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 (ALA) 2012 Annual Conference in Anaheim, Calif., June 22-26, 2012. The document covers initiatives undertaken at the Library of Congress since the ALA 2012 Midwinter Meeting in Dallas, Tex., in January 2012. Information in the printed document is valid as of June 4, 2012. This document will be updated regularly until the close of the Annual Conference.

Library of Congress Exhibit Booth

The Library of Congress Exhibit Booth is no. 1418 in the Anaheim Convention Center, Anaheim, Calif. The Library of Congress’s booth manager is Isabella Marques de Castilla.

Exhibit hours are (view schedule of presentations):

• Friday, June 22: 5:30-7:30 pm (ribbon-cutting ceremony at 5:15 pm)
• Saturday, June 23: 9:00 am - 5:00 pm
• Sunday, June 24: 9:00 am - 5:00 pm
• Monday, June 25: 9:00 am - 2:00 pm (wrap-up party in Ballroom DE with Singer Betty LaVette, 2:00-3:00 pm)

Library staff making presentations in the booth theater include: Colleen Cahill, Karl Debus-López, Blane Dessy, Yvonne Dooley, Jeanne Drewes, Kevin Ford, Paul Frank, Linda Geisler, Anne Harrison, Patricia Hayward, Sybille Jagusch, Ahmed Johnson, Maggie Kruesi, Everette Larson, Guy Lamolinara, Ruth Nussbaum, Roslyn Pachoca, Laverne Page, Steve Prine, Dave Reser, Regina Reynolds, Caroline Saccucci, John Saint Amour, Donna Scanlon, Camilla Williams, Janis L. Young, and Min Zhang. Linda Stubbs will also be a booth volunteer.

Two Cataloging Distribution Service (CDS) promotional brochures are available at the booth: one for all LC Classification publications and products and one for LC’s subject headings authority control publications. Available free to booth visitors while supplies last will be LC Classification posters and single copies of the pocket-sized LC Classification system. Attendees of the Cataloger’s Desktop and Class Web booth presentations will receive a CDS 1GB flash drive that contains supplementary training documentation. Every day a CDS Cognotes ad will list the schedule for LC booth theater presentations about CDS products, along with an extra incentive to attend (the free flash drive).

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U.S. COPYRIGHT OFFICE

Register of Copyrights Maria A. Pallante published a paper in October 2011 describing the Copyright Office’s priorities and special projects through October 2013. For transparency purposes, the paper is available at URL <www.copyright.gov/docs/priorities.pdf [PDF, 425KB]>.

Personnel Changes

Nanette Petruzzelli, associate register for recordation, retired on May 3.

At the end of May, Michele Woods, associate register for policy and international affairs, left the Copyright Office to join the World Intellectual Property Organization in Geneva. As of June 4, she is director of the Copyright Law Division of the organization’s Culture and Creative Industries Sector. It is a great honor to have an American in this position.

Small Copyright Claims

In October 2011, Congress directed the Copyright Office to conduct a study on ways to resolve small copyright claims outside federal courts. It did so because the high cost of federal court action prohibits copyright owners with limited resources from pursuing infringement claims likely to involve small monetary awards. The Office is now reviewing comments received in response to a Federal Register inquiry published in October 2011; staff will do further public outreach in coming months. The report is due to Congress in October 2013. For more details, see URL <www.copyright.gov/docs/smallclaims>.

Copyright Exceptions for Libraries and Orphan Works

A 2008 report to the Librarian of Congress and the Register of Copyrights concluded that section 108 of the copyright law fails to meet the needs of libraries and archives in the digital age. Issues raised involve limits under current law on how libraries, archives, and other entities, including museums, can deal with born-digital works, digital preservation, and uses and lending of digital copies of works.

The report made recommendations for legislative change. But because some issues involved were implicated in ongoing litigation, including the widely publicized Google book-scanning case, stakeholders hesitated to proceed with legislative discussions at that time. Likewise, the Office is resuming its work on the subject of orphan works, following its 2006 Report and deliberation by several Congressional committees in recent years, as well as by foreign countries. The crafting of Library exceptions and orphan works solutions are critical issues for the 21st century copyright regime. The Office is consulting stakeholders and plans to formulate a discussion document and preliminary recommendations later this year.

Copyright Fees

The Copyright Office proposed a preliminary fee schedule in the Federal Register in March 2012, inviting public comment. The Office is funded through a combination of fees for services (collected on a partial cost-recovery basis) and federal appropriations.

The Office revisits its fee schedule every three years in accordance with copyright law, and the House Appropriations Committee included a rider requesting such a study in the 2102 appropriations. In October 2011, the Office initiated the study to inform its proposal, examining the costs the Office incurs and the fees it charges for copyright registration and recordation and other public services.

In fiscal 2011, the Office recovered 64 percent of its costs to process online registrations and 58 percent of its costs to process paper applications. The Office is proposing to increase the fee for online registration from $35 to $65 and the fee for paper application from $65 to $100. In addition, the Office is proposing a new fee of $45 for individual copyright owners who register a single work online.

Copyright Office services benefit many constituencies, including the public and users of copyrighted works, as the Register commented. The roles of all these constituencies must be considered when setting fees. At the same time, the law requires the Register to consider the objectives of the copyright system.

In the proposal, some fees decrease, and others remain the same. However, the Office has not yet analyzed the many public comments it received through May, a fact which may have bearing on a final fee proposal.

The new fees take effect 120 days after Congress receives the Copyright Office’s proposal and study unless Congress passes a law stating its disapproval. The fee proposal, study, and public comments are available at URL <www.copyright.gov/docs/newfees>.

Anticircumvention Rulemaking

The Copyright Office is conducting its fifth rulemaking to determine whether to recommend that certain classes of works be exempted from the prohibition in copyright law against circumventing technological measures that control access to copyrighted works.

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act, enacted in 1998, added section 1201 to the copyright law, making it unlawful to “circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access” to a work protected by copyright. Section 1201 also requires the Copyright Office to conduct a rulemaking every three years to determine whether prohibition against circumvention of those technological measures, known as “access controls,” is adversely affecting individuals in their ability to make noninfringing uses of copyrighted works.

Based on the record in the rulemaking, the Register of Copyrights makes a recommendation to the Librarian of Congress in consultation with the Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Communications and Information. The Librarian then designates classes of works for which he concludes that the prohibition on circumvention is adversely affecting noninfringing uses. Until the conclusion of the next rulemaking, it is not a violation of section 1201 to circumvent an access control to engage in a noninfringing use of a work in one of the designated classes.

The Copyright Office published Federal Register notices in September and December 2011 seeking comments on whether certain classes of works are adversely affected by the anticircumvention provision. It subsequently held public hearings in May and June 2012, including three in Washington, D.C., and one in Los Angeles, Calif.

The Office will forward a recommendation to the Librarian of Congress later this year. For more infiormation, see URL <www.copyright.gov/1201>.

Regulatory Reform

The Copyright Office announced in the Federal Register that it will discontinue use of the Form CO copyright application effective July 1, 2012. The form includes a barcode intended to capture data that remitters key into it. The form did not work as well as expected, however, and required significantly more staff time than anticipated to process. Copyright applicants can now register online at URL <www.copyright.gov> or complete a paper form and mail it to the Office.

The Office continues to work on a rulemaking related to interim regulations adopted in January 2011 governing electronic registration of groups of published photographs and of automated databases consisting predominantly of photographs.

A separate rulemaking, now in the conceptual stage, will seek to solicit more details for the copyright record about content included in group registrations of unpublished works.

A rulemaking proposed in May in the Federal Register clarifies the definition of a claimant in the Office’s regulations. Another rulemaking will propose limits on group registrations of databases. Another will address online works, specifically the question of unit of publication. A Website can contain hundreds or even thousands of articles. The Office seeks to define the unit of publication for registration purposes.

The Office is working on other rulemakings related to supplementary registrations, cancellation of registrations, and copyright deposits containing trade secrets.

Compendium of Copyright Office Practices

In the Register’s October 2011 priorities and special projects paper, she announced a project to revise the Compendium of Copyright Office Practices, stating that she expects to publish a revised volume in October 2013.

The compendium is the official source of Copyright Office registration and recordation practices. Much content must be updated, because the most recent major revision of the compendium occurred in the 1980s. In addition, new content must be developed. Since the last revision, for example, the United States has signed the Berne Convention for Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, and new categories of works—vessel hulls, mask works, and architectural works—have come under copyright protection.

Digital works raise especially complicated questions. Websites, for example, can be updated hourly, making it difficult to determine when a Website is published.

Mary Rasenberger, an expert in copyright law and practice, is the project manager. Rasenberger reports that the project is proceeding well, thanks to the concerted efforts of Office staff. She notes that feedback will be solicited from the copyright community and the public as the project unfolds.

Rogue Websites

The Copyright Office continues to support the goals of Congress with respect to solutions for rogue Websites, or Websites that are devoted to piracy. Legislation introduced in 2011 would have provided both the government and copyright owners with new tools to act against foreign Websites that distribute copyrighted works to U.S. consumers without authorization from copyright owners.

The Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act of 2011, otherwise known as PIPA, was introduced in the Senate in May 2011; the Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA, was introduced in the House in October 2011. A separate bill was introduced to update the remedies available to the Attorney General for criminal violation of the right of public performance (e.g. egregious forms of illegal streaming). Together, the bills generated several hearings, opposition from some technology companies, and heated public debate.

A counter bill, the Online Protection and Enforcement of Digital Trade Act, (the OPEN Act), was introduced in the Senate in December 2011 and in the House in January 2012 as a more narrowly focused alternative to PIPA and SOPA. It included a section on illegal streaming, as well.

The Copyright Office provided technical support to Congress as members developed all three bills, and the Register testified three times, on various points of focus, before the House of Representatives regarding SOPA. The Register supported the goals of the component parts of the draft legislation while testifying that due process, including notice and the opportunity to be heard, are core American legal safeguards that must be accommodated.

“The Copyright Office will continue to work with Congress, content aggregators, content providers, and others to achieve balance between the exclusive rights of copyright owners and the public interest. It may take some time, but it’s most important that we achieve a fair and effective solution,” the Register testified to Congress.

Trade and Foreign Relations

The Copyright Office provided technical support for three bilateral free-trade agreements passed by Congress last October and signed by President Obama shortly afterward. 1The U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement entered into force March 15, 2012, and the U.S.-Colombia Trade Promotion Agreement took effect May 15, 2012. An effective date for a free-trade agreement with Panama has yet to be set.

Each agreement includes a chapter on intellectual property, including copyright. The Copyright Office participated in a U.S. interagency process that involved review of the countries’ copyright laws and practices. The Office has contributed to U.S. free trade agreements going back to the North American Free Trade Agreement, which entered into force in 1994.

The Copyright Office continues to provide technical expertise and advice as part of a U.S. government intellectual property rights team negotiating the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement. It will facilitate trade and investment among the United States and eight partner countries.

In addition, the Office participated in the delegation that negotiated the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement. It seeks to set international standards for combating copyright piracy and trademark counterfeiting. Eight negotiating partners, including the United States, signed the agreement in October 2011. The European Union signed in January 2012. The agreement will take effect once six signatories ratify it.

The Office regularly participates in initiatives of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). Through WIPO, the Office continues to contribute to negotiations related to an international treaty to increase protection for audiovisual performers; a treaty to grant broadcasting organizations intellectual property rights in their signals; and a working document to improve access to copyrighted works by the blind and other print-disabled people.

On a related project involving cross-border licensing of accessible works for the visually impaired, the Copyright Office has been working with other Library of Congress service units, the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped, and U.S. publishers.

The Office is also participating in WIPO’s Intergovernmental Committee on Intellectual Property and Genetic Resources, Traditional Knowledge, and Folklore. The committee is now negotiating an international instrument to ensure protection of traditional knowledge and cultural expressions, folklore, and genetic resources.

In March 2012, the Office cosponsored a weeklong international copyright training symposium with WIPO. Officials from 21 developing countries and countries with economies in transition came to the Library of Congress, where the symposium took place.

Outside WIPO, the Office is involved in discussions with China through the U.S.-China Joint Commission on Commerce and Trade, a forum for resolving trade concerns and promoting bilateral commercial opportunities.

Electronic Registration and Recordation Systems

In accordance with the Register’s priorities, the Office is planning to introduce electronic recordation of copyright-related documents and to upgrade its electronic copyright registration system.

Document recordation was not part of the 2007 reengineering effort that implemented electronic copyright registration. Issues under consideration include user expectations for records searches, ways for filers to update recorded information, and the implications of connecting to privately held records and databases. The Office is consulting stakeholders, including business and technology experts, and will hold public roundtables to explore these issues.

The Office is carrying out similar public outreach to inform the upgrade of the electronic copyright registration system. The technical issues include an optimal interface for Website registrants, which details from applications to make searchable, and repository standards for acquiring and migrating electronic copyright deposits.

Copyright Registration

The Office is processing most claims filed online within three months and most claims submitted on paper applications within ten months. Although some older paper claims remain from when the Office was transitioning to online registration, there is no real claims-processing backlog at this point. The number of workable claims on hand awaiting processing is at a normal level.

Supreme Court Litigation

The Supreme Court ruled on January 18, 2012, that Congress acted “comfortably within” its constitutional authority in enacting a 1994 law extending U.S. copyright protection to certain foreign works that were in the public domain in the United States but still protected by copyright in their countries of origin. Nor did Congress violate the First Amendment, as plaintiffs in the case, Golan v. Holder, had alleged. The decision brings to a resounding end a series of constitutional challenges to copyright legislation that began in 1999 with Eldred v. Ashcroft.

Orchestra conductors, publishers, and others who had enjoyed free access to the works when they were in the public domain filed the Golan suit in 2001. They argued that the Constitution’s copyright clause prohibits Congress from withdrawing works from the public domain. They also charged that Congress, in doing so, violated the free speech rights of users like themselves who had depended on the public-domain availability of the works.

Congress passed the Uruguay Round Agreements Act (URAA) in 1994 to implement U.S. obligations under two global agreements: the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works and the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS).

Many foreign works were in the public domain in the U.S. before the URAA’s enactment because their owners had not complied with formalities that used to be in U.S. copyright law. The works may have lacked a copyright notice when they were published, for example, or their copyrights may not have been renewed. Others were in the public domain because their country of origin had no copyright relations with the U.S.

The URAA amended section 104a of the copyright law to restore U.S. copyright to foreign works that were in the public domain for these reasons. It also extended federal copyright to pre-1972 foreign sound recordings, which had been protected only under state laws.

A district court dismissed Golan in 2005. In 2007, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit reversed part of that decision. It ruled that the plaintiffs’ claims based on the copyright clause merited dismissal. But it also ruled that Congress’s exercise of its copyright clause power is subject to heightened First Amendment review “if it altered the traditional contours of copyright protection,” citing the Supreme Court’s 2003 decision in Eldred v. Ashcroft.

The 10th Circuit called one of those contours the “bedrock principle of copyright law that works in the public domain remain there,” holding that section 104a “alters the traditional contours of copyright protection by deviating from this principle.” The 10th Circuit sent the case back to the district court, which ruled that section 104a violated the First Amendment.

On appeal, the 10th Circuit concluded that section 104a did not violate the First Amendment. But the court did not retreat from its earlier interpretation of the “traditional contours of copyright protection.” The Supreme Court then agreed to hear the case.

The Copyright Office helped prepare the government’s brief defending section 104a before the Supreme Court, as it had done in the lower courts.

The Court rejected the notion of a “bedrock principle” prohibiting extension of copyright protection to public-domain works. “Neither the Copyright and Patent Clause nor the First Amendment, we hold, makes the public domain, in any and all cases, a territory that works may never exit,” wrote Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in the majority opinion. Ginsburg clarified that the Court’s citation in Eldred of the “traditional contours of copyright” referred to the fair-use provision in copyright law and the fact that the law protects the expression of ideas, but not ideas themselves or facts. The URAA “leaves undisturbed the ‘idea-expression’ distinction and the ‘fair use’ defense,” Justice Ginsburg wrote.

As a result, the Court found no need for a heightened review of the URAA under the First Amendment. The 6-to-2 decision cites the Copyright Office’s 2006 Report on Orphan Works and its 2011 report Legal Issues in Mass Digitization. The decision is available at URL <www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/11pdf/10-545.pdf [PDF, 310KB]>

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LAW LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

Distinguished law professor Orin S. Kerr of George Washington University Law School has been selected as the first scholar in residence for the Daniel and Florence Guggenheim Foundation Program on Demography, Technology and Criminal Justice at the Library of Congress. The Law Library has primary oversight of the program, which also extends to the Manuscript Division. During the two-year program, Kerr will use the Library’s collections to conduct research on the topic area, “Information Technology vs. Privacy—The Impact on Criminal Justice.” The appointment was made possible through the generous support of the Daniel and Florence Guggenheim Foundation, which awarded a $150,000 grant in September 2011 to the Library to support a program on demography, technology and criminal justice.

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OFFICE OF THE LIBRARIAN

Personnel Changes

The Librarian of Congress, James H. Billington, has appointed Robert Dizard, Jr. as the Deputy Librarian of Congress. Mr. Dizard currently serves as the Library’s Chief of Staff. His appointment is effective June 17.

Kathryn G. “Gayle” Osterberg was appointed Director for Communications, effective Jan. 30, 2012. She was a founding partner of 133 Public Affairs, offering communications and public relations services to trade associations and non-profit organizations, and was executive director of the Education Foundation of the Copyright Alliance, an industry group. Earlier in her career she spent ten years in leadership and committee roles for the U.S. Senate.

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CONGRESSIONAL RELATIONS OFFICE (CRO)

Outreach to 112th Congress

New and continuing members have been visitors to the Library for numerous events, tours, exhibits, concerts, behind-the scenes looks at requested collections, research, and book talks. An increasing number of offices are making regular trips to select surplus books to send to their districts.

CRO organized another behind-the-scenes event for the Congressional Library of Congress Caucus, working with the staff of co-chairs Reps. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) and Robert Aderholt (R-AL). On March 27, 2012, the Caucus invited Members and key staff to a behind-the-scenes tour of the Geography and Map Division, featuring a special display of more than 50 of the Division’s top treasures as well as demonstrations of the online map collections and the Congressional Cartography Project. Forty-seven guests (members, their families, and many key oversight and appropriations staff) also enjoyed searching for maps related to their hometowns and visiting the vault and scanning center.

Other major outreach efforts include bringing the 2012 Junior Fellows to meet with their Senators and House Members, and encouraging Members to congratulate their constituents who were named state or national winners of the Letters About Literature contest.

Library Appropriations

The Librarian testified on behalf of the Library’s fiscal year 2013 budget request before the House and Senate Appropriations Subcommittees for the Legislative Branch on February 7 and March 1, respectively. The Library’s fiscal 2013 request seeks funding only to maintain core Library services and requests no program increases. The Librarian described the impact on programs and services of the fiscal 2012 funding reductions and resulting staff reductions achieved through early retirements, buyouts, and attrition. Library priorities for fiscal 2013 include:

• $1.75 million for the completion of the transfer to Ft. Meade of special collections materials headed for Modules 3 and 4, and temporary transfer to Landover of materials targeted for Module 5 when funded and completed;
• Funding (in the Architect of the Capitol budget) for Phase I of Module 5 at Ft. Meade;
• Authority to reprogram $6 million in no-year funds to purchase content media cartridges, from funds provided initially for playback machines, to avoid disruption of the Digital Talking Book program production cycle, keep on track the analog-to-digital conversion of retrospective titles.

The House may take up the bill [H.R. 5882] the week of June 4, but there is no word yet on Senate action.

Oversight Hearing

The Committee on House Administration, Subcommittee on Oversight, held an oversight hearing on April 18, “Ensuring Continuity and Efficiency During Leadership Transitions,” featuring testimony from the four new Library Service Unit Heads: Associate Librarian Roberta Shaffer, Law Librarian of Congress David Mao, Register of Copyrights Maria Pallante, and Congressional Research Service Director Mary Mazanec. Members of the Oversight Subcommittee are Chairman Phil Gingrey (R-GA), Reps. Richard Nugent (R-FL), Todd Rokita (R-IN), Aaron Schock (R-IL), Ranking Member Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) and Charles Gonzalez (D-TX).

Legislative Branch Information Transparency

In addition to Library participation in a February 2, 2012, open forum on legislative data sponsored by the Committee on House Administration, the Library has received recognition for developing a Congressional Record iPad App and a centralized site for viewing House Committee live and archived video streams. In the House Appropriations Committee markup of the fiscal 2013 appropriations for the Legislative Branch [H.R. 5882], the Committee included report language directing the Library, Congressional Research Service, Government Printing Office, the House Clerk and other congressional offices to convene a task force to explore various issues and questions regarding bulk data downloads of legislative information in XML format, and to develop a projected timeline and budgetary analysis for system development and implementation.

Oversight Background Briefings and Library Legislative Requests

In February 2012, CRO briefed the House and Senate oversight staff on its legislative priorities for the remainder of the 112th Congress:

• expansion of the Library’s revolving fund authority to include Motion Picture, Broadcasting, and Recorded Sound Division storage fees, traveling exhibit cost recovery, and training program cost recovery;
• expansion of the gift statute to include services and in-kind donations (in addition to the gifts of “money for immediate disbursement” already authorized);
• authorization for Library staff to accept funding for official travel to foreign locations from foreign governments or organizations that are funded by foreign governments; and
• language, based on an existing statute governing the Congressional Budget Office, directing executive branch agencies to provide requested information to the Congressional Research Service.

Thus far during the 112th Congress CRO provided the House and Senate oversight committees with more than 30 briefings on the Library’s programs and legislative requests, introducing key Library managers to committee staff and providing an opportunity for them to discuss their programs and goals, and provided multiple site visits for Hill staff to see Library facilities and operations first-hand. Several oversight staff toured the Packard Campus in April.

Celebration of the Book

CRO is working with several Members’ offices on the conference to be held on June 25, 2012, highlighting Congress’ role in signal events that shaped America’s knowledge-based democracy: passage of the Morrill Act establishing the land grant college system, the founding of the National Academy of Sciences, and the founding of the Carnegie libraries. The conference is part of the Library’s Celebration of the Book, an ongoing series of programs, symposia and other proposed events to explore how books influence our lives. Events include an exhibition opening on June 25 dedicated to “Books That Shaped America,” the National Book Festival on the National Mall on September 22-23, 2012, and a possible International Summit of the Book at the Library of Congress in December, which would focus on the history of the book and how it has transformed civilization.

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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, updating Continuity of Operations (COOP) plans, enhancing electronic and security controls protecting special-format collections and other assets, and conducting additional Site Assistance Visits. The Office created a new Website, which will go live in the next month or so, to cover its major functions: emergency preparedness, collections security, physical security, and personnel security.

The Emergency Preparedness Office is preparing to release to Library staff a revised version of its Employee Emergency Action Guide (EEAG), which will now include improved building evacuation and shelter-in-place maps, city evacuation routes and shelters, updated earthquake response actions, and active shooter response procedures. Several of the new emergency procedures were incorporated into the spring evacuation drills recently conducted by emergency personnel and the U.S. Capitol Police. Continuity of Operations Plan (COOP) planning continued to focus on the testing of remote access capabilities and COOP management site readiness as emergency planners, in coordination with Information Technology Services, prepare to conduct table-top exercises and drills later in the calendar year.

The Protective Services Office has begun a new Library identification (ID) badging initiative. All employees, contractors, and volunteers will receive new ID badges. The revamped ID badge incorporates unique security features that will provide added assurances. Beginning April 2, the Library began retaking photos for any Library employee whose badge photo is more than two years old, in a phased operation by Library service unit. This process is expected to take about 16 weeks. After the photo process is completed, new employee ID badges will be issued beginning around the end of July. Once all employees have received new ID badges, OSEP will issue new badges to contractors and volunteers, a phase expected to be completed by September 30.

In addition, a major responsibility of Protective Services is management of the contract for the Library’s contract guard force. In late January, the Library issued a solicitation for a new contract, and in late May, the contract was awarded to Securiguard, Inc.

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LIBRARY SERVICES

Personnel Changes

Karen A. Keninger was appointed director of the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped (NLS), effective March 26. She served as director of the Iowa Library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped from 2000-2008, and then as the director of the Iowa Department for the Blind, a leading provider in the U.S. of vocational rehabilitation and independent-living programs and library services for blind and visually impaired individuals. She also served on the NLS Digital Long-Term Planning Group established by NLS in 2001 to guide planning for the digital talking-book transition, and on the successor Digital Transition Advisory Committee. In Iowa Ms. Keninger led the transition from analog to digital talking books and players and was successful in securing funds for the digital conversion of locally produced talking books. She is a daily user of the full range of information technologies for blind and visually impaired individuals, including Web-Braille, the digital talking-book system, and the Braille and Audio Reading Download (BARD) online services.

Joseph Puccio was appointed Collection Development Officer, effective March 26.  Former head of the Acquisitions Fiscal and Support Office at the Library, he also served for thirteen years as the Public Service Officer in the Collections Access, Loan and Management Division, and served for several years as the assistant to the Director for Acquisitions and Bibliographic Access.

John Mark Sweeney was appointed Director for Preservation, effective April 2.  He had been chief of the Humanities and Social Sciences Division from Sept. 12, 2011 through March 2012.  He succeeds Dianne van der Reyden, who retired as Director for Preservation at the end of March.
Dongfang Shao was appointed chief of the Asian Division, effective April 23. Born in China, Dongfang Shao received his undergraduate and graduate degrees in history from Beijing Normal University and a doctorate in history from the University of Hawai’i at Manoa. He taught in the Chinese Studies Department of the National University of Singapore for five years before joining the faculty of Stanford University as a visiting assistant professor in the Department of Asian Languages in 1999. In 2003, Dr. Shao was appointed head of Stanford’s East Asia Library, the university’s primary East Asian-language collection in the social sciences and humanities for all historical periods. During his tenure, he increased the library’s international stature, reorganized and doubled its staff and garnered a substantial increase in its base budget. In 2007 he earned a master’s degree in library and information science from San Jose State University with a focus on electronic scholarly resources. Shao is a member of the editorial board of Documents, the journal of the National Library of China. He has published seven monographs and edited 11 books.

Ruth Scovill, Director for Technology Policy, is on extended leave.  Deputy Associate Librarian for Library Services/Programs Mike Handy is currently responsible for the Technology Policy Directorate.

Roberta Stevens, the Geography and Map Division’s assistant chief, will wrap up her responsibilities as ALA’s Immediate Past President on June 26.  Ms. Stevens has announced plans to retire from the Library of Congress on June 30.

The service unit mourned the death of Khalil Foutah, a senior librarian in the Middle East Section, Asian and Middle Eastern Division, on April 22.  Condolences are extended to his wife, Kay Ritchie, a senior librarian in the Literature Section, US General Division.

Collection Development Office

The Collection Development Office (CDO) has been established, filling a gap that existed since the 1995 closing of the Library’s Collections Policy Office. The CDO’s mission is to ensure that the Library continues to build and shape a universal collection of knowledge that meets the needs of its users today and in the future. In addition to Collection Development Officer Joseph Puccio, a number of other positions are planned for CDO, to be filled as soon as fiscal 2013.

The Library of Congress began fiscal year 2012 on October 1, 2011, under a continuing resolution and in anticipation of a budget reduction.  In November, 186 employees chose to leave the Library through the Voluntary Early Retirement Authority and Voluntary Separation Incentive Payment programs.  Congress enacted a budget in late December for the fiscal year that reduced appropriations for the Library by 6.3 per cent, a decrease of $42.3 million from the base appropriation for the previous fiscal year. Although no further staff cuts were required, funding resources were diminished for various Library programs. As a result, the Library’s GENPAC budget, under which acquisitions for all Library collections (except those of the Law Library) are made, was reduced by $1.5 million. That budget level was set at $14.5 million for the year. The reduction was accomplished primarily by zeroing out a discretionary fund with GENPAC that had been used in prior years for high-priced acquisitions. No other allocations were reduced, and funding levels for subscriptions, approval plans and firm orders were kept level from the previous year.

eDeposit Project

Progress continues on the Library’s eDeposit project. During this initial phase, born digital e-serials to be deposited for copyright purposes are the focus. The project has developed, built, and implemented Request-Receive-Ingest-Process components.  The Delivery Management System developed for this project has been a success, and it is designed to be adapted for use with other formats of materials and other sources of acquisition.

More than thirty U.S. and international publishers are actively depositing electronic serials through eDeposit. To date, more than 250 deliveries (totaling over 93,000 files) have been received and processed for issues from 89 titles.

Defining Copyright Best Edition

In 2009, as an outgrowth of its work on copyright mandatory deposit for electronic works, the Library’s eDeposit Working Group drafted a revision to the Copyright best edition statement to better accommodate online digital materials. This revision was implemented in February 2010 as part of the Library’s new regulation covering deposit of electronic serials available only online (see URL <www.copyright.gov/circs/circ07b.pdf [PDF, 560KB]>).

In the process of writing the best edition portion of this new regulation, the Working Group realized that (a) many categories in the existing statement for tangible (physical) media needed to be updated, and (b) that the structure and approach of the existing document was not flexible enough to address the complexities of the materials–especially digital materials–produced by today’s publishing industry. In 2011, the eDeposit Working Group formed a Best Edition Working Group to review and recommend needed revisions to the best edition statement in order to more closely reflect the realities of current publishing, and to better serve the goal of building the Library's collections in the 21st century. The Best Edition Working Group established five technical subgroups to recommend revisions and additions to the format preferences in these categories of published works: Textual works and musical compositions; Still Image; Recorded sound (audio); Moving image; Datasets/databases.
A consolidated recommendations document has been developed and is to be presented to Library management within the next few weeks.

National Book Festival

The 12th annual Library of Congress National Book Festival will be held on the National Mall between 9th and 14th Streets on Saturday, Sept. 22, 2012, from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. and on Sunday, Sept. 23 from noon to 5:30 p.m., rain or shine. The event is free and open to the public. Creating the artwork for this year’s festival poster will be artist Rafael López, whose work summons imagery of Mexican street life, surrealism and myths. His illustrations for “Book Fiesta!” written by Pat Mora won the 2010 Pura Belpré Illustrator Award from ALA.

The 2012 Library of Congress National Book Festival is made possible through the support of David Rubenstein, co-chairman of the National Book Festival Board; Target, The Washington Post and many other generous supporters.

New Bibliographic Framework Transition Initiative

The Library of Congress has contracted with Zepheira to help accelerate the launch of the Bibliographic Framework Initiative, one major focus of which is an effective migration plan for the community to make a transition from MARC to a new framework based on a Linked Data (LD) model, while retaining as much as possible the robust and beneficial aspects of our library environment.  Eric Miller, who was a leader in the Semantic Web Initiative in its early days for the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and who has also worked in the library and information science field, leads the Zepheira team.  The company has been active in the development of Semantic Web and Library standards.

The Library of Congress has asked Zepheira to provide a model (or models) that can serve as a strong starting point for discussion, and an analysis of related initiatives underway that will be useful to this effort.  The initial model(s) will serve as a basis for work focused on a demonstration system/service which will then, in turn, be used to further refine the model(s). The expectation is that such iterative feedback loops will eventually ensure a flexible bibliographic framework, a robust reference code, a supporting infrastructure for deployment, and an effective migration plan to support the community in making a transition from MARC to a new framework.

The Library of Congress will now proceed to organize various scenarios to enable community participation that will be broad and include international users and partners, various types of information agencies and libraries, and library suppliers.  We will be posting information as it emerges from this initial work, especially relating to projected milestones at the Bibliographic Framework Transition Initiative Website  (URL <www.loc.gov/marc/transition>).

The Library’s announcement of its contract with Zepheira marks exactly a year of work to begin the Bibliographic Framework Transition.  On May 23, 2011, former Associate Librarian of Congress for Library Services, Deanna Marcum, announced an initiative at the Library to analyze the present and future environment for bibliographic data, identify the components of the bibliographic framework to support library users, and plan for the evolution from the present framework to the future. On October 31, 2011, the Library issued the “Bibliographic Framework Initiative General Plan” that identified the requirements for the new bibliographic framework, based on the recommendations made in both the January 2008 report On the Record of Library of Congress Working Group on the Future of Bibliographic Control (URL <www.loc.gov/bibliographic-future/news/lcwg-ontherecord-jan08-final.pdf [PDF, 436KB]>) and the June 2011 Report and Recommendations of the U.S. RDA Test Coordinating Committee (URL <www.loc.gov/bibliographic-future/rda/rdatesting-finalreport-20june2011.pdf [PDF, 2.52MB]>). “The new bibliographic framework” connotes an environment rather than a “format.”

Interested colleagues may subscribe to BIBFRAME from the Website at URL <www.loc.gov/marc/transition>.

Priorities for Innovative Investments

The Associate Librarian for Library Services, Roberta Shaffer, has introduced “Priorities for Innovative Investments,” (PII) to Library Services. PIIs, as they are called, are a new methodology being used across industry and government that uses a results-driven strategy that fast tracks innovation throughout the organization. Innovation in this context is the ability to imagine, reconcile, and combine ideas that lead to improved output of key products and services.

Investments are packaged into a mixed portfolio that combines quick wins, achievable in 90 days or less, with strategies for 900 days, longer-range strategies for 3,000 days and legacy-building investments that define what future generations will inherit in 9,000 days (just short of 25 years.)
The most common planning cycle is the 900-day innovation plan.  It factors in a certain workplace reality that investments in innovation take about 900 days to yield a “return.” PIIs also recognize that innovation results from entirely new opportunities or from a system or market breakdown, so most organizations need nearly three years to adjust fully and to profit.

Library Services is adapting PII to fit our organizational model. We have also included workforce status, succession planning, and satisfaction among our investment priorities. The return on our investments will provide us with scalable, sustainable, measurable and adaptable ways to be efficient (produce more quantity), consistent (focus on quality) and establish standards for sufficiency (reduce “over-resourcing” or unneeded redundancy or address under-resourcing through recalibration of priorities).

Ms. Shaffer has convened a team to help identify and implement innovative investment across Library Services.  The team is in the process of developing a methodology for gathering input first from Library Services and the entire Library and finally from selected external constituencies. 

U.S. National Libraries RDA Implementation Plans

• see under Acquisitions and Bibliographic Access Directorate/Cooperative Cataloging Programs and Policy and Standards

Webscale Discovery System: Recommendation

The Library of Congress has decided NOT to obtain a Webscale Discovery (WSD) product at this time. Our decision was made after discussion with our core WSD project team, our Collections Discovery Group, and our Library Services Management Team and was based on extensive feedback from numerous focus sessions conducted comparing our trial versions of three WSD products: EDS, Summon, and Primo Central. Although we have decided not to acquire one of these products now, we do plan to monitor the WSD marketplace and revisit our decision in perhaps 12-18 months.

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Acquisitions and Bibliographic Access Directorate

Cataloging Distribution Service

• see under Partnerships and Outreach Programs/Business Enterprises

Cataloging in Publication (CIP) Program

Karl Debus-López, chief of the US General Division and acting chief of the US and Publisher Liaison Division, is currently responsible for the Cataloging in Publication program.

ECIP E-books Pilot

The ECIP E-books Pilot began on Oct. 11, 2011.  Four publishers are currently participating in the pilot: RAND Corporation, the University Press of Mississippi; Wiley (including an imprint of Wiley, Jossey-Bass), and the World Bank.   To date, staff at the Library of Congress have produced pre-publication metadata for 695 electronic books which are also simultaneously published in print. The records for these books are available to libraries in the OCLC database. The procedures for the pilot have worked well and the pilot will be moved into production effective July 1st, 2012. At that time, the Cataloging in Publication Program will ask more publishers to participate. Through this new initiative, the Library of Congress will provide quality metadata for use by the international library community for electronic books that are simultaneously published with the print version. The Library of Congress will also begin receiving copies of the electronic books for which its staff provide pre-publication metadata.

ECIP Cataloging Partnership Program.

The University of Florida and the Getty Research Institute have joined the ECIP Cataloging Partnership Program providing pre-publication metadata for their institutions’ publications. The University of Florida began processing ECIPs in March. Pennsylvania State University has also expressed an interest in joining the program, focusing on science publications. Pennsylvania State University will be the eighteenth ECIP Cataloging partner. Currently, the partners catalog slightly more than 10 percent of all ECIP galleys received through the CIP Program.

Cataloging Policy

• see under Policy and Standards

Cooperative Cataloging Programs/Cooperative and Instructional Programs Division

Program for Cooperative Cataloging

The Program for Cooperative Cataloging (PCC) Operations Committee met May 3-4, 2012, at the Library of Congress. Attendees were given an overview of "RDA for NACO Catalogers" on the Library’s Cataloger’s Learning Workshop Website, a self-paced, interactive series of training modules designed for Name Authorities Cooperative Program (NACO) authorities catalogers. The series, now available at URL <www.loc.gov/catworkshop/courses/rda_naco/>, is also available through the Library’s iTunesU channel.  It was developed by staff from COIN and the Information Technology Services Directorate’s Multimedia Group. Follow-up Webinars for registered participants are included in the course structure. Modules will be added as available—the first update will be a session on RDA cataloging of non-Latin scripts for NACO catalogers.

An LC press release announced the availability of the materials on May 17, and more information can be found at URL <www.loc.gov/today/pr/2012/12-106.html>

Operations Committee members were also given overviews of the PCC task groups working on implementation of RDA. The task group reports, decisions made by the PCC policy committee, and the status of the groups are available from URL <www.loc.gov/aba/pcc/rda/RDA%20Task%20Groups.html>

Many RDA task group reports will inform the development of training materials for bibliographic records in RDA.  Two task groups’ products are of particular interest to the BIBCO community: 1) The PCC Task Group on RDA and the BSR for Textual Monographs developed a model for the BIBCO Standard Record.  Data in the new RDA BSR are arranged according to RDA and FRBR concepts, with a column to indicate MARC tags for these elements. There are plans to explore the adaptation of this original RDA BSR to apply to all types of materials previously covered by multiple BSRs. 2) The RDA Records Task Group, under the auspices of the PCC Standing Committee on Training, collected and reviewed 138 records (8 authority records and 130 bibliographic records, including 3 that were non‐MARC) to be used for training and educational purposes. The record examples are categorized by format and/or language.

The PCC Secretariat in the Library of Congress Cooperative and Instructional Programs Division has drafted a revised BIBCO Participants’ Manual to reflect many changes in the cataloging environment, including RDA. The revised edition will serve as a model for revisions to participants’ manuals for other PCC programs.

From LC in Washington, senior COIN instructor Joan Weeks led live online instruction delivered via the iCohere learning system for the Overseas Office in Nairobi, Kenya, over a two-week period. The Nairobi staff had hands-on training in a project for serials updating and creating holdings records.

Dewey Decimal Classification

On February 17th, 2012 The Abridged Dewey Decimal Classification and Relative Index Edition 15 was released.

The Library is currently in the process of hiring a new Section Head for the USGEN Dewey Section to replace Ms. Eve Dickey, who retired in December 2011.

ISSN (International Standard Serial Number)

Karl Debus-López was elected Chair of the ISSN Governing Board for a two year term beginning April 2012. He presided over the Governing Board and General Assembly meetings of the ISSN Network in Paris, France in April. Discussion of a new strategic plan for the ISSN Network and planning for a new computer system were among the significant topics at the meeting. The U.S. ISSN Center Director, Ms. Regina Reynolds, gave a presentation entitled, “Bibliographic Transformation and the ISSN” that provided information on the potential impact of RDA and LC’s Bibliographic Framework Transition Initiative on the ISSN Network.  Ms. Reynolds also highlighted the potential role of ISSN in the future Linked Data environment.

NUCMC (National Union Cataloging of Manuscript Collections)

Outreach activities included mounting “Gone To Be a Soldier”: Personal Narratives of Members of the Union and Confederate Armed Forces, the second installment of the program’s projected five-year Web observance of the sesquicentennial of the Civil War (URL <www.loc.gov/coll/nucmc>); continuing an initiative to increase program participation by Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs); sending copies of newly created bibliographic descriptions of papers relating to twenty-two Members of Congress to the Archivist of the Senate or the House Office on History and Preservation; commencing a similar initiative with the staff of the U.S. Supreme Court Library; and reporting alumni collections to the relevant university archives. These activities were in addition to an ambitious general outreach initiative directed towards repositories in California, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Maine, Mississippi, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and Vermont.

Accessions for new cataloging data in the first half of fiscal 2012 totaled 1,488. Repositories reporting to the program for the first time included: Cape Cod Genealogical Society (Dennis Port, Mass.), Children’s Hospital Boston (Boston, Mass.), Framingham History Center (Framingham, Mass.), Lane County Historical Society and Museum (Eugene, Or.), New College of Florida (Sarasota, Fla.), North Yarmouth Academy (Yarmouth, Me.), Sharon Historical Society (Sharon, Conn.), Southern Oregon Historical Society (Jacksonville, Or.), Southern University and A&M College (Baton Rouge, La.), and Thetford Historical Society (Thetford, Vt.). NUCMC catalogers produced 1,888 records in OCLC describing collections in California, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Illinois,  Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Montana, New Jersey, Ohio, Oregon, South Carolina, Tennessee, Vermont, Virginia, Washington (State), Wisconsin, and Wyoming.
Other recent activities involved NUCMC staff supervision of a 120-hour internship by a student at the Catholic University School of Library and Information Science, and a one week University of Michigan spring break intern project relating to the third installment of the program’s Civil War observance on the Web.

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Policy and Standards: Bibliographic Description

Cataloger’s Desktop

Much of the work on Cataloger’s Desktop during the first half of 2012 has taken place behind the scenes to improve the service’s reliability. Work is nearing completion to move Desktop to an enhanced server facility in San Diego, Calif. All of Desktop’s underlying software is being updated with the move, and some of the more frequently updated resources (such as AUTOCAT and the LC Subject Headings Approved Lists) will be updated on a monthly basis.

An important enhancement that was added with Issue 2 (April 2012) was the ability to search using AACR2 rule numbers to retrieve RDA rules automatically as part of the search result set. Coming with Issue 3 (July), the “Bookmarks & Saved Searches” pane will be enhanced to make it much more subscriber friendly. The pane will be renamed “My favorites” and will include all user-created personalizations (e.g. bookmarks, saved searches, shortcuts, and saved sessions). An enhancement requested by subscribers will be the addition of user-created folders that can include any personalizations (“favorites”) in a single place. This should make it much easier to bring favorite resources together into a single, handy location. Training materials for this enhancement should be available by the time Issue 3 is released in mid-July.

Work is currently underway to produce training videos for new and no-so-new Desktop subscribers. The first two videos will provide an overview of what Cataloger’s Desktop is, and how to set up personal preferences. The third video will offer pointers for getting the most from searching within the service. Additional videos are planned, based on suggestions from current subscribers. We will announce release dates later this year.
As always, we are anxious to hear from subscribers to know how we can improve Cataloger’s Desktop. Suggestions of new content or improved features should be sent to Bruce Johnson at bjoh@loc.gov. Subscribe to the free Cataloger’s Desktop discussion list at URL <www.loc.gov/cds/desktop/ugroup.html> to stay current with the latest news.

RDA Training Outreach

The Policy and Standards Division (PSD) continues to provide outreach to the Spanish language library community at the international level. The PSD chief, Barbara Tillett, presented a videoconference on RDA, the Semantic Web and LC's plans for implementation to an audience of 50 attendees from the Universidad Autónoma Nacional de México that was viewed widely by the library communities in the Caribbean, Latin America, and Spain. Dr. Tillett has been invited to repeat the RDA update via videoconference for a meeting hosted by the Universidad Católica de Córdoba (Argentina) in July and another to be hosted by the Biblioteca Nacional de Colombia in August. PSD staff member Ana Cristán was the keynote speaker at a cataloger's conference at the Universidad Autónoma de San Luis Potosí in March where she presented LC's plans for RDA implementation. In April she repeated the RDA-LC update at a cataloging seminar held at the Universidad Iberoamericano in Mexico City.
Colleagues at the Biblioteca Nacional de España and the Biblioteca del Congreso de Chile provided Spanish language translations of the RDA special topics presentations and these have been posted at URL <www.loc.gov/aba/rda>.

Library of Congress Policy Statements becomes LC-PCC Policy Statements

The Library of Congress Policy Statements (LCPSs) are statements for use with RDA: Resource Description & Access, in much the same way that the Library of Congress Rule Interpretations (LCRIs) were used in conjunction with AACR2. First developed for use by LC cataloging staff during the U.S. RDA Test in 2010, the LCPSs have been updated for a variety of reasons.  The April 2012 release of the RDA Toolkit included 36 new, revised, or deleted LCPSs, and 40 more were revised for the June 2012 release.  In consultation with the Program for Cooperative Cataloging (PCC), the title of the LCPSs will change to LC-PCC Policy Statements to reflect the fact that they will in the future represent a collaborative set of statements for both the Library of Congress and the PCC.  A PCC Task Group has done an initial review of a portion of the policy statements, indicating where PCC and LC practices will be the same or different--this will be an ongoing task. The June 2012 release of the RDA Toolkit will include a few of the new PCC decisions, and the number will grow with subsequent updates.  The title change will be implemented in the RDA Toolkit later in 2012.

The current versions of LCPSs are available as part of the RDA Toolkit, and are also available via Cataloger's Desktop. The Policy and Standards Division (PSD) maintains a list of current LCPSs and a brief summary of changes at URL <www.loc.gov/aba/rda/lcps_access.html>.

Romanization tables

The first half of 2012 has been a very busy period for romanization table development. At the ALA Midwinter Meeting in January 2012, the Committee on Cataloging: African and Asian Materials (CC:AAM) approved new Moroccan Tamazight and Syriac romanization tables, as well as a revision to the Khmer table. All three tables were posted on the ALA-LC Romanization Table Website in February 2012 at URL <www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/roman.html>.

Two new romanization tables and three revisions are currently being reviewed by the constituent community. A new Cherokee table was reviewed and approved by the Committee on Cataloging: Description and Access (CC:DA). It will be considered by the Cherokee Tri-Council in July where it is anticipated to be approved. This is the first romanization table for a Native American syllabary approved for the ALA-LC romanization tablesand marks an important milestone in improving access to Cherokee library materials. The other new romanization table currently being considered is a Shan table proposed by a group of scholars lead by Chris Miller of Arizona State University. The constituent review period was due to close on June 13, 2012. This draft table will be referred to CC:AAM after any final comments are addressed.

Revisions to the Bulgarian and Russian romanization tables are currently out for constituent review. The proposed revisions arose during LC’s recent project to convert all legacy ALA-LC romanization tables to MS Word DOC format (see below). Several minor changes are being considered that update romanization practice and improve reversibility. The draft revisions will be referred to CC:DA after any final comments are addressed.

Also being revised is the Japanese romanization table, which is being updated to clarify the use of apostrophe in romanized Japanese. Additional examples have also been provided that should enhance the table’s usefulness. The draft revision will be referred to CC:AAM after any final comments are addressed.

A revision to the Belarusian romanization table was provided by the ACRL Slavic and East European Section Committee on Automated Bibliographic Control. The proposal aims to bring the Belarusian ALA-LC romanization table in accordance with the modern standard Belarusian language, and also to support an expansion of the table by the inclusion of letters that are considered obsolete but occur in older Belarusian publications. The constituent comment period will close in August, after which it will be referred to CC:DA for consideration.

Other tables anticipated in the near future include: Kazakh (in Arabic script) – proposal from Joe Kiegel (University of Washington) currently being reviewed by LC staff; and Lepcha – revision proposal from Heleen Plaisier (University of Leiden) expected in the very near future. Comments on a proposal for a Manchu romanization table originally developed by Wayne Richter (Western Washington University) are invited through Sept. 7, 2012; email Bruce Johnson, <bjoh@loc.gov>.

Finally, a multi-year effort to convert the 1998 print edition of the ALA-LC romanization tables to the MS Word DOC format was completed in spring 2012. The impetus for this project was to make future romanization table maintenance easier, as well as regularizing editorial practice across all the tables. The fifty-two previously extant tables are now posted as Adobe Acrobat PDF files at URL <www.loc.gov/aba/>. The source DOC files will be available online soon. In the meantime individuals and groups wishing to work on revisions to current ALA-LC romanization tables, or develop new tables, are encouraged to consult with Bruce Johnson at bjoh@loc.gov.

Taiwanese place names

Since 1999, the Library of Congress has used pinyin romanization in name and subject headings for places in China, but the Wade-Giles romanization scheme continued to be used for places on Taiwan.  This policy was based on the fact that Wade-Giles was preferred in Taiwan itself, and was in accordance with the decision of the U.S. Board of Geographic Names (BGN), which also preferred Wade-Giles.

Pinyin has now become more accepted in Taiwan and in 2010, BGN adopted pinyin. LC has therefore revised its policy, and name and subject headings for places in Taiwan (natural features as well as jurisdictional and quasi-jurisdictional names) should now be established in pinyin romanization.  Subject Headings Manual instruction sheet H 690 will be revised to reflect this change in policy.  LC staff will examine the existing name and subject headings and update them as necessary.

Virtual International Authority File (VIAF)

A new governance model is now in place for the Virtual International Authority File with administrative and technical support from OCLC.  A VIAF Council consisting of the contributing members will be launched at the August VIAF meeting in Helsinki, Finland.  This first meeting will be led by Barbara Tillett, with elections for a new chair and chair-elect as one of the main agenda items.

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Policy and Standards: Classification and Subject Analysis

Broader Terms (BTs) for “orphan” LC subject headings

The Policy and Standards Division has begun to investigate the possibility of adding BTs to categories of headings that are currently “orphans” – those headings which are not hierarchically related to any others.  So far, headings for periodicals and newspapers qualified by nationality, language, or ethnicity have been provided with BTs Periodicals and Newspapers, respectively.  The addition of BTs to orphan headings will bring LCSH into closer alignment with the ANSI/NISO (American National Standards Institute/National Information Standards Organization) standard for monolingual controlled vocabularies (ANSI/NISO Z39.19-2005).  It should also enhance the usefulness of LCSH in the Semantic Web environment.

Experiment to add 072 fields to LC subject authority records

No earlier than August 2012, the Policy and Standards Division (PSD) of the Library of Congress will begin an experiment to add subject category codes (MARC 21 tag 072) to authority records for subject headings. It is anticipated that the addition of this information will enhance the usability of LCSH on the Semantic Web; assist catalogers by allowing integrated library systems (ILSs) and resource discovery platforms to provide a list of the subdivisions that are appropriate to headings being assigned; and improve automatic heading string creation and validation in ILSs and resource discovery platforms. For the first time, subject authority records will include information that indicates into which of the 34 pattern and free-floating lists an individual heading falls.  It is anticipated that computers will be able to match the data in the 072 field to the data in the 073 field (Subdivision usage) of the subdivision authority records and suggest applicable subdivisions for a heading, and even construct valid headings.

For background on the need to include subject category codes in authority records and the computer manipulations that they should enable, as well as the parameters of the project, see  URL <www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/field_072_announcement.pdf [PDF, 122KB]>.

Library of Congress Genre/Form Terms

Progress is continuing on the development of Library of Congress Genre/Form Terms for Library and Archival Materials (LCGFT).

Moving image project: Approximately 70 character- and franchise-based terms for moving images (e.g., Batman films; Star Trek television programs) were cancelled on the Monthly List for February 2012.  This revision was the result of the positive reception of a discussion paper that PSD posted for public comment in August 2011. The announcement of the ensuing decision can be found at URL <www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/character_franchise_disposition_112211.pdf [PDF, 479KB]>. Works featuring a particular character should be assigned the LCSH subject heading for the character. Descriptive access points, usually the titles, bring out the franchise of films and television programs.

Twenty-two sport-specific terms were cancelled on the Monthly List for June 2012.  Terms that refer to films about individual sports (e.g., Baseball films) were originally included in LCGFTbecause they were in LCSH and were “genre-like.” The analogous terms for television programs about individual sports (e.g., Baseball television programs) were then added. PSD and the Moving Image, Broadcasting, and Recorded Sound Division (MBRS) together determined that often the only unifying element of the films and programs is the depiction of a sport.  A single plot element such as this is not sufficient to deem the films and programs to constitute a genre.  The genre/form term Sports films or Sports television programs should be assigned with a subject heading for the sport (e.g., Baseball—Drama). Further information may be found at URL <www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/genre_form_sports_terms_cancellation.pdf [PDF, 31KB]>.

Cartography project: On May 24, 2012, PSD published a discussion paper entitled “Proposed Treatment of Globes in the LCGFT Environment” (URL <www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/genre_form_globes.pdf [PDF, 66KB]>).  Currently, LCGFT includes three terms for globes: Globes; Lunar globes; and Celestial globes. Through its reference structure, which includes a UF Terrestrial globes, it is clear that Globes is to be used for spherical depictions of the Earth. This reflects the fact that most users equate the word globe with a representation of the Earth, to the exclusion of other heavenly bodies. Lunar globes is to be used for spherical depictions of the Earth’s moon, and Celestial globes refers to globes that depict the relative positions and brightness of heavenly bodies. This raises the question of the appropriate treatment of globes of other bodies, such as the other planets and moons, stars, comets, meteors, etc., which are not yet represented in LCGFT.  The paper proposes a solution to this problem.  Responses may be sent by July 31, 2012 to Janis L. Young, LC’s genre/form coordinator, at jayo@loc.gov.

Religion project:  The American Theological Library Association (ATLA) and PSD have partnered to develop the genre/form terms in the area of religion, and ATLA is also coordinating the participation of smaller library organizations organized around religion, such as the Catholic Library Association.  The participants are finalizing the thesaurus of terms that will be presented to PSD.

Literature project:  The project to develop terminology for the discipline of literature has begun.  Partnering with PSD in this effort is the ALCTS/SAC Subcommittee on Genre/Form Implementation, through its Working Group on LCGFT Literature Terms.  The Working Group includes representatives from public, academic, and research libraries as well as from cataloging vendors.

Music project:  In collaboration with the Music Library Association, work continues on developing a genre/form thesaurus.

Music Medium of Performance Project: Developing new means of access to music by its medium of performance is a major by-product for the music community of the development of music vocabulary for Library of Congress Genre/Form Terms for Library and Archival Materials (LCGFT). In March 2012 the Library announced that it would sponsor the new vocabulary, which will be known as Library of Congress Medium of Performance Thesaurus for Music (LCMPT).  The Library of Congress has been collaborating with the Music Library Association on medium of performance vocabulary as it has been for LCGFT vocabulary.  The vocabulary is intended to be used, at least initially, for two bibliographic purposes: 1) to retrieve music by its medium of performance in library catalogs, as is now done by the controlled vocabulary, Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH); 2)  to record the element “medium of performance” of musical works, as represented in individual music resources cataloged according to RDA: Resource Description and Access (RDA).  Any library’s adoption of this new Medium of Performance Thesaurus could proceed independently from any cataloging code or communications standard the library may adopt.

Publications

Library of Congress Subject Headings, 34th edition will be available in late summer 2012. The following have been published since ALA Midwinter 2012: Subject Headings Manual Update No. 2 (2012); Library of Congress Classification schedules Class KZ, Law of nations; Class L, Education; Class S, Agriculture.

The following schedules will be published by the end of this summer: Class B-BJ, Philosophy. Psychology; Class Q, Science.
The new classification schedule on Law of the Indigenous Peoples in the Americas (Classes KIA KIK: North America), currently in final draft stage, is a subclass of the Library of Congress Law Classification, Class K. The comment period closed on May 20, 2012. Questions may be directed to Jolande Goldberg (jgol@loc.gov). The drafts are:

• The Introduction and Outline [PDF, 778 KB]
• KIA North America to Alaska [PDF, 813 KB]
• KIB-KID North America. Canada [PDF, 609 KB]
• KIE-KIK North America. United States [PDF, 868 KB]
• KIA-KIX Table 1 [PDF, 187 KB]
• KIA-KIX Table 2 [PDF, 194 KB]
• KIA-KIX Table 3 [PDF, 138 KB]
• KIA-KIX Table 4 [PDF, 167 KB]

US General and US & Publisher Liaison Divisions

Linda Geisler, head of the Literature Section and acting head of the Children’s Literature Section, has been elected incoming chair of the ALCTS CaMMS Cataloging of Children’s Materials Committee.

A proposal to reorganize the USGEN and USPL divisions is under review by Library of Congress management.  The proposed reorganization would create two new divisions that would be the administrative homes for selection and cataloging of most resources published in the U.S. and for the Cataloging in Publication (CIP), Children’s and Young Adults’ Cataloging (CYAC), Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC), International Standard Serial Number (ISSN), and Electronic Preassigned Control Number (EPCN) programs.

Library of Congress Acquisitions and Cataloging Production

Acquisitions Work	FY2012*	FY2011	FY2010*
Items purchased for LC collections	NA	1,904,478	1,080,021
Items acquired for LC by non-purchase	NA	713,050	818,112
Expenditures for collections purchases	NA	$28,392,920.65	$21,693,550.45

*ABA Directorate production only

Bibliographic Records Completed	FY2012*	FY2011	FY2010*
Original**	83,996	297,342	188,843
Collection-level cataloging	1,888	3,902	3,618
Copy cataloging	34,979	72,028	64,797
Minimal level cataloging	NA	18,702	15,088
Total records completed	120,863	391,974	272,422
Total volumes cataloged	NA	524,812	365,725

*ABA Directorate production only
** Core-level or Bibliographic Standard Records

Authority Work	FY2012*	FY2011	FY2010*
New name authority records	39,573	84,207	103,525
New LC Subject Headings***	NA	8,512	53,900
New LC Classification Numbers	NA	3,222	2,674
Total authority records created	39,573	95,94	160,099

*ABA Directorate production only
***FY10 included subject-subdivision strings to support automated validation.

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Collections and Services Directorate

Asian Division

• see under Library Services and FEDLINK

Geography and Map Division

The Geography and Map Division’s online outreach reached a new high in fiscal year 2011 with nearly 1.1 million visits to the “Maps and Geography” section of the Library’s website and nearly 8 million maps viewed.

Collaborations with other governmental agencies and libraries are a particularly effective way of sharing the extraordinary scope and richness of the collections and the expertise of the division’s talented staff.  As a recent example, the Geography and Map Division is working with the United States Geological Survey (USGS) and the National Archives and Record Administration to identify, scan and make available online the entire archive of USGS quadrangles.  This comprehensive collection will provide researchers with an historical record of the mapping of the entire nation.  A second example, this time on an international level, is the preservation and digitization of four more items from the division’s Korean cartographic collections, funded by the National Library of Korea.  These online materials will join 30 other unique Korean map scrolls and sheets and more than 30,000 maps in American Memory.

The Cataloging Hidden Special Collections grant from the Council on Library and Information Resources focused on cataloging and therefore making broadly accessible the division’s African set maps.  By the end of the fiscal year, 355 sets with more than 25,000 map sheets had been completed.  An experimental geospatial web delivery platform, using Google Earth, was developed with the aim of allowing readers to search the data by keyword and geospatially.

The Division launched “Places in History,” a companion online site to “Places in the News.”  “Places in History” provides access to historical maps that are related to current events, such as the 150th anniversary of the beginning of the Civil War.  Also being launched is a monthly update of newly digitized maps on the “Map Collections” of the American Memory site. 

The first Twitter outreach by a collection division at the Library, LOCmaps@Twitter.com made its debut on June 22, 2011.  The goal is to engage librarians, researchers, genealogists, the general public and map collectors with daily news about recently acquired collection items, website features, digitized maps and other interesting information about the division.

Humanities and Social Sciences Division (HSS)

Only a Driver’s License (photo identification) is required to register to use Library’s Reading Room

The Vacancy Announcement for Chief, HSS was posted on May 16 and will close on June 19. Victoria Hill is detailed as Chief of HSS for 120 days beginning April 2, 2012.  James Sweany was detailed as Acting Assistant Chief in HSS for 60 days from April 2 – June 1 and will be followed by Barbara Morland who will serve as Acting Assistant Chief for 60 days from June 4 – August 3.

Outreach: Connecting Users with LC’s Collections

Programs Sponsored by HSS. Humanities and Social Sciences Division hosted a talk by Anne Peacock, "The Role of Libraries in Achieving a More Inclusive Information Society for Women: A Case Study in Jalisco, Mexico" on March 22, 2012. With the African and Middle Eastern Division, HSS co-sponsored a book talk by Jonathan Lyons who spoke about his book, Islam Through Western Eyes: From the Crusades to the War on Terrorism on February 16, 2012. With the Rare Book and Special Collections Division and the African and Middle Eastern Division, HSS co-sponsored the talk on February 28, 2012, “The Rosenwald Schools,” given by the noted documentary film maker, Aviva Kempner, who discussed her film with Stephanie Deutsch, author of the recently published book You Need a Schoolhouse: Booker T. Washington, Julius Rosenwald and the Building of Schools for the Segregated South. With the Poetry and Literature Center, HSS co-sponsored a book talk by Joseph Fruscione who spoke about the literary rivalry of Faulkner and Hemingway on March 16, 2012. With the Library’s Center for the Book, HSS co-sponsored a book talk by LC researcher Paul Dickson who discussed and signed his book Bill Veeck: Baseball's Greatest Maverick on May 1, 2012.

Main Reading Room Tours and Open Houses. On Presidents’ Day, February 20, 2012, the Main Reading Room was open to public touring from 10:00 am to 3:00 pm. Over 4,950 visitors came through the doors. HSS staff continued to dispel beliefs that the Library is only open to the public two times a year, that researchers need professional credentials to use the Library, and that the Library only serves Congress—all of these are myths. While many of the visitors had Capitol Visitors Center tour stickers, a good number had heard of the open house and made special plans to visit the Library.

Gershwin Prize. On May 21, the evening of the Gershwin Prize Concert and Award Presentation to Burt Bacharach and Hal David, the Main Reading Room was the venue for a display of Music Division collections featuring materials relating to them. Additionally the Humanities and Social Sciences Division staff greeted over 300 guests.

Summer Teacher Institutes. Tours of the Main Reading Room (MRR) have begun for the several groups of K-12 educators who are attending the 2012 Summer Teacher Institutes. Approximately 150 attendees will visit the MRR after hours, receive a briefing on its history, art and architecture, collections and services and a tour of the card catalog; participate in questions & answers; and take photographs. Year-round we encourage all visiting librarians to self-identify themselves to the Main Reading Room librarians to receive their own personalized Main Reading Room tour.

President of Mexico Visit. On April 23, 2012, Felipe Calderón, President of Mexico, toured the Main Reading Room after giving the 6th annual Henry Alfred Kissinger Lecture at the Library. He was accompanied by Librarian of Congress Dr. James H. Billington, the Presidential party, and an HSS staffer.

Offsite Activities. Local History & Genealogy Reading Room staff participated as an exhibitor in the National Archive’s 8th Annual Genealogy Fair, “Branching Out: Exploring Your Family Tree,” on April 18-19, 2012 at the National Archives Building, Washington, DC.  NARA staff estimated that approximately 5,400 people attended the fair including the general public, the press, prominent genealogists, researchers, and professional genealogical societies and organizations.

Digital Projects/Web Archiving. HSS continues to collect Websites for Election 2012 including Presidential, Congressional and Gubernatorial candidates.

Collection Development and Acquisitions

After the receipt of 118,142 items in fiscal 2011, the Microform Reading Room custodial collection grew to 8,516,918 items. During fiscal 2011, the Machine-Readable custodial collections received 2,888 items, of which 2,430 were monographs and serials with disks and 458 were computer file CD-ROMs.  The MRC collection at the end of fiscal 2011 totaled 90,258 items.

Key acquisitions. Microfilm acquisitions included: Replacement reels of City Directories of the United States, published by Primary Source Microfilm (part of Gale Group), a large self-service collection of city directories on microfilm. HSS purchased 73 reels representing 11 cities primarily for the years 1861-1880 needing replacement due to heavy use in the Microform Reading Room.

Online acquisitions included African American Periodicals, 1825-1995 – This Readex/Division of Newsbank product covers issues of more than 170 wide-ranging periodicals by and about African Americans published in 26 states and includes academic and political journals, commercial magazines, institutional newsletters, organizations’ bulletins, annual reports and other genres. American County Histories to 1900: Part III – Southeast States – A full-text searchable and digitized database including the states of Alabama, Florida, Georgia, the Commonwealth of Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, the Commonwealth of Virginia, and West Virginia.  Part III – Southeast States joins the Library’s existing Accessible Archives subscriptions to American County Histories to 1900: Part I – New England States & Part II – Mid-Atlantic States. The Benezit Dictionary of Artists Database–a comprehensive work that identifies artists from the 5th century BCE to the mid-half of the 20th Century. The print edition is fourteen volumes, and includes many minor artists, as well as both Western and Eastern art. The electronic edition includes 2,000 new biographies and over 3,000 revised entries, and 173,000 artists worldwide. Confidential Print: Latin America, 1833-1969 – Unpublished material for ministry and other government use. This is a digitized and full-text searchable collection of what the British Foreign Office and Colonial Office considered the most important papers emanating from their offices and relating to Latin America. Statistical Reference Index – A huge index to the statistical publications of non-federal sources such as State and municipal governments, universities, trade and industry groups, think tanks, and private pollster companies. This database includes a PDF component having full texts of indexed documents.

Trust Funds: Miller and Roll. The Miller American History Trust Fund specifies that it be used to enrich the Library’s General Collections. The earnings are utilized by the Humanities and Social Sciences Division and the Science, Technology and Business Division to select items which support their subject areas. Ed Miller, the donor of the Miller Trust Fund, was honored by the Madison Council at its April 2012 meeting. Acting HSS chief Victoria Hill spoke about Mr. Miller’s many contributions to General Collections acquisitions. The Marguerite Roll Trust Fund benefits genealogical research, collections and support activities. In fiscal 2011, the Roll Fund was used to purchase electronic subscription services to: Ancestry Library Edition; World Vital Records; Origins Network Total Access; and Burke’s Peerage.

Prints and Photographs Division (P&P)

The Prints and Photographs Division offers many services at URL <www.loc.gov/rr/print>. You can also enjoy collection highlights through the blog Picture This! at URL <blogs.loc.gov/picturethis>

Flickr Commons Pilot Project

New set features “Gardening in Color” at URL <www.flickr.com/photos/library_of_congress/sets>  The Flickr project background information is at URL <www.loc.gov/rr/print/flickr_pilot_faq.html>.

Collections Recently Processed or Made Available Online

Civil War portraits in the Liljenquist Collection. 400 new photographs of soliders, primarily Confederates, can be seen at URL </www.loc.gov/pictures/collection/lilj>.

Garden and Historic House Photographs in Color. The photographer Frances Benjamin Johnston (1864-1952) was a dedicated advocate of the Garden Beautiful movement in the early 1900s. Guided by her formal training as a fine artist, she had 1,134 of her black-and-white photographs reproduced as lantern slides. These views on glass, most hand-tinted, illustrated Johnston's popular lectures, which she delivered from 1915 through the 1930s. View the photos at URL <www.loc.gov/rr/print/coll/fbjlanterns.html>.

Online Reference Aids

Collections Ripe for Research: A Sample from the Prints & Photographs Division. Topics include Advertising, Civil Rights, Civil War, Engineering, Geography, the Middle East, Postcards, Posters, Urban Surveys, Washington, and World War I at URL <www.loc.gov/rr/print/coll/riperes.html>.

War of 1812: Selected Images from the Collections of the Library of Congress. This selected list focuses on items that were created during the war and its immediate aftermath at URL <www.loc.gov/rr/print/list/war_1812.html>.

World War I in Pictures: An Overview of Prints & Photographs Division Collections. Outlines more than 75,000 pictures in a wide array of formats at URL <www.loc.gov/rr/print/coll/wwicoll.html>.

Women Photojournalists. The contributions of women photojournalists from multiple generations are highlighted in a new overview covering the work of Alice Rohe at URL <www.loc.gov/rr/print/coll/596_womphotoj.html>.

Serial and Government Publications Division (SER)

Collection activities

Work continues on the transfer of bound newspaper volumes from the Landover Annex to the new climate-controlled high-density storage facility in Ft. Meade, Md.. While most volumes have been transferred, the division continues to assist with cataloging and holdings corrections.
In summer 2011, the Small Press Expo Collection was established to acquire, on an annual basis, independent comics, graphic novels, and alternative political cartoons. All Ignatz Award nominees in the various print categories will automatically become part of the collection. The winner of the Ignatz Award for the Best Online Comic is being archived as part of the Library of Congress digital collections program. The Ignatz Awards are celebrated each year at the Small Press Expo.

Three interns in the University of Michigan Spring Break Program and a 2012 Junior Fellow worked on the Historic Events Newspaper Collection, adding print issues of historic or journalistic importance.

Newspaper Topic Guides

The division’s reference staff continue to develop short newspaper collection research guides called Topics in Chronicling America,in support of the National Digital Newspaper Program.  The pages represent widely covered historic subjects and social phenomenon in the American press.  Subjects are as varied as baseball’s Bloomer Girls, the Sinking of the Titanic, The Roller Skating Craze, Butch Cassidy, the Horseless Carriage, Bachelor Maids, the Influenza Epidemic of 1918, Pancho Villa, and the Flappers. Topics Pages offer an introductory access point to Chronicling America’s digitized pages, but are also complementary to Library of Congress newspaper holdings that aren’t yet digitized.  There are now approximately ninety Topics Pages posted with more on the way.

National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP – Chronicling America)

The National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP), a partnership between the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and the Library of Congress (LC), is a long-term effort to develop an Internet-based, searchable resource for U.S. newspaper bibliographic information and selected digitized historic content through the Chronicling America (chroniclingamerica.loc.gov) Website. This site is hosted by the Library of Congress and made freely available to the general public. This rich digital resource will eventually include content contributed by all U.S. states and territories.

Chronicling America now provides access to almost 5 million newspaper pages, digitized by 25 states and the Library of Congress. These historic newspapers include over 730 titles published between 1836 and 1922 in Arizona, California, the District of Columbia, Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, and Washington. The site also includes an extensive Newspaper Directory of U.S. newspaper titles published between 1690 and the present (approximately 140,000 bibliographic records) as well as associated library holdings information, and linked to digitized pages, when available. In addition to digitized pages, the site includes newspaper histories for each selected title describing that newspaper’s publishing history and providing context for its historical importance. To encourage a wide range of potential uses, Chronicling America provides content through open protocols and an API and publishes the application as the LC Newspaper Viewer on the SourceForge open-source software directory. The site is updated frequently with new content received from NDNP awardees and LC collections. By the end of 2012, the site will include more than 5.5 million pages, published between 1836 and 1922 from 28 states and the District of Columbia.

Chronicling America offers a weekly notification service. Readers may subscribe for free to this RSS (Really Simple Syndication) service that provides updates on new content, points of interest, research, and re-use of the Chronicling America digitized newspapers (see the Subscribe feature or URL<www.loc.gov/rss/ndnp/ndnp.xml>). Recent additions can be monitored using the “Recent Additions” RSS feed at URL <chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/newspapers/feed/>. To subscribe to a feed, select the Subscribe button under the blue Chronicling America search bar. Users can select the RSS link to access regular updates through an RSS reader (or RSS-enabled Web browser) or click on the e-mail link to subscribe to regular e-mails about the site.

Additional information about the program is available from the NDNP Website at URL <www.loc.gov/ndnp>. In addition, the site provides access to the program and technical guidelines for the annual NEH program competition currently underway. In August, NEH will announce 2012 awardees.  The next competition (2013 awards) will be announced in October.

Top

Partnerships and Outreach Programs Directorate (POP)

American Folklife Center

• see also Veterans History Project (VHP)

The American Foklife Center’s new Director, Betsy Peterson, will attend the WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization) meetings in Geneva, Switzerland, in July 2012 as part of the U.S. Delegation to the IGC on Genetic Resources, Traditional Knowledge and Folklore. Four new members of the American Folklife Center Board of Trustees appointed by the President Pro Tempore of the Senate: Ms. Patricia Atkinson, Nevada Arts Council; Ms. Joanna Hess, Indigenous Language Institute, Santa Fe, N.M.; Ms. Jean M. Dorton, Paintsville, Ky., and Ms. Margaret Dodson, Santa Fe, N.M. attended the AFC Board of Trustees meeting, May 30-June 1, 2012.

The congressionally mandated Civil Rights History Project, a joint project of AFC and the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) to survey oral history collections of veterans of the Civil Rights Movement and to conduct interviews to document participants, has made its survey available on the AFC Website at URL <www.loc.gov/folklife/civilrights>.  Fifty-six interviews directed by the NMAAHC have been received and cataloged at LC. AFC staff also participate in the Federal Agencies Digitization Guidelines Initiative Audiovisual Working Group (FADGI) (URL <www.digitizationguidelines.gov>) on development of standards for digital moving image formats and development of software for embedding standardized metadata in audio and still images files. AFC is implementing these standards in current digitization projects.

Recent acquisitions include collections documenting various occupations across America by recipients of AFC’s Archie Green Fellowships. AFC also received 3,000 additional StoryCorps interviews, bringing the collection totals to over 45,000 audio interviews.

AFC’s 2012 Benjamin Botkin Lecture Series has presented distinguished speakers, including Nora Guthrie, daughter of Woody Guthrie, on the 100th anniversary of his birth. AFC staff produces a radio show hosted by Bob Edwards on Sirius-XM Radio featuring AFC’s archival recordings. AFC reference staff members provide extensive services to researchers by phone, e-mail, and in person. For more information and Webcasts of symposia, concerts, and lectures, see the American Folklife Center Website at URL <www.loc.gov/folklife> and our Facebook page at URL <facebook.com/americanfolklifecenter>, or telephone 202-707-5510.

Business Enterprises

• see also Library of Congress Exhibit Booth

Cataloging Distribution Service (CDS)

CDS is a unit of the Office of Business Enterprises (BE), will present its products and services in the LC Exhibit Booth at ALA Annual Conference. CDS markets, publishes, and distributes the Library’s cataloging records and cataloging-related tools, resources, and publications, for catalogers within the Library and for libraries around the world.

Classification Web. This Web-based subscription service features all LC classification schedules and all subject headings and name headings—and is updated daily. Records display non-Roman captions where applicable. For a free 30-day trial subscription visit URL <www.loc.gov/cds/classweb/CWorder_files/ClassWebOrderForm.pdf [PDF, 570KB]>. Product demonstrations can be seen throughout the day at the booth on a walk-in basis and at scheduled LC booth theater presentations from 11:30 am – 12:00 pm on Saturday and from 12:30 pm – 1:00 pm on Sunday. The booth theater presentation is titled “Table Talk: Using Tables in Class Web”.

Cataloger’s Desktop. This Web-based subscription service provides cataloging and metadata documentation. With more than 300 resources and multi-language interfaces, Desktop incorporates the most up-to-date searching and navigation and is updated quarterly. Extensive, free online learning aids and practical tips are available. Visit URL <www.loc.gov/cds/desktop> for the latest news or for a free 30-day trial. Product demonstrations can be seen throughout the day at the booth on a walk-in basis and in formal LC booth theater presentations from 12:30 pm – 1:00 pm on Saturday and from 11:30 am – 12:00 pm on Sunday. The booth theater presentation is titled “Training Yourself and Others on Cataloger’s Desktop”.

Recently Published & Pending Print Publications. Classification Schedules.  New 2012 editions: KZ, Law of Nations; L, Education; S, Agriculture; and K, Law in General were published since ALA Midwinter Meeting.  2012 editions of Class Schedules Q, Science and B-BJ, Philosophy, Psychology will be published by the end of this summer. Visit URL <www.loc.gov/cds/products/lcClass.php> for the latest information on LC Classification. Subject Headings Manual, Update No. 2 (2011) and Update No. 1 (2012); MARC Concise Formats 2011 edition; CONSER Editing Guide, Update No. 20, 2011;  and Descriptive Cataloging of Rare Materials (Books),  3rd printing with revisions,have all been published since ALA Annual, last June. Library of Congress Subject Headings, 34th edition (2012) will be published in July.

CDS Promotions. A pocket-size reference brochure and a large, handsome poster of the LC Classification are available free to booth visitors while supplies last. Attendees of the Cataloger’s Desktop and Class Web booth presentations will receive a flash drive that contains supplementary training documentation.

Library Shop

The Library Shop, a unit of the Office of Business Enterprises (BE), presents a select assortment of products for purchase in the booth. Our most popular bookmarks, mugs, t-shirts and gift items will be available, including many new designs. Our goal is to attract visitors to the booth, build the LC brand, and answer questions about the Shop assortment. The Library Shop will include a flyer with each purchase, featuring an additional assortment of items available at URL <www.loc.gov/shop> along with a special discount code for online purchases made during the conference.

Center for the Book

National Book Festival

The Center for the Book is well on the way to completing the roster of authors for the National Book Festival, Sept. 22-23, 2012. Star authors include Nobel Prize winner Mario Vargas Llosa and Pulitzer Prize winners Philip Roth, Jeffrey Eugenides, Junot Diaz and Robert Caro, among others. National Ambassador for Young People's Literature Walter Dean Myers will make a presentation, as will Poet Laureate Philip Levine. The current list of authors is at URL <www.loc.gov/bookfest>. The Center will also oversee the Pavilion of the States, co-sponsored with the Institute of Museum and Library Services and the Chief Officers of State Library Agencies.

Young Readers Center. As part of the Library’s increased interest in sharing its resources with young people, the Center for the Book oversees and operates the Young Readers Center in the Thomas Jefferson Building, which opened in October 2009. Visits to the center are up substantially from last year: In January to March 2012, there were 7,452 visitors; for the same period in 2011, there were 4,452 visitors.
Read.gov Website. The Website at URL <www.read.gov>, which is overseen by the Center for the Book, has been a huge success and continues to increase its usage.

National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature. Walter Dean Myers is the third National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature, a program co-sponsored by the Center for the Book and the Children's Book Council, one of the center’s national reading promotion partners. In May, Myers held an event to a packed audience of local schoolchildren in the Coolidge Auditorium.

Letters About Literature. The Center once again co-sponsored with Target 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. Approximately 70,000 letters were received for the 2011-12 contest. For more information, go  to URL <www.lettersaboutliterature.org>.

River of Words. After a one-year hiatus, River of Words, an environmental poetry and art contest returned with a new sponsor, St. Mary’s College of Moraga, Calif. An awards event with former Poet Laureate Robert Hass was held at the Library in April. See URL <www.riverofwords.org>.

Books That Shaped America Exhibition. The Center for the Book is among the curators for this new exhibition, “Books That Shaped America,” opening June 25-Sept. 29, 2012. The exhibition is part of the Library’s multiyear Celebration of the Book, which will also include a later exhibition, called “Books That Shaped the World.” 

See also under CONGRESSIONAL RELATIONS OFFICE.

FEDLINK

FEDLINK is continuing its work with the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the General Services Administration (GSA) to be designated as a Strategic Sourcing Initiative in the Federal Government. FEDLINK would be designated as an Executive Agent for the procurement of information content resources for the Federal Government. Similar Strategic Sourcing Initiatives have included office supplies, domestic delivery services, and wireless services. FEDLINK has also begun the publication of a quarterly report on the information content commodity market in the Federal Government.

FEDLINK made its annual awards which recognize the many innovative ways that federal libraries, librarians and library technicians fulfill the information demands of government, business and scholarly communities and the American public. FEDLINK honored the award winners at the 2012 FEDLINK Spring Exposition on at the Library of Congress in Washington, where the winners received their awards from Associate Librarian of Congress for Library Services Roberta I. Shaffer.  Federal libraries and staff throughout the U.S. and abroad competed in three award categories.

The winners are:

• 2011 Federal Library/Information Center of the Year: Large Library/Information Center (with a staff of 11 or more federal and/or contract employees): Woodworth Consolidated Library, DFMWR, Recreation Division and TRADOC, Fort Gordon, Ga., for motivating and inspiring its patrons by delivering real-world information services and meeting the educational and training needs of soldiers and their families. In fiscal year 2011, Woodworth Consolidated Library increased overall program participation by more than 18 percent and offered more than 150 unique and inspiring programs for 12,000 children and families.
• Small Library/Information Center (with a staff of 10 or fewer federal and/or contract employees): Eglin Air Force Base Library, Fla., for its resilience and focus on the needs of its individual users and patrons.
• 2011 Federal Librarian of the Year: MaryLynn Francisco, acting director for the GEOINT Research Center, National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, Springfield, Va., is recognized for her stewardship and visionary leadership of the research center.  Through thorough planning and skillful execution, Francisco directed the scanning and posting of more than one million maps and charts online at a savings of nearly $10 million.
• 2011 Federal Library Technician of the Year: Leanna Bush, library technician, U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Chemical Defense, Aberdeen Proving Ground, Md., for her outstanding customer service, in-depth knowledge of collections and understanding of researcher needs. She also created a comprehensive and interactive bibliography of more than 3,700 institute-authored publications, including articles, technical reports, proceedings, papers, abstracts and posters.

FEDLINK has developed a research agenda from its environmental scan that identified the major trends affecting libraries.  FEDLINK has already begun working on two of its priorities. The first, in cooperation with the Law Library of Congress and the Asian Division, is a research project to determine how the Library’s Area Collections can be better utilized by other Federal libraries and agencies.  The second is its research project on the future of Federal Health Technology Initiatives and federal libraries and information centers.  Currently, its advisory committee is developing a research process and has met throughout the winter and spring to develop its priority areas.

FEDLINK’s work with the Library’s CALM Division and the National Archives’ Federal Records Centers continues developing plans for a Federal Library Shared Collection Management Plan. Preliminary research on federal library holdings is nearly complete. The results of this assessment project will be used to identify future steps and best practices for establishing remote storage capabilities in various facilities throughout the U.S.

FEDLINK is exploring expanding its vendor product offerings beyond books, serials and databases. Areas of potential contracting include staffing and integrated library systems. FEDLINK recently issued both a Request for Information (RFI) and a Request for Proposal (RFP) for data analytics. Currently, FEDLINK has contracts with more than one hundred information vendors.

FEDLINK held its inaugural exposition in May 2012 and invited all of its working groups to present on a variety of topics related to future trends for federal libraries.  More than 100 people attended on-site and virtually and heard from a variety of public and private speakers on topics such as grey literature, collections, copyright, preservation, policy and professional development.

National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped

The National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped (NLS) welcomed its new director in the person of Karen Keninger on March 26, 2012.  Ms. Keninger has a long association with NLS, having Librarian of Congress James Billington said she was selected from an impressive pool of candidates following an extensive search.

National Conference.  As director of NLS Ms. Keninger presided over the 2012 National Conference of Librarians Serving Blind and Physically Handicapped Individuals, “Charting Our Course: Expanding Our Services,” held in Newport, Rhode, Island, May 20–24, 2012.  The conference featured Maureen Sullivan, president-elect of the American Library Association; Christine Koontz, consultant from Rice-Koontz Marketing Services, Florida; and NLS patrons Amy Bower, oceanographer with Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts, and Rachael Scdoris, a sled-dog racer from Oregon. Network library staff designed and implemented a full day preconference workshop entitled “Got Digital? Recording Digitizing, Mark Up, and More!” During the NLS conference, network librarians’ presentations and discussions were offered under the themes of “Media Outreach: Raising Awareness and Participation with Media” and “The Partnership Imperative: High Level, High Energy, and High Expectations.”

Network Library of the Year Awards. At a ceremony in the Whittall Pavilion on  June 1, 2012, NLS presented the Network Library of the Year Award to the Texas State Library and Archives Commission and the Network Subregional Library of the Year Award to the Chicago Public Library Talking Book Center.  The awards recognize “excellence, innovation, and special achievements in providing library service to blind and physically handicapped individuals.” Each library received a framed certificate, a perpetual plaque (to be held for one year), and a $1,000 check.

Service to Veterans. NLS announced its program with military hospitals and rehabilitation centers to distribute digital talking-book players to service members who can no longer read or handle printed materials. NLS will provide these facilities with new digital playback equipment to distribute to their patients. Service members can use the players to read books on cartridges supplied by their local talking-book libraries. NLS was established by an act of Congress in 1931 to serve the reading needs of individuals who are blind or physically disabled. The law specifies that “preference shall be at all times given to the needs of the blind and other physically handicapped persons who have been honorably discharged from the Armed Forces of the United States.”

BARD and digital books and players. BARD users will notice some significant changes—most notably, the presence of electronic braille materials. While the goal of this modification is to incorporate braille materials from the Web-Braille system, NLS will also introduce some new pages and features that will provide additional content and enhance the user experience. These updates to BARD include pages with new braille and audio materials for download, such as foreign-language books, locally produced magazines, and instructional music audiobooks and braille music scores; a customizable wish list enabling users to store and access titles that they want to download later; and a download history feature that displays a list of all of the titles a user has downloaded.

To date more than 350,000 readers have begun to enjoy digital talking-book players and books. Patrons may select from 9,000 titles in 3,976,000 copies on cartridges and more than 26,000 titles on BARD.  BARD is administered by the local network libraries and more than 50,000 readers, institution and demonstration accounts have been established. From October 1, 2011 to May 31, 2012, these readers have downloaded more than 1.7 million talking-books and audio magazine.

Office of Scholarly Programs

The Kluge Prize

Librarian of Congress James H. Billington will award the 2012 John W. Kluge Prize for lifetime achievement in the study of humanity to former Brazilian President Fernando Henrique Cardoso, one of the leading scholars and practitioners of political economy in recent Latin American history. His scholarly analysis of the social structures of government, the economy and race relations in Brazil laid the intellectual groundwork for his leadership as president from 1995 through 2002. The Library will present the Kluge Prize to Cardoso at a ceremony on July 10 in the Library’s Thomas Jefferson Building. Cardoso, the first prize recipient whose work spans the fields of sociology, political science, and economics, is the eighth recipient of the $1 million Kluge Prize, which recognizes and celebrates work of the highest quality and greatest impact in areas that advance understanding of the human experience. For more information see URL <www.loc.gov/today/pr/2012/12-098.html>.

New Kluge Center Chair in the Humanistic Dimensions of Astrobiology

Librarian of Congress James H. Billington has named David H. Grinspoon the first Baruch S. Blumberg NASA/Library of Congress Chair in Astrobiology in the John W. Kluge Center at the Library of Congress. The chair is a joint project between the NASA Astrobiology Institute and the Kluge Center and is named for Baruch “Barry” Blumberg, the late Kluge Center Scholars Council member, Nobel Laureate and founding director of the NASA Astrobiology Institute. Grinspoon is the curator of astrobiology in the Department of Space Sciences at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science. He is a well-known researcher in planetary science and the author of Lonely Planets: The Natural Philosophy of Alien Life.

Astrobiology is the study of the origins, evolution, distribution and future of life in the universe. As the chair, Grinspoon will conduct research at the intersection of the science of astrobiology and its humanistic aspects, particularly its societal implications. His research will include studies of the role of planetary exploration in fostering scientific and public understanding of climate change and the power of astrobiology as a model of interdisciplinary research and communication.

Poet Laureate

Librarian of Congress James H. Billington on June 7, 2012, announced the appointment of Natasha Trethewey as the Library’s Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry for 2012-2013. Trethewey, the 19th Poet Laureate, will take up her duties in the fall, opening the Library’s annual literary season with a reading of her work on Thursday, September 13 in the Coolidge Auditorium, Thomas Jefferson Building. Her term will coincide with the 75th anniversary of the Library’s Poetry and Literature Center and of the establishment of the Consultant-in-Poetry position, which was changed by  federal law in 1986 to Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry. For more information, see URL at <www.loc.gov/today/pr/2012/12-114.html>.

Summer Research Institute with National History Center

The Kluge Center will host the 7th International Seminar on Decolonization, which is sponsored by the National History Center and the American Historical Association, and generously supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The seminars bring together young historians from the United States and abroad to Washington, DC, to study and discuss the history of decolonization in the 20th century. The seminar is led by W. Roger Louis, a member of the Library’s Scholars Council, and takes place in July-August each year.

Veterans History Project of the American Folklife Center (VHP)

This congressionally mandated public outreach/collection development project continues to expand. In 2011, its eleventh year, over 6,000 additional collections were donated and we continue to receive 100-150 weekly. Organizations nationwide, including over 100 libraries, have joined the effort to help gather and submit oral histories and supporting items for the VHP collection. Descriptions of the 80,000-plus collections can be searched at the VHP’s Website at URL <www.loc.gov/vets>. Over 11,400 selected narratives are digitized and are viewable at the project’s Website, along with a series of themed presentations under the title “Experiencing War.” All collections are served in the Library’s American Folklife Center Reading Room.

The Veterans History Project’s continued progress relies on a nationwide network of volunteers and organizations to collect veterans’ interviews. Libraries serve a vital role because of their pivotal roles in communities. Distributing information, coordinating VHP interviewing programs, and making facilities available to local VHP volunteers are just a few examples of how you can engage your Library with the Veterans History Project. For additional information, please visit the project Website at URL <www.loc.gov/vets>, or telephone 202-707-4916. 

Visitor Services Office

The Library's historic Jefferson Building hosted more than 1 million visitors in fiscal 2011 (a 3 percent increase over fiscal 2010). Of those, approximately 200,000 participated in guided tours (a 6 percent increase). 320 Library volunteers contribute more than 28,000 hours of service to visitors each year. The Library's Professional Visitor Program arranged programs for 659 librarians from around the world in 2011.

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Preservation Directorate

Preservation Week, April 22-27, 2012, had numerous activities involving staff from the Preservation Directorate in collaboration with other Library divisions including a Webinar done in collaboration with the Local History and Genealogy Reading Room and the Genealogical Society of Pennsylvania  "Saving Cherished memorabilia: Preservation Tips for Family Historians.”  Other events included a film screening of  Investment in the Future, a 1980s photofilm that tells the history of library preservation through the activities of the Library of Congress at that time. As well as a library workshop, Caring for Your Books, Documents and Works of Art on Paper, and Photographic Prints. Conservation specialists from the Preservation Directorate will discuss and demonstrate basic preservation measures one can do at home to care for personal collections. A publication “Engage for Preservation Week” was published through Archival Products News, URL <www.archival.com/newsletters/apnewsvol17no2.pdf[PDF, 844KB]>.

Jeanne Drewes, Chief of the Binding and Collection Care Division (BCCD) and Mass-Deacidification Program, was awarded the Ken Haycock Award for Promoting Librarianship.  She will receive the award on June 26 in Anaheim.

The Preservation Directorate continues to work on the IRENE project (Imaging, Restoration, Erase Noise, Etc.).  The IRENE systems are located in the Preservation Research and Testing Imaging Lab and at the Packard Campus, Culpeper, Va. (National Audiovisual Conservation Center). The IRENE system includes features to tightly integrate metadata exchange and manage high throughput workflow in the Culpeper environment.

Binding and Collections Care Division & Mass-Deacidification Program (BCCD)

The Binding and Collections Care Division (BCCD) completed testing and began binding production using the enhanced ABLE system. Two volunteer/interns completed projects working in the Collections Care Section this spring. Another volunteer/intern will begin in June.  BCCD staff partnered in training with the FEDLINK Safety Net initiative, with the workshop held February 15 “Mitigation during Emergency Response: Stabilization of Paper and Film-based Materials.” The mass deacidification program was featured in a paper presented by Fenella France and Jeanne Drewes at the American Institute for Conservation’s (AIC) annual conference in May entitled: “Taking the Measure: Treatment and Testing in Mass Deacidification.”

Conservation Division (CD)

Reorganization

In 2012, the Conservation Division completed a multi-year reorganization process by hiring two new Section Heads, Holly Krueger as the Section Head for Paper Conservation and Andrew Robb for Special Format Conservation.  The Division’s two previous Section Heads remain, including Maria Nugent, who has become the Section Head for Book Conservation, and Nancy Lev Alexander, who is now the Section Head for Collections Stabilization.  This new organization improves the staff member- to-supervisor ratio and provides organizational clarity for curatorial customers and staff.  Currently the Division is training the new Section Heads and realigning cross-functional duties among the Sections.

Teaching and meetings

In spring 2012, CD staff provided tours and consultation in support of the Education Committee of the State Department Diplomatic Reception Rooms, which manages a small museum collection.  In collaboration with the State Department and USAID, the Conservation Division sent a CD Senior Conservator to Cairo, Egypt, for two weeks in March to consult with and provide training to the staff of National Library and Archives of Egypt on how to assess and salvage the collections of the recently burned Institut d’Egypte, as well as how to plan for the future recovery of this significant collection. The Institut lost 75 percent of its rare and special collections in a catastrophic fire on December 17, 2011.

In May 2012, CD staff served on the National Historical Publications and Records Committee Executive Board, conducting the final review of grants proposed for archives and publication projects nationwide.

CD also hosted the Spring, 2012, meeting of the International Organization for Standards (ISO) Technical Committee 42. ISO TC 42, which oversees standards related to image technology permanence and storage. Highlights of this meeting included developing testing methods for photo books, evaluation of still images (both digital and analog) under indoor lighting conditions, development of a permanence rating system for digital prints, and discussions concerning the convergence of photography and commercial printing industry.

Fellows

Paper Conservation Fellow Gwenanne Edwards, a graduate student in the Buffalo State College Art Conservation Department, worked upon a wide variety of projects at the Library in 2012.  The projects included: an 18th century iron gall ink manuscript from the Karp collection of the Hebraic Division; a portfolio of 12 etchings of musical composers from the 20th century by the French artist Marcel Amiguet from the Music Division; two Italian illuminated vellum certificates presented to President Woodrow Wilson in 1918 and 1919 from the Wilson collection in the Rare Book Division; a series of 18th and 19th century Japanese woodblock prints from the Prints and Photographs Division; several architectural drawings from the Walker collection of  the Prints and Photographs Division; an oversized German propaganda lithographic poster from 1919 from the Prints and Photographs Division;  an18th century iron gall ink manuscript written by William Peterson from the Manuscript Division; and three Joseph Pennell drawings of early 20th century New York from the Prints and Photographs Division.  Ms. Edwards presented a research poster at the American Institute for Conservation Annual Meeting in May,  2012 on the Characterization of  Traditional Japanese Colorants in Woodblock Printing using Multispectral Imaging: A case study on the artist Torii Kiyonaga from the Prints and Photographs Division, which is being made into a Web page for the Conservation Division.  She contributed significantly to the work of the Digital Documentation Committee, and participated in emergency recovery of materials and mold removal.  She is currently doing a survey of the Russo- Japanese prints with curator Katharine Blood of the Prints and Photographs Division.

The Book Section staff also trained two University of Michigan Library School students on housing four items from the Hebraic Passover volumes, and trained a pre-conservation graduate student, Saira Haqqi, who was accepted in the NYU Conservation Program for Fall, 2012. A Northeastern University student, Victoria Hill, provided great support and assistance to the Preservation Directorate over six months by enhancing and updating the Directorate’s Website, developing an online audiovisual tour of the Directorate from miscellaneous film snippets, and assisting with a significant variety of online tasks. 

Stabilization for exhibitions

The Conservation Division assessed, treated and housed thousands of special collections items in support of the Library of Congress’s robust exhibition program in fiscal 2012. Some highlighted exhibitions were: To Know Wisdom and Instruction: the Armenian Literary Tradition at the Library of Congress, Timely and Timeless: New Comic Art Acquisitions and Beauty, and Belief: Crossing Bridges with the Arts in Islamic Culture.  The 1321 Aweteran Gospel Book and the Armenian Missal from 1722 both needed media and binding consolidation and stabilization as well as specialized housing solutions in order to be safely included in Wisdom and Instruction. Objects such as a 17th century inscribed Iranian tunic, a mid-19th century illuminated Quran and Indo-Iranian book covers required media consolidation and the original storage housings had to be retrofitted to enable them to travel and be exhibited in the Beauty and Belief exhibit.

Stabilization for digitization

During 2012, to date, Conservation staff assessed 41,865 items, surveyed 15,191 items, treated 34,540 items, and housed 250 items.  Conservation staff worked on over 13 new major scanning projects involving in-depth assessments for scanning and treatments, including Asian Division- National Library of China Foldouts; Manuscripts Division-Theodore Roosevelt; Manuscripts Division- William Oland Bourne Papers; Manuscripts Division- Clara Barton Papers; Manuscripts Division- American Colony in Jerusalem; Manuscripts  Division- William Gladstone African American History Collection; five Music Division collections; Rare Book and Special Collections Division- Civil War Pamphlets; and Library Services-Foreign Governments materials from the National Diet Library, Japan.

Hundreds of scan-on-demand items also received conservation treatment as ad-hoc requests.  These scan-on-demand items do not undergo digitization feasibility reviews. Certain collections, primarily from the Serials and Music Divisions, have been treated for scanning by being disbound, undergoing digitization, and being rebound for return to the respective divisions.

Book Conservation Section

By mid-year 2012, the Book Conservation Section had assessed 44,582 volumes, surveyed 18,600 volumes, treated 48, 474 volumes, and housed 2,010 volumes.  Some of the special projects undertaken included fragile Islamic manuscripts; an Alan Lomax Journal treated and housed for the American Folklife Collection; two early newspaper volumes, the Pennsylvania Evening Post, 1776, and the Essex Journal, 1776; three Detroit Publishing Company photo albums treated and housed for the Prints and Photographs Division; and an album from the 1940s, Philippians Tamayn Photo Album including photographic stabilization and encapsulation of each page and post binding for safe handling. Items treated or housed for Rare Books and Special Collections included Incunables, Rosenwald Collection items, and Susan B. Anthony volumes. In preparation for the Geography and Map Division’s new Secured Storage Facility (SSF), atlases were surveyed to determine the workload for housing and movement.

Paper Conservation Section

Paper Conservators began treatment on George Washington’s Rules of Civility. This small multi-page manuscript was a hand-writing exercise from a young Washington and was in need of conservation treatment to be properly preserved. The individual pages had been “silked”, an early 20thc document restoration technique that has been found to be damaging.  The treatment needed to solve this problem involved the application of specialized enzymes to loosen the adhesive bond between silk and paper, washing to remove adhesive residues and deterioration products, and mending and filling the losses. After treatment the manuscript will be re-housed to allow for safe handling and access.

Special Format Section

After two years of work by Conservation Division (CD) Special Format Section staff and Prints and Photographs (P&P) staff to replace sub-standard file cabinets for fragile and at risk glass plate negatives, in 2012, a contractor delivered two customized gasketed cabinets to store Civil War glass -plate negatives. These cabinets protect these water-sensitive glass plate negative materials from water accidents as well as properly supporting them. The divisions will continue to work together to ensure that all the glass plate negatives, including additional Civil War glass plates, will be housed in cabinets that match or improve upon these specifications.

Special collections supply work has been focused on submission of a multi-year Indefinite Quantity Indefinite Delivery Contract for collection housing supplies. With this contract in place, supplies will be more quickly and efficiently ordered through fiscal year 2016.
Image documentation work within the Conservation Division has focused on developing written guidelines for imaging from the microscope and for UV fluorescence photography in the imaging studio. This work builds upon the documentation work done during the last several years when the Conservation Division moved from analogue to digital documentation, trained all staff in the procedures, and developed detailed training manuals and procedures based upon the American Institute for Conservation (AIC) guidelines.

Stabilization Section

The Conservation Division’s Stabilization Section collaborated with the Music and Geography and Map Divisions to specify preservation-quality cabinets to hold rare objects such as atlases, instruments, and manuscripts as part of a construction upgrade of the Secured Storage Facilities (SSFs) themselves. Stabilization staff members have designed custom housings for rare globes; oversized relief maps; artifacts including electronic parts from the Jack Kilby Collection; pre-Columbian ceramics and stone objects from the J. I. Kislak Collection; and artworks depicting set designs from the recently acquired Oliver Smith Collection. These custom-fitted boxes and mats provide good protection for multiple formats while making efficient use of labor and supplies. Since October, Stabilization staff members have placed 3,110 folio rare books from the Rare Book Division in customized inserts within standard-sized labeled boxes for transfer to Fort Meade.  By October 1, 2012, 3,887 folio rare books will have been boxed for transfer, completing the project.

Preservation Reformatting Division (PRD)

The Digital Preservation Laboratory (DPL)

The DPL mission is enacted through the conduct of administrative operations, research programs, and an internship program. Efforts will also be made to improve PRD/PRES staff knowledge, abilities, and skills alongside those of interns. An ongoing research is being conducted by the Digital Conversion Specialists using the microfilm and microfiche scanning systems to support microform digitization.  A key outcome from the research program will be the ability within PRD to predictably reformat microfilm and microfiche created prior to the development of microfilming standards, as well as to be able to reformat materials that require special handling and that benefit from refined tonal corrections by PRD staff working in a “distributed” quality control environment.

Preservation Digital Technology Internship

The goal of this newly established internship is to provide Library Science and Information Technology students, graduates, and post-graduates with the opportunity to study and work with state-of-the-art digital technologies: those used for the digital reformatting of library materials. Interns have the opportunity to participate in the key activities to plan, get, describe, sustain, and make accessible reformatted digital and/or microfilm formats for serials, photographs, manuscripts, brittle books, and other items.

PRD COM Project

The project goal is to determine the costs and viability of implementing a Computer Output Microfilm (COM) workflow through a pilot project. This pilot would follow up on the findings from two current pilots, the Hybrid Pilot Project and Overseas Scanning Pilot Project. Results from both projects will inform the requirements needed for designing a reformatting workflow that includes the production of COM. Where the first projects will propose quality control guidelines and requirements, the second pilot will test the implementation of those guidelines for scanning collection material. This proposed pilot will use this information to test the feasibility and cost for taking scanned images and subsequently produce COM for preservation purposes.

Preservation research and Testing Division (PRTD)

The Preservation Research and Testing Division (PRTD) has been coordinating a network of scientific collaborators to create an infrastructure and establish criteria for the systematic (meta) analysis of preservation research. PRTD recruited 14 graduate and postgraduate interns and visiting scientists to work with staff on research projects. These include a chemistry post-doc, a paper chemistry PhD, 6 George Washington and WVA Forensic Science Masters and undergrad students, a RIT imaging science student, 2 HACU, 2 Summer Fellows and 1 archeology graduate.

A three-year collaboration with the University College London (UCL) – the Collections Demography Initiative - produced a full-day program at LC outlining the interactions between object use, environment and material components of collections, reviewing the results of questionnaires undertaken in LC special collection reading rooms and the CVC exhibition area. Other recent collaborations include the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) to further the development of high-performance anoxic encasements, and the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) parchment research in collaboration with other institutions.

Progress had been made on the assessment of "sticky shed syndrome (SSS) in magnetic tape, quantitative analysis of trace elements in paper using X-ray fluorescence (XRF), and colorimetric analysis of dyes in optical discs.

A wide range of tours to interested groups include, in-house staff, donor tours, and National Public Radio archive staff. PRTD staff have presented at a range of conferences including the American Association of Forensic Scientists, the Infrared and Raman Users Group (IRUG), High-tech Heritage (UMass), American Institute for Conservation, and the Association for Recorded Sound Collections (ARSC).

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Technology Policy Directorate

Integrated Library System Program Office (ILSPO)

Integrated Library System

In June, the Library will make the re-designed LC Online Catalog available to the public.  It has been available to staff and patrons on campus in a beta release.  The new design uses the Voyager “Tomcat” OPAC application.

The entire catalog interface has been re-designed to reflect the Library’s latest Web standards and provide ADA accessibility for most adaptive devices and applications.  All functionality is available and the same keyword, guided keyword, browse, and quick search options remain, with search results available with the same sort options as the "classic" OPAC.  In addition, these new features and functions will be available: more context-sensitive help; similar types of searches/indexes grouped together logically, e.g., browse searches; ADA compliance; standard “share” tools available on all pages.

The LC Online Catalog is the primary access point for users of the Library's collections and it is one of the most popular sites on the LC Website. The Library welcomes feedback on the new design.  Patrons and librarians may use the link provided on every page to give feedback and make suggestions for improvements.

LCCN Permalink

LCCN Permalink at URL <lccn.loc.gov>, a Web service that allows users to create permanent URL links to descriptive metadata records in the Library's Online Catalog at URL <catalog.loc.gov>, continues to be popular. In September 2011, LCCN Permalink expanded to include name and subject authority records in the LC Authorities service at URL <authorities.loc.gov>.

LCCN Permalink receives nearly 12,000 requests per day.  This service enables researchers to reference materials from the Library's collection in their blogs, reference guides, Web pages, emails, bibliographies, databases, and more.  LCCN Permalink is completely standards-based and leverages widely used XML technologies, Z39.50/SRU, and metadata schemas.

LC EAD (Encoded Archival Description) Archival Finding Aids

Since January 2012, Library Services’ Collections and Services divisions created 149 new EAD archival finding aids, bringing the total number of LC EAD finding aids to 1,723.  At URL <findingaids.loc.gov> users can access 48.7 million archival items in LC's collections through these documents, an increase of more than 2 million archival items since January 2012. Finding aids will be added to the Library’s metasearch application within the next few months and the Library will also be starting an RSS feed for its finding aids.

LC Persistent Identifiers

Library staff registered more than 26,000 new handles this year to persistently identify and manage LC-generated e-resources. As of June 2012, the Library's handle server contained 3,242,816 handles. Over the past year, LC handles were assigned, for example, to materials digitized in a number of LC cooperative projects (including content scanned for HathiTrust), to U.S. legislation searchable in THOMAS, to digital books created by the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped, and to items in the Library’s repository efforts. Work is underway to upgrade the handle server software in fiscal 2012.

Electronic Resource Management System (ERMS)

The Library will be adding bibliographic records for ebook titles contained in aggregations that LC purchases or licenses from vendors. In the third quarter of fiscal 2012 the Library will add these records as well as their related holdings or coverage data into the LC Electronic Resources Management System. This will include nearly 350,000 new titles that will be updated monthly.  The system currently contains about 144,000 titles and 220,000 holdings.

Network Development and MARC Standards Office (NDMSO)

Bibliographic Framework Initiative

• see under LIBRARY SERVICES

Digital Portal Projects

The Performing Arts Encyclopedia, Veterans History, and other portal projects continue to enable the office to investigate new approaches to digital site creation and delivery to end users.

Performing Arts Encyclopedia (PAE). Recent releases in the Performing Arts Encyclopedia at URL<www.loc.gov/performingarts> include a refresh of the "Transit of Venus" site (for the June 5-6, 2012, transit) at URL <lcweb2.loc.gov/diglib/ihas/html/venus>; the addition of subject headings and browses to "Civil War Sheet Music" site at URL <www.loc.gov/performingarts/civilwar>; and an update to "Jazz on the Screen" at URL <lcweb2.loc.gov/diglib/ihas/html/jots>.

Veteran’s History Project (VHP). Recent releases in the Veterans History Project at URL <www.loc.gov/vets> included Military Photographers: Framing the Shot at URL <www.loc.gov/vets/stories/ex-war-photographers.html> and Vietnam War: Looking Back (part 1) at URL <http://www.loc.gov/vets/stories/ex-war-vietnam50.html>.

Standards Projects

MARC Formats. The 2011 updates of both the full and concise MARC formats were made available online in April 2012 at URL <www.loc.gov/marc>. The updates are now planned to be twice a year as the production process has been made very efficient.  Based on a survey in mid 2011 NDMSO ceased printing the full formats as most users had switched to the online versions.  NDMSO will continue to print the MARC 21 Concise Format document via CDS, which will consist of the Bibliographic, Authority, and Holdings specifications. All format versions are produced from the same XML files, improving consistency and efficiency in the publication processes.  The updates of all the formats documentation were provided to CDS to keep its Cataloger’s Desktop product in synch with the published MARC documentation.

PREMIS. The PREMIS Editorial Committee, at URL <www.loc.gov/premis>, released the PREMIS Data Dictionary and schema version 2.2. This includes enhancements of preservation rights metadata. Discussions are also underway concerning changes to the PREMIS Data Model to be implemented in a version 3.0, now under development. These changes include ability to describe intellectual entities using PREMIS metadata and defining environment information as a separate entity outside the object.

SRU and CQL. The Public Reviews of Search and Retrieve via URL (SRU) and the Contextual Query Language (CQL) were completed in OASIS (the Advancing Open Standards for the Information Society consortium), all comments resolved, and the documents were published as Committee Specificationsat URL <www.oasis-open.org/news/announcements/searchretrieve-version-1-0-published-as-a-committee-specification>. The next step is standardization possibly jointly in OASIS and ISO, the International Organization for Standardization.

LC's Linked Data Service (ID/LDS) Project.  The Linked Data Service - Authorities & Vocabularies (ID/LDS) at URL <id.loc.gov> is used as a portal for developers – whether local or external to LC – to enable them to programmatically interact (as “linked data”) with vocabularies commonly found in standards promulgated by LC. In addition to a Web interface, the system provides the vocabularies for individual record and bulk download in a number of formats including various RDF and XML formats. By the end of June 2012 several PREMIS code lists and other code lists such as resource types and target audiences will be added and experimentation with classification schedules and bibliographic records will be implemented.

NDMSO is also experimenting with a new feature of ID/LDS designed to more easily make use of the available data by providing a simple way to import the data into OWL (Web Ontology Language) ontologies, especially via OWL editors such as Protégé or TopBraid Composer. NDMSO has also created mini-ontologies designed for import into other ontologies.  The idea is that the mini-ontology will import all that is needed to make use of the vocabularies and value lists in a user-friendly manner.

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OFFICE OF STRATEGIC INITIATIVES

Personnel Changes

Laura Campbell, associate librarian for strategic initiatives and Library of Congress chief information officer, retired on June 15.  James Gallagher is Deputy Associate Librarian for Strategic Initiatives.

National Digital Stewardship Residency (NDSR)

The Office of Strategic Initiatives and the Institute of Museum and Library Services are collaborating to develop and implement the National Digital Stewardship Residency (NDSR). The mission of the NDSR is to build a dedicated community of professionals who will advance our nation’s capabilities in managing, preserving and making accessible the record of human achievement held in digital form. This will enable future generations to fully realize the potential of digital resources now and for years to come.

This program will provide ten qualified postgraduate candidates from varying fields the opportunity to act as residents in Washington, D.C. institutions for nine months. Residents are expected to be immersed in this experience in summer 2013.

The Library recently hosted a curriculum development panel meeting where leading practitioners, scholars, and innovators focused on curriculum design for the entire NDSR experience. Similar panels will be convened to define host institution details and to develop a comprehensive sustainability plan, ensuring the program is robust and enduring. The successful planning and implementation of this program will lead to a national model for digital stewardship field experiences. In addition to this vetted model, the program will deliver a comprehensive manual that can be used by other organizations to establish similar programs.

National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program (NDIIPP)

Chartered by Congress in 2000, the Library of Congress’s National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program’s mission is to develop a national strategy to collect, preserve, and make available significant digital content, especially information that is created only in digital form, for current and future generations. NDIIPP is based on an understanding that digital stewardship on a national scale depends on public and private communities working together. The Program works to catalyze and sustain a national network of digital preservation partners. From the beginning of the project, one of the key ideas has been that the partnership, now with over 262 partner organizations worldwide, needed to work toward a distributed architecture. To that end, NDIIPP has worked with its partners to connect different platforms for storage and verification, data and metadata management, and access and discovery of preserved digital materials.

Recent outcomes from the NDIIPP program include:

• The publication of States of Sustainability: A Review of State Projects funded by the National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program
• The beta release of the Unified Digital Format Registry
• The addition of over 300 new accounts for the Viewshare service for a total of 1,075
• The first anniversary of The Signal, the program’s blog on all topics related to digital preservation with currently 19,495 subscribers
• Co-sponsorship with the Sloan Foundation of a workshop on archiving digital science in late June.

Information about the program and its activities can be found at URL <www.digitalpreservation.gov>.

Web Services Division

Web Services Division (WSD) is the Library’s main Web team, creating and managing Websites and Applications while providing strategic input across all aspects of the Library’s Web program. WSD works to provide project management, requirements analysis, information architecture, visual design, development, integration, testing, and operational support to hundreds of Library Websites and applications, as well as managing the technical and policy aspects of the Library’s external social media and content distribution presence.

Web Services is currently leading or contributing to many large-scale Web development projects for loc.gov and related properties. Key work includes:

Search

WSD worked closely with developers from the Library’s Information Technology Services (ITS) team to completely overhaul the Library’s main Web search at URL <www.loc.gov/search>. WSD designers, analysts, and information architects collaborated with the ITS developers to implement a sophisticated, feature-filled search application that provides users with access to over 17 million items in the Library’s collections. Search includes advanced features such as faceting of search results, multiple results view styles, item thumbnails, auto-suggest, and more. Web Services is continuing to collaborate on developing improvements to search, participating in user testing, search metrics and use analysis and incorporation of additional content.

Objects, Sets, and Formats

Web Services is working with teams throughout the Library to upgrade the user experience and functionality of all collection items and groupings of items displayed on loc.gov. A selection of maps (see URL <www.loc.gov/search/?q=&fa=original_format%3Acartographic%7Cdigitized%3Atrue>) has already been converted, using an improved layout, new related item features, and an improved deep-zoom viewer. Later in 2012, online collections and additional items will be converted to improved presentations, and supplemented with “Format” based pages, allowing users to search and browse all items of a selected format (e.g. Maps, Audio, Video, etc)

Visual Design and Information Architecture

Working with the Library’s Web Governance Board, Web Services is implementing an improved information architecture and normalized visual Web design across all Library properties. The design and architecture improvements will result in improved navigation, mobile and browser compatibility, accessibility, and an overall improved and modern user experience.

Legislative Beta

Web Services is working with stakeholders throughout the Library (including the Law Library and Congressional Research Service) to design and build a beta site that will provide improved, modern access to legislative data. Features in the initial beta will include faceted search and browse, searching across multiple data sources, persistent URL’s, and a modern, scalable user interface.

Copyright

Web Services is working with staff from the Copyright Office to developed detailed requirements, information architecture, and visual designs for a future Copyright Website.

Federal Agencies Digitization Guidelines Initiative

The Library continues to play a prominent role in the work of the Federal Agencies Digitization Guidelines Initiative (FADGI), a group of federal agencies collaborating on the development of digitization guidelines and best practices (see URL <www.digitizationguidelines.gov>). The Audio-Visual Working Group has made progress with two digital audio activities, one related to metadata to be embedded in WAVE audio files and the development of an associated open source tool, BWF MetaEdit tool. Second, the group continued its study of concepts and approaches pertaining to audio-digitization-system performance metrics. The group has posted a proposed guideline regarding analog-to-digital conversion on the FADGI Website. In connection with digital moving images, the group has continued its drafting of an MXF Application Specification for Archiving and Preservation.

The FADGI Still Image Working Group has continued efforts over the past year to expand both available tools and guidelines to support the digitization of collections. The Digital Image Conformance Evaluation (DICE) software for analyzing the imaging performance of scanners and digital cameras was updated, and a new data comparison feature was added. Two additional imaging targets were developed, one for use with automated document feeder (ADF) scanners and another for oversized scanners. In cooperation with an internal LOC working group, the working group is developing guidance on the assessment of still image file formats (cost, implementation, technical capability, and sustainability factors) and the evaluation of and recommendations for image compression (subjective and objective methods of assessment, recommendations for compression for different collection types and image quality, and recommendations for the configuration of JPEG 2000 files). The working group continues to participate in the CIE study of the color accuracy of digital imaging, and is investigating the use of spatial frequency response (SFR) analysis for determining scanning resolution for historic photographic negatives and for monitoring production scanning. Recently, the group recommended use of the Smithsonian Institutions' Basic Guidelines for Minimal Descriptive Embedded Metadata in Digital Images.

Repository Development Center

The Repository Development Center develops software tools and services to facilitate the management of digital content at the Library of Congress. The group is responsible for the tools and Web applications used in a number of Library of Congress initiatives, including eDeposit for eSerials, the National Digital Newspaper Program, and the World Digital Library, as well as building generalized repository and content transfer and processing services in use across the organization. Recent RDC accomplishments include: significant updates to the Delivery Management System used in eDeposit, which included improved file viewing and additional interfaces with the Copyright Office eCO system; addition of support for file format assessment in the Content Transfer Services (CTS).  CTS is now in use by over 150 Library projects, and over 1 PB of digital content has been inventoried to date; launch of a workflow for the receipt of streaming video from the House of Representatives committee rooms; receipt and processing of the 21 billion tweets in the Historic Twitter Archive; Improved content production and translation processes and improved process management tools for the World Digital Library, plus updates to the WDL site search and browsing features that have measurably improved performance; surpassing 1 million images reviewed using the QA Sampler application; launch of a new newspaper cataloging set, a new Digital Viewer and Validator, and an essay production and preservation workflow for the National Digital Newspaper Program, which will reach 5 million pages in the next few weeks.

Educational Outreach

The mission of the Educational Outreach Division is to advance the effective use of the Library's vast online collections of primary sources by teachers and students. These primary sources, when embedded in inquiry-based instruction, help build content knowledge, critical thinking, and analysis skills in students.

Educational Outreach manages the Teaching with Primary Sources program (TPS), through which Library staff and institutional partners in a nationwide consortium deliver professional development that helps teachers use the Library’s vast collection of digitized primary sources to enrich their classroom instruction. Since January of 2012, Educational Outreach accomplished the following as it worked to advance the Library's K-12 mission:Over 800 students from 4th through 7th grade participated in the LOC Box program, in which they explored the Library's Thomas Jefferson Building and analyzed the architectural features of the building. Educational Outreach presented and had a booth at five national education conferences with a combined attendance of 28,000 educators. The Librarian of Congress and Ed Outreach staff addressed the executive leaders of 18 major education associations on site at the Library. The Teaching with the Library of Congress blog marked its first anniversary, with 114 posts published. An interactive version of the Library's primary source analysis tool was developed and piloted. Members of the TPS Educational Consortium reported conducting 225 professional development events for 7,826 participants between January 1 and March 31, 2012 (analysis of reports covering April and May activities is in progress). In addition to offering formal training sessions, during this period, members of the Consortium offered individual coaching to 622 teachers to support the use of primary sources in their classrooms. The Library launched its 2012 season of the Summer Teacher Institutes, and expects to welcome more than 100 master teachers from around the nation to Washington for week-long intensive professional development sessions.

Digital Preservation Outreach and Education (DPOE)

In January 2010, the Library of Congress launched the Digital Preservation Outreach and Education (DPOE) program. DPOE fosters national outreach and education about digital preservation by building a collaborative network of instructors and partners to provide training to individuals and organizations seeking to preserve their digital content.

In September 2011, DPOE held its first Train-the-Trainer Workshop in Washington D.C. for 24 working professionals from across the United States. The event provided training in digital preservation and taught participants the skills needed to deliver workshops in their communities. In the last five months, DPOE Trainers have held over 20 training events (with 10 more planned). As a result, more than 1000 working professionals nationwide have received training in digital preservation. An upcoming Train-the-Trainer event scheduled for August will add 24 more DPOE Trainers to the network. In addition, the online DPOE Training Event Calendar is one of the most-viewed pages on digtialpreservation.gov and the DPOE listserv is an active community forum with over 260 members seeking and sharing knowledge on digital preservation topics.

DPOE is currently working to add more advanced content modules to its curriculum, define resource-specific levels of digital preservation activities, and develop online training resources. The DPOE program is also collaborating with international digital stewardship organizations, national professional groups, and other units within the Library of Congress to share curriculum, sponsor and host education events, and perform outreach to promote digital preservation knowledge and practices. Continued partnerships with the national and international community will help form a unified network of digital preservation training and allow DPOE to continue to provide working professionals with the knowledge they need to preserve their digital assets.

Information Technology Services Directorate (ITS)

Information Technology Security Group (ITSG)

ITSG performs an IT Security Risk Assessment which provides for the strategic review of IT security risks and implementation of appropriate responses to reduce those discovered risks. ITSG has made improvements to the various areas of operational security.  In particular, ITSG has implemented a secure application review process that will allow developers to utilize the same tools and methodologies used by the ITSG test team.  This will allow developers to release secure Web applications and reduce the impact of security vulnerabilities.  ITSH has improved the Library's Security Awareness and Training by providing Library staff with material that is current and impactful at both work and home.  The training this year was centered on the growing trend of spear phishing.

Research & Development, Digital and Web Initiatives

The R&D Digital & Web Initiatives (D&W I) group has worked on the National Library Search for Project One since January 2012.  The goal of the Project One Search effort is to implement the Library’s new Web strategy with a focus on faceted searching, objects, formats, and sets and incorporating more digital content. Recent accomplishments include deploying a Search release which included many usability enhancements (alphabetic subject and name browse, search by format) as well as the addition of 400,000 new records from the Prints and Photographs Division’s HABS HAER HALS collection. Future releases will include implementing item detail pages for Maps, integrating this with a Map “viewer” which will provide zooming capability, and creating Map format pages.

Research & Development, Copyright

The R&D Copyright (R&D COP) group is responsible for assisting with the implementation and management of enabling technology for Copyright. This includes performing systems analysis, design, selection, acquisition, development, integration, support, and maintenance. In addition, this group acts as a customer service liaison between Copyright and ITS to coordinate activities with other ITS teams that impact Copyright.  The R&D COP group is supporting Copyright on several major initiatives in 2012. The Group has assisted Copyright with implementing several eCO enhancement releases as well as performing a full disaster recovery failover test of the system to the Library’s Alternative Computing Facility (ACF). Several additional eCO releases are planned for this year. Additionally, we have also supported release 2 of the eDeposit eSerials project. (See also under Library Services/Collection Development Office.)

For the LD Reengineering project, we have assisted the Copyright Licensing Division (LD) by providing a development environment and technical advisory services. We have also continued to support the Copyright Digitization project which is digitizing Copyright’s historical catalog card records.

The team also provides ongoing maintenance and support for several legacy business applications that remain crucial to Copyright’s business operations. Effort is underway to implement security enhancements to these applications and recertify them for continued use in today’s high risk environment. R&D COP has also been assisting Copyright in performing a business risk analysis related to their older applications and strategizing for their potential replacement.

Research & Development, Congressional Research Service

The R&D Congressional Research Service (R&D/CRS) Group is responsible for maintaining and enhancing the thomas.gov and congress.gov legislative information Websites. Thus far in 2012, legislative information projects have included collaborating in the release of a Congressional Record iPad application and the launch of the House Committee video project in January. The primary focus of R&D CRS in 2012 is in collaborating on the high-visibility legislative phase of Project One, which will replace both thomas.gov and congress.gov. Building a modern legislative information system to serve Congress and the nation is a priority of the Library of Congress and documented in the Library of Congress Strategic Plan Fiscal Years 2011-2016. A dedicated team of experts from across the Library, including many members of R&D CRS, has been convened to accomplish this goal. The Web Governance Board, chaired by the Library’s Chief of Staff, is overseeing this project.

The user will experience immediate improvements with the initial release of Project One-Legislation, scheduled for the fall of 2012. The major focus for fiscal 2012, though, is implementing a modern underlying system architecture, establishing the necessary technical foundation for future development, and facilitating the development of mobile applications. Final release of the modern system is targeted for the close of fiscal 2014. Until the new platform completely replaces LIS and THOMAS, the original systems will be maintained in parallel.

Research & Development, Library Services/Law Library

The Research and Development Group for Library Services and the Law Library (R&D/LS&LL) is responsible for all activities relating to systems analysis, design, selection, acquisition, development, integration, support, and maintenance related to specific systems and projects for Library Services (LS) including the National Audio-Visual Conservation Center (NAVCC) and the National Library Services for the Blind & Physically Handicapped (NLSBPH) and for the Law Library of Congress (LL), as well as Voyager ILS support for the U.S. Copyright Office (COP) and support for the Office of Compliance (OOC).  Of special note, the FedLINK Customer Account Management System (CAMS) Project is an effort to develop a software application that will replace the existing FEDLINK Online System.  FEDLINK CAMS will be more user-friendly and eliminate system irregularities that were inherent in the technology and methods available at the time of development of the current FEDLINK Online System. FEDLINK CAMS will serve federal libraries, information centers, and FEDLINK vendors as a purchasing, resource-sharing, and training consortium.  The system is designed to help librarians, contracting officers, and finance staff members save time, effort, and money when buying and using commercial on-line services, CD-ROMs, books, periodicals, and other library and information services.

National Digital Newspaper Program

• see under LIBRARY SERVICES/Collections and Services Directorate/Serial and Government Publications Division

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