Deanna Marcum, Associate Librarian for Library Services Library of Congress
Service units, divisions, and offices within the Library have submitted the information in this briefing document for the attention and use of Library of Congress staff who will attend the American Library Association Midwinter Meeting, January 23-28, 2009. The document covers initiatives undertaken at the Library of Congress since the ALA Annual Conference in Anaheim, CA, in June 2008.
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Inauguration of the 44th President of the U.S.
On January 20th, 2009, President-elect Barack Obama will take the oath of office using the same Bible upon which President Lincoln was sworn in at his first inauguration. The Bible is currently part of the collections of the Library of Congress. Though there is no constitutional requirement for the use of a Bible during the swearing-in, Presidents have traditionally used Bibles for the ceremony, choosing a volume with personal or historical significance. President-elect Obama will be the first President sworn in using the Lincoln Bible since its initial use in 1861.
Library of Congress Exhibit Booth
Visit the Library of Congress Exhibit Booth #1338 at the Colorado Convention Center in Denver, Colorado. The exhibit booth coordinator is Jane Gilchrist. Exhibit hours are:
- Friday, January 23 at 5:15 pm (Ribbon-cutting Ceremony)
- Friday, January 23 - 5:30 - 7:30 pm (All-Conference Reception & Exhibitions open)
- Saturday-Sunday, January 24-25 - 9:00 am - 5:00 pm
- Monday, January 26 - 9:00 am - 2:00 pm
Deanna Marcum will be present at the LC booth on Saturday from 1:00 to 1:30 to discuss the Library’s follow-up in response to On the Record, the report of the LC Working Group on Bibliographic Control. Beacher Wiggins will make two presentations, on Saturday from 1:30 to 2:00 and on Sunday from 1:30 to 2:00, on the U.S. national libraries’ plans to test the proposed new cataloging code Resource Description and Access. Other Library of Congress staff making presentations in the Booth theater will include: Colleen Cahill, John Cole, Cheryl Cook, Jennifer Gavin, Georgette Harris, Allene Hayes, Angela Kinney, Margaret Kruesi, Everette Larson, Teri Sierra, Janis Young, and Helena Zinkham.
Of special note are the Webcasts planned for the booth theater. Three Webcasts are planned for Friday evening: Matthew Reinhart and Robert Sabuda at the 2008 National Book Festival (5:30-6:00); “Memo to the President-Elect: How We Can Restore America’s Reputation and Leadership” by former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright (6:00-7:00); and Tiki Barber at the 2008 National Book Festival (7:00-7:30). On Saturday, Webcasts include National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature Jon Scieszka at the 2008 National Book Festival (9:00-9:30 AM) and “How the States Got Their Shapes” with Mark Stein (4:00-5:00 PM). On Sunday, the Webcasts include Neil Gaiman at the 2008 National Book Festival (9:00-9:30 AM) and “Song of Songs: The Honeybee in the Garden” by Debra Band (4:00-5:00PM). Monday’s Webcasts will feature Alexander McCall Smith at the 2008 National Book Festival (9:00-9:30 AM) and Poet Laureate Kay Ryan at the 2008 National Book Festival (1:00-2:00 PM).
A complete schedule of booth theater presentations, including perennial favorites, is found on the Library of Congress at ALA Midwinter Meeting Web site at URL <http://www.loc.gov/ala/mw-2009-booth.html>.
The newly revised Winter/Spring 2009 Cataloging Distribution Service Product Catalog will be available at the exhibit booth. Also available will be two flyers announcing new publications: Subject Headings Manual and Descriptive Cataloging of Rare Materials (Serials). In addition, the following promotional items will continue to be available at the CDS portion of the booth: a Classification Web & Cataloger’s Desktop brochure, LC Classification posters, keyboard brushes and computer clips for holding text, and single copies of the pocket-sized LC Classification system, Understanding MARC Bibliographic, Understanding MARC Authority Records, and What is FRBR?
U.S. COPYRIGHT OFFICE
Orphan Works
Over the past 24 months, the Copyright Office has facilitated numerous meetings with diverse members of the copyright community on the topic of “Orphan Works” for the purpose of advising the 110th Congress on statutory language. Orphan Works include, for example, photographs, writings, sound recordings and other materials that are protected by copyright law but for which a user cannot identify or locate a legitimate copyright owner. Potential users of Orphan Works include commercial publishers and filmmakers who wish to salvage and transform the works into new, valuable formats at their own cost, as well as museums, libraries and archives that collect, and wish to publish or otherwise make available, thousands of culturally important materials in accordance with their noncommercial, educational missions. The Copyright Office has concluded that orphan works are a real problem and that legislative relief is in the public interest.
The Office’s work over the past two years follows the 2006 publication of its comprehensive study, “Report on Orphan Works,” which included recommended language for a new Section 514 in Title 17. On March 13, 2008, prior to the introduction of legislation, the House Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet and Intellectual Property invited Register of Copyrights Marybeth Peters to testify on the problem of orphan works and possible legislative cures. In her testimony, the Register spoke of the convergence of issues that had contributed to the existence of orphan works, including the relaxation of formalities such as registration and copyright notice over the past 30 years. She noted that orphan works are a problem for “almost everyone who comes into contact with the United States copyright system.”
In April 2008, legislation was introduced in both the Senate (S.2913, the “Shawn Bentley Orphan Works Act of 2008") and House (H.R. 5889, the “Orphan Works Act of 2008"). The proposed legislation creates a new section 514 in Title 17 and is based on the proposal of the Copyright Office as published in its 2006 comprehensive study, “Report on Orphan Works.” It provides a statutory framework in which a good-faith user may proceed to use an orphan work after first diligently searching for the copyright owner and meeting other threshold preconditions. Copyright owners who later emerge would be assured reasonable compensation from the user (except in limited circumstances where certain noncommercial users elected to expeditiously cease use of the relevant content) and would also be entitled to some limited injunctive relief in many, but not all, instances.
The proposed legislation was the product of much deliberation between copyight users and owners alike (including stakeholders who are both owners and users). and passed the Senate on September 26, 2008 by unanimous consent. It passed the Senate on September 26, 2008 by unanimous consent, but did not make it to the House floor before adjournment on October 3, 2008. Opposition by some copyright owners, most notably visual artists and photographers, played a role in the failure to enact the legislation. In its work for Congress, the Copyright Office held several briefings and facilitated resolution of major substantive issues, including minimum search standards, pleading requirements and other provisions to deter bad actors, special provisions for certain noncommercial users and uses; the treatment of beneficial copyright owners, and the role of databases and technology tools.
The proposed legislation balanced: 1) the proprietary interests of copyright owners; 2) the valuable contributions of non-profits, publishers and other users in making orphan works accessible; 3) the prospective benefit to the public and public discourse; and 4) the international treaty obligations of the United States. Similar legislation was introduced but not enacted in the 109th Congress. (See “Orphan Works Act of 2006” (H.R. 5439) and the “Copyright Modernization Act of 2006" (H.R. 6052)). It is expected that the legislation will be re-introduced early in the 111th Congress.
Section 108 Report
The Section 108 Study Group, convened under the aegis of the National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program (NDIIPP), and co-sponsored by the U.S. Copyright Office, began its work in the spring of 2005. The goal of the group, named after the section of the U.S. Copyright Act that is commonly known as the “library exception,” was tasked with preparing findings and making recommendations to the Librarian of Congress on possible revisions of the law that reflect reasonable uses of copyrighted works by libraries and archives in the digital age. The Group’s objective was to find the appropriate balance in the law between copyright holders, on the one hand, and libraries and archives, on the other hand, in a manner that best served the public interest.
The creation of the study group was prompted, in part, by the increasing use of digital media. Digital technologies are radically transforming how copyrighted works are created and disseminated, and also how libraries and archives preserve and make those works available. Cultural heritage institutions, in carrying forward their missions, have begun to acquire and incorporate large quantities of “born digital” works (those created in digital form) into their holdings to ensure the continuing availability of those works to future generations.
Section 108 of the Copyright Act permits libraries and archives to make certain uses of copyrighted materials in order to serve the public and ensure the availability of works over time. Among other things, section 108 provides limited exceptions for libraries and archives to make copies in specified instances for preservation, replacement and patron access. These provisions were drafted with analog materials in mind, and, as has been observed, do not adequately address many of the issues unique to digital media, either from the perspective of rights owners or libraries and archives.
The Section 108 Study Group was made up of copyright experts from various fields, including law, publishing, libraries, archives, film, music, software and photography, and was co-chaired by Laura Gasaway, associate dean for academic affairs and professor of law at the University of North Carolina, and Richard Rudick, former vice president and general counsel of John Wiley and Sons. The Committee met fourteen times over the course of almost three years. On March 31, 2008, the Section 108 Study Group delivered its Report to the Librarian of Congress and the Register of Copyrights. The Executive Summary and the full Report are available on the Study Group’s website at URL: <http://www.section108.gov/docs/Sec108StudyGroupReport.pdf [PDF, 2.5 MB]>
The Copyright Office has begun an independent review of the Section 108 Study Group's Report and will be consulting with stakeholders in the coming months. Upon the conclusion of the Office’s assessment, the Office will offer recommendations to Congress for the revision of section 108.
World Intellectual Property Organization Standing Committee Meeting
On July 15, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), hosted an International Workshop on Digital Preservation and Copyright at its Geneva, Switzerland headquarters. Participants from the library, publishing, and academic worlds shared their varying digital preservation experiences and practices, as well as perspectives on how to best reconcile digital preservation with national and international copyright norms. The Workshop was planned in part by staff from the Office of Strategic Initiatives and the Copyright Office.
Anticircumvention Rulemaking
On October 6, 2008, the Copyright Office initiated the fourth triennial anticircumvention rulemaking, a process mandated by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Section 1201 of the Copyright Act, added by the DMCA, makes it unlawful to circumvent a technological measure that controls access to a copyrighted work. It also provides for the Copyright Office rulemaking, the purpose of which is to determine whether there are particular classes of works as to which users are, or are likely to be, adversely affected in their ability to make noninfringing uses due to the prohibition on circumvention. If such adverse effects are established, the rulemaking establishes a vehicle for remedial action by enabling the Register to recommend to the Librarian curative exceptions to the prohibition for particular classes of works so that users may engage in noninfringing uses of those works. By the December 2, 2008 deadline for submitting proposals for classes of works that would qualify for the exemption, the Copyright Office received 19 comments all of which have been posted on the Office’s website at URL <http://www.copyright.gov/1201/>. Many of the commenters urged renewal or expansion of exemptions that the Librarian of Congress published in 2006.
In addition to these preexisting concerns, a number of new classes of works have been proposed for exemption. The Copyright Office published a listing of the proposed classes in the Federal Register on December 29, 2008. The Office is now in the process of receiving comments in support or opposition to the classes of works proposed for exemption. After the conclusion of that comment period on February 2, 2009, the Office will announce the dates and location of public hearings that are expected to take place in the spring. At the conclusion of the rulemaking process, the Register of Copyrights will provide the Librarian of Congress with a written recommendation that provides legal analysis of the factual record presented in the rulemaking proceeding and recommends which classes of works, if any, to exempt from the prohibition on circumvention for the ensuing three-year period that will last until October 27, 2012. The Librarian is to act upon the recommendation of the Register in October 2009.
For additional information on this rulemaking proceeding as well as the entire record since its inception in 2000, see URL <http://www.copyright.gov/1201/>.
Google Book Search Litigation
A proposed settlement has recently been reached in the litigation over the Google Book Search project. The settlement of the copyright infringement action brought by publishers and authors against Google over several of the activities involved in the Google Book Search project now awaits court approval by the U.S. District Court of the Southern District of New York.
In class action lawsuits authors and publishers claimed that Google violated the copyrights of authors, publishers, and other owners of U.S. copyrights in books and other writings by digitizing (scanning) them, creating an electronic database of books, and displaying short excerpts without the copyright owners’ permission.
The proposed settlement of the lawsuit extends to a class of all owners of U.S. copyrights in books and in writings included in books and other works. There are two sub-classes: The “Author Sub-Class” (authors of Books and other writings, their heirs, successors and assigns, and all other Settlement Class members who are not members of the Publisher Sub-Class), and The “Publisher Sub-Class” (publishers of Books and periodicals and their successors and assigns).
The Settlement benefits to the class include: 63% of the revenues earned from Google’s sale of subscriptions to an electronic books database, sale of online access to books, advertising revenues, and other commercial uses; and $34.5 million paid by Google to establish and maintain a Book Rights Registry (“Registry”) to collect revenues from Google and distribute those revenues to copyright owners.
Fair Copyright in Research Works Act
On September 9, 2008, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Conyers introduced H.R. 6845 on behalf of himself, and Representatives Issa, Wexler, and Feeney, entitled the Fair Copyright in Research Works Act, available at URL <http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c110:H.R.6845:>. This bill was introduced in response to the NIH Policy on Enhancing Public Access to Archived Publications Resulting from NIH-Funded Research (NIH Policy) that became effective on April 7, 2008. Under the NIH Policy, all final peer-reviewed manuscripts that arise from NIH-funded research grants, and that are accepted for publication, must be submitted to the National Library of Medicine’s PubMed Central database within a year of the official date of publication. Upon submission to PubMed Central, the manuscripts are made publicly available world-wide for free.
Publishers contend that this NIH Policy will, among other things, reduce the incentive for publishers to invest in scientific publications, and inequitably appropriate the value added to the manuscripts by the publishers and their peer reviewers. H.R. 6845 would have amended the Copyright Act to prohibit federal agencies from imposing or causing to impose certain conditions on certain works, such as works with multiple funding entities or works which reflected added value contributed by entities other than a federal agency. The bill was not passed in the 110th Congress.
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OFFICE OF THE LIBRARIAN
CONGRESSIONAL RELATIONS OFFICE (CRO)
Significant Library-Related Legislation Passed in the 110th Congress
National Film/Sound Recording Preservation Reauthorization:
P.L. 110-336
<http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d110:h.r.05893:>
H.R. 5893, reauthorizing the National Sound Recording Preservation Program
and the National Film Preservation Foundation, was introduced by Committee
on House Administration Chairman Robert Brady (D-PA) at the request
of the Librarian. The bill extends the programs through fiscal year
2016. The authorized funding level for federal matching funds for the
Film Preservation Foundation is increased from $530,000 in fiscal year
2009 to $1,000,000 in fiscal years 2012-2016. President Bush signed
the bill on October 2, 2008.
Accessible Instruction Materials: P.L. 110-315
<http://frwebgate3.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/TEXTgate.cgi?WAISdocID=96417718536+1+1+0&WAISaction=retrieve>
The Library’s National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation
Program (NDIIPP) is listed as a member of the Advisory Commission on
Accessible Instruction Materials in Postsecondary Education for Students
with Disabilities, to be established by the Secretary of Education,
under section 772 of the College Opportunity and Affordability Act of
2008. President Bush signed the bill on August 14, 2008.
Presidential Historical Records Preservation Act of 2008:
P.L. 110-404
<http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d110:s.03477:>
P.L. 110-404 requires the Archivist of the United States, with the recommendation
of the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC),
to make competitive grants to eligible non-profit, state or local entities
to promote the historical preservation of, and public access to, historical
records and documents relating to any President who does not have a
Presidential Library.
The Act authorizes the Archivist to enter into a cooperative agreement to provide online access to the published volumes of the papers of founding fathers George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, James Madison, and other prominent historical figures. The Archivist may transfer funds from the NHPRC to State and local governments, tribal governments, other public entities, educational institutions, or private nonprofit organizations for the public purpose of carrying out this program.
The Act also authorizes the Archivist to establish an advisory committee to review the progress of the Founding Fathers editorial projects funded by the NHPRC, develop completion goals, annually report on the progress of these projects, and recommend legislative or executive action that would facilitate completion of the performance goals for the Founding Fathers editorial projects. Deanna Marcum testified about the papers in the Library’s collection and the possibility of the Library serving as host to an online presentation of these papers.
Appropriations
Congress extended the fiscal year appropriations levels through
March 6, 2009 so that the 111th Congress can have time to revisit the
fiscal year 2009 appropriations early in the year. Subcommittee staff
have been working on conference reports to be incorporated into an omnibus
appropriations bill.
Honoring Dr. Billington’s 20th Anniversary
<http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d110:s.res.00336:>
On September 27, 2007, S. Res. 336, honoring Dr. Billington’s 20-year
tenure as head of the agency, passed the Senate by unanimous consent.
The resolution was introduced by Sen. Hutchison and co-sponsored by
Sens. Feinstein, Specter, Leahy, Lugar, Webb, Reid, Conrad, Dodd, Allard,
Durbin, Ben Nelson, Alexander, Dorgan, Stevens, Lott, Kennedy, Roberts,
Bennett, Cochran, Coleman, and Bunning. Several Members (the late Rep.
Tom Lantos; Sens. Ted Kennedy and Richard Durbin) also entered congratulatory
statements in the Congressional Record. The resolution noted, among
Dr. Billington’s achievements, the significant growth of the Library’s
collections, modernization through digitization of significant portions
of the collections, creation of the Madison Council, preservation and
educational outreach initiatives, the National Book Festival, and the
gifts of the Packard Campus and Kluge Center for Scholars.
Online Learning/Digital Promise: P.L. 110-315
<http://frwebgate3.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/TEXTgate.cgi?WAISdocID=96417718536+1+1+0&WAISaction=retrieve>
A version of the “Digital Promise” Act was passed by both the House
and Senate as part of the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act.
It was signed into law on August 14. Section 802 of the Act creates
the National Center for Research in Advanced Information and Digital
Technologies, a congressionally chartered independent nonprofit corporation
attached to the Department of Education, directed by a nine-member independent
Board of Directors appointed by the Secretary of Education from nominations
by members of Congress.
The stated purpose of the Center is to support a comprehensive research and development program to harness the increasing capacity of advanced information and digital technologies to improve all levels of learning and education, formal and informal, in order to provide Americans with the knowledge and skills needed to compete in the global economy. Specifically authorized activities are:
(A) to support research to improve education, teaching, and learning that is in the public interest, but that is determined unlikely to be undertaken entirely with private funds;
(B) to support assessments of prototypes of innovative digital learning and information technologies, as well as the components and tools needed to create such technologies; and conduct pilot testing and evaluation of prototype systems; and
(C) to encourage the widespread adoption and use of effective, innovative digital approaches to improving education, teaching, and learning.
The program will operate through competitive awards of grants and contracts. Eligible grantees include four-year institutions of higher education, museums, libraries, nonprofit organizations, public institutions with or without for-profit partners, for-profit organizations, and consortia of any such entities.
The Center is authorized to receive grants, contracts, and philanthropic contributions, as well as federal appropriations. To further its mission/enlarge its funding base, it may also enter into competitive contracts with individuals, public or private organizations, professional societies, and government agencies. Sponsors hope to secure $50 million in the FY09 omnibus appropriations act.
Likely Legislative Issues in the 111th Congress
Anticircumvention rulemaking – see under U.S. COPYRIGHT OFFICE
Civil Rights Histories
In the 109th and 110th Congress, Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY) introduced
bills directing the Librarian of Congress and the Secretary of the Smithsonian
Institution to carry out a joint five-year project at the Library and
the National Museum of African American History to collect video and
audio recordings of personal histories and testimonials of participants
in the Civil Rights movement. CRO actively worked with the Committee
on House Administration staff and the Smithsonian on the bill, which
had 83 co-sponsors in the House. The American Folklife Center and the
Smithsonian staff have met in preparation for the program to be reintroduced
in the 111th Congress.
Civil War Sesquicentennial Commission
The years 2011 through 2015 mark the sesquicentennial of the Civil War.
On April 2, 2008, Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA) introduced S. 2802, directing
the Secretary of the Interior to establish a Civil War Sesquicentennial
Commission to plan, develop, and carry out programs and activities appropriate
to commemorate the sesquicentennial of the Civil War, and to carry out
other specified duties. The Commission is composed of 25 members, including
the Librarian of Congress or his designee. The bill also directs the
National Endowment for the Humanities to award grants for appropriate
activities relating to the Civil War sesquicentennial, and to consider
for such grants university, museum, or academic programs with national
scope that sponsor multidisciplinary projects, including those that
concentrate on the role of African Americans in the Civil War.
Tax policy – artists’ contribution
Under current law, art and manuscript collectors who donate works receive
a tax deduction based on the fair market value of the works, but the
artists and writers who create works may not take such a deduction.
Because of a 1969 tax law revision, an artist may only deduct the material
cost of a donated work, which is, in most cases, a nominal amount. Several
bills were introduced in the last several congresses that would amend
the tax code to once again allow an income tax deduction equal to fair
market value for charitable contributions of literary, musical, artistic,
or scholarly compositions created by the donor.
Law Library of Congress Private/public financing
Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) introduced H.R. 6589, that would provide separate
budget treatment for the Law Library of Congress. The bill also authorized
$3.5 million for Law Library operations, and created a new private,
nonprofit foundation to provide supplemental funding for the general
operation of the Law Library. The Librarian stated for the record in
an October 2007 Committee on House Administration hearing his objection
to a separate line item for the Law Library. Rep. Lofgren’s office worked
directly with CRO regarding the Library’s concerns with the draft bill,
although the Library took no position on the bill as introduced.
Orphan Works - see under U.S. COPYRIGHT OFFICE
Section 108 - see under U.S. COPYRIGHT OFFICE
THOMAS Legislative Database
In May 2007, the “Open House Project,” funded by the Sunlight Foundation,
released a report, “Congressional Information and the Internet,” recommending
that Congress take a number of steps to make Congress more transparent
to the public by enhancing public access to legislation, committee and
member information.
The Open House recommendations relating to THOMAS include:
Make publicly available a congressional information database in a nonproprietary structured data format, such as XML (the Library has plans to implement this feature, and is convening with other agencies regarding similar data access for other types of federal documents);
Stable links to documents on THOMAS (this feature was added, and the action given recognition by Open House);
Long-term preservation of congressional information; create all digital content with preservation in mind;
Committees should make verbatim records of their proceedings available, linking to relevant resources on THOMAS;
CRS reports should be available to the public over the internet; and
Make live and archived access to floor/committee videos available
to the public via the Internet.
In its fiscal year 2008 report, the House Committee on Appropriations
Subcommittee on Legislative Branch included language requesting that
the Chief Administrative Officer [CAO] work with the Clerk of the House
and the Library of Congress to study how, within the public House of
Representatives website and the THOMAS website, a joint system might
be developed to allow roll call searches by specific word. The CAO,
working with CRS, submitted its final report in April 2008.
New Library Oversight and Appropriations Rosters
Leadership in the 111th Congress has not completed the process of
assigning committee slots and chairmanships; some of this process will
take place after Senate confirmation of several members nominated for
cabinet and other positions in the new administration.
With each new Congress, the Joint Committee on the Library chairmanship
passes from one chamber to the other. The Library expects Rep. Robert
Brady to take the chairmanship as Chairman of the Committee on House
Administration (CHA). Long-serving CHA ranking member and former JCL
Chairman Vernon Ehlers (R-MI) announced that he will step down as the
ranking Republican on the committee, and it appears that Rep. Dan Lungren
(R-CA) will step up to replace him. On the appropriations side, we expect
Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) to remain as Chair of the Legislative
Branch subcommittee, and Rep. Robert Aderholt (R-AL)–new to the Subcommittee
but a member of the Library of Congress Caucus in the House–has been
named as ranking member for Legislative Branch, replacing Rep. Tom Latham
(R-IA).
On the Senate side, we anticipate that Sen. Dianne Feinstein, Chairman
of the Senate Rules and Administration Committee and the Joint Committee
on the Library during the 110th Congress, will move to take the chairmanship
of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. It is likely that Sen.
Charles Schumer (D-NY) will chair the Senate Rules Committee in her
place.
The New Congress and the Library
The week after the November 2008 elections, both the Democratic and
Republican leadership hosted events at the Library for new members and
their families. The Congressional Relations Office and Library managers
had multiple opportunities to talk to new (and many returning) members
about ways the Library serves their offices and their constituents.
CRO staff will meet individually with each new member’s key staff on
Capitol Hill in the coming weeks.
Swearing-in week for the 111th Congress (January 5-7) was equally busy.
Library Services curatorial and reference staff were very helpful when
CRO received a number of last-minute calls to provide Bibles from our
collections for various members’ swearing-in ceremonies. In addition
to running books to the House and Senate, CRO staff scheduled and arranged
for many events in the Jefferson and Madison buildings for members and
their families in town for the ceremonies, as well as the annual policy
conference held by the Senate Republicans.
House Library of Congress Congressional Caucus
In late January 2008, Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) and Rep. Ray LaHood (R-IL) formed the Library of Congress Congressional Caucus, to “draw Members’ attention to the nation’s library and its unparalleled collections and knowledgeable curators and to encourage further use of these extraordinary resources.” With the strong support of Reps. Blumenauer and LaHood, the Caucus attracted a bipartisan membership of more than 30 House Members, including the following:
Neil Abercrombie (D-HI)
Robert Aderholt (R-AL)
Shelley Berkley (D-NV)
Earl Blumenauer, co-chairman (D-OR)
Bruce Braley (D-IA)
Michael Conaway (R-TX)
Vernon Ehlers (R-MI)
Keith Ellison (D-MN)
Mary Fallin (R-OK)
Bob Filner (D-CA)
Jeff Fortenberry (R-NE)
Virginia Foxx (R-VA)
Charles Gonzalez (D-TX)
Bart Gordon D-TN)
Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (D-SD)
Rush Holt (D-NJ)
Michael Honda (D-CA)
Dale Kildee (D-MI)
Ron Kind (D-WI)
John Larson (D-CT)
Barbara Lee (D-CA)
John Lewis (D-GA)
Dave Loebsack (D-IA)
Donald Manzullo (R-IL)
Betty McCollum (D-MN)
Jim McDermott (D-WA)
Jim McGovern (D-MA)
Mike McIntyre (D-NC)
Candace Miller (R-MI)
Jim Moran (D-VA)
Thomas Petri (R-WI)
David Price (D-NC)
Lamar Smith (R-TX)
Todd Tiahrt (R-KS)
Edolphus Towns (D-NY)
Chris Van Hollen (D-MD)
Zach Wamp (likely co-chairman, 111th Congress) (R-TN)
Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL)
Lynn Woolsey (D-CA)
Ray LaHood (retired from Congress; Presidential nominee for Secretary
of Transportation)
OFFICE OF SECURITY AND EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS (OSEP)
The Office of Security and Emergency Preparedness continued developing the Library’s security and emergency programs, with a focus on enhancing the Emergency Preparedness Program, improving security at the Library’s outlying facilities, and expanding staff security awareness.
OSEP’s Emergency Preparedness Office conducted the first library-wide shelter-in-place drills in the Library’s three buildings on Capitol Hill during June 2008, involving more than 4,500 staff members, contractors, and visitors. Installation and final acceptance for the Library’s new Emergency Public Address System was completed in August 2008. The Emergency Preparedness Office revitalized its Continuity of Operations Planning (COOP) with the establishment of a COOP Working Group, consisting of representatives from all the Library’s service and support units. The Working Group’s priority is to consolidate individual unit COOP plans into a comprehensive Library COOP Plan. And, finally, the emergency preparedness staff worked with the Library’s five outlying facilities to implement specific actions that are included in the updated Employee Emergency Action Guide.
OSEP and the Collections Security Oversight Committee (CSOC) continued strengthening the Library’s collections security program. The “poster” campaign was completed in March 2008, and in April the next phase of the program began. Senior managers from the CSOC have begun to conduct a series of focus-group sessions with select staff members to solicit their ideas on ways the Library can further enhance security practices to safeguard the collections. Participants include front-line supervisors, librarians and other professional staff, and technicians and other support staff. To date, six of the nine scheduled focus group sessions have been held, and many excellent proposals have been put forward.
The third round of Site Assistance Visits to all Library divisions, begun in May 2007, will be completed in May 2009. These visits help staff members protect their collections in consonance with the standards developed in the Strategic Plan for Safeguarding the Collections.
NATIONAL BOOK FESTIVAL
Planning has begun for the 2009 Library of Congress National Book Festival to be held September 26, 2009. The 2008 festival on September 27 on the National Mall attracted more than 120,000 people (see URL: <http://www.loc.gov/bookfest/>)
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS EXPERIENCE/CAPITOL VISITORS CENTER
The U.S. Capitol Visitors Center opened on December 2, 2008. An underground passageway now directly connects the Capitol to the Thomas Jefferson Building of the Library of Congress. The Library has announced that the Jefferson Building will be open to the public from 8:30 AM to 4:30 PM, Monday through Saturday. Furthermore, beginning with Presidents’ Day on Feb. 16, 2009, the building will be open to the public on all federal holidays except Thanksgiving and Christmas Days. Although reading room hours will not change, the extended hours will provide the public with an additional 400 hours each year for viewing the Great Hall and exhibition spaces.
Library curators and exhibition staff have prepared a number of new interactive features for the exhibits, keyed to a uniquely barcoded Passport to Knowledge that allows each visitor to the Jefferson Building to personalize the visit by linking intriguing exhibition items to the digital counterparts on the Library’s Website. This enhancement of the Library of Congress Experience, which was launched in April 2008, helps visitors to the Jefferson Building become lifelong users of the Library via its Website. Since last spring, the number of visitors to the Jefferson Building has increased by 25 percent.
LIBRARY SERVICES
New Division Chiefs
The Acquisitions and Bibliographic Access Directorate appointed three permanent divisions chiefs on October 1, 2008. Linda Stubbs is the new chief of the Germanic and Slavic Division; Philip Melzer is the new chief of the Asian and Middle Eastern Division. Both had served as acting chiefs of ABA divisions. Karl Debus-López is the new chief of the US General Division. He was formerly head of the Acquisitions and Collection Development Branch and chief collection development officer at the National Agricultural Library.
David Osborne, acting chief of the Federal Research Division (FRD), was appointed permanent chief in October. Ronald Bluestone was appointed chief of the Science, Technology and Business Division in October.
Peter R. Young, became chief of the Asian Division in October. He had been director of the National Agricultural Library (NAL) since 2002. Prior to that time, he was director of the Cataloging Distribution Service at LC.
Patrick Loughney is the new chief of the Packard Campus (National Audio-Visual Conservation Center) as of Sept. 7, 2008. A former manager in the Motion Picture, Broadcasting, and Recorded Sound Division, Loughney since January 2005 had been curator of the Motion Picture Department of George Eastman House Museum in Rochester, N.Y., and an adjunct faculty member at the University of Rochester.
Library of Congress Working Group on the Future of Bibliographic Control
The Library is pursuing several projects in response to the recommendations of the LC Working Group on the Future of Bibliographic Control. A contract has been awarded to R2 Consulting to produce a survey of the bibliographic landscape, as recommended by the Working Group. An internal LC group, co-chaired by Regina Reynolds and Bruce Knarr of the Acquisitions and Bibliographic Access Directorate, has analyzed the Working Group’s recommendations and identified half a dozen projects that the Library could undertake in the near future. Morgan Cundiffe of the Network Development and MARC Standards Office has been detailed to the Office of the Associate Librarian for Library Services to explore how Library Services can implement the Working Group’s recommendations to widen access to “hidden collections.” Library Services is working with representative of the National Library of Medicine and National Agricultural Library to test the proposed cataloging standard, Resource Description and Access, for feasibility, compatibility with existing metadata, cost-effectiveness, and user satisfaction before decisions are made regarding implementation of the new standard. An invitational meeting on January 24 in Denver will invite the participation of potential test partners in the larger community.
Associate Librarian for Library Services Deanna Marcum convened the Working Group in November 2006 to address how the Library of Congress and the library community should address the popularity of the Internet, advances in search-engine technology, and the influx of electronic information resources. The Working Group's final report and recommendations, published in January 2008 as On the Record, are available at URL <http://www.loc.gov/bibliographic-future/>. Also available on the Website is Dr. Marcum’s response, dated June 1, 2008, to the Working Group.
ACQUISITIONS AND BIBLIOGRAPHIC ACCESS DIRECTORATE (ABA)
ABA Reorganization
The Acquisitions and Bibliographic Access Directorate implemented a new organizational structure in October after several years of planning. The new structure streamlines workflows, deploys staff with unusual language skills more effectively, and fully merges acquisitions and cataloging functions, based on the regional origin of materials selected for addition to the Library’s collections—more than 2.5 million items each year. Approximately 615 ABA staff members, formerly working in 14 divisions, are now assigned to nine new divisions. Additionally, approximately twenty staff who catalog music and sound recordings were reassigned from the ABA Directorate to the Music Division, Collections and Services Directorate, on October 1.
ABA now has six production divisions and three support divisions. Four production divisions have fiscal responsibilities and acquire and catalog materials from all parts of the world using methods of purchase, exchange, and gift. These are the African, Latin American, and Western European Division (chief, Angela Kinney); Asian and Middle Eastern Division (chief, Philip Melzer); Germanic and Slavic Division (chief, Linda Stubbs); and US/Anglo Division (chief, Judith A. Mansfield). The remaining two production divisions, the US and Publisher Liaison Division (chief, Maureen Landry) and the US General Division (chief, Karl Debuz-López), catalog materials forwarded from the U.S. Copyright Office or received in the Cataloging in Publication, Electronic Preassigned Card Number, and International Standard Serial Number programs. The US General Division also houses the Library of Congress’s Dewey classifiers and works closely with the owner of the Dewey Decimal Classification, OCLC, Inc., and its editors.
In addition, the Overseas Operations Division (chief, James Gentner) continues to administer the Library’s six overseas offices in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Cairo, Egypt; New Delhi, India; Jakarta, Indonesia; Nairobi, Kenya; and Islamabad, Pakistan. The reorganization established an Acquisitions Fiscal and Support Office (head, Joseph Puccio), within the Office of the Director, that is responsible for acquisitions fiscal operations, the Duplicate Materials Exchange Program, the Surplus Books Program, and oversight of materials handling contractors. The Cooperative and Instructional Programs Division (chief, Judith Cannan) combines the former Cooperative Cataloging Team, CONSER operations, the National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections staff, and the directorate’s internal training staff. This merger recognized that ABA could realize efficiencies in the provision of training both to Library staff and to practitioners in other institutions. It also groups together all ABA staff who support cooperative cataloging programs, in order to improve communications and achieve greater efficiency.
The new Policy and Standards Division (chief, Barbara Tillett) performs all the functions of the former Cataloging Policy and Support Office. In recognition of the growing importance of policy and standards for acquisitions as well as cataloging, the division has gained a fulltime policy specialist focusing on acquisitions. The product development functions of the Library of Congress Cataloging Distribution Service (CDS) have also become the responsibility of Policy and Standards, while the CDS cost-recovery functions moved to the new Business Enterprises organization in the Partnerships and Outreach Programs Directorate.
Bibliographic Enrichment Activities Team (BEAT)
The Bibliographic Enrichment Advisory Team (BEAT) in the Acquisitions and Bibliographic Access Directorate initiates research and development projects to increase the value of cataloging products to library users. The team’s best-known project is the creation of digital tables of contents data (D-TOC), either as part of bibliographic records or as separate files linked to them. In the fiscal year from October 1, 2007 through September 30, 2008, software developed by BEAT enabled the inclusion of tables of contents directly in 18,549 records for ECIP galleys and the creation of 28,596 additional D-TOC for published books. The latter were placed on a Library of Congress server, hot-linked to the corresponding catalog records, and were indexed by Google and Yahoo! Digitized tables of contents enable richer keyword searching and permit catalog users to make more informed decisions about whether to request a book from the catalog. At the end of September 2008, the cumulative number of “hits” on the D-TOC server since 1995 exceeded 25 million, including more than five million in fiscal 2008.
Cataloging Distribution Service – see under PARTNERSHIPS AND OUTREACH PROGRAMS DIRECTORATE
Cataloging in Publication (CIP)
The libraries of Brigham Young University, Duke University, and the University of Chicago joined the ECIP Cataloging Partners program in autumn 2008. There are now ten ECIP cataloging partner libraries; the others are at Cornell, Northwestern, and Stanford universities, Texas A&M University, the U.S. National Agricultural Library, the U.S. National Library of Medicine, and the University of Wisconsin. As with all CIP records, the resulting catalog records are printed in the published books, and the LC Cataloging Distribution Service distributes the records for use by other libraries. The ECIP cataloging partners collectively cataloged 3,559 titles from October 1, 2007 through September 30, 2008. The ECIP cataloging partners generally catalog publications of their own university presses from electronic galleys submitted to the Library of Congress in advance of publication.
As of January 7, 2009, the libraries of Ohio State University and the University of Washington were testing ECIP cataloging software in expectation of beginning ECIP cataloging production by the end of January. The ECIP cataloging partners significantly strengthen the CIP program’s coverage of subjects such as political science, medicine and science, agriculture, and Asian studies.
The CIP Advisory Group will meet at ALA Midwinter Meeting on Sunday, January 25, 10:30 AM-12:00 PM, in room 201 of the Colorado Convention Center. Maureen Landry, chief of the US and Publisher Liaison Division, will chair the meeting.
Cataloging Policy
With the Acquisitions and Bibliographic Access Directorate (ABA) reorganization, the Cataloging Policy and Support Office became the Policy and Standards Division (PSD). Its email address has been changed to <policy@loc.gov>. The email addresses of individual staff members in the division are unchanged.
The former Subject Headings Editorial Team (SHED), Classification Editorial Team (CLED), PREMARC, and Quality Control and File Management Team (QCFM) are now merged into the new Database Integrity Section under the supervision of Ron Goudreau. The new Product Services Section was established with selected staff who were formerly part of the Cataloging Distribution Service (CDS).
Personnel changes. The Division gained three new staff in 2008. Elizabeth Dechman and Janis Young joined the Policy Section to fill behind cataloging policy specialists Lynn El-Hoshy and Milicent Wewerka who retired in 2008. Ms. Dechman’s and Ms. Young’s areas of subject expertise and language skills complement those of other PSD staff. Patricia Hayward joined the Product Services Section in November 2008 as the coordinator for Classification Web. All three were promoted from within ABA.
The other two Product Services Section members are Bruce Johnson and Loche McLean. Johnson continues his coordinator role for the Cataloger’s Desktop, and will work on the next generation of that service. McLean is temporarily detailed as the Business Enterprises Officer in the Partnership and Outreach Programs Directorate.
Resource Description and Access (RDA). Work continues to
develop the new international cataloging code. Descriptive policy specialists
have developed proposals and responses to drafts in collaboration with
cataloging staff throughout the Library and in consultation with colleagues
worldwide. Barbara Tillett started a series of Webcasts to help LC staff
and PCC partners understand the background and underlying concepts behind
RDA. Two of the Webcasts are available:
Resource Description and Access: Background and Overview (May 14, 2008)
available at URL
<http://www.loc.gov/today/cyberlc/feature_wdesc.php?rec=4320>
Cataloging Principles and RDA: Resource Description and Access (June
10, 2008) available at URL <http://www.loc.gov/today/cyberlc/feature_wdesc.php?rec=4327>
Additional Webcasts are planned during 2009 and will be announced on the PSD Website.
Library of Congress Classification – see under Cataloging Distribution Service/PARTNERSHIPS AND OUTREACH PROGRAMS DIRECTORATE
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) 31st edition. The 31st edition of printed LCSH will be available in the spring of 2009. The data cutoff date for the 31st edition will be January 23, 2009. As of October 2008, LCSH had a total of 341,971 subject authority records.
Subject Cataloging Manual: Subject Headings. With the 2008 update, the Subject Cataloging Manual: Subject Headings is current through the end of February 2008. This is the final update to the 5th edition of the manual. In 2009, a new edition of the manual will be published under the title Subject Headings Manual, which will consolidate the previous updates and complement the Classification and Shelflisting Manual, published in May 2008.
LC genre/form headings. In July 2008, the Library of Congress’s Acquisitions and Bibliographic Access Directorate (ABA) managers authorized five new genre/form projects within LCSH to be undertaken by the Cataloging Policy and Support Office (now the Policy and Standards Division): cartography, law, literature, music, and religion. In November 2008, the ABA managers approved the Policy and Standards Division’s four-year timeline for the projects. All SACO members are invited to contribute proposals for moving image and radio program genre/form headings, beginning February 1, 2009. All proposals should be entered into the fill-in form for genre/form headings, which will be made available to members through the SACO Website. For general information about Genre/Form and LCSH at the Library of Congress, including a Genre/Form Frequently Asked Questions PDF document as well as a full timeline, visit URL: <http://www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/genreformgeneral.html>.
Authority non-Latin reference pre-population project. The Library of Congress is pleased to announce that OCLC has completed the pre-population of the LC/NACO authority file with non-Latin references (authority 4XX fields) derived from non-Latin bibliographic heading fields in WorldCat, a use of data-mining techniques originally developed for the WorldCat Identities project. The pre-population project, which began in mid-July, added non-Latin script references to 497,576 name authority records for personal names and corporate bodies. LC hopes to announce soon a process by which catalogers that have been examining the non-Latin script references added by this project can contribute to the development of policies and practices for the future, such as the issues raised in the white paper on non-Latin script references in name authority records (URL <http://www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/nonlatin_whitepaper.html>).
Virtual International Authority File (VIAF). On December 11, 2008, the Library of Congress and the Bibliothèque nationale de France were among the partners (along with the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek and OCLC) signing a new agreement to add the National Library of Sweden as the latest partner to the VIAF. Seven other potential partners have submitted applications to join and are expected to be added during 2009. VIAF is a service that matches and links the world’s large personal name authority files. The prototype system is expected to move into a production mode during 2009. Currently more than 9 million personal name authority records are accessible at URL <http://viaf.org/>. Future plans are to expand to geographic names, corporate names, and uniform titles.
International Cataloguing Principles (IFLA – International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions). The Policy and Standards Division has been engaged for eight years in the work towards a new “Statement of International Cataloguing Principles” that updates IFLA’s Paris Principles of 1961. The final draft underwent worldwide review that produced excellent suggestions for improvements – most of which were incorporated in the final version of the Statement and the accompanying Glossary. The final versions of the Statement and Glossary are awaiting approval from the IFLA Division IV: Bibliographic Control standing committees of the Cataloguing Section, the Bibliography Section, and the Classification and Indexing Section. Work on the publication of the text is underway, enlisting the help of colleagues worldwide with the translation into at least all of the languages from the five International Meetings of Experts on an International Cataloguing Code (IME ICC) that led up to this new statement. The printed text should be available before the next IFLA conference in August 2009, and a free pdf version is being negotiated with the publishers.
Cooperative Cataloging Programs
Recent activities of the Program for Cooperative Cataloging PCC) include official participation in CC:DA (ALA Association for Library Collections and Technical Services/Cataloging and Classification Section/Committee on Cataloging: Description and Access), the ALCTS Task Force on Implementation and Training for RDA, and a poster session at IFLA in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. The Subject Analysis Committee (ALCTS/CCS/SAC) has asked for a non-voting member-liaison from the PCC.
Rebecca L. Mugridge (Pennsylvania State University) took over as Chair from Mechael Charbonneau (Indiana University), who is now chair emerita. David Banush (Cornell University) is the new Chair-Elect.
The PCC has made a final decision to make series tracings and series authority work optional for all members. BIBCO training materials, currently in revision, will include this new policy. BIBCO will also begin investigating a BIBCO Standard Record, in order to use a single bibliographic record rather than various types of bibliographic records.
The PCC Task Group on the Internationalization of the Authority Files is co-chaired by Joan Schuitema, chair of the PCC Standing Committee on Standards, and Barbara Tillett, chief, LC Policy and Standards Division. This group is reviewing current models for an international authority file and will assess each in terms of feasibility for PCC participation. It will address subject as well as name authorities.
Volunteers from SACO institutions took part in a Library of Congress pilot project to accept genre/form subject headings in the areas of radio/television programs and moving images for inclusion in LCSH.
In the past fiscal year, NACO participants created 200,868 new name authority records and revised 473,241. Those members who continued series tracings and authority work created 12,536 new series authority records and revised 30,372. The SACO program produced 3,116 new authority records for LCSH and 1,125 revised records. BIBCO participants contributed 76,572 full- and core-level bibliographic records and revised 6,252. CONSER participants authenticated 25,096 serials records and performed maintenance on 32,902.
At the end of the fiscal year, there were 673 registered MARC 21 institutional codes. Approximately 70 percent of PCC member institutions participate through funnel membership.
Most of the public PCC meetings at ALA Midwinter Meeting will be Sunday, January 25. The CONSER/BIBCO/SACO at Large meetings will be held consecutively from 8:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. in the Colorado Convention Center, Room 403. The PCC Participants Meeting will be 4:00 to 5:30 in the Colorado Convention Center, Room 201. Karen Calhoun and Janet Hawk of OCLC will report on "Metadata Quality: What End Users and Librarians Want,” the results and recommendations from a large-scale 2008 OCLC study.
International Exchanges
The Library is pursuing two initiatives to bring the acquisition of foreign publications via international exchange into the digital age. In the first, the Library of Congress and the U.S. Government Printing Office are collaborating to redesign the International Exchange Service. The ABA Directorate manages the IES, providing U.S. federal documents published in tangible formats by GPO to the national libraries of more than 65 countries in exchange for government publications from their countries. At a meeting on December 10, 2008, GPO and LC managers agreed that the service should be expanded to cover electronic documents, as GPO now issues the vast majority of federal documents in digital formats. The next step will be to form a management oversight committee in January with representation from GPO, LC production and legal staff, and other appropriate federal agencies.
In the second effort, the Library will extend its International Electronic Exchange (IEX) LOCKSS pilot project for an additional two years. The pilot project, which began in January 2008, is testing the feasibility and cost-effectiveness of using LOCKSS--Lots of Copies Keep Stuff Safe open-source software from Stanford University--to archive foreign government online publications. Partners in the project include the German National Library, the State Library in Berlin, the Bavarian State Library, the Humboldt University Institute for Library and Information Science, the Regensburg University Library, the German Federal Statistics Office, and Stanford University Library. The partners are using a private LOCKSS network (CLOCKSS) to download and maintain German government serial publications. A small private network has been put in place and is currently running an electronic journal made available by the Bavarian State Library. The Library is extending the project in order to add more content, test the system's capabilities more thoroughly, increase the number of participants, and gather information regarding operational costs and benefits. The pilot project is part of the Congressionally sponsored National Digital Information Infrastructure Preservation Program (NDIIPP).
The Library of Congress expects to rely on foreign national libraries as trusted repositories of their own publications and the publications of their governments. LC also expects, however, that a subset of foreign government publications will warrant archiving on Library of Congress servers. IEX LOCKSS is using a LOCKSS Private Network for the purpose of archiving these foreign government publications. LOCKSS is not normally used to provide public access to the e-journals affected. Instead, the Library plans to rely on the publishers’ Websites for public access. The LOCKSS copy would be used only if the publisher's Website were corrupted or somehow unavailable.
ABA initiated this acquisitions project, and Linda Stubbs, chief of the new Germanic and Slavic Division, chairs the steering committee. Linda Miller, from Library Services' Technology Policy Directorate, is the pilot project manager. The pilot project has also received strong support from the Office of Strategic Initiatives and Information Technology Services. Library Services has contracted Don Panzera, who retired last year as chief of the former European and Latin American Acquisitions Division after launching the project, as a management consultant who is familiar with the Library’s acquisitions program and is well-known to the German participants.
Program for Cooperative Cataloging – see Cooperative Cataloging Programs
Shelf-Ready Projects
The Library’s shelf-ready agreement with Casalini libri of Fiesole, Italy, is now in its fourth production year. Casalini supplies bibliographic records, end-stage processing, ownership marks, and labeling for approximately 3,500 Italian titles each year--approximately half the Italian titles acquired by the Library of Congress. A significant price reduction was achieved for fiscal years 2008 and 2009. Casalini performs name and subject authority work as a member of the Program for Cooperative Cataloging.
In November 2008, an ABA section head traveled to Buenos Aires, Argentina, to provide classroom training to cataloging staff of the Library’s Argentine book dealer, Garcia Cambeiro. The intention is for Garcia Cambeiro to supply the Library of Congress with original or copy-cataloged bibliographic records and physical processing for approximately 2,200 titles published in Argentina each year. Library of Congress staff will perform authority work for any titles selected for citation in the Handbook of Latin American Studies.
The Library continues to develop a shelf-ready project with Kinokuniya, its dealer for Japanese scientific publications. It is also exploring projects with dealers in Spain, China, and Korea.
Surplus Books Program
In November, a staff member from the office of Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) initiated a Congressional book drive to collect materials to donate to the Library's Surplus Books Program. This effort was timed to coincide with the period in which many Congressional staff members were changing office locations. It resulted in 2,550 books being donated to the Library by January 5, 2009. Some of the books will be used in the Library's international exchange program. The remainder will be added to the Surplus Books Program, which makes materials available, free of charge, to libraries and other non-profit institutions in the United States.
Bibliographic Access Divisions and Serial Record Division Production
| Bibliographic Records Completed | Fiscal 2008 | Fiscal 2007 |
|---|---|---|
| Full/Core Original | 208,321 | 211,805 |
| Collection-Level Cataloging | 3,895 | 3,434 |
| Copy Cataloging | 71,790 | 71,532 |
| Minimal Level Cataloging | 29,307 | 44,447 |
| Total Records Completed | 313,313 | 331,218 |
| Total Volumes Cataloged | 350,631 | 363,064 |
| Authority Work | Fiscal 2008 | Fiscal 2007 |
|---|---|---|
| New Name Authority Records | 91,016 | 98,353 |
| New Library of Congress Subject Headings | 35,748* | 9,206 |
| New LC Classification Numbers | 1,818 | 2,127 |
| Total Authority Records Created | 128,582 | 109,686 |
*Includes subject-subdivision strings to support automated validation.
| Acquisitions for the LC Collections | Fiscal 2008 | Fiscal 2007 |
|---|---|---|
| Items acquired by gift**, exchange, or from GPO |
248,133 | 258,585 |
| Items purchased | 1,200,174 | 814,726 |
| Items transferred from U.S. Copyright Office |
526,508 | 1,077,152 |
| Items acquired via the CIP and EPCN programs |
87,479 | 80,373 |
| Total collection items acquired by ABA | 2,062,294 | 2,230,836 |
**Does not include gift items sent directly to the special format divisions.
COLLECTIONS AND SERVICES DIRECTORATE
American Folklife Center/Veterans History Project (AFC/VHP)
Major projects and public events for 2008 included a symposium on March 13-14, entitled “Art, Culture, and Government: The New Deal at 75.” The symposium brought together experts to discuss the impact of New Deal programs on the documentation of American culture and on Library of Congress collections. Services to Congress by the AFC and the Veterans History Project (VHP) ranged from consulting with members of Congress and their staffs on the Civil Rights History Project Act (H.R. 998), introduced by Rep. Carolyn McCarthy of New York, to hosting Members on visits to the Library.
From September 15-30, AFC launched a pilot program, the Indigenous Communities Pilot Field School, developed in collaboration with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), in Geneva, Switzerland, and the Center for Documentary Studies (CDS), at Duke University. The program was developed to provide training for members of indigenous communities in documenting and preserving their own cultural heritage, and managing their intellectual property rights. As part of the pilot program, AFC hosted three participants from Kenya. Two are members of the Laikipia Maasai community and the third is a staff member of the National Museums of Kenya. AFC’s director, Dr. Peggy Bulger, is a U.S. representative to WIPO, contributing to international negotiations concerning intellectual property, folklore, and traditional knowledge. She and other AFC staff attended meetings of UNESCO and the Committee on Culture of the Organization of American States (OAS).
Historic recordings held by AFC are heard on a monthly radio feature titled “Treasures from the American Folklife Center,” hosted by Bob Edwards on XM Satellite radio.
The AFC digital card catalog, “Traditional Music and Spoken Word Catalog,” now provides greatly improved access to field recordings made during the 1930s through the 1950s. AFC continued to develop and improve the Ethnographic Thesaurus (ET), a comprehensive controlled list of subject terms created to describe multi-format ethnographic research collections. The ET was created by the American Folklore Society, with significant input and guidance from AFC.
AFC continued its work with StoryCorps, the nationwide documentary initiative. All StoryCorps interviews are archived at the AFC. The AFC presented ten concerts in its “Homegrown 2008” series and seven lectures in the “Benjamin Botkin Folklife Lecture Series.” AFC staff members participate in the Library of Congress’s Summer Teacher Institutes, and also host hundreds of visitors and researchers in the American Folklife Center Reading Room. For more information and webcasts of symposia, concerts, and lectures, see the American Folklife Center Website at URL <http://www.loc.gov/folklife/>, or phone 202-707-5510.
Veterans History Project (VHP). This congressionally mandated public outreach/collection development project continues to expand in 2009, its ninth year. In 2008, over 6,000 additional collections were donated and more are received weekly. Organizations nationwide, including many libraries, have joined the effort to help gather and submit oral histories and supporting items for the VHP collection. Descriptions of the nearly 60,000 collections can be searched at the VHP’s Website, URL <http://www.loc.gov/vets>. More than 5,500 selected narratives are fully digitized, of which 20 percent offer transcripts and are viewable on the Website, along with a series of themed presentations under the title “Experiencing War.” All collections are served in LC’s American Folklife Center Reading Room.
The Veterans History Project continues to rely on a nationwide network of volunteers and organizations to collect veterans’ interviews. Libraries are a valued resource in this effort, distributing information, coordinating VHP interviewing events, and making their facilities available to local VHP volunteers. For additional information, see the project Website or phone 202-707-4916.
Collections Access, Loan, and Management Division (CALM)
Digital Reference Section (DRS). In addition to answering more than 7,500 reference queries about the Library's digital collections, the Digital Reference Section continued to add guides to the two series of Webguides that provide topical access to the Library's millions of digitized items. Twelve new guides were added to the series on the United States presidents that now includes the Civil War presidents of Lincoln, Johnson and Grant and four 20th century presidents such as Wilson, Coolidge, Hoover, and Roosevelt. These guides are accessible at URL <http://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/bibguide.html>. The five guides added to the State Webguide site are Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, and West Virginia. Other new guides feature digital images and access to material about Harriet Tubman, the American Founders, Library Science, and the New Deal. In addition the DRS completed a collaborative project with the Office of Strategic Initiatives Education Outreach Team that focused on highlighted images for each state and territory. A new portal for poetry resources titled “Abraham Lincoln and Poetry” will accompany the opening of the Lincoln exhibits at the Library in 2009.
Presentations, whether on-site or via the Web, continue to provide a venue for the digital reference specialists to reach an audience outside the DC area. Virtual attendance at video and Webconferences surpassed the 10,000 mark in 2008. Webconferences via OPAL (Online Programming for All Libraries) continue to focus on special digital collections. The section is refining a new presentation titled “Jefferson’s Legacy”, in addition to offering "Introducing loc.gov” every second Wednesday of the month directly from the LC Website at URL <http://www.loc.gov/rr/program/orientation.html>. Registration for the latter Webconference is limited to 15 seats; therefore, prior contact from participants is necessary.
Off-Site Collections Storage at Ft. Meade. The Library continues to occupy existing available space at Ft. Meade, Md., and to construct additional modules at Ft. Meade. Modules 1 and 2, opened in November 2002 and November 2005 respectively, were designed to house books and bound periodicals. To date, approximately 2.8 million items have been transferred from Capitol Hill and the Landover Center Annex to these two modules. Modules 3 and 4 are currently under construction. Like Modules 1 and 2, these two modules are environmentally controlled at 50° F, 30 percent relative humidity, and will house primarily paper-based special format collections, such as sheet music, maps, bound newspaper volumes and manuscripts. Four cold storage rooms are also being constructed as part of this project. These rooms will house primarily color photographs and microfilm masters. Three of the vaults will be maintained at 35° F, 30 percent relative humidity; one at 25° F, 30 percent relative humidity. The current construction project for Modules 3 and 4 and the four cold storage rooms is on schedule for anticipated completion in March 2009.
Federal Research Division (FRD)
FRD Military Legal Resources Website. Continued funding from the Army Judge Advocate General’s Legal Center and School has allowed FRD to significantly increase the size of the Military Legal Resources Website, URL <http://www.loc.gov/rr/frd/Military_Law/military-legal-resources-home.html>. It now has 1,316 documents (234,670 full-text, searchable document pages) relevant to U.S. military law (including rare historical documents). The 42-volume collection, “Trial of the Major War Criminals Before the International Military Tribunal, Nuremberg, 14 November 1945–1 October 1946, Nuremberg, Germany, 1947–1949" is completed, with all volumes now available in full text on the Website. The two companion series, the 8-volume “Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression” and the 15-volume “Trials of War Criminals Before the Military Tribunals Under Control Council Law No. 10,” both in English and German, also are on the site. The first collection includes documentary evidence and guide materials for the International Military Tribunal. The second is the official condensed version of the Nuremberg trials. In addition, all issues of Military Law Review and Army Lawyer are available on the site. The site also contains documents from the International Committee for the Red Cross, including the Pictet Commentaries on the Geneva Conventions and issues of the International Review of the Red Cross (1961-1998).
FRD Country Studies. Iran was published in July 2008; North Korea will be published in January. Three books are underway (Colombia, Indonesia, and Sudan). Funded by the Department of Defense, the new books will no longer be Army publications but publications of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
FRD Country Profiles. Funded by the Department of Defense, the FRD Country Profiles Website at URL <http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/profiles.html> has 49 profiles, some of which were updated in 2008.
Humanities and Social Sciences Division (HSS)
Collection Development and Acquisitions. The Sports and Recreation Recommending Officer for the General Collections was instrumental in the acquisition of an important Japanese baseball magazine (about 30 years of publishing, or 650-700 issues) from the library of the Baseball Hall of Fame after determining the Asian Division's interest. He was also instrumental in the Library's receipt of the Fay Vincent Oral History Collection from the library at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, N.Y. It comprises video interviews with thirty-five former players from both the Major and Negro Leagues, as well as broadcaster Chuck Thompson and Marvin Miller, the influential former president of the players' union. The interviews are on approximately 80 DVDs and have been added to the collections of the American Folklife Center.
The Miller American History Trust Fund supported the acquisition of U.S. Naval Administration in World War II, a large microfiche collection which brings together reports published after WW II about the administrative aspects of U.S. naval involvement in the war.
Collection Development Statements and Collection Overviews: HSS librarians revised 22 Collection Development Statements and 25 Collection Overviews as part of the Library’s project to revise all collection development policies for the public Website.
Reading Rooms. The Library announced that the minimum age for use of the Main Reading Room, Microform Reading Room, and the Local History & Genealogy Reading Room to access the Library's physical collections for research purposes has been lowered to 16. The previous requirement was that the researchers be above high school age. Students as well as all public users of the Library's reading rooms are required to have a Library Reader Registration card.
Main Reading Room. The Main Reading Room Arch repair project begun in 2004 is completed. All scaffolding has been removed and the bronze statues have been cleaned and dusted. Some dusting remains to be done on ledges around the room. In addition, the AOC has repaired and stained many areas of the wood that has been chipped and scratched. We hope it will all be completed by the end of January. Access to the room and the collections was continuously maintained during the repair project.
Two staff made presentations at Teaching With Primary Sources (TPS) events at Waynesburg University (Pa.), the TPS directors' meeting in Washington, D.C. and in Denver, Colo. The latter event was at a consortium on “When History Happens: The 1908 Democratic National Convention,” with digital resources related to the 1908 Democratic National Convention available from American Memory and Chronicling America.
HSS reference librarians wrote summaries of historical Democratic and Republican national conventions for incorporation in a Microsoft™ product developed for display at the 2008 Democratic and Republican conventions. The summaries for all of the conventions and a brief bibliography are available via the MRR Webpage.
Local History and Genealogy (LH&G). Patricia Mae Smith bequeathed $93,000 to the Library "for genealogy and family history." LH&G staff members completed “How to Research Genealogy: Website Guides with Research Strategies” and “List of Genealogy & Local History Acquisition Sources.” Both of these publications will be available on the LH&G Webpage.
Music Division
Singer and songwriter Stevie Wonder is the recipient of the Second Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song. The award presentation will take place in the Great Hall of the Library’s Thomas Jefferson Building on Feb. 24, 2009. Wonder has also accepted a commission from the Library for an original composition.
National Audio-Visual Center
The Library opened a 200-seat theater in the state-of-the-art Packard Campus of the National Audio-Visual Conservation Center on Mount Pony, near Culpeper, Va., on September 4. The theater is one of only five in the U.S. equipped to show original classic film prints on nitrate film stock as they would have been screened in theaters prior to 1950. The Mount Pony theater also features a custom-made organ that can rise from a pit in the stage. From Sept. 4 through Nov. 22, the new theater showcased selected short subjects and feature film classics such as The Maltese Falcon, The Wizard of Oz, 42nd Street, and Gone With the Wind. All of the feature films are on the Library’s National Film Registry, a list of culturally, historically or aesthetically significant films that are preserved for all time.
Tickets for the film series are not required, but reservations may be made by calling (540) 827-1079, extension 79994, during business hours beginning one week before any given screening. Reserved seats must be claimed at least 10 minutes before show time, after which standbys will be admitted.
The theater is located on the ground floor of the Packard Campus of the National Audio-Visual Conservation Center, 19053 Mount Pony Rd., Culpeper, Va.
Prints and Photographs Division (P&P)
The Prints and Photographs Division offers a Web homepage at URL <http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/>. For ongoing information about newly available collections and recent and upcoming activities, see the "What's New" page at URL <http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/whatsnew.html>. An RSS feed is now offered for “Visual Resources: News from the Prints & Photographs Division.” Noteworthy online collections, acquisitions, research aids, and public programs, at URL <http://www.loc.gov/rss/>.
Flickr Commons Pilot Project. A comprehensive report on the first nine months of the Library’s Flickr pilot is at URL <http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/flickr_report_final.pdf [PDF, 1.3MB]>. The report details how the Flickr project at URL <http://www.flickr.com/photos/library_of_congress/2163003493/> has increased awareness of, and sparked creative interaction with, Library photograph collections; provided Library staff with experience in social tagging and Web2.0 community input; and cast the Library in a leadership role for other cultural heritage and government communities exploring the possibilities of Web2.0 venues. The photos continue to spark lively discussions. The division has regularly added to the set “News from the 1910s,” photos from the Bain News Service. We have also provided a selection of panoramic photographs relating to World War I as part of a commemoration of Armistice Day by members of The Commons. The Flickr project page is at URL <http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/flickr_pilot_faq.html>.
Graphic Materials 2nd Edition with RBMS sponsorship. The editorial team for the "Descriptive Cataloging of Rare Materials (Graphics)," or DCRM(G), will meet for two days at Midwinter Meeting, January 27-28. The work-in-progress can be seen at URL <http://dcrmg.pbwiki.com/>.
Collections Recently Processed and Made Available Online
Popular Graphic Arts large size prints. High resolution scans
for more than 3,000 large prints (approx. 24" x 36" or larger)
are now available. Published primarily between 1800 and 1890, the work
of Currier & Ives dominates the collection, with publishers such
as Bufford, Duval, Prang, and E. Sachse & Co. also represented.
Subject matter ranges from battle scenes and cityscapes to portraits,
religious iconography, and technology, with cartoons, advertising, and
political campaign material among the diverse forms represented in these
once widely distributed prints.
Harris & Ewing Collection. The first 3,600 scans of glass negatives now appear online. The photography firm of Harris & Ewing documented people, events, and architecture, particularly in Washington, D.C., during the period 1905-1945. As P&P has no prints corresponding to many of the negatives, this is the first time that many of the images can be easily seen. View online (URL: <http://lcweb2.loc.gov/pp/hechtml/hecabt.html>.
Online Reference Aids
Solving a Civil War Photograph Mystery. This case study explores
the question "Is this photo fact or fiction?" using clues
from the photograph's content, physical characteristics, source, and
connections to other photographs. The URL is <http://lcweb2.loc.gov/pp/cwphtml/cwpmystery.html>.
Helen Johns Kirtland biography. A new addition to the Women Photojournalists site, this overview summarizes Kirtland's career, offers samples images, and points to related resources. See URL <http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/coll/womphotoj/kirtlandintro.html>.
Photochrom Print Collection Overview. Information about the photochrom process and the collection of more than 6,000 photochrom views in the P&P Division holdings, with a bibliography and links to related resources. The URL is <http://lcweb2.loc.gov/pp/pgzhtml/pgzabt.html>.
Vice Presidents: A Selected List of Portraits. An illustrated list of vice presidents, a companion to P&P's list of Presidents and First Ladies. See URL <http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/list/059_vp_intr.html>.
Acquisitions
A color woodblock Ukiyo-e print by Toyohara Kunichika highlights an
early use of photography in Japan and represents two strengths of the
Library’s visual collections—Ukiyo-e prints and carte de visite photographs.
See URL <http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/caption/captionkunichika.html>.
Serial and Government Publications Division (SER)
Organizing and Preserving the Collections. The Serial & Government Publications Division completed an item inventory and condition assessment of more than 37,000 bound newspaper volumes. This effort was undertaken in support of a future transfer of the entire collection to the Library’s Ft. Meade high density storage facility in 2010. Each volume is now represented by an item record in the Library’s integrated library system (LC-ILS). Summary holdings statements are being constructed for each title held and will soon be available to the general public via the Library’s OPAC. The state-of-the-art environmental storage conditions at the Ft. Meade facility will extend the useful life of this large wood-pulp paper collection.
The division initiated a new project to inventory the Library’s estimated 120,000 issues of comic books. Each issue will be represented by an item record in the LC-ILS with a summary holding statement constructed for each title in the collection. A significant percentage of this valuable popular culture collection lacks full bibliographic control. Completion of this project in late 2009 will result in full bibliographic control of the collection with holdings information available via the Library’s OPAC. This project follows an earlier effort to re-house and mass deacidify the collection.
Special Programs. The division held two collection related public programs during the past six months. The division co-sponsored a talk by Israeli comic book scholar Ofer Berenstein on “Israeli Comics: past and present.” A podcast of this lecture is available from the Library’s Website. Division staff presented a newspaper digitization program with a representative of Gale Cengage, entitled “Digitizing Historic Newspapers: the British Library and Library of Congress Approaches & Outcomes.”
National Digital Newspaper Program. The National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP) continues to progress in developing a freely available national resource that enhances public access to historic American newspapers. This program, sponsored jointly by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Library of Congress and following on the success of the United States Newspaper Program, began in 2005 with six institutions awarded NEH funds to each digitally convert 100,000 selected historic newspaper pages to technical specifications established by LC. These digital assets are aggregated at LC in a sustainable digital resource and made freely available to the public.
In March 2007, the Library released to the public the Website Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers <http://www.loc.gov/chroniclingamerica/> . The site now provides access to more than 860,000 digitized newspaper pages from 108 titles selected by state awardees (California, Florida, Kentucky, Minnesota, Nebraska, New York, Texas, Utah, and Virginia) representing the historic period 1800-1910. The Library of Congress has provided newspapers published in the District of Columbia and New York. In addition to digitized newspaper content, the Chronicling America site also provides a Newspaper Directory of bibliographic and holdings information (approximately 138,000 titles and 900,000 holdings) collected in the United States Newspaper Program (USNP) and representing American newspapers published 1690-present.
Over time the Chronicling America Website will continue to grow in number of titles and pages available as well as both geographic and chronological coverage as NEH makes additional awards. Newly digitized content is added on a quarterly basis. The 2008 NEH awards will include content published from 1880-1922 and represent contributions from six new state awardees: Arizona, Hawaii, Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Washington. These newspapers will begin to be released in summer 2009. The Library of Congress will continue to contribute materials from its own collections representing the District of Columbia, as well as other content digitized to NDNP specifications and digitally acquired.
Veterans History Project - see American Folklife Center (AFC)/Veterans History Project
PARTNERSHIPS AND OUTREACH PROGRAMS DIRECTORATE
Business Enterprises
The new division Business Enterprises was launched under the Partnership and Outreach Programs Directorate in October. It brings together several cost-recovery and retail operations. Loche McLean, formerly in the Cataloging Distribution Service, is on detail as the Business Enterprises Officer.
Cataloging Distribution Service
Cataloger’s Desktop. This CDS web-based service features more than 250 resources and now features Spanish-, French-, and German-language interfaces. Latest major addition to resources is OCLC Bibliographic Formats and Standards. For a free 30-day trial subscription visit URL <http://www.loc.gov/cds/desktop/OrderForm.html>. Product demonstrations can be seen throughout the day at the booth and at scheduled LC booth theater presentations (check Cognotes for theater times). A brochure about the product is available at the booth.
Classification Web. This is CDS’s best selling web-based product. LC classification schedules and tables are updated daily. Records display non-Roman captions where applicable. For a free 30-day trial subscription visit URL <http://www.loc.gov/cds/classweb/application.html>. Product demonstrations can be seen throughout the day at the booth and at scheduled LC booth theater presentations (check Cognotes or go to the Booth Schedule for theater times). A brochure about the product is available at the booth.
Classification schedules. Since ALA 2008 Annual Conference, nine new LC Classification schedules have been published: B-BJ: Philosophy. Psychology (2008)…DS-DX: History of Asia, Africa, Australia, New Zealand, etc. (2008)…BL-BQ: Religion. Hinduism, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism (2008)…BR-BX: Christianity. Bible (2008)…R: Medicine (2008)…PJ-PK: Oriental Philology and Literature, Indo-Iranian Philology and Literature (2008)…PQ: French, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese Literatures (2008)…H: Social Sciences (2008)…KB: Religious Law (2008). New editions of schedules will be published as inventory of a current schedule is exhausted. Since each new edition will be produced in a relatively small quantity, future print editions of any given schedule will be produced quite frequently, and no print edition of a schedule will ever be more than two to three years out of date. Visit URL <http://www.loc.gov/cds/classif.html> for the latest information on LC Classification.
Descriptive Cataloging of Rare Materials (Serials), 2008 Edition. This new publication replaces Appendix C of Descriptive Cataloging of Rare Books, 2nd Edition, 1991. It results from a collaboration between LC and the Rare Books and Manuscripts Section of ACRL, the ALA Association of College and Research Libraries. Other publications in this series are also being planned for future publication.
Subject Headings Manual. This new publication replaces the Subject Cataloging Manual: Subject Headings (SCM:SH). It includes all SCM:SH updates through 2008. Two updates will be published each year. The manual is in four volumes with loose-leaf pages.
FREE PDF versions of selected publications. The following publications are freely available at URL <http://www.loc.gov/cds/freepdf.html> as they are published: Cataloging Service Bulletin; and updates to the following: Library of Congress Rule Interpretations, Subject Cataloging Manual: Subject Headings, CONSER Cataloging Manual, CONSER Cataloging Manual, Descriptive Cataloging Manual, and updates to MARC 21 format documentation.
Center for the Book
Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Herman Wouk received the first Library of Congress Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Writing of Fiction on September 10. A reading of Wouk’s works at the Library, open to the public, marked the event.
Outreach to Young Audiences
Young Readers Center. As part of the Library’s increased interest
in sharing its resources with young people, the Center for the Book
will oversee and operate the new Young Readers Center, set to open this
spring in the Thomas Jefferson Building. The YRC will play a leading
role in the Library’s promotion of books, reading, literacy and learning
to a K-12 audience. Young people, as well as their parents, caregivers
and teachers will participate in the YRC’s programs and activities.
National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature. In January 2009, noted children’s author Jon Scieszka began his second and concluding year as the National Ambassador for Young People's Literature, a project co-sponsored by the Center for the Book and the Children's Book Council, one of the center’s national reading promotion partners. Scieszka has been an extraordinary advocate for the importance of reading in young people’s lives, traveling the nation on behalf of the National Ambassador program and spreading the word about the Library’s outreach programs for young readers.
Letters About Literature. The Center is once again co-sponsoring, with the Target retail chain, the Letters About Literature contest for children in grades 4 though 12, encouraging them to write a letter to an author (living or dead) explaining how that writer’s work affected them. Winners and their schools receive cash awards at the state and national levels. As of the end of December, more than 47,000 letters had been entered in the contest. For more information, go to URL <http://www.lettersaboutliterature.org/>.
River of Words. Each year, in affiliation with the Center for the Book, River of Words, a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting the nation’s watersheds through its educational programs, conducts an international poetry and art contest for students ages 5 through 19. The annual awards ceremony for River of Words will be held May 13, 2009, at the Library. For more information, go to URL <http://www.riverofwords.org/>.
Other Activities. Important spring events at the Library of Congress include the annual “idea exchange” for the Center for the Book’s reading promotion partners (March 9), and the annual meeting and “idea exchange” for the center’s 51 (including D.C.) affiliated state centers (May 11-12). The state centers for the book play an important role in the Library’s outreach efforts across the nation.
The national Center for the Book (with Educational Outreach and Public Affairs) recently completed for 2008 its educational visits to five venues, in association with the local state centers for the book. Called “National Treasures, Local Treasures: The Library of Congress at Your Fingertips,” this successful program visited Fort Lauderdale, Fla.; Denver, Colo.; Dallas, Tex.; San Francisco, Calif., and Los Angeles, Calif.
Federal Library and Information Center Commttee (FLICC)/FEDLINK
The biggest announcement for the end of 2008 is the completion of the Competencies for Federal Librarians to define the knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs) needed to perform successfully as a federal librarian. Librarians use the competencies to identify their proficiency within a group of shared competencies and seven broad functional domains. Managers can use the competencies to develop job descriptions, recruit and train employees, create performance standards, develop succession plans, and align with agency’s mission and strategic goals.
For our customers, we are pleased to announce that Nature Publishing Group and FLICC/FEDLINK are establishing a U.S. federal consortium. With this consortium, the entire federal workforce will have access to Nature’s journals and online databases, which cover a broad spectrum in the life, physical and applied sciences as well as the field of clinical medicine. Also, at URL <http://www.nature.com/>, authors, editors and readers can interact through letters, blogs, file-sharing and social networks.
We extended services in the FedScan Center through our contract with Internet Archive. Now, in addition to offering large-scale book digitization services from its site in the Adams Building of the Library of Congress, we can offer single-page feed capability and all microformats, as well as work with materials coming from federal agencies that are "sensitive but unclassified" and will not be made available to the public. Our plan for fiscal year 2010 will include services for archival materials and collections and will see the expansion of business in Europe at a location to be determined, mostly likely in Germany to accommodate the large U.S. military library presence there.
We are pleased to announce that after examining program growth, realized savings through program management and program reserves, FLICC/FEDLINK’s oversight groups recommended a 1 percent fee reduction for transfer pay services in fiscal year 2009. This went into effect on October 1, 2008.
Members of our community continue to work on behalf of the federal information community. This year Chris Cole, Associate Director for Technical Services at the National Agricultural Library, joined Suzanne Ryder, Chief of the Naval Research Laboratory Library, as a FEDLINK delegate to the OCLC Members Council. In addition, a growing number of retired federal librarians join our Federal Emetarian Program each year. This is our way of continuing to benefit from our former colleagues’ expertise and for them to remain engaged in the profession.
On December 14-15, 2009, FLICC/FEDLINK looks forward to serving as the agency host for the international Grey Literature 11 annual conference, welcoming information colleagues from around the globe as they explore approaches to bibliographic control of the wealth of open source information available in public and private holdings.
Interpretive Programs Office
With Malice Toward None: The Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Exhibition will open on the second floor of the Library’s Thomas Jefferson Building
on Feb. 12, 2009, the 200th anniversary of Lincoln’s birth. Featuring
dozens of items from the LC collections, the exhibition will remain
in the Jefferson Building through May 9, 2009, and then will travel
to the California Museum, Sacramento; the Newberry Library, Chicago,
Ill.; the Indiana State Museum, Indianapolis; the Atlanta History Center,
Atlanta, Ga.; and the Durham Western Heritage Museum, Omaha, Neb., from
2009 through 2011.
With Bantam Dell, the Library is co-publishing a companion volume to
the exhibition, In Lincoln’s Hand: His Original Manuscripts with Commentary
by Distinguished Americans, which will be released for sale on Jan.
27. The Library will also mark the bicentennial with a full-day symposium
on March 4, 2009, and teacher institutes on Feb. 27-28; March 3-5; March
27-29; and April 6-8, 2009.
Kluge Center/Office of Scholarly Programs
Librarian of Congress James H. Billington on July 17 announced the appointment of Kay Ryan of California as the nation’s 16th Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry for 2008-2009. Ryan opened the Library’s annual literary series Oct. 16 with a reading of her work.
Historians Peter Robert Lamont Brown and Romila Thapar were awarded the 2008 Kluge Prize for lifetime achievement in the study of humanity on December 10. They are the sixth and seventh recipients since the inception of the Prize in 2003.
National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped (NLS)
At the beginning of Fiscal Year 2008 (September 2007), NLS management recognized the end of the development phase of the digital talking-book system by disbanding the Digital Audio Development Committee and establishing the Digital Implementation Project (DIP) Committee to steer plans for launching the new system. The DIP Committee—managers and staff officers—coordinates 25 projects that are integral to the successful transition from an analog program to a digital program.
In June, the Library of Congress awarded contracts for critical elements of the NLS digital transition. Shinano-Kenshi Corporation Ltd./Plextor-LLC of Culver City, Calif., will produce digital talking-book players and LC Industries of Hazlehurst, Miss., will produce digital talking-book-cartridge mailing containers. On August 22, the last contract necessary for the conversion of the national talking-book program was awarded to Northstar Systems, Inc., of Rancho Cucamonga, Calif., to produce USB flash-memory cartridges for recorded audiobooks to be distributed to patrons of the talking-book program.
As a further step into its digital future, NLS expanded the digital audiobook download pilot, naming it NLS BARD: Braille and Audio Reading Download. Digital braille, now offered through Web-Braille, will be added to the project in the near future. As of August 31, 3,798 patrons and 69 network libraries were signed up to use NLS BARD, which offers more than 11,000 titles.
To prepare the NLS network of cooperating libraries to help patrons learn to use the digital program, the Library issued a contract to SI International of Reston, Virginia, to conduct a front-end analysis of training needs. The company submitted recommendations for training models appropriate for preparing library staff to teach patrons to use the digital talking-book system, register and support patron use of NLS BARD, and duplicate digital talking books onto USB flash-memory cartridges. NLS is now seeking a contractor to assist with developing and implementing the training program, which NLS plans to administer via the Internet.
PRESERVATION DIRECTORATE
In response to damage to personal and public collections caused by the outbreak of fires, earthquakes and mud slides in CA; floods in the Midwest; and hurricanes in the Southeast, staff developed dozens of Web resources on emergency mitigation and salvage for collections confronted by specific calamities, to be issued as alerts on the Library's homepage at time-appropriate intervals (see URL <http://www.loc.gov/preserv/emergprep/prepare.html>).
Highlights
In FY2008, the Preservation Directorate passed the 40-year mark of its leadership in the field of preservation of collections. For four decades, the Library’s leadership in preservation has been supported by solid scientific research, which the Library has recently upgraded through significant investments in personnel and equipment. Preservation science increases the value of collections by increasing access and knowledge of the human record, while decreasing risk to collections that lead to knowledge loss. Preventing knowledge loss has entered a new phase. As the Library continues to preserve masses of traditional media (such as manuscripts, books, and photographs), a growing volume of document dilemmas lies ahead. This is because an increasing amount of cultural documentation is now made or stored on film, magnetic tape and other less stable plastic media found in audiovisual and digital collections (whose preservation challenges are only now coming to light). The Library recognizes the need for rapid and focused scientific research in the face of this plethora of new media, to guard against the risk of cultural institutions losing access to an ever-expanding body of knowledge and creativity.
To support preservation of increasingly diverse traditional, audiovisual and digital media, the Library launched several new initiatives. Staff sought and secured grants (from the Kress Foundation, the Getty Conservation Foundation, the Foundation of the American Institute for Conservation, and the National Center for Preservation Technology and Training (NCPTT) for invitational symposia to begin to address new needs and developments in preservation science. In addition, donations established two new funds (the Simms and the Burroughs Funds) to advance efforts in preservation and science, and to supplement long-standing donations for training in treatment of collections in Preservation’s Haper-Inglis, Pulitzer and INA funds. Most significantly, Library Services committed a substantial one-time infusion of resources to institute a timely and much needed multi-pronged approach to preservation science and research. Upgrades in the Library’s 25 year old preservation science labs, increased staff and improved equipment capabilities now link materials science to library and computer sciences to support preservation of library, archive, and museum collections in the digital age.
A major feature of this initiative is a consolidated multi-faceted program addressing quality assurance as well as analytical service and research studies. Research studies focus first on the materials science of traditional, audiovisual, and digital collections (to determine their preservation needs as well as optical, mechanical and chemical properties, such as composition, stability, durability, and longevity). Environmental effects and technology transfer (to develop new means of improving service) are additional foci. A new website provides continual updates on these programs, at URL <http://www.loc.gov/preserv/rt/projects/index.html>).
To facilitate this initiative, the Library’s 25-year-old science labs are converting over 9,000 square feet of space to state-of-the-art facilities meeting the standards of energy efficient “green technology.” These “green” Preservation Research and Testing facilities will include smaller, lighter, faster, and cleaner instrumentation using less electricity and solvents, and requiring less destructive sampling and sample preparation, in two separate state-of-the-art optical, mechanical and chemical laboratories. These facilities will determine degradation mechanisms, and improve longevity of traditional, audiovisual and digital collections, through treatment development and risk reduction based on environmental studies, analytical services, quality assurance, and technology transfer.
During fiscal year 2008 the Library prepared to launch its new optical properties and imaging lab, which will have new capabilities to track changes in optical properties of materials, including appearance, color, brightness, and translucency, using a new environmental scanning electron microscope and other imaging and measurement systems. This first “OP” lab, which will also house equipment for diagnosing audiovisual and digital media, should be fully operational in the coming year, along with the chemical and physical properties laboratory. This second “CAP” lab will have new capabilities to track changes in chemical compositions, bonding, pH, tensile strength, fold endurance, etc. (see URL <http://www.loc.gov/preserv/rt/PRTDinstruments.pdf [PDF: 1MB / 37p.] >).
The second lab will also house an updated, customized, glass-enclosed “TAPPI” room that controls the environment according to Technical Association of the Pulp and Paper Industry (TAPPI) specifications for testing durability and strength, with 100 square feet of more tightly controlled space paralleling optimization of the environmental conditions for storage of the Top Treasures. The second lab will also house the Mass Deacidification Center for document treatment, newly protected by its own glass-walled enclosure to prevent contamination of analytical equipment.
Preparation also continued for the opening of a consolidated, 800-square-foot preservation science reference “Center for the Library’s Analytical Science Samples” (CLASS). The CLASS reference room will safeguard and make accessible the Library’s rare and valuable preservation science sample collections for analytical comparison and study by scientists and other scholars, as well as science research institutions, such as the Getty Conservation Institute, the Canadian Conservation Institute, and the British Library. These collections include pigment-coated and transparent papers, as well as the TAPPI Standard Paper Materials Collection of seventy differentiated papers (at URL <http://www.loc.gov/preserv/rt/projects/paper_ref_coll.html>); the Forbes Pigment Collection of over 1000, often rare, colorants (at URL <http://www.loc.gov/preserv/rt/projects/pigment_ref_coll.html>); and the original Barrow Book Collection of 1000 volumes, dating from 1509-1899, first assembled in the 1960’s and the basis for the development of mass deacidification to ensure longevity (see URL <http://www.vahistorical.org/arvfind/barrowwj.htm>). These collections will eventually be converted into digital reference collections, making valuable spectra and image databases available to scholars.
Finally, to further facilitate the Library’s essential preservation science initiative, the Directorate increased personnel dedicated to scientific research. Four new PhD-level scientists hired in 2008 bring wide expertise complementing current staff, which now numbers seven PhD scientists. A polymer chemist will contribute to the digital and audiovisual program; a materials science chemist will advance knowledge and care of traditional materials such as paper and inks; an inorganic and analytical chemist will enhance instrumental analysis and quality control efforts; and an organic chemist and environmental specialist will advance the Library’s optimization of storage for its treasures. In addition, highlights of the programs for visiting scientists, multicultural scientists, and “Topics in Preservation Science” lectures included a course on research design for local preservation scientists, a demonstration of a new reference encyclopedia for materials found in collections, and visiting Native American and British research designers (see URLs <http://www.loc.gov/preserv/visiting.html>, <http://www.loc.gov/preserv/interns/multi.html>, and <http://www.loc.gov/preserv/tops/schedule.html>).
Customers
In addition to safeguarding the Library’s collections, the Directorate responds to requests from the Library’s customers. Preservation staff responded to 8 major requests from the Office of the Vice President, Congress, the Librarian’s Office, and abroad in 2008. For the Office of the Vice President, staff consulted on damage caused by a fire in the Ceremonial Office of the Vice President that discolored the Library’s loaned Malby Globe and secured pro bono treatment assistance for this unanticipated and time-consuming special project. For the Congressional Black Caucus, staff completed a preservation assessment and recommendations for the personal library of W.E.B. Du Bois, in Accra, Ghana. For the Office of the Clerk of the House of Representatives, staff assessed a portion of the Congressional Library holdings and prepared a report describing the collection’s preservation challenges and solutions, providing a resource list of supplies and suppliers and contractors; cost estimate; and a suggested schedule for implementation to provide a comprehensive road map for care of these off-site Congressional Library collections. For the Office of the Librarian, staff prepared for First Lady Laura Bush a hand-made, leather-bound, gold-tooled blue presentation book of letters from authors who have appeared at the National Book Festival, to commemorate Mrs. Bush’s service to the nation. For the NBF, preservation staff developed a time capsule model and Web resource in collaboration with IMLS (Institute of Museum and Library Services) and the Smithsonian. For the Librarian’s Junior Fellows Project, conservators instructed Junior Fellows on the assessment and re-housing of the Copyright Descriptive Files that document films and range from full scripts and advertising posters to simple descriptions, in preparation for digitization. For a project funded by the Mellon Foundation, conservators consulted on a photo repository survey at the Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia, presenting a talk about lessons learned in a similar survey conducted at the Library. For a cooperative project with the National Library of Korea, staff completed preliminary activities to preserve and increase access to rare Korean map materials held by the Geography and Map Division.
Other collaborative efforts focused on national and international partnerships. With the Image Permanence Institute (IPI), Herzog/Wheeler & Associates (HW), the Architect of the Capital (AOC), and Facilities Services (FS), preservation specialists continued their investigative partnership to analyze and improve the performance of Library air handling units in Capitol Hill buildings, as well as in vaults in Culpeper and Landover. Staff also made progress on the development of Web-based custom software for sharing collections storage data on Library buildings, floors, and sections with emphasis on linking notes on areas of concern regarding mold infestations, water leaks, pest problems, and similar challenges.
With Lawrence Berkeley National Labs, the Directorate continued work to develop a system to scale up imaging sound recordings in order to initiate production-scale reformatting of at-risk audio formats, including cylinders, disks and other media. The LC/LBNL imaging technology, currently being tested by Library preservation specialists for use at the National Audio-Visual Conservation Center for reformatting fragile audio discs and for automated mass digitization, was able to extract sound, for the first time ever, from an early phonautogram.
With the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, preservation scientists used portable x-ray fluorescence apparatus to analyze diaries and other manuscripts by concentration camp victims to determine how victims were able to concoct ink from scarce resources and to reveal writing under censored cover-ups. With the British Library, preservation experts collaborated on best practices to exhibit the historic Lindisfarne Gospels and other cultural treasures. With the Foundation Center, preservation staff oversaw the development of “The Foundation Grants for Preservation in Libraries, Archives, and Museums,” which covers grants to public, academic and research libraries, archives and museums for activities related to conservation and preservation (see URL <http://www.loc.gov/preserv/foundtn-grants.pdf [PDF: 20Mb / 118 p.] >).
Staff were also interviewed and filmed on several occasions by the press, National Institute for Information Standards and Technology (NIST), and others in conjunction with the argon encasement of the 1507 Waldseemüller World Map. Knowledge obtained through the process of designing and installing this case has been documented and shared with the national and international preservation community who have shown increased interest in preserving high value objects using anoxic encasements (see URL <http://www.loc.gov/preserv/rt/projects/anoxic_cases.html>).
Outreach and Leadership Updates
To advance outreach through leadership, the Directorate hosted 3 Invitational Preservation Research and Education Symposia on Future Directions in Document Preservation, covering Emergency Mitigation, Preservation Education, and Preservation Research, and attended by 150 professionals world-wide. These symposia were supported by over $70,000 in grants, primarily from the Getty and Kress Foundations. (See also URL <http://www.loc.gov/preserv/symposia/schedule.html>). The Directorate also benefited from a detail of a staff member from the Institute of Library and Museum Services in an initiative to strengthen the capacity of federal agencies to advance collections preservation through partnerships.
On July 24-25, 2008, senior preservation scientists representing 30 institutions attended the Library's Summit of Research Scientists (SORS). The Library shared designs for its new laboratories for optical, chemical and mechanical testing (which upgrade the labs to comply with standards for eco-friendly "green" technology), as well as its development of a scientific reference sample center, housing the Library's invaluable collections of Barrow Books, Forbes Pigments, and TAPPI Paper Fibers.
In September 2008, a report was submitted to the Getty Foundation about the May 15-16, “Preservation Education” symposium to examine needs, solutions, and priorities for education and training to assure that library, archives, and museum document collections are preserved to meet users’ needs through the 21st century and beyond (see URL <http://www.loc.gov/preserv/symposia/preseduc.html>), which the Foundation partially funded.
The Directorate continued to lead in outreach and aiding the general public. The “Topics in Preservation Science” (TOPS) public programs continued to be videotaped and mounted on the Library’s public Website, and in a new initiative for FY 2009, some presentations be simulcast remotely to individuals via the Library’s Elluminator system (see URL <http://www.loc.gov/preserv/tops/schedule.html> for simulcast schedule). Since June, the following four TOPS talks were offered to the general public: September 19, 2008 “CAMEO: A Free Internet Reference on Materials Used in the Production and Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works” by Michele Derrick, Conservation Scientist, Scientific Research Division, Conservation and Collections Management, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; October 2, 2008 “The Real Thing: Using Collections for Collaborative Conservation” by Velson Horie, Research Project Manager, Collection Care, British Library, United Kingdom; October 23, 2008 “Recent Research on Daguerreotypes at George Eastman House” by Ralph Wiegandt, Assistant Director of Conservation, and Patrick Ravines, Senior Research Fellow, George Eastman House; and December 4, 2008 “When the Whole is Greater than the Parts: A Holistic Approach to Preservation Exhibition” by Steven Weintraub, founder and principal of Art Preservation Services, Inc., in New York City.
Staff News
In September, Library Services reinforced its commitment to preservation of the Library’s collections by absorbing almost two dozen term appointments into its base staffing to carry on the work of stabilizing collections on Capitol Hill and preparing collections to move to new off-site, purpose built storage facilities as they come online in a multi-year program.
Holly Robertson joined the Binding and Collections Care Division as Head of the Collections Care Section. She comes to the Library from the University of Virginia, where she served as Preservation Librarian from 2005 to 2008. She has an MLIS from the University of Texas at Austin, where she received a Certificate in Conservation Studies.
Two new interns, Emily Rainwater and Danielle J. Fraser, are creating protective enclosures for items from the Rosenwald Collection and conserving items from the Rare Books & Special Collections, Law, and African & Middle Eastern Divisions. They are both candidates for master’s degrees in Information Studies with a Certificate of Advanced Study in Conservation of Library and Archival Materials at the University of Texas at Austin.
Linda Stiber Morenus received a Kluge Fellowship to study the relationship of artists’ color printing techniques and the style or esthetic objective in the Italian XVIth - XVIIth century chiaroscuro woodcuts of the Library of Congress Pembroke Album.
Mass Deacidification
The goal of the Directorate’s 35-year (one-generation) initiative in mass deacidification is to extend the life and utility of at-risk paper-based materials in the Library of Congress—over 8.5 million general collection books and at least 35,000,000 pages of manuscripts. Mass deacidification is an economic approach to stabilizing books and manuscripts through large-scale treatments to help ensure their continued access.
In FY2008, the Directorate mass deacidified 347,708 books mass through contracted commercial deacidification [at Preservation Technologies, L.P.’s ‘Bookkeeper’ facility in Pennsylvania] and 1,066,500 manuscript sheets with equipment installed in the Madison Building. This was 39% over the annual goal to treat a minimum of 250,000 books and 6.7% over the annual minimum requirement to deacidify at least 1,000,000 sheets of unbound materials.
The total number of items treated by the Mass Deacidification Program in fiscal year 2008 was 1,414,208, including both retrospective collections and new acquisitions that are found to be printed on acidic paper. With oversight, training, and contract management by a Preservation Directorate manager, a team of fourteen contract employees handles the selection, charging-out, packing, and shipping of about 5,000 books each week, as well as the receipt, inspection, and refiling of 5,000 more books that have been deacidified and returned by the vendor.
In addition, located on-site in a Preservation Research and Testing Division laboratory since 2002, the single-sheet manuscript treatment system (a horizontal deacidification chamber and a spray booth) enables deacidification of manuscripts and other unbound collection materials that are too valuable to be transported to the mass deacidification facility in Pennsylvania. Two contract employees work on-site to deacidify approximately 20,000 pages of manuscripts per week.
TECHNOLOGY POLICY DIRECTORATE
Digital Collections Management
Early in calendar year 2008, Associate Librarian for Library Services Deanna Marcum requested that a small group proceed with planning for a more formal Digital Collection Management Program within Library Services, to address the imminent addition of large quantities of digital content to the Library’s collections from outside sources, including Copyright deposit. The group will soon hand in their report to guide in the development and use implementation of overall policies, workflows, and tools to manage risk to digital collections and to assign responsibility for these digital collections.
e-Deposit for e-Journals
The e-Deposit for e-Journals Pilot is part of a strategic effort to build a robust electronic copyright deposit system for the acquisition of electronic content by the Library of Congress. Library Services took the lead in convening discussions with the Copyright Office and Library Offices of General Counsel on the legal and policy issues of e-Deposit. The Register of Copyrights has agreed to revise a key regulation to remove obstacles to moving forward with e-Deposit. Library Services staff also provided input into the drafting of a notice of proposed rulemaking that will result from the Register’s decision. The e-Deposit for e-Journals Working Group also established agreements with selected publishers and the Portico e-Journal archiving service for testing the transfer of digital content from offsite sources to the Library.
Information Technology Security
To comply with Library IT security policy, TECH continues to manage the IT security program for Library Services. A key requirement of this effort is the Certification and Accreditation (C&A) of systems. The following existing or legacy Library Services systems were scheduled to receive C&A in 2008: Veterans History Project (AFC), ECIP/EPCN (CIP), Retail Marketing, TrackER (ABA), and CONSER ISSN (Serial Record Division). An analysis was made of the remaining legacy LS systems that will likely require C&A, which will be reported to the Information Technology Services Directorate.
Integrated Library System Program Office (ILSPO)
The Integrated Library System Program Office (ILSPO) has the responsibility within Library Services of developing and maintaining the Integrated Library System (ILS) and related systems such as Automated Call Slip (ACS), Electronic Resource Management System (ERMS), and the Open URL resolver.
ILS Migration to Voyager 6.5.2
LC upgraded its integrated library system to the Voyager 6.5.2 release in May, 2008, and introduced these two significant new features for users: 1) keyword indexing of access points on authority records and bibliographic records with results delivered in a heading browse display; and 2) keyword indexing of the 15 million holdings records in the LC Database.
Since the upgrade, users have reported slow response time in Call Number searching, which the ILS Program Office is investigating. Library staff continue to monitor system performance and work on improving service to users.
The ILSPO became responsible for managing the Copyright Office’s and CDS’s implementations of Voyager in 2007. Copyright’s and CDS’s Voyager databases reside together on a server, separate from Library Services’s main Voyager production databases. Copyright’s database has 20 million records, making it the largest Voyager database among all customers of Ex Libris Group, the vendor for Voyager.
Automated Call Slip Project (ACS)
The Automated Call Slip (ACS) Project was commissioned by Library Services to allow patrons (readers) in the reading rooms to request library materials from the General Collections via the Voyager ILS Online Public Access Catalog (OPAC). The implementation of this process will eliminate the need for paper call slips for patrons requesting materials from the General Collections. The project is being managed by ITS on behalf of Library Services, and TECH analysts/developers are conducting the business analysis and contributing to the coding and technical development. Considerable progress toward an early 2009 target completion date was made in 2008.
Digital Library Foundation ILS Discovery Interface Task Group
ILS staff represented LC to the Digital Library Federation ILS Discovery Interface Task Group (DLF ILS-DI) convened by DLF in 2007 to analyze issues of interoperability between integrated library systems and discovery applications, and to develop a recommendation for an applications programming interface (API) to address the need for their integration. Central to this effort were two meetings that brought together DLF ILS-DI task group and the ILS vendor and developer community. As a result of these discussions, developers and vendors are currently working on experimental implementations based on the DLF ILS-DI recommendations.
Electronic Resource Management System (ERMS)
ILS staff continued development of the Library’s ERMS, a software application from Innovative Interfaces (III), to improve Internet access to resources, bibliographic and holdings data, and licensing information. System users are advised not only of the means to connect directly with desired content, but also of any permissions and restrictions associated with that access. The latest version of the system was installed on the test server early in 2008. The new version better supports cost-per-use analysis and special searching features employed in the WebOPAC. At the end of September 2008, records in the system stood as follows: 38,530 bibliographic, 65,186 holdings, 489 resource, 316 license, and 134 contact records.
Usage statistics based on the standard protocol, SUSHI (Standardized Usage Statistics Harvesting Initiative), were systematically loaded into the ERMS in fiscal 2008. ILS Program Office staff also worked with III to load Voyager acquisitions data on a scheduled basis. The combination of usage statistics and cost data in the ERMS enables cost-per-use analysis, which is a new feature of the current system.
Further work was done on the ERMS OPAC in autumn 2008. It will be the subject of beta focus group development in early 2009.
Increasing Access and Improving Performance of the ILS
In November 2007, ITS installed a new server with approximately 80 percent more computing capacity than the old production server, on which the LC Database, LC Subject Heading (LCSH) Database, Congressional Research Service (CRS) Database, National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped (NLS) Database, and the Handbook of Latin American Studies (HLAS) Database reside. In June 2008, ITS installed a new Webserver, which hosts all Voyager online public access catalogs (OPACs). This new hardware and the new versions of Solaris and Oracle that ILS and ITS implemented during and after the upgrade improved system performance significantly. These improvements enabled ILSPO to increase the number of simultaneous external sessions in the LC Online Catalog and reduced denials of service to less than a hundred on peak days (Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays). The Library plans to continue to increase the number of simultaneous external sessions with the goal of eliminating denials of service altogether. In fiscal year 2008 there were 128,393,221 total OPAC searches, an increase of almost 12 percent over fiscal year 2007. There were also 80,082,412 total Z39.50 searches, an increase of almost 26 percent over fiscal year 2007.
LC EAD (Encoded Archival Description) Archival Finding Aids
In fiscal year 2008, Library Services Collections and Services divisions created 145 new EAD archival finding aids, bringing the total number of LC EAD finding aids to 613. Users are now able to access to nearly 23 million archival items in LC’s collections through these documents. LC collection-level MARC data is extracted from the LC Online Catalog using SRU/MARCXML to incorporate collection summaries and controlled names and subjects into each EAD. Browse lists are automatically generated for names, subjects, collection titles, collection dates, and LC repository. The PDF versions of these LC XML documents are prominently indexed by Google and Yahoo, providing increased visibility to LC’s archival collections.
LC Persistent Identifiers: Handle Server Support
To persistently identify LC-managed e-resources, Library staff registered nearly 750,000 handles in fiscal year 2008. As the year ended, the Library’s handle server contained 2,355,411 handles. During 2008, new handle naming authorities were created for legislative content in Thomas/LIS and for the World Digital Library.
Network Development and MARC Standards Office (NDMSO)
The Network Development and MARC Standards Office (NDMSO) is the focal point for technical library, network and digital standards and related planning in Library Services (LS). Thus, staff are involved in many facets of network development and digital library tasks including standards, which are basic to efficient interchange of digital material, such as those for Machine-Readable Cataloging (MARC and MODS), Information Retrieval (Z39.50 and SRU), Encoded Archival Description (EAD), Metadata Encoding and Description Schema (METS), and various other XML schemas; planning, which involves working out detailed models and specifications with other institutions and with internal Library of Congress units; and coordinating and testing implementations through the completion of prototype and other operational networked systems. Office activities are highly collaborative with others in the Library and the broader information communities.
In fiscal year 2008 NDMSO worked on the following projects:
Pilot testing of the efficacy of a native XML datastore for enabling search across all of the types of metadata for LC collections, including MARC, non-MARC, EAD, and MODS. MODS and METS are the XML standards central to this project (Library Services Strategic Planning report for Working Group 2.B.3).
Completion of a publicly-available alpha version of an LC Standards & Research Data Values Registry, a Webservices interface for internal LC and external developers to programatically interact with data values commonly found in standards promulgated by LC (Library Services Strategic Planning report for Working Group 4.C.1-2)
Completion of the revision of the PREMIS Data Dictionary for preservation metadata, accepted as an essential standard for preservation metadata, and a rewrite of its supporting XML schema. It was promoted by organizing and/or conducting tutorials for the community.
Formation of a MODS Editorial Committee with international membership to maintain this descriptive metadata standard and coordinate maintenance activities.
Support for the technical data needed for digital objects was expanded to textual material (Library Services Strategic Planning report for Working Group 4.C.1-2).
Hosting a meeting of the W3C working group for the Simple Knowledge Organization Standard (SKOS), on which NDMSO and OSI staff participate, that enabled the standard to advance in the approval process.
Total reimplementation of the search and viewing infrastructure and interface to the Library’s WebArchive Collections, enabling full keyword search of the metadata, faceted browsing, and search across all, selected, or single WebArchive collections.
Processing of over 80 million searches by LC’s Voyager Z39.50 server, approximately 62% of all searches submitted to the OPAC.
Launch of a new version of the LC: Presents: Music, Theater, Dance site, merging into it the original Performing Arts Encyclopedia and taking Performing Arts Encyclopedia as the new name for the whole. At the same time it incorporated the Library's standard Web design.
Publication of the full MARC 21 format online in March 2008. Formerly it was only available in print with the concise version serving the online audience. This was made possible by the completion of the master XML file in fiscal year 2007 from which all versions are simple transformations.
Launch of the RDA/MARC Working Group to formulate the changes that need to be considered to accommodate the new RDA cataloging rules in MARC 21.
Participation by Finland and Spain in the MARC 21 change process to enable them to become fully compliant with the format.
Repository Development
Technology Policy is working in partnership with the Repository Development Group in the Office of Strategic Initiatives to design and purchase the equipment necessary for the first of a series of individual projects that will continue to build and expand the functionality and storage of the Trusted LOC Digital Collections Repository. Together we have established the initial base infrastructure that will provide LC with the capabilities for storing digital resources well into the future.
Sloan Digitization Project
The Library’s Sloan Project is a mass-digitization effort focusing on general collection materials. Funded by the Sloan Foundation, it relies on coordination among a number of Library Services divisions, the Internet Archive, and other Open Content Alliance partners. The project has achieved sustained throughput levels of one thousand books each week. An end-to-end review of the process was undertaken in an effort to identify weaknesses in the current workflows, to correct the inaccuracies in metadata creation, and to develop automated tools to ensure improved quality in the future.
Technology Policy Systems Analysis
Technology Policy has undertaken an analysis from an outside consultant to map a path forward to integrate all systems, standardize databases and software development practices, and automate workflows. At its conclusion we will have a roadmap forward and the foundation for managing all technology related projects and issues throughout Library Services allowing us to more efficiently manage all Library Services’ technology projects.
OFFICE OF STRATEGIC INITIATIVES
National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program (NDIIPP)
The National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program has been strengthening and sustaining current partnerships while adding new types of partners and identifying tools and services for the network. NDIIPP’s mission is to ensure access over time to a rich body of digital content through the establishment of a national network of partners committed to selecting, collecting, preserving, and making accessible at-risk digital information.
By the end of 2008, the program cited the following accomplishments:
- 295 terabytes of digital content collected, preserved by the Library and its partners, and accessible to Congress
- Over 130 partners from academic, research, government, and business sectors across 37 states and 28 countries
- Section 108 Copyright Working Group recommendations published (see also under U.S. COPYRIGHT OFFICE in this briefing document)
- Storage and transfer infrastructure for partner content in place at the Library
- Over 24 shared technical tools and services available for public download at URL <http://www.digitalpreservation.gov/>.
- Publication of The Library of Congress Digital Preservation Newsletter, published during the first full week of each month on the Library’s Website at URL <http://www.digitalpreservation.gov/>. Current and archived issues are available at URL <http://www.digitalpreservation.gov/news/archive.html>.