and also enriches the TOC Web display with the LC Subject
Headings that were applied by cataloging staff.
As of June 2004 approximately 30,000 Electronic CIPs (ECIP) TOC records
had been added to the Web server. In
addition, many catalogers take advantage of the Directorate’s Text Capture and
Electronic Conversion program to add TOC data directly into the bibliographic
records they create for publications submitted in the ECIP program. To date, more than 22,500 records have been
enhanced to include such information.
Digital
Tables of Contents. The Digital
Tables of Contents project creates machine-readable Table of Contents (TOC)
data from TOC surrogates. These data are
subsequently HTML-encoded and placed on an LC server. 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. Almost 23,000 TOCs have been created and
linked in this project.
More than three million hits
have been recorded on the TOC files section of the Library’s Cataloging
Directorate Web pages for the three TOC projects combined.
Cataloging in Publication
(CIP). The Electronic Cataloging in Publication
(ECIP) program now includes more than 2,800 publishers, and nearly half of all
Cataloging in Publication requests are received electronically.
A pilot program to utilize publisher-supplied
summaries in catalog records for juvenile nonfiction began in April with the
issuance of guidelines for publishers in drafting summaries. The pilot will be publicized at ALA in
Orlando.
Cataloging Policy
Descriptive cataloging
Unicode planning and multi-script decisions for
cataloging policy. CPSO continues to
lead discussions with key stakeholders that began in September 2003 planning
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 these policies to stay in synchronization nationwide. Current discussions focused on scripts to use
for numerals, and especially multi-digit numerals embedded in right-to-left
scripts (Arabic, Persian, Hebrew, and Yiddish).
Library of Congress
Subject Headings (LCSH)
Aged.
Changes to the subject heading "Aged" (to "Older
people"), as well as to other headings that incorporate the word
"aged," were approved on LCSH weekly list 04/11.loging (PCC)
Activities
Decimal Classification
(Dewey)
Decimal Classification
Division classifiers at the Library of Congress have assigned Dewey Decimal
Classification numbers to 71,519 titles at a productivity rate of 9.59 titles
per hour during the first eight months of fiscal year 2004 (October 2003-May
2004). Comparable rates for the first
eight months of fiscal year 2003 were 61,684 and 9.78.
Electronic Resources
Cataloging
Archiving Projects. The Library's MINERVA Website (Mapping the
Internet: Electronic Resources Virtual Archive,
http://www.loc.gov/minerva/ now includes sites harvested
related to
the 2000 and 2002 elections and the September 11 Web Archive. Harvesting and processing of sites related to
the 107th Congress are in progress.
The Computer Files and Microforms Team and the Cataloging Directorate's
Digital Projects Coordinator provided documentation for the cataloging of 9/11
and Election 2002 Web archive sites. The
documentation was used by contractors in the creation of MODS records for the
individual 9/11 and Election 2002 sites.
Selected documentation was also edited and posted on the archive Website
to facilitate users' understanding of the Web archive MODS records.
For the 107th Congress
Project, LC catalogers provided the subject analysis and classification for
MODS records created for each member of the 107th Congress and major
Congressional Committees (both houses). This was accomplished by using XML SPY
software. Catalogers developed new LC
Classification numbers for eight congressional committees, so that the MODS
records would carry valid LC Classification numbers.
Bicentennial Action Plan. The LC Conference 2000 Action Plan Forum will
be held at this Annual Conference on Sunday, June 27, 10:00 am-12:00 pm,
Sheraton World Resort, Okeechobee Room 2.
Speakers will be Lynn Connaway,
consulting research scientist, OCLC, on the joint OCLC/Ohio State University
user study “Sense-Making the Information Confluence,” and Dave Reser, senior
cataloging policy specialist, LC, on “Recommendations for Modes of Cataloging
for Electronic Resources.” The Action
Plan has been updated and is available on the Bicentennial Conference Website
at
http://www.loc.gov/catdir/bibcontrol
ER Cataloging Expansion.. The Cataloging Directorate has published and
begun to implement two sets of recommendations to expand bibliographic access
to digital content:
“Recommendations for Modes of
Cataloging for Electronic Resources” calls for the Cataloging Directorate to
apply three modes of cataloging for digital content: AACR2/MARC 21; MODS; and
Web guides. The modes apply to
monographs and integrating resources, both digitized and born-digital. The
report sets bibliographic access into the context of the Digital Lifecycle
Planning Framework. The full report is
available at
http://www.loc.gov/catdir/bibcontrol
“Recommended Workflows for Cataloging Electronic
Resources” describes a workflow featuring summaries of content to be supplied by recommending
officers (collection development staff). The main thrust of the report is to have much greater
collaboration between the collection development and cataloging staffs in providing access to
digital content. Full report available at
http://www.loc.gov/catdir/stratplan/goal4wg4report.pdf
Program for Cooperative
Cataloging (PCC) Activities
In the first half of fiscal
2004 (October 2003-March 2004), Program for Cooperative Cataloging (PCC)
members contributed 83,247 new name authority records (NARs); 5,103 new series
authority records (SARs); and updates to
nearly 25,000 NARs and SARs. Cooperative cataloging partners have
contributed a total of more than two million name authority records to the
authority file. During this six-month
period, PCC participants submitted 1,350 new subject authority headings for the
Library of Congress Subject Headings; revised 219 subject headings; and proposed
863 new classification numbers for inclusion in the Library of Congress
Classification. PCC members
participating in the PCC’s monograph bibliographic component, BIBCO,
contributed 38,658 bibliographic records.
In CONSER, the serial bibliographic arm of the PCC, member institutions
contributed 8,253 original records, 4,835 authentications of existing records,
and 22,540 maintenance transactions.
NACO. Cataloging
institutions participating in NACO, the name authority component of the PCC, no
longer need to report BFM (Bibliographic File Maintenance) for affected LC
bibliographic records when they revise existing headings.
SACO. To
implement a PCC Policy Committee decision to establish the PCC subject
authority component SACO as a formal program with goals, training, and set
procedures for members, the LC Secretariat
produced a full set of requirements, applications, procedures, and
training workshops that will apply to all libraries joining the program.
CONSER.
The CONSER Summit on Serials in the Digital Environment was held March
18-19, 2004, in Alexandria, Virginia.
The Summit resulted from CONSER’s involvement with electronic serials
and the prominence of new developments in the control and delivery of
electronic resources. CONSER asked
representatives from all areas of resource delivery and management, in
libraries and the serials industry, to make recommendations on how the CONSER
record could be more useful to end users and to systems that make use of
CONSER's metadata.
Recommendations and
conclusions from the meeting are outlined in the summary available on the
Summit Website at
<http://lcweb.loc.gov/acq/conser/summit.html>. Action on the recommendations will be the
responsibility of CONSER, other PCC members and industry representatives. CONSER has begun to pursue the
recommendations to provide input to the International Standards Organisation
(ISO) Working group investigating revision of the ISSN standard and to help
assure that correct ISSN are recorded in CONSER records. CONSER is also setting up task groups to
examine its practices for recording URLs and coverage of titles from electronic
packages in the CONSER database.
The PCC Steering Committee
will explore how to implement other recommendations that go beyond creating records
for electronic serials. For example, recommendations to work with ILS providers
to enhance user displays and to work with publishers in providing shareable
metadata are efforts that require the collaboration of librarians and the
information system industry.
“Reflections on the
Future” for Strategic Plan
The Cataloging Management Team will draft new
strategic initiatives for fiscal years 2005-2006 in August. As part of its ongoing strategic planning, a
small group of chiefs chaired by Susan Vita, Special Materials Cataloging Division, has
developed a series of discussions and information sessions that began on May 24
with an all-day discussion on "Listen to the Users" and will continue
through the fiscal year. The
directorate's current strategic plan is available at
http://www.loc.gov/catdir/stratplan/stratplan.html on the Cataloging
Directorate public Web page.
Cataloging (Books and Serials) Production
FY04 Oct.-March FY03
Oct.-March FY03 FY03 Full
LC Full/Core-Level Cataloging 106,847
98,907 185,363
Copy Cataloging 25,281
18,444 39,015
Minimal-Level
Cataloging 11,824
21,230 34,696
Collection-Level Cataloging
2,261 2,176 4,268
TOTAL records created 146,213 140,757 263,342
TOTAL volumes cataloged N/A N/A 287,988
Authority Records
Names 52,881 45,959 84,822
Series 4,888 4,624 8,762
Subjects
3,357
4,197 7,242
TOTAL
61,126 54,780 100,826
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 Internet: juma@loc.gov).
NATIONAL SERVICES DIRECTORATE
Cataloging Distribution
Service (CDS)
Cataloger’s
Desktop on the Web. CDS
has recently introduced the Web version of Cataloger's
Desktop http://desktop.loc.gov following a very
successful Beta test this
spring. As with the CD-ROM version, the
Web version of Desktop includes AACR2
and extensive linking between AACR2
and the LCRIs and the MARC 21 formats. This is a fee-based service. The CD-ROM version of Desktop will continue to be available for subscription. Cataloger’s Desktop on the Web will be
demonstrated daily at 12:30 in the LC booth theater as well as throughout the
conference at the LC booth. Additional
information is available on CDS’s Website at http://www.loc.gov/cds/desktop/.
MARC Distribution Services in MARC XML. CDS
now offers all of its MARC Distribution Services (MDS) in MARC XML. The MARC XML option is in addition to the
traditional MARC 21 (ISO 2709) format.
Information on obtaining MARC XML test files is available from
http://www.loc.gov/cds/mds.html#test.
National Library Service
for the Blind and Physically Handicapped (NLS)
After five years of
development and planning, NLS is taking advantage of the opportunities provided
by the digital revolution by moving the talking-book program from analog
cassettes to a digital format.
In moving toward this goal,
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.
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.
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. Additional information on the
NLS program may be found at
http://www.loc.gov/nls
OPERATIONS DIRECTORATE
LC ILS (Integrated Library
System)
The ILS Office has continued to expand access and
improve service for users of the Library of Congress Online Catalog
(catalog.loc.gov). Over the past year,
the Library has again been able to increase the number of simultaneous OPAC
users, while the number of customers who could not be accommodated has
continued to decline. The ILS Office
worked with the Network Development and MARC Standards Office to implement
improvements to the efficiency of Z39.50 searches of the OPAC.
The
Library is participating in testing the Early Release version of the Voyager
with Unicode Release on a test server.
LC staff provide input to the Library’s ILS vendor, Endeavor Information
Systems, Inc., through their participation in
the Global Change Task Force, which is examining the needs of libraries
to perform mass changes in MARC records; and the Acquisitions Task Force, which
has provided guidance for improvements to serials processing in the Voyager
Release 5.0, which will follow the Unicode release.
As part of the Library’s ongoing
efforts to meet the changing demands of users in the digital library
environment, the ILS Office has coordinated the purchase of additional software
to enhance and expand the functionality of the ILS. The Library has begun testing the ERMS module
(electronic resources management system) from Innovative Interfaces, Inc.,
which LC purchased in 2003 after issuing an RFP based on Digital Library
Federation recommendations. Initial
testing is focused on test loads of bibliographic information for the Library’s
electronic resources and associated licensing information. In April 2004, the Library acquired SFX, the
OpenURL software from Ex Libris, which is expected to improve staff and patron
access to locally developed and commercial online resources.
Network
Development and MARC Standards Office (NDMSO)
MARC 21
http://www.loc.gov/marc
An enhanced version of the
downloadable “FRBRizing” tool that acts on a search retrieval set of records
was released in the spring. This is a
simple tool – it does not claim to be the complete FRBR tool – but it can be
very useful in testing possibilities for employing FRBR concepts and the
consistency and potential of one’s data.
MODS and MADS
LC released version 3.0 of the
Metadata Object Description Standard (MODS) in the winter
http://www.loc.gov/mods LC is using it in digital projects and
experimenting with it for a special level of cataloging. The format has an important recursive
capability that enables inclusion of hierarchically related information about
the electronic resources.
In June, NDMSO released a
companion for MODS: Metadata Authority Description Standard (MADS). It was developed from MODS and the draft is
now out for broad review to inform its completion. MADS has a relationship to the MARC 21 Authority
format, as MODS has to MARC 21 Bibliographic, but it simplifies data and
relates to MODS itself in new and useful ways -- influenced by the FRBR
development. MADS facilitates recording
authorized forms and reference forms of names for basic entities such as names,
titles, geographics, genres, topical subjects and temporal subjects. ( http://www.loc.gov/mads )
The Office has also recently
published a report on different rights expression languages for rights
metadata. We commissioned a report to examine
the prominent ones today (early 2004), such as ODRL, METSrights, Creative Commons and
MPEG-21/5. The report is available on
the following site:
http://www.loc.gov/standards .
Z39.50 and SRW Information
Retrieval
LC had been assisting work on
”Z39.50 next generation” called SRW and SRU.
SRU stands for Search and Retrieve URL Service and it allows users to
send a search using title, name, identifier and other parameters via a URL
(HTTP GET) and receive records in response.
SRW stands for Search and Retrieve Web Service and it supports a Web
service that operates over the Web base protocol, SOAP, rather than directly
through HTTP. It is more robust than SRU
is able to be directly over HTTP.
These XML-based search and
retrieval protocols are semantically compatible with Z39.50, adapting the most
useful parts of that protocol to the Web environment. This enables users to provide SRW/SRU
gateways to existing Z39.50 applications.
Developed by an international editorial group, with review through an open
listserv, version 1.1 was released earlier this year. It has already been incorporated into some
products, and LC has implemented a SRW/SRU gateway.
SRW can combine with OAI and
OpenURL to provide powerful and flexible tools for retrieving resources on the
Internet.
The effort also resulted in the
development of a Common Query Language (CQL).
CQL attempts to bridge the gap between different approaches to search
languages: those that are powerful but
complex, cryptic, and non-user friendly, such as XQuery or SQL; and those that
are simple and user-friendly but lacking in functionality such as Google. CQL attempts to combine functionality and
user-friendliness.
LC has registered the LCCN as a
namespace under the “info” URI.
PRESERVATION DIRECTORATE
Conservation
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 800,000 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
second year goal of a five-year contract that will enable the Library to
deacidify 1,000,000 books. 250,000 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/gov/preserv/carelc.html
Preservation
Research and Testing
Research
on the longevity of compact disk (CD) media is in progress to evaluate the
longevity of digital optical media. The
focus is on studying the influence of the quality of manufacture of the discs,
or lack thereof, and the effect of storage conditions on the life of these
media. Accelerated aging experiments in
the laboratory as well as a natural aging study are in progress. Data from the first phase of the accelerated
aging study will be published by the end of this calendar year. The Library is also supporting research into
the evaluation of longevity of recordable DVD media for their potential use in
archiving of data. This research is in
progress at the National Institute for Science and Technology, Gaithersburg,
Maryland.
PUBLIC
SERVICE COLLECTIONS DIRECTORATE
Mark
Dimunation, chief of the Rare Book and Special Collections Division, has acted
as director for public service collections while director Diane Kresh led the
Veterans History Project's preparations for the Memorial Day National World War
II Reunion.
Reference service. Centralized telephone reference service has
been discontinued and the Reference Referral Service has been abolished. Following a pilot program of 4 months when
telephone calls were referred directly to the appropriate reading room it was
decided to discontinue the centralized service.
Increasingly, most appropriate questions for the Library of Congress
come via the Internet and many answers are available on the Library’s Web page.
OFFICE OF STRATEGIC INITIATIVES/NATIONAL
DIGITAL LIBRARY PROGRAM
National
Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program
Awards
to Be Made Soon to Support Building a Network of Partners. The Office of Strategic Initiatives, which oversees
the National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program
(NDIIPP), is in the final stages of selecting award winners who will identify,
collect and preserve digital materials within a nationwide digital preservation
infrastructure. These institutions will
share responsibilities for preserving historically important digital materials
that are at risk of otherwise being lost.
In
December 2000, Congress authorized the Library of Congress to develop and
execute a congressionally approved plan for a
National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program. A $99.8 million congressional appropriation
was made to establish the program.
According to Conference Report (H. Rept. 106-1033), “The overall plan should set forth a strategy
for the Library of Congress, in collaboration with other federal and nonfederal
entities, to identify a national network of libraries and other organizations
with responsibilities for collecting digital materials that will provide access
to and maintain those materials. ... In addition to developing this strategy,
the plan shall set forth, in concert with the Copyright Office, the policies,
protocols and strategies for the long-term preservation of such materials,
including the technological infrastructure required at the Library of
Congress.”
Archive
Ingest and Handling Test
The
Library has entered into a joint digital preservation project with Old Dominion
University, Department of Computer Science; The Johns Hopkins University,
Sheridan Libraries; Stanford University Libraries & Academic Information
Resources; and Harvard University Libraries to explore strategies for the
ingest and preservation of digital archives. The project is supported by
Information Systems Support Inc.
The
Archive Ingest and Handling Test (AIHT) is designed to identify, document and
disseminate working methods for preserving the nation’s increasingly important
digital cultural materials, as well as to identify areas that may require
further research or development. The
AIHT is part of an initiative, led by the Library of Congress, to build a
network of preservation partners through the National Digital Information
Infrastructure and Preservation Program (NDIIPP).
The
AIHT participants are investigating and applying various digital preservation
strategies, using a digital archive donated to the Library by the Center for
History and New Media at George Mason University. The archive is a collection of 57,000 digital
images, text, audio and video related to the Sept. 11, 2001 events. The transfer of these 12 gigabytes of digital
content is being used to emulate the problems that arise in digital
preservation and to test possible solutions.
Participants
in the AIHT range from fully operational repositories to an advanced research
project investigating methods for preserving digital objects; additionally one
institution is comparing multiple technical solutions within one
environment. A broad array of current
open-source and proprietary digital-object management and preservation
technologies are deployed in the test.
In
addition to testing the intake of the archive into diverse systems, the
participants will also work to understand the difficulties in transferring
large and complex digital archives from one institution to another. This is a critical piece of any larger digital
preservation effort, as the number of individuals and organizations that
produce digital material is far larger, and growing much faster, than the
number of institutions committed to preserving such material. Thus, any practical preservation strategy
requires mechanisms for continuous transfer of content from the wider world
into the hands of preserving institutions.
At
the end of the 12-month test, the Library and its partners will publish a final
report detailing both current practices for digital preservation and future
areas of research. Further information
about the project will be posted periodically at
http://www.digitalpreservation.gov/.
National
Digital Library Program
The flagship American Memory http://memory.loc.gov) program now offers more than 8.5 million digital items in more than 120 thematic presentations.