21stCentury Technical Services: The UNLV Libraries Experience

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21st-Century Technical ServicesThe UNLV
Libraries Experience

• Brad Eden, Ph.D.
• Head, Bibliographic and Metadata Services
• University of Nevada, Las Vegas
• beden_at_ccmail.nevada.edu

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Library of Congress

• Loss of 50 of technical services staff in next
  5-10 years
• Perfection went out 15-20 years ago
• Recent mandate from Congress more digital and
  digitization projects, less cataloging

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OCLC

• WorldCat will become a metadata catalog no
  longer MARC-based
• CORC/Connexion will become the cataloging
  interface of the future
• Sets of multilingual, vernacular databases
  worldwide, manipulated by linguistic crosswalks
• Access, not perfection

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Library schools

• Technical services functions (cataloging,
  acquisitions, etc.) are no longer or are slowly
  moving out of the core curriculum
• Fewer professional cataloging graduates
  entering technical services moving into
  corporate, technology fields

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Support staff in technical services

• Now are doing duties that professionals did 10 to
  20 years ago
• Often are better educated, have more experience,
  have more expertise than professionals
• Paid less, given little training or continuing
  education
• Usually given no respect, like adjunct faculty

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Forecast - Two Approaches

• Continue on the same course business as usual
  keep surviving (barely)
• Proactively direct, strategize, initiate,
  revitalize our departments

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Some citations

• Cataloger? Knowledge Manager? What do you want
  to be called? Information Technology
  Newsletter, v.11, no.2, Summer 2000, p. 5-6, 10.
• Technical Services a vision for the future
  Library Computing, v.18, no.4, 1999, p. 289-94.
• Technical Services preparing for the future
  Information Technology Newsletter, Summer 2001.
• Knowledge Access Management in Lied Library
  Library Hi-Tech (v. 20, no. 1, 2002) issue on
  UNLVs new Lied Library.

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Business as usual

• Continue to cite cataloging rules, authority
  control, way it has always been done
• Dont deal with issues inefficiency, redundancy
  of work, dehumanization of support staff

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Proactively direct, strategize, initiate,
revitalize

• Efficiency conduct a process review
• Outsource redundancy copy cataloging
• Reutilize and retrain all TS staff towards a
  strategic future

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Towards what future?

• Anything and everything that you can think of
• Be creative, original, take risks, think
  strategically
• Depends on each librarys situation

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Some ideas

• Metadata cataloging
•     Efforts to describe and provide access to
  information contained in digitization efforts and
  digital projects
•     Access and description of electronic and
  Internet resources in all its myriad forms
•  Consultants for database design and
  development for faculty and staff involved in
  grant projects (at the academic library level)
• Become grant writers/initiators
•    Collaboration between and among other
  information organizations (museums, libraries,
  archives, government, public and private
  corporations, etc.)
• Consultants and experts in continuing education
  and training initiatives for library
  professionals and staff, both on-the-job and in
  librarianship itself  

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More ideas

•  Risk-taking in futuristic and innovative
  solutions and approaches to acquiring,
  describing, accessing, and archiving information
  in its many forms, and ways of measuring its
  usefulness and applicability towards the needs of
  patrons and users (glad to see this statement on
  this in Syracuse Librarys strategic plan)
• Establishment of electronic text centers, in
  which technical services staff assist patrons in
  the customization and organization of their
  information into useable formats and packages

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What about a name change?

• Cataloger Cataloging just doesnt cut it
• What about
• Knowledge manager
• Bibliographic manager
• Metadata expert/specialist
• Information organizer
• See A shortage of academic librarians in
  Chronicle of Higher Education
• http//chronicle.com/jobs/2002/08/2002081401c.htm

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Article in Library Computing(v. 18, no. 4,
1999)Technical services a vision for the
future

• Consider a name change
• Cooperation and collaboration within the library
  and the academic community
• Dont ever say no
• Be willing to take risks, try new things
• Access, not perfection

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My comments in Metadata and its application
(2002, p. 70)

• Actively seek and participate in digitization and
  digital project development and planning being
  initiated in their area
• Educate themselves and their colleagues about the
  importance of metadata and its benefits in the
  organization, description, retrieval, and
  preservation of digital objects
• Become active in the marketing of skills and
  talents that information organizations have, in
  order to assist the world as digital information
  increases in quantity and complexity

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Comments in Diffuse Libraries Emergent Roles
for the Research Library in the Digital Age (p.
22)

• Participation in new learning communities, in
  new ventures for knowledge management or
  dissemination, or in service to new markets
  requires investment in technology infrastructure
  and expertise in the handling of digital
  resources and tools.
• Investment in professional development,
  training, and participation in collaborative
  opportunities that can help advance
  organizational development are essential.
• http//www.clir.org/pubs/reports/pub108/pub108.pdf

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The UNLV Libraries Experience

• Reorganization of technical services into
  Knowledge Access Management (KAM)
• Process review of all departmental procedures
• Outsourcing of redundant cataloging shelf-ready
  books
• Movement towards digital projects/digitization
• Metadata cataloging

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The UNLV Libraries Experience (continued)

• Training/experience in HTML coding
• State reclassification just finished most jobs
  were reclassified
• Continuing education/training in progress
• Departmental name change/job title changes

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• For the first time in our history, instead of
  being on the back end of change, we can be on the
  front end, cutting edge, even the bleeding edge.
  We will not get this chance again.