September 05, 2023

WRLC is pleased to announce Kim Armstrong’s participation as a national advisor in a recently awarded Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) National Leadership Grants for Libraries grant. Kim, WRLC Executive Director, will serve as an advisor to the Illinois Fire Service Institute Library at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign’s project Libraries as Partners for Emergency Preparedness and Response in Times of Crisis, a $150,000 two-year investigation into partnerships between libraries of all types and community emergency response partners during crises. The project will be guided at every step by a network of state and national advisors. In Year 1 through close collaboration with state advisors, the project will focus on a case study survey of the partnerships between Illinois libraries and community emergency response groups. In Year 2, national advisors will help bring the conversation to the national level through the development of two Community Engagement Roundtable discussions on the survey findings and themes. This project will discover and promote the essential role that libraries play in community safety and well-being, and serve as the conversation starter for future discussions, collaborations, and research on library-community partnerships.

The project joins as co-partners the Illinois Fire Service Institute (IFSI), the Consortium of Academic and Research Libraries in Illinois (CARLI), and the School of Information Sciences at the University of Illinois (iSchool). The project team includes Dr. Lian Ruan, IFSI Head Librarian and Director of IFSI International Programs, as Project Director; Dr. Jessie Chin as Research Director; Sharon L. Comstock, Teaching Assistant Professor at the iSchool, as Coordinator for the Advisory Committee and National Advisory Board; Anne Craig, Director of CARLI, as Member Engagement Coordinator; Karen Brown, Professor Emerita, School of Information Studies, Dominican University, as Facilitator; and Kelda Habing, IFSI Research and Grants Librarian, as Project Assistant.

Keep an eye out for future updates about the Libraries as Partners project in the next few months!

Read more: https://www.imls.gov/news/imls-announces-20-million-investment-us-library-and-archive-initiatives

Each month, members of the WRLC Reparative Cataloging Subgroup take turns sharing news related to reparative cataloging and recent updates to the Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSHs). The Library of Congress does not have any updates or changes to LCSH for August 2023. However, the Subgroup has a couple of subject heading updates for our consortial catalog:

• The following subject headings were updated in our online catalog after the Preferred Term Correction job was run in the system last month

There are also a few updates regarding reparative work around the library profession:

• July 2023 Cataloging Lab #critcatenate blog post is available here:

  • https ://cataloginglab.org/category/critcatenate/ 

  • The author aggregated recent articles and presentations about reparative cataloging and also highlighted important LCSH changes from the last update in April 2023

• OCLC’s Hanging Together Blog Post, ‘Advancing IDEAs’

  • https://hangingtogether.org/advancing-ideas-inclusion-diversity-equity-accessibility-24-july-2023/ 

• The topic for the OCLC AskQC office hours in August 2023 was “Rapid Harm Reduction with Locally Preferred Subjects in WorldCat Discovery”

  • The recordings for these webinars can be found here: (8/8/23) and (8/17/23)

  • Also here is a link for the Slides

As always, if you see headings or descriptions that you feel should be updated or changed, please submit the Reparative description heading reporting form created by the subgroup or join us at our next meeting on September 20, 2023.

Asheleigh Folsom

Unit Head for Metadata Services, Georgetown University Library
On behalf of the Reparative Cataloging Subgroup

Ability to edit the OTB (Out-of-the-Box) search and facet rules in Primo VE

The Alma/Primo Advisory Committee's (APAC) September Idea of the Month recommendation seeks to allow institutions to edit the out-of-the-box search and facet configurations.

Currently, it is not possible to modify how basic record information is used for the search and facet functions in Primo, even when there are demonstrable problems. For example, if you're searching for an author using the heading found in a catalog record--like "Twain, Mark, 1835-1910"--the index where author/creator names are stored only includes the first part: "Twain, Mark". This works well enough for some names, but folks with the same name, short names, or names with a lot of qualifiers suffer from this treatment. "Henry VIII, King of England, 1491-1547", for example, is stored simply as "Henry".

This Idea Exchange post asks for the ability to adjust these settings so an institution could store "Henry VIII, King of England, 1491-1547" as "Henry VIII" instead of "Henry". Adding this capability will allow us to improve search performance for our communities.

Ex Libris hosts the Idea Exchange to enable customers to influence the development of new features and solutions. Anyone with an Idea Exchange login can use their 25 votes to support their favorite ideas. Each month, the WRLC Alma/Primo Advisory Committee (APAC) highlights an idea and encourages you to vote for it to raise its visibility.

If you don't have an Idea Exchange account, just find the "New here? Create an account" link on the idea page. Then enter your email address to start the account creation process.

APAC welcomes nominations for future Ideas of the Month. Anyone can highlight an idea on the WRLC Idea Exchange Basecamp or you can submit ideas to your APAC representative.

- Cindy Bowen (GT)

On behalf of the Alma/Primo Advisory Committee

Starting a Text Data Mining Project

9/18/2023, 12:00 PM

Webinar Via Zoom

Shared by Kevin Gunn, CUA

Planning a text data mining project is an involved affair. This workshop will establish best practices by walking you through the process of determining your research question, how to locate and acquire texts, selecting the right tools for cleaning and analysis, and the potential legal issues involved.

Using AI to Expand Your Research Toolbox

9/12/2023, 12:00 PM
Webinar Via Zoom

Shared by Kevin Gunn, CUA

Tools such as ChatGPT, Elicit, Bing, and Bard can be effective in the research process but discovering, evaluating, and citing resources can be challenging. Come broaden your information literacy skills by understanding the best practices for using these new technologies,

• Cataloging Librarian - Jacob Burns Law Library

• Resource Sharing Technician - The Catholic University of America

• Head, Sciences and Technology Team and Mercer Library - George Mason University

• Metadata and Cataloging Management Librarian - American University

• Head of Legal Technology & Instructional Services - Jacob Burns Law Library

• Assistant Director for Resource Management Services0 - Jacob Burns Law Library

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