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Category: Metadata and Collections

Summary, April 2021 Core e-Forum, “Community of Practice (CoP): Supporting Cross-Sector Work”

In the April Core E-Forum, participants were asked to discuss Communities of Practice (CoP), consider how a CoP could/should function, and how it might be useful to apply at organizations with distributed personnel. While many participants had little experience with CoPs prior to the e-forum, a wide variety of aspects of CoPs were discussed, including membership, organizational structure, and motivation for forming a CoP. These discussions also identified key areas for continued investigation, including how CoPs differ from other working or interest groups, the decision-making power of CoPs, and the balance between formality and flexibility in creating and sustaining the community. In discussing CoP membership, e-forum participants agreed that enthusiastic support is essential to ensure the long-term success of the community. Some participants observed that engagement suffers when members are inactive or roles are unclear; similarly, respondents also noted that simply providing a shared time, location, and topic of shared…Continue Reading

Save the Date: 2021 Core Forum

Core Forum provides an opportunity to reconnect with colleagues and make new connections while celebrating the interconnected library work Core members share. Registration opens in June. Forum features a welcome reception, 2 days of thought-provoking presentations, keynote presentations, tabletop exhibits, dine-arounds, a game night and poster sessions. Additionally, there will be an unconference space where informal discussions can happen throughout the event, including ad hoc, birds of a feather discussions. Sign up to receive announcements via email. Interested in leading or contributing to a session? We’re looking for presentations on hot topics and innovative content in the following areas: Access and equity Assessment Buildings and operations Leadership and management Metadata and collections Technology Watch for a Call for Proposals announcement this month. Become a sponsor: Opportunities include sponsoring the welcome reception, being the hero organization that provides coffee and tea during breaks, and hosting tabletop exhibits. Stay tuned for the…Continue Reading

Celebrate Preservation Week 2021 with free webinars from Core

On Tuesday, April 27 and Wednesday, April 28, join Core: Leadership, Infrastructure, Futures for two free Preservation Week 2021 webinars. With the theme “Preserving Community Archives,” Preservation Week 2021 will be celebrated April 25-May 1, 2021, and libraries, institutions, archives, and museums from across the country are invited to promote this year’s Preservation Week through Preservation Week event tools and the hashtag #preswk, as well as host free Preservation Week webinars to engage with their communities and discuss their preservation programs and services.  “Collecting and Preserving after Tragedy” will be held on Tuesday, April 27. This webinar will explore the Orange County Regional History Center’s rapid response collecting initiative to preserve items collected after the 2016 Pulse Nightclub shooting in Orlando, FL. Serving as an introductory to rapid response collecting, the webinar will also examine how the museum collected at memorial sites and inside the club, especially concerning the stabilization and preservation of items that underwent heavy exposure to the…Continue Reading

Creating Crossref DOIs for an IR Collection: Converting a Spreadsheet to XML Using OpenRefine

This article is from our guest blog contributor, Julia A. Lovett, Associate Professor, Digital Initiatives Librarian, University of Rhode Island Libraries This post has two purposes: firstly, to show how you can use Open Refine to easily edit a spreadsheet and transform data from Excel (tab-delimited) format to XML; secondly, and more specifically, to show how I used this method to add Crossref DOIs to an IR (institutional repository) collection. In this case, the IR platform is Digital Commons and the collection is dissertations and theses. For some background, after the University of Rhode Island Libraries joined Crossref, I wanted to create new DOIs for our ETD (electronic theses and dissertations) collections on the IR, DigitalCommons@URI. I was familiar with creating DOI’s one by one using the Crossref web deposit form, where you can enter your new DOI along with its associated metadata and URL. But with thousands of ETD’s,…Continue Reading

Check out the Latest Resources on Handling Library Materials and Collections During a Pandemic

Core’s Preservation Outreach Committee has updated its resource page on Handling Library Materials and Collections During a Pandemic, with an emphasis on including resources that will be regularly updated and speak directly to COVID-19 research and guidance as it impacts handling library collections. Initially published in March 2020, this resource page was created early in the pandemic when most available resources were based on general flu and pandemic research. It also included articles published by library and cultural heritage organizations as well as initial CDC recommendations. Now, more than a year after the start of the pandemic, a great deal of research has been conducted on SARS-CoV-2 and its impact on safely handling collections, and the Preservation Outreach Committee’s guidance has changed to reflect this. The new guidance highlights the essential research of the REALM Project (Reopening Archives Libraries and Museums), a joint project from the Institute of Museum and…Continue Reading

Learn with Core in March

Learn new skills to enhance your career in March with continuing education events from Core. Reserve your spot and register now. Continuing Education Opportunities & Discussions Fundamentals of Collection Development and Management (FCDM)March 1 – March 26 (six-week online course) Fundamentals of Collection Assessment (FCA) March 1 – April 9 (six-week online course) Transformational Change: a Newly Hybrid Workforce (60-minute webinar)Presenters: Nancy Cunningham, Ray Henry, Geinfer Snipes, Rayne Veiger Tuesday, March 2, 2021 1:00 – 2:00pm CT Planning Batch Cataloging Projects (60-minute webinar)Presenter: Rebecca B. FrenchWednesday, March 3, 2021 1:00 – 2:00pm CT Changes in Library Organization (free two-day e-Forum discussion)Moderators: Susan Martin and David SchusterMarch 2-3, 2021 Fundamentals of Preservation (FOP)March 8 – April 2 (six-week online course) Using Your Library’s Virtual Presence to Reach Users with Disabilities (60-minute webinar)Presenter: Renee GrassiTuesday, March 9, 2021 1:00 – 2:00pm CT Accessibility & Inclusive Design to Enable Success (60-minute webinar)Presenter: Jacqueline FrankWednesday,…Continue Reading

Core Call for Metadata and Collections Section Volunteers

Are you interested in volunteering with the Core Metadata and Collections Section? New committees are forming now! Log in to the ALA website to see the Core Committee Volunteer Form. To learn more about the work of the Metadata and Collections Section and its committees, see the Section homepage. You can also join the Section’s ALA Connect Community via the homepage. Section leaders will begin making appointments now for terms ending both this year and next, so you do not need to make the usual 2-year commitment in order to check out one of our new committees. And if you’re interested in volunteering with a different Core Section, please continue to check the Core Sections page on our website. New Section committees are coming online every day as we continue to ramp up ALA’s newest division. If you have questions, please contact the Core staff at core@ala.org.

Learn How to Develop the Best Survey Tips from Consultations with this Core Webinar on February 9

Join us on Tuesday, February 9, 2021 at 1 pm CT for our upcoming webinar, “Developing the Best Survey Tips from Consultations.” This webinar will provide the necessary tools to successfully assess the needs of your library patrons.  Surveys are popular assessment tools to understand users’ needs and perceptions because they are easy and quick to use. In spite of the convenience and popularity, it is hard to have a well-designed survey. In this webinar, presenter Jung Mi Scoulas, the Assessment Coordinator of the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) Library will share her experiences and lessons learned from consultations over the years, as well as practical tips: When and how to use surveys (e.g., using surveys to demonstrate the library’s impact on students’ academic success) Survey flow (e.g., where to add demographic questions; the order of questions) and length Response options (e.g., yes/no or Likert Scale) Rules and policies…Continue Reading

New York Times’s 1619 Project creator Nikole Hannah-Jones to serve as 2021 Preservation Week® Honorary Chair

Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter and New York Times Magazine journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones has been appointed as the honorary chair of Preservation Week 2021, celebrated April 25-May 1, 2021. As the creator of The New York Times’s landmark 1619 Project, Hannah-Jones examines slavery’s modern legacy, reframing the way we understand the history of slavery and the contributions made by Black Americans to this nation. Her essay, “Our Democracy’s founding ideals were false when they were written. Black Americans have fought to make them true,” was awarded the 2020 Pulitzer Prize. In addition to developing the 1619 Project, Hannah-Jones has written extensively about school resegregation across the country and examined the decades-long failure of the federal government to enforce the landmark 1968 Fair Housing Act. In 2016, Nikole Hannah-Jones co-founded the Ida B. Wells Society for Investigative Reporting, a training and mentorship organization dedicated to increasing the ranks of investigative reporters of…Continue Reading

Learn with Core in February

Learn new skills to enhance your career in February with continuing education offerings from Core. Reserve your spot and register now. Continuing Education Opportunities Virtual Interest Group WeekFebruary 1-5, 2021View program schedule for session dates and times.*Registration is free for program sessions during Interest Group Week. Fundamentals of Acquisitions (FOA) February 8 – March 19, 2021 (six week online course)1:00 – 2:00pm CT Fundamentals of Metadata (FOM)February 8 – March 19, 2021 (six week online course)1:00 – 2:00pm CT Developing the Best Survey Tips from Consultations Presenter: Jung Mi ScoulasTuesday, February 9, 2021 (rescheduled from Feb. 3)1:00 – 2:00pm CT Assessing and (Re)Writing Operational PoliciesPresenter: John SandstromWednesday, February 10, 20211:00 – 2:00pm CT The First 90 Days: A New Manager Crash CoursePresenter: Julia DavisWednesday, February 17, 20211:00 – 2:00pm CT Fundamentals of Electronic Resources Acquisitions (FERA) February 22 – March 19 (six week online course)1:00 – 2:00pm CT Designing for Human BehaviorPresenter: Joe…Continue Reading