Library Technical Services: Adapting to a Changing Environment

by Stacey Marien (Editor)

Overview

Libraries are experiencing major changes concerning the role of technical services. Technical services librarians also are being challenged about their relevance and role, sometimes revealed by a lack of understanding of the contribution technical services librarians make to building and curating library and archival collections. The threats are real: relocation from central facilities, the dramatic shift to electronic resources, budgetary constraints, and outsourced processing. As a result, technical services departments are reinventing themselves to respond to these and similar challenges while embracing innovative methods and opportunities to advance librarianship in the twenty-first century.

Library Technical Services provides case studies that highlight difficult realities, yet embrace exciting opportunities, such as space reclamation, evolving vendor partnerships, metadata, retraining and managing personnel, special collections, and distance education. Written for catalog and metadata librarians and managers of technical services units, this book will inspire and provide practical advice and examples for solving issues many libraries are facing today.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781557538420
Publisher:	Purdue University Press
Publication date:	08/15/2020
Series:	Charleston Insights in Library, Archival, and Information Sciences
Pages:	494
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Stacey Marien is the head of acquisitions at American University in Washington, DC. She received her MSLS from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She cowrites a column called Let’s Get Technical for Against the Grain. She has been the acquisitions librarian at American University for over ten years; before that she was the business librarian at American University as well as Elon College (now University). She has been published in several library-related journals and magazines, including Against the Grain, Choice, Reference and User Services Quarterly, and The Bottom Line.

Table of Contents

Preface
INTRODUCTION: The Challenges Facing Library Technical Services: A Dialogue, by Rebecca Ciota and R. Cecilia Knight
CHALLENGE ONE: The Evolution of Library Cataloging and Metadata
CHAPTER 1: From Records to Data: The New Purposes of Cataloging, by Kara D. Long
CHAPTER 2: Measuring Metadata Quality: A User Research Approach, by Erin Elzi and Kevin Clair
CHAPTER 3: Technical Services Advocacy: Partnerships in the Library and Beyond, by Bridget Euliano, Peggy Griesinger, Kimberley A. Edwards, and Tricia Mackenzie
CHAPTER 4: A Road Taken: A Cataloging Team Becomes a Metadata Team, by Scott M. Dutkiewicz and Jessica L. Serrao
CHALLENGE TWO: Improving Collection Evaluation and Management
CHAPTER 5: Assessing the Work of Technical Services Through an In-Depth Analysis of Physical Resource Usage, by Laura Kirkland
CHAPTER 6: Building Better Collections Through Relationships: Sharing Expertise During Collection Downsizing, by Mary C. Aagard, Nancy Rosenheim, Marlena Hooyboer, and Cheri A. Folkner
CHAPTER 7: Bound for the Stacks: Strategic Rightsizing and Classification of Print Journals Collections, by Emily A. Hicks and Fred W. Jenkins
CHAPTER 8: Space Reclamation: The Cataloging Department’s Role in Weeding Projects, by Muriel D. Nero and Jia He
CHAPTER 9: Relocating, Downsizing, and Merging: Inventory Projects to Manage Change in a Digital Environment, by Gail Perkins Barton and Rachel Elizabeth Scott
CHALLENGE THREE: Rethinking Library Space Usage
CHAPTER 10: For Efficiency’s Sake: Consolidating Workflows, Managing Change, and Positioning Ourselves for the Future, by Mary S. Laskowski and Jennifer A. Maddox Abbott
CHAPTER 11: A Framework for Addressing the Psychological Aspects of Relocating Technical Services Off-Site, by Christine Korytnyk Dulaney
CHAPTER 12: Building an Infrastructure: Integrating Access and Technical Services for Improved Service Quality Utilizing a Supply Chain Model, by
Karen Glover, Elizabeth Winter, and Emy Nelson Decker
CHALLENGE FOUR: Staffing Technical Services
CHAPTER 13: Diversity, Inclusion, and Social Justice in Library Technical Services, by Rhonda Y. Kauffman and Martina S. Anderson
CHAPTER 14: Creative Solutions to Technical Services Staffing Challenges in an Academic Library, by Meghan Banach Bergin and Sally Krash
CHAPTER 15: Auraria Library: One Technical Services Department, Three Institutions, by Sommer Browning
CHAPTER 16: Redefining the Pie: Doing More With Less in Technical Services, by Monika Glowacka-Musial, Ellen Bosman, and John Sandstrom
CHAPTER 17: Crossing Conventional Lines: Innovative Staffing and Cross-Training in Technical Services, by Lisa Kallman Hopkins
CHAPTER 18: Challenging the Status Quo: Collaboration and Creativity in Small Academic Libraries, by Susanne Markgren
CHAPTER 19: Out From the Shadows: Transforming Technical Services During an Academic Library’s Reorganization, by Courtney McAllister
CHAPTER 20: Technical Metamorphosis by Design, by Maaike Oldemans and Jennifer Kronenbitter
CHAPTER 21: Responding to Evolutionary Workflow Challenges Through Staffing Adaptation: A Play in Five Acts, by Kimberly W. Stevens, Mary Bevis, Bethany Latham, and Jodi Poe
CHALLENGE FIVE: Government Documents Collections in a Digital Era
CHAPTER 22: Using CRDP to Manage Cataloging in a Federal Depository Library, by Edith K. Beckett
CHAPTER 23: Bridging Functions: Government Publications Librarians as Technical and Public Service Ambassadors, by McKinley Sielaff
CHALLENGE SIX: Adapting for the Future
CHAPTER 24: Facing Distance Education Challenges in the Library Through Collaboration Between Technical and Public Services Departments: A Case Study, by Katherine Hill and Samantha Harlow
CHAPTER 25: Evolving Ethos and Etiquette: Why and How We Altered Our Library-Vendor Relationships, by Laurel Sammonds Crawford and Allyson Rodriguez
CHAPTER 26: Adopting Agile: Workflow and Personnel Management in Technical Services at a Small Academic Library, by Paromita Biswas
Glossary
Bibliography
List of Contributors
Index

Editorial Reviews

"This is a valuable guide on the changing nature of technical services in libraries, detailing how libraries adapt services, positions, job descriptions, and personnel to accommodate the changing nature of information and the academic environment. Librarians interested in learning how other institutions have handled departmental moves, changes in organizational structure, and adjustments in job duties will find this a useful resource." —Christine L. Ferguson, Assistant Dean of Libraries and Director of Technical Services, Murray State University

From the Publisher

This is a valuable guide on the changing nature of technical services in libraries, detailing how libraries adapt services, positions, job descriptions, and personnel to accommodate the changing nature of information and the academic environment. Librarians interested in learning how other institutions have handled departmental moves, changes in organizational structure, and adjustments in job duties will find this a useful resource.”

Christine L. Ferguson