Editorial
I recently returned from the ALA Annual Conference in San Francisco. My conference experience was a mix of informative programs that inspired me, required committee meetings (both as LRTS editor and as the head of Central Technical Services at Rutgers) where I heard important developments in technical services, and events such as “ALCTS 101” and the ALCTS awards ceremony. Attending a professional conference can be overwhelming, and it seems that all the programs of interest to me are at the same time as my main event, the LRTS editorial board meeting. Fortunately, the ALCTS News includes program reports plus reports from ALCTS committees and interest groups so that I can read about what I have missed. Being actively engaged in ALCTS is an important aspect of having a successful conference experience. My experience is more meaningful when I interact with others, share my expertise, and have immediate access to my professional colleagues.
My conference included organizing and moderating a well-attended program titled “Is Technical Services Dead?: Designing Our Future.” I was joined by a panel of experts (Amy K. Weiss, Julie Renee Moore, Elyssa Gould, and Erin Boyd) who discussed various issues related to the future of technical services. It was my first experience planning and organizing a program. I owe a debt of gratitude to the Program Committee and my panelists. Their hard work concluded in a successful program that I hope benefited those who made the trip to Moscone Convention Center that Sunday morning.
The ALA Annual Conference also marks changes in composition of the LRTS editorial board; some members conclude their terms and are recognized for their service, while new members join and are welcomed. I thank the following outgoing board members for their excellent reviewing skills and thoughtful input: Barry Brown, David Banush, Steven Carrico, Steven Knowlton, Anne Sleeman, and Lori Terrill. I also welcome Jennifer Bazeley, Sylvia Hall-Ellis, Carol Ou, Chelcie Rowell, and Mary Van Ulen, and look forward to working with them. Four board members have been reappointed for a second term and will serve until 2017: Karen E. K. Brown, Lisa German, Ginger Williams, and Oksana Zavalina. Everett Allgood, David Banush, Christopher Cronin, Nadine Ellero, Forrest Link, Brian Quinn, Lori Robare, Michele Seikel, and Sherry Vellucci are continuing members. I am delighted to have the opportunity for continued collaboration with the reappointed and continuing members. Many of the papers submitted to LRTS have resulted from solicitations by board members.
A portion of the LRTS editorial board meetings are spent discussing ideas for papers and papers that are in progress. While LRTS covers traditional technical services topics such as acquisitions, collection management, continuing resources, preservation, and resource description, I also welcome papers on new and emerging topics such as perpetual access, linked data, or research data. A full list of topics, courtesy of the ALCTS Publications Committee, is available at www.ala.org/alcts/resources/info/topics. Consider submitting a paper to LRTS or one of the other ALCTS publications, or consider submitting a proposal for a monograph (Sudden Selector Guides, ALCTS Monographs, or acquisitions or collections guides). ALCTS has a robust publishing program and a team of editors to guide you.
In closing, I want to highlight the contents of this issue of LRTS:
- In “Enhancing OPAC Records: Evaluating and Fitting Within Cataloguing Standards a New Proposal of Description Parameters for Historical Astronomical Resources,” M. Pilar Alonso Lifante and Francisco Javier Molero Madrid outline deficiencies in some fields and elements of cataloging standards for description of historical astronomical resources, mainly star atlases and catalogs. They review their proposal of astronomical parameters for a better description and propose an approach for accommodating these parameters in the current criteria of MARC 21, the International Standard Bibliographic Description, and RDA.
- Robert M. Cleary addresses the difficulties libraries face when spending their collections budget efficiently in “‘The Commitment Problem’: Spending to Zero to Maximize the Efficiency of the Collections Budget.” The diversity of a typical budget includes one-time and continuing funds that are used for resources that are both regular and irregular, further complicating the situation.
- Tina E. Chrzastowski and Lynn N. Wiley discuss a research project to study e-book adoption in the humanities at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in “E-book Use and Value in the Humanities: Scholars’ Practices and Expectations.” The study includes data collected from a demand-driven acquisition program in humanities disciplines that used short-term loans purchased via an e-book aggregator.
- In “What Makes an Effective Cataloging Course?: A Study of the Factors that Promote Learning,” Karen Snow and Gretchen L. Hoffman present the results of a survey of library and information science master’s degree holders who have taken beginning cataloging courses. Their results suggest that cataloging practice, instructor effectiveness, and cataloging within a real-world context all contribute to effective learning.