Rethinking Technical Services: New Frameworks, New Skill Sets, New Tools, New Roles. Edited by Bradford Lee Eden. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2016.130 p. $45.00 paperback (ISBN 978-1-4422-5789-4). Creating the 21st-Century Academic Library Series, Volume 6.
This book, the sixth volume in a series on the twenty-first century academic library, joins other books on the present and future of technical services, including Rethinking Library Technical Services (2015) and the much older Technical Services: Today and Tomorrow (1998); it presents a mixture of theory and praxis and includes surveys of the state of the profession, case studies, and think pieces. Unlike the other two volumes mentioned, it does not have chapters specifically devoted to acquisitions or to electronic resources management; metadata creation is the only division discussed in detail. However, it does include two sections aimed at technical services managers, a demographic not often treated separately.
Several chapters offer an overview of the present of technical services: Christine Korytnyk Dulaney focuses on technical services in the networked environment; Joelen Pastva, Gwen Gregory, and Violet Fox give a picture of the “new normal” in technical services and strategies for coping; and Barry Gray and Anthony McMullen call for drastic changes in priorities. The authors offer different solutions to the problems they raise. Dulaney advocates using a model developed by management consultant Peter Senge to reframe change as an opportunity for constant learning, while Pastva, Gregory, and Fox suggest following the lead of the archival profession and taking a “more product, less process” approach (38). Gray and McMullen recommend an approach that focuses heavily on the management of electronic resources and the curation of rare print materials. The authors agree on multiple points: the importance of what Dulaney calls the “network” (1) and Pastva, Gregory, and Fox call the “collective intelligence” (31), that is, the increased connection and cooperation in library development and access; the advantages of abandoning traditional categories (acquisitions, cataloging, serials, systems) in favor of a less structured, less hierarchical approach; and the importance of using metadata to reveal what Gray and McMullen dub “hidden collections” (68). They do, however, differ on some points. Dulaney and Pastva, Gregory, and Fox see Linked Data as a new realm of possibility for access and call for a new approach to access points, while McMullen and Gray describe a technical services department in which subject access points are no longer assigned as part of original cataloging and authority control processes are outsourced to focus more staff time on the management of electronic resources.
New skill sets are required to perform metadata functions effectively now and in the future. Jennifer Eustis discusses how digital projects change traditional job descriptions and responsibilities for cataloging staff, using examples of three initiatives at her institution. In her view, as metadata becomes more and more an essential step in nonlibrary institutional and scholarly workflows, catalogers will serve a reference and instruction function, acting as trainer, advisors, and consultants. Eustis acknowledges that this is a major transition for members of a traditionally invisible profession and notes that two processes in particular are key: changing the image of the cataloging and metadata services unit, both in the minds of the users and in the minds of the staff themselves, and making the move to users’ environments, both physically and intellectually, so that services can be customized to individual needs.
Roman Panchyshyn continues the discussion about necessary skills for technical services workers, but focuses more on the specific knowledge professional and paraprofessional catalogers will require. In addition to Resource: Description and Access (RDA) and other content standards required for bibliographic description and authority work, Panchyshyn recommends that all metadata staff be familiar with batch processes for metadata and tools for batch editing; that they have knowledge of at least one scripting language, such as RegEx or PHP; and that they have enough comfort with Extended Markup Language (XML) and the Resource Description Framework (RDF) to be prepared for the advent of the Bibliographic Framework Initiative (BIBFRAME). Panchyshyn points out that project management skills are increasingly necessary for effective performance of technical services functions, and suggests training in those as well.
Two chapters by managers address the questions of managing a technical services department in more depth. Charles Sicignano encourages technical services managers to embrace change while acknowledging that this can be difficult in academic settings. He offers a “theoretical framework of what technical services will look like as the position of manager continues to become more about working with administrators inside and outside the library” (51). Like Panchyshyn, he recommends using the language and techniques of project management to describe the responsibilities of a technical services manager; he also suggests that technical services managers find leadership opportunities in consortial partnerships and negotiations and in assessment initiatives. Hildur Hanna describes another kind of leadership opportunity; a mass resignation of staff at the John F. Schaefer Law Library meant that a host of new hires with new skills had to be made. Hanna and the new head of technical services, K. Brooke Moynihan, describe the processes that led to some unorthodox hiring decisions and the results thereof.
Two think pieces about discovery in the twenty-first century round out the collection. Karen A. Nuckolls surveys the current state of the Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH), Faceted Application of Subject Terminology (FAST), and legal terms in the Library of Congress Genre/Form Terms (LCGFT). She discusses the evolution of the LCSH over the years on subject headings having to do with people, especially African Americans and people with disabilities, and notes some headings she considers still problematic (e.g., Older people rather than Senior citizens and Mental retardation rather than Intellectual disabilities). Nuckolls makes valid points about the need to be mindful about vocabularies in library and nonlibrary contexts (she cites voice assistants and social media sites as examples); however, her attempts at humor are ill-advised. Amanda Melcher discusses discovery layers as tools, both as they should ideally work and as they often work in practice; while she acknowledges that the implementation of a discovery tool can be difficult and states that “after having discovery for three years [at her library], there continue to be display problems, dead links, and configuration issues nearly every week” (26), Melcher still argues for the potential of the discovery layer. Her article focuses more on the effects on information-literacy instruction than on technical services processes.
The repeated evocations of a “brave new world” in the titles of the articles may seem alarming, but the authors have more of Shakespeare’s Miranda’s wonder than Huxley’s irony; the pieces in this collection portray twenty-first century technical services as a land of opportunity rather than a dystopia. There are some lacunae: while there are frequent references to BIBFRAME and Linked Data, there are no articles specifically articulating a vision of that environment; and there are no articles that focus on collaborations with public services, systems, or archives and special collections departments, although all are glancingly mentioned. Those interested in the evolution of metadata creation and creators should find this book useful.—Catherine Oliver (coliver@nmu.edu), Northern Michigan University, Marquette, Michigan