"Added Entries," Backstory - News and Notes from Cornell University Library Technical Services

Who's In, Who's Out: LTS Staff Changes in 2008

Judy Adams retired from Acquisitions Services after 25 years at CUL, all of them in LTS. She is enjoying crafts and projects as well as spending time with her husband and family.

David Banush, head of Cataloging Services in LTS since 2002 and editor of Backstory, announced his departure from CUL in December 2008. In February 2009, David will join Brown University Library as Associate University Librarian for Access Services. In that capacity, he’ll have administrative oversight for acquisitions, cataloging, interlibrary services, preservation, and stacks management, including the management of Brown’s library annex. David’s last day at Cornell will be January 30.

Gary Branch joined Database Management & Metadata Services in May as the Administrative Supervisor of the Batch Processing & Metadata Management Unit. Gary brings 18 years of LTS experience to his new role, including nearly two years as Administrative Supervisor of the Ordering Unit just prior to his transfer to DMMS, and a well-deserved reputation as a crack problem-solver. He continues to serve as leader of LTS Olin’s NetAdmin Team. Gary holds an Associate’s Degree in Accounting from TC3.

Adam Chandler rejoined LTS in October as the Database Management & E-Resources Librarian after a two-year stint as Coordinator of DLIT’s Service Design Group. Adam is known nationally for his work on information exchange and online usage standards and brings a wealth of systems and technical services experience back to LTS. In his new role, he will be active in a number of LTS- and CUL-wide initiatives, focusing especially on e-resources management. Adam holds an AB in Education from the University of Michigan and an MLIS from Louisiana State University.

Dianne Dietrich joined LTS in July as the division’s Research Data & Metadata Librarian. Dianne is responsible for providing consultation, assessment, and support services for all aspects of digital data curation. She works at the intersection of digital data, technology, and metadata for CUL. Dianne holds a BA in Mathematics from Wesleyan University and a Master of Science in Information from the University of Michigan.

Liz Muller rejoined Database Management & Metadata Services in January 2009 as the new Metadata Librarian after having held a number of short-term positions in LTS since 2005. Liz is responsible for providing metadata consultation, design, and development services across a wide array of academic disciplines. She also continues to play a role in rare books cataloging. Liz holds an AB in Cultural and Intellectual History from Princeton University, an MA in the History of Architecture and Urbanism from Cornell, and a recently minted MLIS from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Greg Nehler returned to the Copy Cataloging group after several years in Metadata Services. Greg is reporting to Lois Purcell and will continue to work on metadata project while also using his considerable language skills to work on copy cataloging.

Nancy Solla and Glen Wiley, along with Dianne Dietrich transferred to Database Management & Metadata Services in October. Joined by Liz Muller in January, they serve as DMMS’s metadata mavens. In addition to her continuing role in support of CUL’s metadata and website design work, Nancy is now an active contributor to the Batch Processing Unit’s automation initiatives. With the departure of Elaine Westbrooks, Glen has assumed a leadership role as LTS’s Chief Metadata Librarian and serves on the LTS Senior Management Team. Nancy earned her BA in Art History from Wells College. Glen holds a BFA in the History of Art and an MS in Library and Information Science from Syracuse.

Zoe Stewart-Marshall, Electronic Resources Librarian in the ERMS unit, left CUL in August 2008 to become Assistant Director of Library Systems, User Services Development at OhioLINK, a state-wide consortium of various kinds of libraries based in Columbus.

Joseph Thomas, the other Electronic Resources Librarian in ERMS, departed CUL in October to return to Eastern Carolina University in Greenville, NC.

Professionally Speaking

Here’s a sample of what CUL technical services staff have been writing, presenting, or doing in the broader world in 2008:

Jim Alberts serves as chair of the MARC Formats Subcommittee of the Music Library Association. With the Subcommittee’s help, Jim recently completed a recommendation on the treatment of certain bytes in OCLC workforms for scores and sound recordings, establishing best practices for music catalogers in North America. He also continues his appointment on the Committee on Cataloging: Description and Access Task Force on Internal and External Communication.

David Banush is currently serving as chair of the Program for Cooperative Cataloging (PCC), an international program based at the Library of Congress with over 300 participating institutions. In that capacity, he chaired the annual PCC Policy Committee meeting at LC in November and also held a day-long working meeting at OCLC headquarters in Dublin, OH, in December. His article with Jim LeBlanc, "Utility, Library Priorities, and Cataloging Policies," appeared in Library Collections, Acquisitions, and Technical Services 31:2 (2007), pp. 96-109.

Adam Chandler continues as co-chair of the National Information Standards Organization (NISO) Standardized Usage Statistics Harvesting Initiative (SUSHI), an initiative he co-founded in 2005. In early 2008, he was selected to serve on the NISO Knowledge Bases and Related Tools (KBART) Task Force and also appointed to a three year term on the COUNTER Executive Committee. Adam gave a number of presentations on SUSHI and COUNTER this past year: At the American Library Association Annual Conference in Anaheim; via a NISO Webinar (in conjunction with Hana Levay from the University of Washington Libraries); and at a workshop in New York City called “Usage Statistics: New Developments and Practical Applications," organized by the National Federation of Abstracting and Information Services (NFAIS) Committee on Usage Statistics. At the Charleston Conference last November, he participated in a panel called "Vendor Usage Reports: Are we all on the same page now?" and also moderated two panels, "OpenURL Linking: Crisis? What Crisis?” and another entitled "How Can Centralization of Author and IP Registries Reduce Workloads and Enhance Access to Scholarly Publications?"

Anna Korhonen continued her membership in two national committees: the ALA/ALCTS Acquisitions Section’s Research and Statistics Committee and the ALA/Government Documents Round Table’s Cataloging Committee.

Jim LeBlanc gave a presentation on Cornell’s locally developed LS Tools software at the RLG Programs Metadata Tools Forum at the Boston Public Library in May. In June, he delivered a paper entitled "The Ass Dreams of Shaun's Bottomless Heart: A Renascent Reading of Finnegans Wake 403-407" at the 21st International James Joyce Symposium in Tours, France. He also moderated a three-session Finnegans Wake reading group at the Tours Symposium.

With David Banush, Jim published an article on "Utility, Library Priorities, and Cataloging Policies," which appeared in Library Collections, Acquisitions, and Technical Services 31:2 (2007), pp. 96-109. Jim also saw the publication of two more co-authored articles in 2008. With Marty Kurth, he published "An Operational Model for Library Metadata Maintenance," in Library Resources & Technical Services 52:1 (2008), pp. 54-59; and with Russell Reising (a professor at the University of Toledo), he published an essay entitled "Within and Without: Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and Psychedelic Insight," which appears in the monograph "Sgt. Pepper" and the Beatles: It Was Forty Years Ago Today, edited by Olivier Julien (Aldershot, England: Ashgate, 2008), pp. 103-120. Finally, Jim's review of Joyce in Trieste: An Album of Risky Readings, edited by Sebastian Knowles, Geert Lernout, and John McCourt, appeared in the James Joyce Literary Supplement 21:2 (2007), pp. 7-8. .

Margaret Nichols chairs the Manuscripts Working Group of the RBMS Bibliographic Standards Committee, working on developing cataloging rules for individual manuscripts. Through June 2008, she also chaired the RBMS Budget and Development Committee and continues as a member. Margaret was also a member of the task force that developed the guidelines for core competencies for special collections professionals and most recently joined the OCLC Special Collections Task Force to suggest improvements to WorldCat Local.

Scott Wicks gave a presentation at the SALALM LIII Conference entitled “From Pie in the Sky to the Tech Services Table: Services Libraries Want from Their Libreros”, which presented the case to Latin American booksellers for offering new library services that have become commonplace with US and European vendors. At the ALA Midwinter meeting last January, Scott gave a talk called “It’s Like Déjà Vu All Over Again: Sustainable Workflows, Users Served”, which looked at trends and concerns associated with acquiring e-books.

From the Editor

This is my final issue as editor and writer for Backstory. For the past three years, I have enjoyed putting together the newsletter to share the often-untold stories of technical services staff, their accomplishments, and their ongoing projects. Many of us feel we work in the most interesting and challenging part of the library even if most users don’t know we exist

The future of Backstory is unclear, but I feel certain that LTS will continue to do interesting, innovative work for Cornell students and faculty long after this publication is forgotten. I hope readers will continue to appreciate the fine work of their technical services colleagues, with or without an online newsletter laden with bad puns for headlines.

--David Banush