Director’s Meeting. May 22, 2012
Submitted by: Scott Cohen
The Directors welcomed 2 new
members, Baptist College of Health Sciences (Richard Owen) and Memphis College
of Art (Leslie Holland)
The group talked about ebooks. Reference
books lend themselves to electronic versions since a patron is just looking for
specific information. Netlibrary books were discussed. It is not clear whether EBSCO now allows more
than 1 user per book.
People have expectations of
printing and downloading ebooks.
At Rhodes, ironically, faculty
had students look at printed general encyclopedias for historical value and
assigned topics.
Rhodes has many students who have
their own laptops. Students, however,
don’t want to use ebooks when they have a test on
something from the ebook. They prefer printed books in those cases.
Some of the directors felt that
there was too much technology for some students.
Libraries who support Health
Science programs must buy new editions constantly. Buying these books electronically is
preferred.
The College of Law has a company
(hein online) that gave a free IPAD with a
subscription to a certain number of databases.
The College of Law staff has
IPADs so they can see how students use them for research. They use QR codes.
WeTALC Meeting – Law Library, UM – Memphis, TN
May 22, 2012 Tuesday, 9:30 am. -- 1:30 p.m.
NOTES – Technical Services
Breakout Session:
Submitted by Joyce Johnston
· First point of discussion was RDA,
especially regarding how far along people are in training, if at all. Most members present said that they are
waiting for final revisions of RDA rules and procedures before investing a
great amount of time in training staff.
RDA is scheduled to be fully implemented as the format to be used for
inputting records sometime in early 2013.
Librarians at
the meeting were mixed in their response as to current new records and whether
or not RDA format is used. Some
libraries have not had much need to do this, other
libraries are following RDA standards as they are currently written.
The loss of GMDs
in RDA cataloging, to be replaced by complex designations of contents, media,
and carriers in MARC fields 336-338, was discussed. There was uncertainty as to what extent the
loss of material designations would affect patrons.
Another problem
discussed, was how systems might handle mixed standard catalogs; AACR, AACRII,
and RDA records in the same catalogs.
Librarians present agreed that this should not
pose a problem with inclusion of RDA records, since we already have blended
catalogs – minimally cataloged, AACR, and AACR2 records. Everyone agreed that neither LC nor any
bibliographic service will ever perform mass retrospective conversion of
records to a uniform cataloging standard.
Technical Service members discussed the MARC format
itself briefly, regarding whether or not it might be replaced at some point and
if so, what would this entail for libraries and library catalogs. For decades cataloging has been based on
inputting information into specific MARC fields and subfields. Most members did not see total replacement as
taking place any time in the near future.
Some participants remarked that RDA cataloging,
based on the FRBR cataloging model, came into being in large part because of
the emergence of new technological information formats available which many
catalogers believe are not currently best cataloged using the old MARC
standards. Because of this it is very
likely that the MARC model of cataloging will undergo substantial changes,
though it might not be wholly replaced for a long time to come.
· Another point of discussion concerned
e-books. While most libraries do
subscribe to e-books, usually to e-book vendor collections (Ebrary,
EBSCO, etc.), there are always problems concerning use of these materials. The problems discussed included:
Ø Downloading
Ø Access
Ø Multiple users licenses
One participant
remarked that, with increased use and purchase of e-books, the multiple user
problems are likely to increase. In
order to lower costs per library, many libraries have shared access to
titles. This creates a patron access
problem; the more libraries involved in shared use, the greater the patron
access difficulties.
· During the last part of the breakout
session, participants discussed acquisition and cataloging of, and patron
access to, new technologies such as Tablets, Kindles, and iPhones.
D.R, Jones presented a program which explained the
function of Academic Law Libraries
Most libraries do provide at least a few of these
resources for patron use, but lending policies differ. Some libraries loan on a checkout of the
library basis to everyone, and other libraries only offer in-house access. Some libraries have restrictions on student
use and checkout of iPads and Kindles.
A significant
problem discussed regarding loaning Tablets, was the problem of removing e-mail
and documents that users might put on the devices – even if the patrons are
restricted from adding apps.
One participant
mentioned that Apple Corporation is developing a remote re-set feature which
will end the problem of having to carefully check and clear-out iPads when they are returned to libraries. The re-set feature will “scrub” the iPad; it will put the iPad back
to its original settings before it was loaned to a patron. This will remove anything the patron may have added to the device, saving library
personnel much time and worry.
Notes taken and written by Joyce Johnston – May 30, 2012
Public Services Breakout Session
submitted by Howard Bailey.
Here’s
a summary of our breakout group.
We
began by introducing ourselves. Approximately 25 people were present
representing between 10 to 12 academic libraries. Our discussion covered a
range of topics including but not limited to the following:
1)
The roll of Public Services in collection development
2)
Handling weeding projects
3)
Laptops and I-pads in the circulation department – advantages and headaches
4)
Interlibrary loan systems and courier services
5)
QR Codes – Your experiences and how to gain the most from them for your staff
and users
6)
Balancing technology and services
7)
E-books – your users, who wants them and who
doesn’t - Are they worth the expense
8)
Live chat – Do you use it, does it work in your
library