NEWS For Immediate Release March 5, 2013

Contact: Charles Wilt

CHICAGO  - Exciting preconferences are coming your way during this year's American Library Association (ALA) Annual Conference from the Association for Library Collections and Technical Services (ALCTS).  From RDA to shared print monographs to the semantic Web to crowdsourcing ERM, there is a preconference that meets your need.  Join your colleagues on Thursday, June 27, and Friday, June 28, for these events.  Register through the 2013 ALA Annual Conference website. The cost for each:  $219 for ALCTS members; $269 for ALA members; $99 for retired members and students; $319 for non-members.

Shared Print Monographs: Making It Work   

Event Code:  ALC1 Thursday, June 27, 8:30 a.m. – 4 p.m.

To date, shared print programs have focused largely on journals. Monographs pose a different challenge and require new approaches. Information from circulation and holdings records can help libraries share responsibility for print collections, while enabling careful drawdown of surplus copies and protection of the scholarly record. This preconference will highlight the experiences of several groups: Michigan Shared Print Initiative, Connect New York, Maine Shared Collection Strategy, the California State University system and others.

Speakers include: Rick Lugg, Sustainable Collection Services (SCS); Matthew Revitt, Maine Shared Collection Strategy; Gerry Hanley, Ph.D, Office of the Chancellor, California State University; Randy Dykhuis, Midwest Collaborative for Library Services and MI-SPI; Emily Hutton-Hughes, Colgate University and Connect NY

Introduction to RDF and Ontologies for the Semantic Web  

Event Code:  ALC2 Thursday, June 27, 8:30 a.m. – 4 p.m.

Linked Data and Semantic Web applications hold the potential for expressing bibliographic data in ways more flexible, powerful and openly sharable than MARC. While RDF provides the underlying data model, RDFS, OWL and SKOS provide the basis for creating vocabularies and ontologies, machine-actionable models that bring structure to RDF.  This workshop provides a beginner's level introduction for non-IT librarians to the structures that make Linked Data and Semantic Web applications work, with a primary focus on ontologies as models of the entities in a knowledge domain and the relationships among those entities.  It includes examples from cultural heritage metadata communities.

Speaker: Steven J. Miller, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, School of Information Studies

RDA: Back to the Basics     

Event Code:  ALC3 Friday, June 28, 8:30 a.m. – 4 p.m.

Designed for the cataloger, student or anyone else who has a solid understanding of AACR2 and MARC, this preconference will cover the transition to RDA. Speakers will concentrate on the differences between the two cataloging codes and use examples from various formats providing practical hands-on exercises. Implementation strategies will be discussed. Resources to begin the transition process will be highlighted. This back-to-the basics workshop is for those new to RDA and those requiring refresher training.

Speakers include: June Abbas, Ph.D., School of Library and Information Studies, The University of Oklahoma; Christopher Cronin, University of Chicago Library; Christine Oliver, McGill University Libraries

Techniques for Electronic Resource Management: Crowdsourcing for Best Practices  

Event Code:  ALC4  Friday, June 28, 8:30a.m. – 4 p.m.

TERMS - techniques for electronic resource management - has been a crowdsourcing experiment to encourage worldwide librarians to share their best practices and workflows of electronic resource management freely. We invited interested librarians via social media venues such as Facebook, twitter, Tumblr and a wiki. Come learn how this experiment worked and participate in the development of capturing the best practices of electronic resource management. The TERMS Library Technology Report will be made available to attendees.

Speakers include: Jill Emery, Portland State University; Graham Stone,  University of Huddersfield, Queensgate  

Visit the ALCTS events and online learning webpages for more professional development opportunities.  If you are interested in developing a continuing education event for ALCTS, please contact Keri Cascio, chair of the ALCTS Continuing Education Committee, kcascio@gmail.com.

ALCTS is a divison of the American Library Association

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