I have just done an interview with Grace Agnew, who will be teaching a class for Library Juice Academy in December called, “The Mechanics of Metadata.” It’s a technical skills class that I think would be good for a lot of academic librarians who want to learn the nuts and bolts of cataloging in digital … Read more Interview with Grace Agnew
Colonel Morris Davis was fired from his job at the Congressional Research Service for opinion pieces he wrote about the military commissions system (he is the former chief prosecutor for the Guantánamo military commissions). The ACLU is suing the Library of Congress on his behalf in this free-speech case. This is the second time recently … Read more ACLU sues Library of Congress in workplace speech case
Library of Walls Foreword by Davin Heckman My first experience of what would become Samuel Gerald Collins’ Library of Walls came several years back, when I was an editor for the journal Reconstruction ‹reconstruction.eserver.org›. My editorial curiosity was piqued by the title of an article that Collins submitted for consideration in a special issue of … Read more Davin Heckman’s Foreword to Library of Walls
Library of Walls: The Library of Congress and the Contradictions of Information Society Author: Samuel Gerald Collins Price: $32.00 Published: April 2009 ISBN: 978-0-9802004-2-3 Printed on acid-free paper “The experience [of reading this book] was something akin to watching a reality show featuring Jorge Luis Borges, Marshall McLuhan, Michel Foucault, Lewis Mumford, and Paul Virilio … Read more New from Litwin Books: Library of Walls
Thomas Mann’s Foreword to David Bade’s Responsible Librarianship: Library Policies for Unreliable Systems: There is a kind of “code word” situation that has developed in the library profession in recent decades; it is manifested in an appeal to a set of beliefs that, while largely unarticulated, is nonetheless socially endorsed without a perceived need for … Read more Thomas Mann’s Foreword to Responsible Librarianship
Just for the record at this point; perhaps commentary later… Final Report of the Working Group on the Future of Bibliographic Control ‚ÄúOn the Record‚Äù but Off the Track: A Review of the Report of The Library of Congress Working Group on The Future of Bibliographic Control, With a Further Examination of Library of Congress … Read more LC Working Group final report, Thomas Mann’s response
New essay by Thomas Mann, “The Peloponnesian War and the Future of Reference, Cataloging, and Scholarship in Research Libraries” (June 13, 2007). PDF, 41 pp. ABSTRACT: The paper is an examination of the overall principles and practices of both reference service and cataloging operations in the promotion of scholarly research, pointing out important differences not … Read more Thomas Mann’s new one
Dear Friend of the Library of Congress, We are sending you this message because the Library of Congress Professional Guild, AFSCME Local 2910, needs your help. For over thirty years our union has worked with management to forge a constructive relationship at the Library of Congress. Together we have built a modern and progressive workplace … Read more Urgent message from LoC Professional Guild
Thomas Mann at the Library of Congress has written an update to his critical summary of changes there: More on What’s Going On at the Library of Congress, published through the Library of Congress Professional Guild, AFSCME 2910. The cover page lists these topics in the 24 page document: Series authority records Integrating the Web … Read more More on What’s Going On at the Library of Congress
There’s a brief article in Counterpunch about the National Book Festival, which features our very non-warlike First Lady. It is intended as a happier source of news than the complete disaster we have created in the Middle East, from which news consumers and election-hopeful Republicans would understandably like some relief. The main things that Russell … Read more Are you proud of our “National Book Festival?”
Many Library Juice readers who are familiar with Sanford Berman’s work on LC subject heading reform have read or heard the name Barbara Tillett. Barbara Tillett has for many years been the chief of the Library of Congress Cataloging Policy and Support Office, and thus has figured into Berman’s career-long crusade to reform LC’s subject … Read more Interview with Barbara Tillett
The Committee on House Administration is taking up some of the controversial questions related to proposed changes in cataloging practice at the Library of Congress, and ALA has submitted testimony criticizing LC for announcing some of these changes without sufficient discussion with the library community. (Admittedly, the Calhoun report was merely a presentation of an … Read more ALA Congressional testimony against LC proposed changes
The Library of Congress Professional Guild (AFSCME 2910) recently published a paper by LC librarian Thomas Mann entitled, “What’s going on at the Library of Congress?” (PDF) The paper addresses a number of controversial decisions and statments from LC in recent months and years, including The Calhoun Report, the decision to stop producing Series Authority … Read more What’s going on at the Library of Congress? (Thomas Mann)
This major announcement from LC just began circulating yesterday. It may have serious implications for access to works by series.?Ǭ† Some Library Juice readers are more up on cataloging issues than I am.?Ǭ† What do you think about this? The Director for Acquisitions and Bibliographic Access Announces the Library of Congress’s Decision to Cease Creating … Read more LC to Cease Creating Series Authority Records
The Library of Congress Professional Guild writes… In “The Changing Nature of the Catalog and Its Integration with Other Discovery Tools,” Karen Calhoun recommends the elimination of Library of Congress subject headings and the establishment of “fast turnaround” time as the “gold standard” in cataloging. In his critical review of the Calhoun report, Thomas Mann, … Read more LC’s Thomas Mann on LC-commissioned report recommending elimination of LCSH
A friend writes… Colleagues- This just in from the Library of Congress. It’s about time. CATALOGING POLICY AND SUPPORT OFFICE SUMMARY OF DECISIONS, EDITORIAL MEETING NUMBER 13 Vietnam War, 1961-1975 The heading “Vietnamese Conflict, 1961-1975” is being revised to Vietnam War, 1961-1975 on this list. Changes to references on headings for individual battles and operations … Read more Good News from LC