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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August 08, 2023

WRLC has finalized our strategic Initiatives for FY 2023-24.  They are:

Creating Coordinated Collections

1. Assess our collections against our DEI mission and make recommendations for implementing these values in our collective collection development.

Assigned to: CCC

2. Maximize the lifespan of the 3 SCF modules by creating a deaccessioning plan.

Assigned to: CCC

Creating a Robust Infrastructure for Discovery and Access

3. Explore technology-based resource sharing opportunities or alternatives taking advantage of new innovations or developments with alternative platforms

Assigned to: RSAC

4. Explore additional avenues of inter-consortial lending and borrowing, such as expanding the peer-to-peer lending program with SUNY, reaching out to VIVA or USMAI, etc.

Assigned to: RSAC

5. Create an online central repository for documentation of policies, decisions, and workflows to the benefit of WRLC members. Identify the best way to start populating the repository and how to keep it up-to-date.

Assigned to: WRLC HQ

6. Explore the establishment of an informal or formal group to inform best practices around Primo VE.

Assigned to: SC

Preserving Physical and Digital Resources

7. The 5 institutions using Islandora 7 must select a new digital platform or platforms and create a timeline that includes a migration completion date no later than January 1st 2025.

Assigned to: Islandora Migration Task Force

Sharing Expertise

8. Utilize the 2nd year of the pilot OER grant project to assess the process and outcomes of the previous year and launch a second year of grant funding along with an accompanying marketing plan.

Assigned to: TAWG

For updates on these initiatives throughout the year, be sure to visit the WRLC Library Staff Intranet at: https://libraries.wrlc.org/strategic-initiatives/2023-2024-strategic-initiatives

Are you a new committee member or serving a new role on a WRLC committee for FY 2023-24? Here are some helpful tips to get you started:

• Your help makes the coordinated work of WRLC easier, more effective, and more responsive to the needs of the 9 partners. https://www.libraries.wrlc.org/welcome

• If this is your first time serving on a committee, the first step is to create an account on the WRLC intranet. The intranet is where you'll find most of the additional resources we discuss below. The link to the right will take you there. https://www.libraries.wrlc.org/user/register

• Every committee has a section of our WRLC intranet and you can find more about your committee here: https://www.libraries.wrlc.org/committee

• Committee and task force membership of any kind includes certain duties and expectations.  Learn more about those here:   https://www.libraries.wrlc.org/wrlc-committee-task-force-and-interest-group-operating-framework/expectations-all-committee-and

• If you are serving as a chair of a committee for the first time, you are officially an overachiever.  We're not sure who you're trying to impress, but it's us. We're impressed. Your additional duties are here: https://www.libraries.wrlc.org/wrlc-committee-task-force-and-interest-group-operating-framework/expectations-committee-and-task

• To learn even more about WRLC committees and how your committee fits into the overall mission and governance structure of our consortium, you can read more here: https://www.libraries.wrlc.org/introduction-participants-wrlc-committees-and-task-forces

You may find this information on the intranet in the top-right of the right sidebar of any committee page.

June Updates

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 June 2023.  However, the Subgroup has a couple of subject heading updates for our consortial catalog:

• Last month the Subgroup reviewed a proposal to change the subject heading “Problem children” to “Children with behavioral problems” as this is more respectful language and follows the person's first language principle. This proposal was accepted by the Metadata Committee at their May 2023 meeting. A local authority record for “Children with behavioral problems” has been created and will be updated where possible in the consortial catalog when the Preferred Term Correction job is run in Alma. However, there is a slight glitch for this job that has been reported to Ex Libris and will hopefully be fixed soon, but you may still encounter the “Problem children” subject heading in the meantime.

• The preferred term correction job that ran in Alma most recently also brought to our attention that “Chinook jargon” was changed to “Chinook Wawa language.” 

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

• Jay Weitz, a Senior Consulting Database Specialist at OCLC, has compiled a series of issues related to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in a recent OCLC Research blog post:

  • Weitz, Jay. 2023. “Advancing IDEAs: Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, Accessibility, 2023 June 13.” Hanging Together (blog). June 14, 2023. https://hangingtogether.org/advancing-ideas-inclusion-diversity-equity-accessibility-2023-june-13/.

• The July OCLC Ask QC virtual office hours will provide a forum for discussion about the inherent biases in the Dewey Decimal Classification System and the efforts that are being made to address these biases.

  • “Debiasing Dewey: Righting the past by rewriting the classification” - OCLC is working to address historic biases in the Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC) and ensure its continuing relevance. Hear from senior editor Alex Kyrios and editor-in-residence Kathryn Becker about some of the work in recent years, especially on topics related to LGBTQ people. 

    • July 11 registration

    • July 20 registration

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 July 26.

July Updates

This month, the Reparative Cataloging Subgroup did not find any new headings approved by the Library of Congress Subject Headings, but were able to get a few exciting things done within the consortium!

Updated Headings

After confirming with the Metadata Committee, the term “Miscegenation” has been approved to be updated, and 283 records have been changed to Interracial relationships. 88 records in the CZ have the updated term added to the local heading, 690 $5 CAO. Another heading “Problem Children”, with 1,064 records, has been updated to Children with behavioral problems. 

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. 

Also, The “Local WRLC Subject Headings” section of the “NZ Bib Policies” document is being updated. The spreadsheet the subgroup uses to keep track of replaced and supplemental headings will now be included in the document.

As always, the subgroup sends a big shout out and thank you to Jackie Saavedra for her continued work with updating these records in our NZ and CZ and her detailed documentation!

- Asheleigh Folsom

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

The Alma Primo Advisory Committee completed the Alma NERS voting for this year.  Unfortunately, only one Network Zone or Automated Fulfillment enhancement request made it to the final round of voting. However, our group was pretty excited about the following three enhancements (including the long fulfillment network issue) and decided to split our votes equally among them.

Additionally, you'll find our Idea of the Month below.  You may notice that this is the same one we recommended last month.  Unfortunately, we forgot to include the link to that idea on the Ex Libris site, so we're running it again.  We apologize for the confusion.

The subgroup is interested in setting up a SACO (Subject Authority Cooperative Program) funnel for the consortium, and after checking with the Metadata Committee, the momentum has continued to grow! 10 respondents have expressed interest and there are already over 10 subject headings to propose.

The next step is to reach out to Paul Frank at the Library of Congress to get more information on setting this up and proper training. As one of our members wonderfully put it, “Our subgroup work aligns with their work – we’re already making proposals to the Metadata Committee, why not make them change at the LC level.”

A huge thank you to Jen Froetschel and Asheleigh Folsom for working on this. 

Want to Learn More?

Each month, the subgroup shares helpful, fun, interesting things they’ve come across that relates to our work. This can be anything from a webinar to a blog post. This month, check out “Critcatenate” from the Cataloging Lab! July 1 critcatenate.

Our meetings are open to the public and we welcome anyone who's interested in hearing more! Keep a lookout for our invitation to our next session on August 23rd on the “E-Resource” or “Metadata” Basecamp. Hope to see you there!

- Alisha Strother

Metadata Librarian

Howard University, Founders Library

Disaster Training at GW

On July 12th, George Washington University hosted Disaster Preparedness Training for 25 staff from the WRLC community. The all-day class was led by Rebecca Kennedy, founder of Curae Collections Care and a preservationist with nearly 20 years of experience. The training included initial response and damage assessment: how to assess the scene, stabilize, and control the incident. This included how to organize the staff for salvages and evacuations as well as learning how incident command systems work and how hierarchies can work depending on the situation. The class also covered when and how to salvage, including all the documentation and tracking that should be done before trying to triage the materials. Finally, those in the class got hands-on experience doing salvage and triage with a variety of water-soaked (discarded) materials that were supplied by our attendees.

Report from the WRLC Metadata Committee Retreat 2023

On August 1st, WRLC Metadata Committee had its first retreat at GW Gelman Library. Organized by Matthew Bright (GW) and Yoko Ferguson (UDC), the unconference style retreat began with an icebreaker where the participants shared interesting stories about the coolest/weirdest/most challenging item they’ve ever cataloged. The group then identified themes and topics for the day by placing sticky-notes on the white boards under three categories: “What is working well”, “What could we be doing better”, and “What questions do you have”. 

For “What is working well”, several noted about the Metadata Committee and its effective collaborative work, as well as its use of Basecamp, reparative cataloging work, and training sessions offered last year. Also recognized and thanked was Jackie Saavedra (WRLC)’s continued help and expertise with Alma at the institutional and consortium level. 

For “What could we be doing better”, many expressed an interest in getting input and representations from all Institutional Zone libraries, sharing workflows and expertise across the consortium, bridging the gap between Metadata and Primo, and providing better onboarding process to the WRLC committees.

As for “What questions do you have”, the group raised and discussed a wide range of questions, including local staffing and projects, digital repositories and ETDs, eResource management, and consortium subscriptions to cataloging tools and services.

The fruitful retreat concluded with a group photo and a list of several action items for the Metadata Committee.

--Yoko Ferguson, Metadata and Cataloging Librarian (UDC)

From top left to right: Linda Wen (AU-Law), Alayne Mundt (AU), David Heilbrun (GM), Jackie Saavedra (WRLC), Robert Bratton (GW-Law), Chelly Tavss (GU), Peter Goodman (CU), Laura Khouvongsavanh (MU), Matthew Bright (GW); Sara Hoover (GW-HS), Yoko Ferguson (UDC), Alyssa Koclanes (GT-Law)

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

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

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June 05, 2023

The Annual Meeting took place on Tuesday, May 23rd at 10:00 AM with two featured presentations: “Publishing and Creating OER Courseware” and “Access Solutions and Primo VE Features Lightning Round.”

This was followed by a virtual lunch from 12:00 Noon to 12:45 PM that featured a “Meet the New Director” session with WRLC’s new Executive Director, Kim Armstrong.

The day Concluded with the keynote presentation “The Colors of Disinformation: Information Disorder and the Literacy Landscape” by Dr. Nichole A. Cooke from the University of South Carolina.

Day 2 consisted of a multitude of concurrent sessions highlighting presentations by your colleagues from throughout the Consortium.

Recordings of all events are available here: https://libraries.wrlc.org/2023-wrlc-annual-meeting/agenda and on YouTube.

The Textbook Affordability Workgroup (TAWG) would like to formally announce the inaugural Open@WRLC Faculty Course Transformation Grant awardees! 

The $2,000 Faculty Course Transformation Grant pilot program, launched January 31, 2023, is a 2-year pilot program developed by the WRLC Textbook Affordability Working Group to fulfill the WRLC’s Sharing Expertise Initiative to “Identify and/or create faculty grant opportunities to support adoption of no-cost or low-cost materials for courses offered by the WRLC partners.”

Using no-cost or low-cost materials advances educational equity and directly impacts student retention and academic success. The grant program is designed to promote a community of Open Educational Resource (OER) advocates among partnering institutions, create incentive to add to the availability of open course materials, and provide monetary support to acknowledge the time and effort required for curriculum redesign when adopting OER. 

Selected faculty members and courses represent a wide variety of disciplines, and open education resources, from across the partnering WRLC institutions. The first cycle of the pilot program estimates $124,018.00 in student textbook savings for the 2023- 24 academic year.  

Please join us in congratulating the newly awarded OER faculty advocates at your institution!

Click here to view the list of recipients.

The Alma/Primo Advisory Committee's (APAC) May Idea of the Month recommendation seeks to improve the handling of user record purge dates.

Currently, when user information is manually entered or updated in Alma, the purge date for the record is handled independently from the expiration date. This makes it possible for an account to have a purge date that is earlier than the expiration date, which makes no logical sense and can cause problems when trying to run patron purges.

This Idea Exchange post asks for the ability to have purge dates automatically update based on the expiration date when a record is saved. This would remove the potential for staff error when modifying accounts and make it easier for institutions to run patron purge processes.

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) will highlight 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

Each month, members of the Reparative Cataloging Subgroup take turns sharing news related to reparative cataloging and recent updates to the Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSHs).

Guide for creating subject headings for Indigenous peoples and topics became available 

Submitting subject headings proposals to the Library of Congress can be time-consuming and complicated. A manual titled, Creating subject headings for Indigenous topics : a culturally respectful guide was developed by a group of librarians to assist the creation of successful subject headings proposals for Indigenous peoples and topics.

New problematic headings were established 

From the Library of Congress Subject Heading Approved Monthly Lists, the following “problematic” headings were established or revised in May 2023:

• Sexual minorities in comics

• Sexual minorities in literature 

• Sexual minorities in the theater

• Sexual minority activists

The authorized heading, “Sexual minorities” is one of the many problematic headings listed on Cataloging Lab’s Problem LCSH list. It “does not reflect predominant usage of how LGBTQ people are referred to" or how they would refer to themselves. However, as seen on the recent approved list, the Library of Congress continues to assign variant headings, “Sexual minorities” and “Sexual minority” to describe LGBTQ+ people.

What's also troubling is that all reference sources that are supposed to justify the heading, “Sexual minority activists’ are using terms, "LGBTQ+ activists", "LGBTQ rights activist", "LGBT rights activists", and not even one source uses the term, "sexual minorities". Furthermore, one of the sources even includes the recent Google Search results, which prove "sexual minority activists" is not a term commonly used. And yet, the Library of Congress decided to establish a new LCSH, “Sexual minority activists”.

We have a long way to go. 

WRLC Reparative Cataloging Subgroup is committed to repairing these problematic headings in our shared catalog by evaluating and suggesting replacement or alternative headings. 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 in June!

Yoko Ferguson

Cataloging and Metadata Librarian, UDC
On behalf of the Reparative Cataloging Subgroup

The Innovative Library Classroom

6/2/2023, 9:00 AM

William & Mary, Williamsburg, VA

Meghan Kowalski and Catherine Meals (UDC) will be presenting a session that will share initial findings and implications for practice for instruction librarians from our qualitative study on writing composition faculty members’ approaches to designing research assignments for and experiences teaching research to their students. It will discuss faculty members’ understanding of the meaning and goals of student research, the knowledge they most prioritize for students, their pedagogical approaches to teaching research, and the structural challenges that affect their teaching.

Note: This event took place prior to the release of the June Newsletter, but we want to be sure to recognize the work of WRLC Library staff like Meghan and Cathy for their contributions to the library community and profession.

Conference on Academic Library Management (CALM)

6/6/2023, 12:00 PM

“Amplifying Others: How to Promote the People on Your Team”

Presented by Meghan Kowalski, UDC

Libraries do amazing things and the people in an organization are what make that happen. Library professionals often talk about their organizations but rarely promote themselves. This not only hurts individual growth, it stagnates an organization by siloing skill sets. In this session, Kowalski will discuss how to amplify the people on your team. She will help attendees discover the strengths of those they work with, share ways to promote their team’s work, and discuss ways to help staff overcome common hurdles like self-doubt and imposter syndrome. She will also highlight why promoting others is beneficial to an organization and an individual. Attendees will take away actionable steps to help them promote their staff member’s skills and projects inside and outside of libraries. (THIS SESSION WILL BE RECORDED AND SHARED ON YOUTUBE.)

https://www.conferenceonacademiclibrarymanagement.com/

• Resource Sharing Supervisor - Georgetown University

• Reference and Instruction Librarian - Himmelfarb Health Sciences Library

• Serials Librarian - Himmelfarb Health Sciences Library

• Course Reserves Coordinator - American University

• Instruction & Online Learning Librarian (Instruction Team Coordinator) - Marymount University

• Media Services Coordinator - American University

• Access and Education Librarian, Department Head - Marymount University

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May 24, 2023

The Annual Meeting Day 2 kicks off at 9:00 AM!

Join us for a day of concurrent sessions, highlighting presentations by your colleagues from throughout the Consortium.

Below are Zoom links for all events:

Wednesday, May 24th

Concurrent Sessions

All events will be recorded and made available

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May 22, 2023

The Annual Meeting will kick off tomorrow, Tuesday, May 23rd at 10:00 AM with two featured presentations: “Publishing and Creating OER Courseware” and “Access Solutions and Primo VE Features Lightning Round.”

This will be followed by a virtual lunch from 12:00 Noon to 12:45 PM that will feature a “Meet the New Director” session where you will have a chance to say hello and hear from WRLC’s new Executive Director, Kim Armstrong.

Join us for the 90 minute keynote beginning at 1:00 PM. “The Colors of Disinformation: Information Disorder and the Literacy Landscape” presented by Dr. Nichole A. Cooke from the University of South Carolina.

Concurrent sessions, highlighting presentations by your colleagues from throughout the Consortium, will take place on Wednesday, May 24th.

Below are Zoom links for all events:

Tuesday, May 23rd

Wednesday, May 24th

Concurrent Sessions

All events will be recorded and made available

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May 08, 2023

Tuesday, May 23rd - 24th, 2023

The Annual Meeting will kick off on Tuesday, May 23rd at 10:00 AM with two featured presentations: “Publishing and Creating OER Courseware” and “Access Solutions and Primo VE Features Lightning Round.”

This will be followed by a virtual lunch from 12:00 Noon to 12:45 PM that will feature a “Meet the New Director” session where you will have a chance to say hello and hear from WRLC’s new Executive Director, Kim Armstrong.

Join us for the 90 minute keynote beginning at 1:00 PM. “The Colors of Disinformation: Information Disorder and the Literacy Landscape” presented by Dr. Nichole A. Cooke from the University of South Carolina.

Concurrent sessions, highlighting presentations by your colleagues from throughout the Consortium, will take place Wednesday, May 24.

Check out the full agenda, learn about the Keynote presentation, and pick your preferred Concurrent Sessions.

This MayDay, the Society of American Archivists and the Foundation for Advancement in Conservation are urging cultural heritage institutions to do one thing for emergency preparedness. WRLC’s Preservation Advisory Committee (PAC) is pleased to announce that the disaster plan (dPlan) for the Shared Collections Facility (SCF) is currently being updated after a few years hiatus and welcoming new committee members.

PAC has long worked with WRLC to maintain a disaster preparedness plan for the SCF. In 2022 the dPlan platform underwent a major upgrade and combined the old product with another online preparedness tool. This spring, PAC began updating the plan in the new platform. Sections include things like risk assessments, collection summaries, contact lists, vendors and suppliers, instructions for types of disasters, and building information. We will share it with everyone once it is completed!

Rebecca Kennedy of Curae Collections Care will lead an in person disaster preparedness and emergency response training to PAC members and invited colleagues this July at George Washington University.

The trainings will include content rich lectures and scenario-based learning exercises (both

tabletop and hands-on). The training will be customized based on the Consortium’s areas of

interest and relevant collection types.

The topics covered during the training should enhance the participants skills for assessing,

preparing, and responding during complex emergencies relevant to all Consortium members’ collections and risk. Participants should feel fully involved in the preparedness and response of their own collections.

April 30-May 6th is Preservation Week! This year’s theme is building resilient communities. Preservation Week is an annual event meant to inspire action to preserve your collections. Focusing on preservation for a designated week every year raises awareness of the role libraries and other cultural institutions play in preservation, by sharing information to help make informed decisions that help your collections last for the future. There are tons of free trainings, webinars, and leaflets available to learn more!

• https://preservationweek.org/free-webinars/

• https://www.loc.gov/preservation/outreach/presweek/index_presweek.html

• https://www.nedcc.org/free-resources/overview

Did you know that WRLC has a committee dedicated to preservation?

WRLC’s Preservation Advisory Committee is a longstanding group of library professionals whose work touches on preservation and conservation, most of us work in preservation units or archives and special collections. Our purpose is to propose policies and develop procedures to ensure the preservation and conservation of materials in all formats, including but not limited to printed text, audio-visual recordings, and digital files held within the WRLC central facility as well as in the individual member libraries that comprise the WRLC.

This year we have continued our environmental monitoring of the SCF, are planning a disaster preparedness training for select individuals, participated in Preservation Week, and have updated the disaster preparedness plan for the SCF. 

PAC has welcomed many new members this year. Feel free to reach out to your PAC representative or the PAC committee if you have preservation concerns!

• Leslie Nellis, Head Archivist for Special Collections and Digital Initiatives, AU - chair

• Kevin Gunn, Coordinator of Digital Scholarship, CU

• Chris Anglim, Archivist, DC

• James McCarthy, Director, Gallaudet University Archives, GA

• Amy Sullivan, Preservation Librarian, GM

• Vani Murthy, Department Head, Technical Services, GT

• Jay Sylvestre, Rare Books Curator, GT

• Brigette Kamsler, University Archivist, GW

• Christina Vortia, Rare Books Librarian, HU

• Mason Yang, Electronic Services Librarian, MU

• Aaron Krebeck, Interim Executive Director and Director of Library & User Services, WRLC

PAC was charged with gathering a year’s worth of environmental data (temperature, relative humidity, and seasonal changes) in the WRLC SCF as a pilot project. PAC members deployed four PEM2 monitors; one monitor in shelf locations within each of the three collections modules and one monitor within the collections ingest area. This analysis was expected to help eliminate assumptions about collections environments in the SCF and assist WRLC central and consortium leadership with making data-driven decisions about the current usage of and planning for future needs re: HVAC; especially as more consortium libraries rely on the SCF to maintain rare, archival, medium rare, and other cultural heritage collections. Over the past year, WRLC has implemented the conserv system. PAC members received training from a conserv staff person last year.

Pilot findings: Module 1 has a lower TWPI, due to its higher and less stable overall relative humidity. The overall time-weighted preservation index (TWPI) drops noticeably in Module 3 due to fluctuations in RH over the summer months.

Further reading about environmental monitoring:

• Fundamentals of Preservation Metrics 

• The Evolution of New Standards—Defining an Optimal & Sustainable Preservation Environment in the 21st Century

• Understand the Risks & Benefits of Your Storage Environment

• Best Practices for Collecting and Analyzing Environmental Data

Reparative Cataloging Updates

Reparative Work Around the Profession: The Prejudicial Materials Working Group of Rare Books and Manuscripts Section’s Controlled Vocabularies Editorial Group wants feedback on approximately 50 proposed new and revised terms for the RBMS Controlled Vocabulary for Rare Materials Cataloging. Suggestions/feedback can be submitted via this form, 4/17-5/26/2023. They will be hosting a 90 min public forum on the history of the project and an overview of the proposed terms on 5/10/23 at 3 pm EST via Zoom. More info and link to be sent out later.

ASERL Sponsored Professional Development Activities

ASERL offers a wide variety of webinars at no cost for members and other interested professionals. Follow the linked program title for full details and to register for an event.  

NOTE:  ASERL’s Code of Conduct is in effect for all webinar participants. See http://www.aserl.org/aserl_code_of_conduct/.  ASERL webinars are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

• Course Reserves Coordinator - American University

• Instruction & Online Learning Librarian (Instruction Team Coordinator) - Marymount University

• Media Services Coordinator - American University

• Access and Education Librarian, Department Head - Marymount University

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April 24, 2023

One Last Chance to Submit your Concurrent Sessions Proposal!

You have more last week to share your ideas and your expertise with your colleagues in the WRLC community! The Annual Meeting concurrent sessions are designed to provide you or a group of your Consortium colleagues an opportunity to share what you know with others in the Consortium. Each concurrent session lasts 45 minutes. Proposals that incorporate interaction, discussion, and creativity are encouraged.

Submit your Annual Meeting concurrent session proposal by Friday, Apr 28, 2023

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April 18, 2023

Tuesday, May 23rd - 24th, 2023

Share your ideas and your expertise with your colleagues in the WRLC community! The Annual Meeting concurrent sessions are designed to provide you or a group of your Consortium colleagues an opportunity to share what you know with others in the Consortium. Each concurrent session lasts 45 minutes. Proposals that incorporate interaction, discussion, and creativity are encouraged.

Submit your Annual Meeting concurrent session proposal by Friday, Apr 21, 2023

Improving Physical Item Editor management

The Alma/Primo Advisory Committee's (APAC) April Idea of the Month is a BOGO! It features two ideas which can improve working with the physical item editor. Those two items are below:

1. Enable all tabs and fields to be editable without clicking on 'save and edit' button – Currently after you click on 'Add item' and being navigated to the 'Physical Item Editor' form, not all the fields and tabs (General, ENUM/CHRON, Notes, and History) are enabled for editing, the barcode no. is not populated automatically, and the dropdown list of process type is disabled as well. Only after clicking on 'save and edit' button, the complete form, including the tabs are enabled for editing. Therefore, each time you need to add an item, you have to go through 2 phases: 1) fill a limited number of fields and click on 'save and edit' 2) edit more fields, choose process type, and add public/internal notes (if needed) and click on 'save'. This workflow is extremely long and if all tabs and fields were enabled for editing in one flow, it would make the whole process faster, easier and prevent users from making mistakes, in cases where they forgot to fill some fields.

   
   

2. Add 'Save as Default' button – Cataloguers who most of the time handle the same material type or fill/choose the same content for several fields (including process type) and, etc. would be glad if there was an option to save the content of number of fields as a default, so they don't have to fill them for each item. I'm aware there's already an idea to add templates to handle this, but I believe this will extend the workflow, because when the cataloguer wants to add an item, first he'll be directed to a screen where he has to choose to load from a template (same as it works with POL's templates) and only then he can fill out any missing data in the form, such as receiving date, enumerations, description, and etc. Hence, the 'Save as Default' button will solve this long workflow and save precious time, so if the user would like to save fields with content and update them from time to time (similar to how it worked in Aleph), he can do it easily and quickly.

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) will highlight 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.

- Aaron Krebeck (WRLC)

On behalf of the Alma/Primo Advisory Committee

In years past, WRLC had registered our consortia’s shared print retention commitments in OCLC for items marked as Permanent, as well as for our shared print periodicals. This retention statement is visible in OCLC’s FirstSearch and Worldshare Record Manager; the statements allow WRLC to advertise our obligation to retain a particular title.

Now in addition to our periodicals and Permanent items, we have registered all WRLC items marked as Retention for our participating institutions (American University, Catholic University of America, Gallaudet University, Georgetown University, George Washington University, Howard University, Marymount University, and the University of the District of Columbia). A little less than 3 million WRLC shared print commitments are now visible in various OCLC platforms.

-Jackie Saavedra (WRLC)

Reparative Cataloging Updates

This past month the preferred term correction job in Alma made three changes:

• Headings with “Slaves” has now changed to “Enslaved persons”; examples “Slaves’ writings” is now “Enslaved persons’ writings” and “Women slaves” is now “Enslaved women”.

• “Albinos” and “Albinism” has been updated to either “People with albinism” or “Albinism”

• “Giants” changed to either “Giants (Folklore)” or “Tall people”

You may continue to see non-preferred headings as the preferred term correction may not have corrected every instance. If you see other headings you feel should be updated, changed, or that the WRLC catalog is lacking, please submit the heading via the Reparative description heading reporting form.

Highlights of reparative work around the profession of possible:

• CORE IG week was held the week of March 6, 2023. All recordings are available to all on-demand. Interest groups that had sessions of possible interest:

• Cataloging & Classification research (slides | recording)

• Metadata (slides | recording)

• Role of the professional librarian in tech services (recording)

• Instructional technologies (slides | recording)

• Cataloging norms (slides | recording)

• ITAL (Information Technology and Libraries) v. 42, no. 1 (2023)

• Avgousti, A., & Papaioannou, G. (2023). The Current State and Challenges in Democratizing Small Museums’ Collections Online. Information Technology and Libraries, 42(1). https://doi.org/10.6017/ital.v42i1.14099

• Park, H., & Kim, H. (2023). Japanese Military “Comfort Women” Knowledge Graph. Information Technology and Libraries, 42(1). https://doi.org/10.6017/ital.v42i1.15799

• Critcatenate does a monthly round up of blog posts, articles, and webinars.

• OCLC’s blog “Hanging Together” has a monthly segment, Advancing IDEAs, which covers topics and links out to additional resources.

The Reparative Cataloging Subgroup holds open meetings the last Wednesday of every month. Meeting announcements are made on the Metadata Committee Basecamp, but all are welcome to attend. For more information, contact chair Jen Froetschel at jfroetschel@gwu.edu.

ASERL Sponsored Professional Development Activities

ASERL offers a wide variety of webinars at no cost for members and other interested professionals. Follow the linked program title for full details and to register for an event.  

NOTE:  ASERL’s Code of Conduct is in effect for all webinar participants. See http://www.aserl.org/aserl_code_of_conduct/.  ASERL webinars are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

• Equipment Coordinator and Access Services Specialist - Georgetown University

• Associate University Librarian for Learning, Research, & Engagement - George Mason University

• Course Reserves Coordinator - American University

• Instruction & Online Learning Librarian (Instruction Team Coordinator) - Marymount University

• Media Services Coordinator - American University

• Access and Education Librarian, Department Head - Marymount University

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April 11, 2023

Concurrent Sessions Call for Proposals

Share your ideas and your expertise with your colleagues in the WRLC community! The Annual Meeting concurrent sessions are designed to provide you or a group of your Consortium colleagues an opportunity to share what you know with others in the Consortium. Each concurrent session lasts 45 minutes. Proposals that incorporate interaction, discussion, and creativity are encouraged.

Submit your Annual Meeting concurrent session proposal by Friday, Apr 21, 2023

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The Open@WRLC $2,000 Faculty Grant Transformation due date has been extended to Thursday, April 6th. The grant is available to all faculty affiliated with WRLC's partnering institutions.

Mandatory attendance, to a live informational webinar, is no longer required to participate in either the $2,000 Faculty OER Course Transformation Grant or the $200 Open Textbook Library Review Stipend. Interested applicants are welcome to review a past recording and contact their university's Textbook Affordability Working Group (TAWG) representative if they have any questions:

Open@WRLC Workshop Recording: $2,000 Faculty Course Transformation Grant + $200 Open Textbook Library Review Stipend

More information can be found here: $2,000 Faculty Course Transformation Grant. Please share widely with your department and any fellow colleagues you think may be interested.