ALA Annual 2016

Library of Congress Exhibit Booth

Visit the Library of Congress Exhibit Booth #1917 at the Orange County Convention Center External . Exhibit booth hours:

• Friday, June 24: 5:30-7:30pm (ribbon-cutting at 5:15pm)
• Saturday, Sunday June 25-26: 9:00am-5:00pm
• Monday, June 27: 9:00am-2:00pm

Library staff making presentations in the booth theater include Judith Cannan, Colleen Cahill, Vera Clyburn, Lindsay Conway, George Coulbourne, Blane Dessy, Jeanne Drewes, Paul Frank, Linda Geisler, Patricia Hayward, Ahmed Johnson, Guy Lamolinara, Melissa Lindberg, Jane McAuliffe, Candace Milburn, Robert C. Morgan, Laverne Page, Regina Romano Reynolds, John Saint Amour, Donna Scanlon, Roberta I. Shaffer, Colleen Shogan, Teri Sierra, Amanda Smith, Rachel Telford, and Kate Zwaard. Information technology support will be provided by Thomas Odom and Tony Goodman.

Promotions at the Booth
Pencils that advertise the Library’s Cataloging Distribution Service, bookmarks featuring the Library of Congress Classification System, and National Book Festival posters are available for free to booth visitors while supplies last; and the Library’s Retail Service will offer bookmarks bearing its web site’s URL. The Duplication Service (DS) will distribute free 10" x 12" copies of a ca. 1890 vintage map of Orange County, Fla., to showcase its copying and reproduction services for visitors to the booth. The maps will be available while supplies last.

The Library of Congress Exhibit Booth Program is one way that the Library reaches the public that it serves as the de facto national library. The booth’s presence at ALA highlights the Library as a civic center. In this way the Library’s presence aligns with the mission and goals of the Library.

The booth (or pavilion) houses various entities of the Library, allowing staff to meet individuals from across the country and to share information about the Library’s programs and services with them. They effectively promote the national library by increasing awareness of the scope and breadth of the Library’s collections and services available to Congress, the American people, and the world.
In the booth visitors learn about the world of creativity, innovation, and information represented in the Library’s collections (onsite and online) and about the Library’s history, architecture, and the broad range of current efforts and forward-thinking initiatives that place the Library as a leader in meeting information demands of the 21st century.

NOMINATION OF CARLA HAYDEN

President Barack Obama’s nomination of Dr. Carla D. Hayden to be the next Librarian of Congress was approved by the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration on Thursday, June 9, on a unanimous voice vote with 10 panel members present. The nomination now goes to the full Senate for its consideration. Timing of consideration by the Senate is unknown as of June 10.

Dr. Hayden, since 1993 the chief executive of the Enoch Pratt Free Library system in Baltimore and a former president of the American Library Association from 2003-2004, was nominated by the President on Feb. 24, 2016, following the retirement of former Librarian of Congress James H. Billington. Dr. Hayden answered questions for the committee on April 20 and has responded to additional questions from the committee subsequent to that hearing. If confirmed, Dr. Hayden will be the 14th Librarian of Congress and the first woman and first African American to hold the position.

Dr. Hayden was nominated by President Obama to be a member of the National Museum and Library Services Board in January 2010 and was confirmed by the Senate in June 2010. Prior to joining the Pratt Library, Dr. Hayden was Deputy Commissioner and Chief Librarian of the Chicago Public Library from 1991 to 1993. She was assistant professor for library and information science at the University of Pittsburgh from 1987 to 1991. Dr. Hayden was Library Services Coordinator for the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago from 1982 to 1987. She began her career with the Chicago Public Library as the Young Adult Services Coordinator from 1979 to 1982 and as a Library Associate and Children's Librarian from 1973 to 1979.

In 1995, Dr. Hayden was the first African-American to receive Library Journal's Librarian of the Year Award in recognition of her outreach services at the Pratt Library, which included an after-school center for Baltimore teens offering homework assistance and college and career counseling.

Dr. Hayden received a B.A. from Roosevelt University and an M.A. and Ph. D. from the Graduate Library School of the University of Chicago.
David S. Mao, Deputy Librarian of Congress, continues as named acting Librarian of Congress.  Robert R. Newlen is the Library’s Chief of Staff.
Other personnel changes are reported under each service unit in this document. 

CONGRESSIONAL RELATIONS OFFICE (CRO)

Appropriations Update for Fiscal Year 2017

The House and Senate appropriations committees have both approved fiscal 2017 Legislative Branch spending proposals.  The House bill passed on June 10; no Senate floor action was planned as of June 10. 

The House’s $3.5 billion Legislative Branch spending bill for fiscal 2017 ( H.R. 5325) moved through full committee on May 17 with funding of $24,000,000 to migrate the Library’s Primary Computing Facility in the James Madison Memorial Building to an alternate facility. In addition, the bill provides for the creation of a National Collection Stewardship Fund for the purpose of preparing collection materials for long-term storage, transferring amounts to the Architect of the Capitol (AOC) for designing, constructing, altering, upgrading and equipping preservation and storage facilities, or for acquiring property by lease for preservation and storage. The bill includes an increase of $1 million for the Congressional Research Service.

The bill also includes language to reauthorize the national film and sound recording preservation programs.

The House bill provides an additional $4 million appropriation to support the modernization of information technology in the Copyright Office, and authority to spend prior-year unobligated balances of $4.5 million that would help fund the Data Management Initiative and the Searchable Historic Copyright Records Project.

Senate appropriators backed a $3.02 billion fiscal 2017 Legislative Branch spending bill ( S. 2955) on May 19, 2016, including $6.6 million for Library information-technology security enhancements; $1.3 million for digital-collections management; and $2 million for phase I of the Law Library’s compact-shelving replacement program.

Summary of the Library’s budget authority for FY2016 compared to House and Senate versions for FY2017:

Library account	FY2016 level	FY2017 House mark (5/17/2016)	FY2017 Senate Mark (5/19/2016)
LC Salaries & Expenses	$425,971,000	$449,971,000	$434,934,000
Copyright Office	$58,875,000	$68,827,000	$68,825,000
CRS	$106,945,000	$107,945,000	$106,945,000
NLS	$50,248,000	$50,248,000	$50,248,000
Total Budget Authority	$642,039,000	$676,991,000	$660,952,000

Library of Congress Subject Headings

See also under ACQUISITIONS AND BIBLIOGRAPHIC ACCESS DIRECTORATE (ABA)/Policy and Standards

In response to the March 2016 recommendation of the Policy and Standards Division to cancel the Library of Congress Subject Heading "illegal aliens," the FY2017 House Legislative Branch Appropriations Act (H.R. 5325) report includes the following instruction:
To the extent practicable, the Committee instructs the Library to maintain certain subject headings that reflect terminology used in title 8, United States Code.

The terms "illegal" and "alien" are frequently used together in title 8.

The issue was a key point of debate in consideration of the fiscal 2017 appropriations bill in the House.  Several Members suggested amendments, raised points of order, and offered other motions to remove the language or prevent the legislation from moving forward. None of these suggestions were accepted by the House.

Separate legislation has been introduced by Rep. Diane Black (H.R. 4926 – see below) to retain the headings in the current form.

Committee on House Administration Markup

The Committee on House Administration met on May 17, 2016, to consider three legislative proposals regarding the Library of Congress.  Bills H.R. 4092, H.R. 4511, and H.R. 5227 were favorably reported by the committee. See the Key Legislation section below for further information on these proposals.  Future consideration of these bills by the full House of Representatives has not been scheduled.

Key Legislation for the 2nd Session, 114th Congress

H.R. 4092 – To reauthorize the sound recording and film preservation programs of the Library of Congress, and for other purposes
Date of Introduction: November 19, 2015
Introduced By: Rep. Robert A. Brady [D-PA-1]
Status: Reported from the Committee on House Administration, May 17, 2016; awaiting discharge by the House Judiciary Committee
Overview: This bill amends the National Recording Preservation Act of 2000 to extend through fiscal 2026 the authorization of appropriations for the national sound recording preservation program of the Library of Congress and for the National Recording Preservation Foundation. The number of members who shall serve on the Board of Directors of the National Recording Preservation Foundation is increased from 9 to 12, at least 8 of whom (currently, at least 6) must be knowledgeable or experienced in sound recording production, distribution, preservation, or restoration. The bill caps the federal match at the lesser of $1,000,000 or the amount of private contributions; this makes the authorization equivalent to that of the Film Preservation Foundation.
The bill amends the National Film Preservation Act of 1996 to extend through fiscal 2026 the authorization of appropriations for the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress and for the National Film Preservation Foundation.
Similar language is included in the fiscal 2017 House Legislative Branch Appropriations Act (HR 5325).

H.R. 4093 – To revise certain administrative and management authorities of the Librarian of Congress, and for other purposes.
Date of Introduction: November 19, 2015
Introduced By: Rep. Robert A. Brady [D-PA-1]
Status: Referred to the Committees on House Administration and Transportation and Infrastructure.
Related Bills: H.R. 5227 – see below; H.R. 5264 – see below
Overview: To revise certain administrative and management authorities of the Librarian of Congress, and for other purposes, including:
1) Authorizing the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped (NLS) to provide playback equipment in all formats, including braille;
2) Establishing a National Collection Stewardship Fund;
3) Expanding uses of revolving funds;
4) Expanding authority to accept gifts and bequests; and
5) Clarifying Member service on the Joint Committee on the Library.

H.R. 5227 - Library of Congress Modernization Act of 2016
Date of Introduction: May 13, 2016
Introduced By: Rep. Candice S. Miller [R-MI-10]; Rep. Robert A. Brady [D-PA-1];
Rep. Gregg Harper [R-MS-3]
Status: Reported from the Committee on House Administration on May 17, 2016
Related Bills: H.R. 4093 – see above; H.R. 5264 – see below
Overview: Includes three provisions from H.R. 4093 to revise certain administrative and management authorities of the Librarian of Congress, and for other purposes, including:
1) Authorizing NLS to provide playback equipment in all formats, including braille;
2) Establishing a National Collection Stewardship Fund; and
3) Clarifying Member service on the Joint Committee on the Library.

H.R. 5264 – To expand the uses of certain revolving funds of the Library of Congress and to clarify the authority of the Library of Congress to accept gifts and bequests.
Date of Introduction: May 17, 2016
Introduced By: Rep. Robert A. Brady [D-PA-1]
Status: Referred to the Committee on House Administration.
Related Bills: H.R. 4093 – see above; H.R. 5227 – see above
Overview: This bill includes two provisions from H.R. 4093 not included in H.R. 5227 to revise certain administrative and management authorities of the Librarian of Congress, and for other purposes, including:
1) Expanding uses of revolving funds; and
2) Expanding authority to accept gifts and bequests.

H.R. 4511 - Gold Star Families Voices Act
Date of Introduction: Feb. 2, 2016
Introduced By: Rep. Smith, Christopher H. [R-NJ-4]
Status: Reported from the Committee on House Administration on May 17, 2016
Overview: This bill amends the Veterans' Oral History Project Act to include the collection of video and audio recordings of biographical histories by immediate family members of members of the Armed Forces who became missing in action or who died as a result of their wartime service.

H.Res.34 – Directing the Clerk of the House of Representatives to provide members of the public with Internet access to certain Congressional Research Service publications, and for other purposes.
Date of Introduction: Jan. 14, 2015
Introduced By: Rep. Leonard Lance [R-NJ-7]; Rep. Mike Quigley [D-IL-5]
Status: Referred to the Committee on House Administration.
Related Bill: H.R.1381 – Transparency in Government Act of 2015 – see below
Overview: Directs the Clerk of the House of Representatives, in consultation with the Director of the Congressional Research Service (CRS), to establish and maintain a centralized, searchable, bulk downloadable, electronic database consisting of: (1) CRS Issue Briefs, Reports, Authorization of Appropriations Products and Appropriations Products, and other materials intended or available for general congressional distribution through the CRS web site; and (2) an index of such information.

H.R.1381 – Transparency in Government Act of 2015
Date of Introduction: March 16, 2015
Introduced By: Rep. Mike Quigley [D-IL-5]
Status: Referred to Committees on Oversight and Government Reform, Rules, House Administration, Judiciary, Ethics, Ways and Means.
Related Bill: H.Res.34 – see above
Overview: Short Titles as Introduced for portions of this bill:
* Congressional Research Service Electronic Accessibility Resolution of 2015
* Public Access to Congressional Research Service Reports Resolution of 2015
Requires the Clerk of the House of Representatives, in consultation with the Congressional Research Service (CRS), to establish and maintain a centralized, searchable, bulk downloadable, electronic database consisting of CRS issue briefs, reports, authorization of appropriation products and appropriation products, and similar material intended or available for general congressional distribution.
Specific CRS Language is found in
TITLE III: ENHANCING PUBLIC ACCESS TO CONGRESSIONAL RESEARCH SERVICE

S. 2639 - Equal Access to Congressional Research Service Reports Act of 2016
Date of Introduction: March 3, 2016
Introduced By: Sen. Leahy, Patrick J. [D-VT]; Sen. John McCain [R-AZ]
Status: Referred to the Committee on Rules and Administration
Related Bill: H.R. 4702 – see below
Overview: This bill directs the Government Printing Office (GPO) to establish and maintain a public Web site containing Congressional Research Service (CRS) Reports available for general congressional access, and an index, that are searchable, sortable, and downloadable (including downloadable in bulk), for which no fee may be charged.
Before transmitting a CRS Report to the GPO for publication on the Web site, CRS may remove from the Report the name of, and any contact information for, any CRS employee.

H.R. 4702 - Equal Access to Congressional Research Service Reports Act of 2016
Date of Introduction: March 3, 2016
Introduced By: Rep. Lance, Leonard [R-NJ-7]; Rep. Mike Quigley [D-IL-5]
Status: Referred to the House Committee on House Administration
Related Bill:  S. 2639–see above
Overview: This bill directs the Government Printing Office (GPO) to establish and maintain a public Web site containing Congressional Research Service (CRS) Reports available for general congressional access, and an index, that are searchable, sortable, and downloadable (including downloadable in bulk), for which no fee may be charged.
Before transmitting a CRS Report to the GPO for publication on the Web site, CRS may remove from the Report the name of, and any contact information for, any CRS employee.

H.R. 4006 – Statutes at Large Modernization Act
Date of Introduction: Nov. 16, 2015
Introduced By: Rep. Dave Brat [R-VA-7]
Status: Referred to Committees on House Administration and Oversight and Government Reform.
Overview: To provide the public with access to the laws of the United States, and for other purposes.
Specific LOC Language is found in:
SEC. 2. PUBLIC ACCESS TO THE LAWS OF THE UNITED STATES.

     (a) ARCHIVIST REQUIREMENT TO MAKE LAWS AVAILABLE.—Section 112 of title 1, United States Code, is amended by adding at the end the following new sentence: “The Archivist shall make available anything compiled, edited, indexed, and published under this section to the public at no cost on a web site in a searchable, non-proprietary format. The Archivist shall ensure that the searchable online edition of the United States Statutes at Large is prepared in consultation and coordination with entities that develop formatting conventions used for enrolled bills and other legislative materials, which may include the Library of Congress, the Office of the Clerk of the House, the Office of the Secretary of the Senate, the Office of the Legislative Counsel of the House of Representatives and the Senate, the Office of the Law Revision Council, the Congressional Research Service, the Government Publishing Office, and such other entities that the Archivist considers appropriate.”
(b) Librarian of Congress requirement to incorporate searchable Statutes at Large Into Legislative Information Retrieval System.—Section 209 of the Legislative Branch Appropriations Act, 1996 (2 U.S.C. 180) is amended by adding at the end the following new subsection:
“(f) In addition to the legislative information described in subsection (b), the relevant electronic information made available under section 112 of title 1, United States Code, shall be incorporated into the legislative information service to the extent practicable.”

H.R. 4241 – Copyright Office for the Digital Economy Act
Date of Introduction: Dec. 11, 2015
Introduced By: Rep. Tom Marino [R-PA-10]; Rep. Judy Chu [D-CA-27]
Status: Referred to Committee on the Judiciary.
Overview: The legislation as introduced would:
* Establish the United States Copyright Office as an independent entity within the legislative branch;
* Provide that the President will appoint a Director for one 10 year term upon the advice of a bipartisan, bicameral commission, and with consent of the Senate;
* Transfer administrative functions and legal duties from the Library of Congress to the Copyright Office;
* Allow the Copyright Office to deliver any and all communications directly to the legislative branch, free of executive review; and,
* Allow the Copyright Office to physically move out of the Library and into a new federal building.

S.2893 - Library of Congress Sound Recording and Film Preservation Programs Reauthorization Act of 2016
Date of Introduction: April 28, 2016
Introduced By: Sen. Chuck Grassley [R-IA]; Sen. Patrick J. Leahy [D-VT]
Status: Referred to the Committee on Rules and Administration.
Overview: This bill amends the National Recording Preservation Act of 2000 to reauthorize through fiscal 2026 the national sound recording preservation program of the Library of Congress and the National Recording Preservation Foundation.  The bill caps the amount of federal matching funds at the lesser of $750,000 or the amount of private contributions.
The number of members of the Board of Directors of the National Recording Preservation Foundation shall be increased from 9 to 12, at least 8 of whom (currently, at least 6) must be knowledgeable or experienced in sound recording production, distribution, preservation, or restoration.
The bill amends the National Film Preservation Act of 1996 to reauthorize through FY2026 the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress and the National Film Preservation Foundation.

H.R.4926 - Stopping Partisan Policy at the Library of Congress Act
Date of Introduction: April 13, 2016
Introduced By: Rep. Diane Black [R-TN-6]
Status: Referred to Committee on House Administration.
Overview: This bill directs the Library of Congress to retain the headings "Aliens" and "Illegal aliens," as well as related headings, in the Library of Congress Subject Headings in the same manner as they were in effect during 2015.

H.R.4231 -To direct the Librarian of Congress to obtain a stained glass panel depicting the seal of the District of Columbia and install the panel among the stained glass panels depicting the seals of States which overlook the Main Reading Room of the Library of Congress Thomas Jefferson Building.
Date of Introduction: Dec. 10, 2015
Introduced By: Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton [D-DC-At Large]
Status: Reported favorably by the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure on May 3, 2016; also referred to Committee on House Administration
Overview: This bill requires the Librarian of Congress to obtain a stained glass panel depicting the seal of the District of Columbia and install it among the panels that depict the seals of states that overlook the Main Reading Room of the Library of Congress Thomas Jefferson Building.

U.S. COPYRIGHT OFFICE

Information Technology Modernization Plan Proposed

The Copyright Office released a provisional information technology modernization plan and cost analysis on Feb. 29, 2016, that proposes upgrades to enable the Office to meet the needs of digital-age stakeholders. The plan is meant to be considered in conjunction with Positioning the United States Copyright Office for the Future, 2016–2020, published in December 2015. In that document, the Office sets forth a vision for a modern copyright system that integrates the requirements of the copyright law with advances in business practices and information technology.
The Office prepared the information technology plan at the request of the House Appropriations Committee. To be implemented over five years, the plan proposes an information technology system that minimizes costly infrastructure needs, embraces cloud services, uses mobile technologies, and prioritizes data integrity and security controls, among other improvements.

In the coming months, the Office will refine the plan, working with Congress, the Library of Congress, and copyright constituents. At the request of the House Appropriations Committee, the office published a notice of inquiry in the Federal Register on March 1, 2016, seeking comments to inform the funding and implementation of the plan.

To read the plan, visit the Copyright Office’s web site at URL < www.copyright.gov>.

Copyright Law Review

Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) of the House Judiciary Committee announced next steps in the copyright law review process in remarks he delivered by video recording on April 26, 2016, at an event recognizing World Intellectual Property Day. The Copyright Office cohosted the event with the Copyright Alliance at the Library of Congress.

Following 20 formal committee hearings, public roundtables, and stakeholder meetings conducted over the past three years, the Judiciary Committee now has a “comprehensive record of the issues facing the American copyright system today,” Rep. Goodlatte reported. Based on this record, the committee will identify areas “where there is a likelihood of potential consensus” and circulate outlines of potential reforms, inviting stakeholder feedback. It is critical, he said, for Congress to understand the “overall impact of any changes in copyright law before proceeding with formally introduced legislation.” He stated that the committee welcomes the views of all who wish to participate.

In support of the copyright law review, the Copyright Office hosted a symposium on moral rights on April 18, 2016, with George Mason University Law School and its Center for the Protection of Intellectual Property. Held at LC, the symposium brought together authors, scholars, and others for a discussion of copyright issues related to moral rights. Moral rights refer to noneconomic rights considered personal to an author, typically including the right of attribution—that is, the right to be credited as the author of one’s work—and the right to prevent distortions of one’s work that may be prejudicial to one’s reputation. The Register of Copyrights, Maria A. Pallante, identified moral rights as one of several policy issues warranting further study when she testified on April 29, 2015, before the House Judiciary Committee about her perspective on the committee’s review of the copyright law. Subsequently, Rep. John Conyers, the committee’s ranking member, asked the Copyright Office to study the issues the Register identified in her testimony. Thirty-four presenters, including moderators, participated in the April 18 moral rights symposium, which launched the office’s study on the subject. The office will soon publish a notice of inquiry inviting public comment.

For details about the copyright law review, visit the Office’s web site at URL < copyright.gov/laws/hearings>.

Priorities and Policy

The Copyright Office published one policy report since its report for the ALA 2016 Midwinter Meeting and held public roundtables in three inquiries.

Right of Making Available

The Copyright Office released The Making Available Right in the United States on February 23, 2016. The report conveys the findings of a multiyear study of the “making available” right under U.S. copyright law. Making available refers to the exclusive right of copyright owners to authorize transmission of their works through interactive platforms that enable public users to choose where and when to access the works. Two international treaties, known jointly at the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Internet Treaties, require WIPO member states, including the United States, to provide such a right. The Copyright Office report concludes that U.S. law provides the full scope of protection required by the treaties and that no statutory change is currently necessary.

Section 512 Study

The Copyright Office convened one public roundtable in New York, N.Y., on May 2 and 3, 2016, and another in San Francisco, Calif., on May 12 and 13, 2016, to support its study of the impact and effectiveness of Digital Millennium Copyright Act safe-harbor provisions contained in section 512 of the copyright law. Section 512 limits the liability of Internet service providers when users of services post or share materials that infringe copyrights, so long as the service providers comply with certain requirements, including expeditiously removing or disabling access to infringing material once they are notified of its presence. The office published a notice of inquiry in the study on Dec. 31, 2016. 

Software-Enabled Consumer Products Study

The Copyright Office hosted one public roundtable in Washington, D.C., on May 18, 2016, and another in San Francisco, Calif., on May 24, 2016, in relation to its study on software in everyday products. The study is being conducted at the request of the Senate Judiciary Committee. It will review which parts of the copyright law are implicated by the ubiquity of software in everyday products and the effect of the law on technological advancements affecting such products. The office published a notice of inquiry in the study on Dec. 15, 2015.

Section 1201 Study

The Copyright Office held one public roundtable in Washington, D.C., on May 19 and 20, 2016, and another in San Francisco on May 25 and 26, 2016, to inform its study of the operation of section 1201 of the copyright law, including the triennial rulemaking established under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to adopt exemptions to the prohibition against circumventing technological measures controlling access to copyrighted works. The office published a notice of inquiry in the study on Dec. 29, 2015.

Outreach

The Copyright Office cohosted a World Intellectual Property Day celebration with the Copyright Alliance on April 26, 2016. Held at the Library of Congress, the event was part of the Register of Copyright’s Copyright Matters lecture series. Rep. Bob Goodlatte delivered recorded remarks about the copyright law review, described above, after which a panel of creators explored the theme of digital creativity. World Intellectual Property Day is observed internationally on April 26 to mark the date in 1970 when the World Intellectual Property Organization Convention entered into force.

LIBRARY SERVICES

American Folklife Center

The American Folklife Center marked its 40th anniversary on Jan. 2, 2016–the date in 1976 when the American Folklife Preservation Act (Public Law 94-201) became law. According to the law, the Center receives policy direction from a Board of Trustees that is made up of representatives from departments and agencies of the federal government concerned with some aspect of American folklife traditions and the arts; the heads of four of the major federal institutions concerned with culture and the arts (see below); persons from private life who are able to provide regional balance; and the director of the Center. Included in the Legislative Branch Appropriations Act of 1999 are provisions for the board to be expanded to include four new members appointed by the Librarian of Congress, and, ex officio, the president of the American Folklore Society and the president of the Society for Ethnomusicology. The board meets twice a year to review the operations of the Center, engage in long-range planning and policy formulation, and share information on matters of cultural programming.

Civil Rights History Project

The AFC celebrated several accomplishments in its work on the Congressionally-mandated Civil Rights History Project Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-19), and related targets in our work on Civil Rights collections. The law directs the Library of Congress (LOC) and the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) to conduct a survey of existing oral history collections with relevance to the Civil Rights movement to obtain justice, freedom and equality for African Americans and to record new interviews with people who participated in the struggle, over a five-year period beginning in 2010.  AFC’s Civil Rights History Project staff contributed expertise and materials to the Library’s exhibit, “The Civil Rights Act of 1964: A Long Struggle for Freedom” which featured many of the oral history interviews collected by the project. In fiscal 2015, the AFC cataloged 7,292 Civil Rights-related items, digitized more than 17,000 items in various formats, produced 5 public programs, wrote 5 blog and print articles, and maintained and expanded the project web site, URL < www.loc.gov/collection/civil-rights-history-project/about-this-collection>.

Veterans History Project

The Veterans History Project continues to meet its congressional mandate to collect, preserve and make accessible the war stories of America’s veterans. This year, VHP reached a milestone of receiving its 100,000th collection. More than 24,000 collections are digitized and fully accessible online. Approximately 90-100 new collections arrive each week. Individual volunteers and organizations nationwide, including many libraries, help gather and submit oral histories and supporting materials for VHP. All collections are served in LC’s American Folklife Center Reading Room. VHP’s web site, at URL < www.loc.gov/vets>, provides access to required forms, instructional materials, a training video, a searchable database and links to VHP’s RSS and social media sites. 

Among many notable recent activities was the acquisition of two, rare World War Two diaries from fellow prisoners of war, George William Pearcy and Robert F. Augur. Pearcy died while in captivity, but not before giving Augur his secret written documents. After war’s end, Augur gave the materials to Pearcy’s family who recently ceremoniously donated them to the Library of Congress. Coincidentally, not long after, one of Augur’s relatives read a blog post about the Pearcy donation and decided to ceremoniously donate Augur’s own diary in April. Both collections are being preserved for generations to come.

Libraries continue to play a pivotal role in VHP’s success by distributing information, coordinating interviewing events and making their facilities available to local VHP volunteers.  For additional information, see the project Web site, www.loc.gov/vets, email vohp@loc.gov or call 202-707-4916.

Collection Development Office

Library of Congress Digital Collecting Strategy

In March 2016, the Collection Development Officer submitted to the Acting Librarian the Digital Collecting Strategy Framework which presents recommended strategic directions for the future acquisition of digital content by the Library. This was the culmination of several months of work, with draft versions of the document having been presented and input requested from numerous Library groups, including the Executive Committee.  Six strategic objectives are outlined in the document:

• Maximize receipt and addition to the Library’s collections of selected digital content submitted for copyright purposes.
• Expand digital collecting via routine modes of acquisition.
• Focus on purchased and leased electronic resources.
• Expand use of web archiving to acquire digital content.
• Develop and implement an open access content acquisition program.
• Expand collecting of appropriate datasets and other large units of content.

The Framework was approved in early June 2016.  Detailed actions for each objective will now be developed along with a multi-year implementation plan.

Digital eDeposit Expansion

In summer 2015, Library staff and patrons gained access to a growing collection of e-serials acquired by the eDeposit Program. Initiated in 2010, the program uses the mechanism of copyright mandatory deposit to acquire digital content for the Library’s collections. The program started with e-serials that do not have print counterparts. The Library has now acquired hundreds of individual e-serial titles, consisting of thousands of individual issues, with new titles being added regularly. Some of these have already been made accessible across the Library through the publishers’ web sites as part of Special Relief Agreements. However, for the e-serials acquired under eDeposit from most publishers, the Library is now providing access to the deposited files themselves.  Through May 31, 2016, the project had acquired a total of 1,628 eSerial titles from 35 publishers. The eSerials arrived as 2,700,943 files comprising 29,891 separate issues.

The Library has now begun the process to expand this program to e-books without print counterparts and digital sound recordings available only online. A Notice of Inquiry, Mandatory Deposit of Electronic Books and Sound Recordings Available Only Online, was published in the Federal Register on May 17, 2016, to solicit comments from interested stakeholders.  It is available at URL < www.federalregister.gov/articles/2016/05/17/2016-11613/mandatory-deposit-of-electronic-books-and-sound-recordings-available-only-online>.

The Library Services manager for the Library’s eDeposit Program is Theron (Ted) Westervelt of the U.S. Serials-Arts, Sciences, and Humanities Section (USASH).

DPLA and the Library

Although Library representatives participated in the early planning stages of the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) several years ago, the Library has not formally become a member yet. Nevertheless, over 100,000 of the Library’s digitized book files are accessible via DPLA by virtue of the Library’s membership in the HathiTrust.  This April, the Library co-hosted DPLAfest 2016 along with the National Archives and Records Administration and the Smithsonian Institution. During the opening general session, Acting Librarian David Mao stated, “I am happy to say that we are working very closely with DPLA, looking to bring closer our collaboration … and we look forward to having an announcement soon enough.”

Collection Development Office (CDO) Project Updates

Collections Policy Statements Review Program. CDO has implemented an ongoing program to review on a cyclical basis all of the Library’s Collections Policy Statements and associated Supplementary Guidelines (URL < www.loc.gov/acq/devpol/cpsstate.html>). There are over 70 such documents that guide the Library’s collecting program. They were last all reviewed in 2008. The new review program began in November 2015.

In advance of implementation, the Library’s Congressional Research Service (CRS) was asked to provide priority importance rankings for each policy document. Those rankings were then used in the development of a review schedule that gives first attention to those documents of most importance to CRS. The entire schedule of document reviews and updating will likely take multiple years to complete. Each Collections Policy Statement or Supplementary Guidelines document will be reviewed by a small team convened by CDO and consisting of a subject specialist and representatives from both CRS and the Area Studies divisions. 

The following policy statements have been the first to be addressed and are in varying stages of completion: Government Publications-United States; Economics and Business; Veterans History Project; Government Publications-Foreign; Electronic Resources (Supplementary Guidelines); Web Archiving (Supplementary Guidelines); Library of Congress Publications & Other Content (a new Collections Policy Statement); Education; Agriculture; United States History.

Collections Usage Statistics. An assessment and analysis of the Library’s current compilation and reporting procedures related to collections usage data resulted in a report with recommendations submitted to the Associate Librarian for Library Services in September 2015. This was the first step in an effort designed to support the Library’s strategic objective of ensuring that “needed items are obtained for the collections” by exploring how best to assemble all relevant collection usage metrics--for both physical and digital collections--into one central reporting system. The recommendations, all accepted by the Associate Librarian, included:

• Through CDO, form a Library-wide task group charged with creating an implementation plan for centralizing collection usage information. (This has already happened, with the first meeting taking place in December 2015.)
• Improve data quality and reporting processes.
• Define an efficient reporting system that leverages current automated processes and integrates strategically with other Library metrics utilities.

A report from the task group is due by the end of June 2016.

Foreign Newspapers. CDO is analyzing the Library’s foreign newspaper subscriptions, associated microfilming backlogs, and related matters. Since the acquisition of these newspapers is decentralized among multiple acquisitions sections in Washington plus the Library’s six overseas offices, as is the Library’s microfilming operation, simply gathering all of the baseline information itself has proven to be a challenge. Last fall, a project plan was approved by the Associate Librarian with the following objectives: Form a Foreign Newspapers Coordinating Group; produce a preliminary list of titles currently received; prepare a plan to eliminate the current microfilming arrearage; develop a Web-based browsable list of current foreign newspaper titles available to the Library’s users that is automatically updated on a regular basis.

The Foreign Newspapers Coordinating Group was established in November 2015. A survey was begun to determine the actual scope of the newspaper microfilming backlog, with a preliminary report submitted in May 2016. Work has also progressed on creating the initial list of titles currently received.

Bibliographic Framework Initiative (BIBFRAME)

See under ACQUISITIONS AND BIBLIOGRAPHIC ACCESS DIRECTORATE/Network Development and MARC Standards Office

Library Services / Acquisitions and Bibliographic Access Directorate (ABA)

Staffing and Personnel Changes

The ABA Directorate has permission to fill approximately 30 vacancies from open postings—not limited to internal applicants—in 2015-16. Every division has permission to fill one or more vacancies, and the vacancies are announced on the USAJOBS web site and the Library’s web site as the application periods open. Most of the positions to be filled are for professional librarians and may carry specific language requirements.

Law Section Head Gabe Horchler retired Feb. 20, 2016, after 47 years of federal service, two in the U.S. Army and forty-five at the Library of Congress. An open posting to fill the Law Section Head position was announced in the spring of 2016. Interviews were underway as of June 10.

Loche McLean, Senior Library Information Systems Specialist, retired at the end of April 2016 after more than 40 years of federal government service, mostly with the Cataloging Distribution Service at the Library of Congress. Loche was instrumental in coordinating the effort to make most LC-produced cataloging documentation freely available as PDF files on the ABA web site.

Cataloging Distribution Service

See under NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL OUTREACH/National Enterprises Directorate

Cataloging in Publication (CIP) and Dewey Programs

CIP and Dewey Sections merge

The Cataloging in Publication (CIP) and Dewey sections of the Library of Congress merged their operations effective Feb. 7, 2016. This merger will foster greater collaboration between the CIP and Dewey programs as they work together to prepare descriptive and subject metadata in advance of publication for approximately 50,000 titles received as electronic galleys from over 5,300 U.S. publishers annually at the Library. Most of the Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC) assignment done by professional classifiers is generated by Electronic Cataloging in Publication (ECIP) title galleys received through the CIP Program. Furthermore, the Dewey Program maintains an editorial office through a cooperative arrangement with OCLC, Inc., so that classifiers can consult the editors on new and emerging literature, much of which is generated via the CIP Program, and discuss the best way to classify this material.  The CIP and Dewey programs’ responsibilities overlap in other ways. Dewey classifiers assign Library of Congress Classification to ECIPs cataloged by the National Library of Medicine and have been developing correlation tools to allow for automatic assignment of DDC from Library of Congress Classification. CIP Program Specialist librarians are also being trained on DDC assignment. Dewey classifiers have served as reviewers or points-of-contact for questions from ECIP Cataloging Partnership Program institutions, which arrange their collections according to Dewey. Caroline Saccucci became the CIP and Dewey Program Manager and Section Head.  

To date in fiscal 2016 (Oct. 2015-May 2016), the CIP Program has cataloged 30,718 ECIP and CIP galleys for print titles. In addition, our partner institutions in the ECIP Cataloging in Partnership Program have completed 5,136 CIP records as of May 31, 2016. To date this fiscal year, 78,371 titles processed by the Library of Congress have received Dewey numbers. This number includes the 2,892 Dewey numbers assigned to works by and about individual authors of poetry, fiction, and drama. Dewey staff have assigned 1,189 LCC numbers to NLM ECIPs.

CIP E-Book developments

The fiscal 2016 target for the CIP E-books Program is to create metadata for 5,000 e-books. As of May 31, 2016, already 7,836 e-book bibliographic records have been created; 1,995 e-books have been received; and 1,913 have been moved to long-term storage.
A single print + E-book application that enables publishers to apply for a title in both formats has proven to be a great success. An additional 671 publishers have joined the CIP E-books Program to apply for CIP e-book metadata thus far this fiscal year. In addition, 12 new publishers have established sftp accounts to submit e-books to the CIP Program. CIP staff are working with Signiant Media Exchange to assist smaller/medium sized publishers sending their e-books to LC via CIP.  Signiant will enable publishers to upload their ECIP titles one at a time as they are published instead of needing to establish sftp accounts with the Library of Congress.

ECIP Cataloging Partnership Program

In January 2016 the CIP Program dropped the requirement for libraries to join BIBCO in order to be eligible for the ECIP Cataloging Partnership Program. Libraries now need only to be NACO members.  An announcement was distributed on the Program for Cooperative Cataloging email discussion list. Three new partners joined the ECIP Cataloging Partnership: Abilene Christian University, Mississippi State University, and Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. Additionally, three partners have taken on new subject areas or publishers. Georgetown University has taken on Middle Eastern studies, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, has taken on the history of the South, and Harvard University has begun cataloging titles from Harvard Education Press and Harvard Business Review Press.

CIP web pages in Spanish

CIP Program staff, in conjunction with staff from the African, Latin American, and Western European Division and the Hispanic Division, made key CIP Program web pages available in a Spanish translation. This development will enable Spanish-language publishers in the United States and Puerto Rico to have easier access to information about the CIP Program.  

Consolidated Traffic Manager (CTM)

CIP and ISSN program staff continue to work with Ardent Technologies, based in Dayton, Ohio, to develop a Consolidated Traffic Manager that will replace the aging ECIP traffic manager system and develop new functionality for receipt and processing of ISSN requests from publishers and other entities. It is estimated that the new system will be fully functional by September 2016.

AutoDewey development

The AutoDewey program was further developed to include individual sports biographies mapped from the LC Classification subclass GV.  The software has been successfully tested and is ready for implementation.

The CIP/Dewey Section was given approval to hire a third CIP and Dewey librarian at the GS-9 level during fiscal 2016. The vacancy announcement, which was a joint posting for an ISSN librarian, was posted in April and closed in May 2016. Interviews for both the CIP/Dewey and ISSN positions will commence in June. The CIP Technical Team, CIP/Dewey Section, will hire a GS-9 supervisory technician for a not-to-exceed period of 5 years. The vacancy announcement closed in May 2016, and interviews will begin soon.

Cataloging Policy

See under Policy and Standards

Children's and Young Adults Cataloging (CYAC)

See under Literature Section and Children’s and Young Adults’ Cataloging Program (CYAC)

Cooperative Cataloging Programs

Program for Cooperative Cataloging (PCC)

The Cooperative Program Section (CP) of the ABA Cooperative and Instructional Programs Division (COIN) continues to provide the secretariat for the PCC’s Policy and Operations committees and various working groups. The PCC is an international consortium of more than 900 libraries and other institutions that sets cataloging standards, delivers training, and supports innovations in cataloging and bibliographic formats. The secretariat supports all four PCC components: NACO, the Name Authority Cooperative; SACO, the Subject Authority Cooperative that also includes cooperative contributions to the Library of Congress Classification; BIBCO, the monographic Bibliographic Cooperative; and CONSER, the serial bibliographic record component, or Cooperative Online Serials.

The PCC Operations Committee Meeting (OpCo) was held May 5-6, 2016, at the Library of Congress. Representatives from BIBCO, CONSER, NACO, and SACO met to discuss a wide array topics listed on the agenda, URL < www.loc.gov/aba/pcc/documents/OpCo-2016/Agenda-OpCo-2016.doc>. Updates were given on linked data initiatives undertaken by PCC member institutions and various PCC task groups.

BIBCO representatives attending the OpCo meeting discussed key bibliographic issues for BIBCO to consider regarding BIBFRAME. The group considered ways to involve the BIBCO community in the development of cooperative linked data initiatives. Many volunteered to participate in any potential task groups that might be organized around ideas emerging from the discussion.

Members of the CONSER BIBFRAME Task Group facilitated three discussion topics at OpCo: Holdings and items in BIBFRAME; Modeling enumeration and chronology in BIBFRAME and linked data; and Modeling notes in BIBFRAME and linked data.  The task group gathered feedback from attendees and will use it to formulate responses to BIBFRAME 2.0 specifications posted at URL < www.loc.gov/bibframe/docs/>.

The OpCo meeting was preceded by an optional afternoon session, “Moving Away from MARC-athon: Visualizing Resource Descriptions in the Linked Data Environment.” The session included demonstrations of describing various types of resources with RIMMF (RDA in Many Metadata Formats) and the BIBFRAME editor followed by a visualization of the results. Discussion enocuraged thoughts, questions, and comments on PCC efforts to move toward a linked data environment.

The PCC Secretariat hosted an online NACO training workshop in March 2016 for more than 50 attendees.

A new NACO funnel has been formed in Chile, strengthening the already-considerable PCC representation in Latin America. The new Chile funnel is based at the Universidad de Concepción. The host institution and eight other Chilean institutions were trained during the week of May 9, 2016.

A complete series of online LCSH training sessions is nearing completion; please see Policy and Standards in this document. 

CYAC

See under Literature Section and Children’s and Young Adults’ Cataloging Program (CYAC)

Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC) at the Library of Congress

see under Cataloging in Publication (CIP) and Dewey Programs

eDeposit Program

see under Collections Development Office

ISSN (International Standard Serial Number)

Karl Debus-López, chief of the US Programs, Law, and Literature Division at the Library of Congress, has been elected to a third two-year term as Chair of the International Standard Serial Number (ISSN) Governing Board.

Revision of the ISSN Standard (ISO 3297)

An ISO (International Organization for Standardization) ballot has been opened for the five-year systematic review of ISO 3297:2007 - Information and documentation -- International standard serial number (ISSN). The ISSN International Centre supports revising the standard the better to take into account the current and future digital environments. Possible areas of interest are consideration of whether and how to assign ISSN to a “family” of serials that would encompass all title changes or even all related editions; determination of which digital editions or formats should be assigned their own ISSN; alignment between mandatory ISSN metadata and ONIX metadata; expansion of information about use of ISSN with other identification and linking systems; and preparing ISSN to function in a linked data environment. A first round of voting on ISO 3297 took place in April 2016. That ballot to remove the sentence indicating that ISSN are assigned free of charge as a minor editorial revision was approved.

ISSN Review Group

The group responsible for determining policies and practices for the ISSN Manual as well as keeping ISSN harmonized with RDA, ISBD, and related standards, provided input to the treatment of serials in the IFLA (International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions) draft FRBR (Functional Requirements of Bibliographic Records) Library Reference Model (LRM.) The group indicated that the model’s declaration that each serial has only one expression and one manifestation was an inadequate and problematic way to model serials. 

Revision of ISO 8, Presentation of Periodicals

The working group ISO/TC 046/WG 07 began its revision work at the ISO TC (Technical Committee) 46 meeting in Wellington, New Zealand, in early May 2016. The group, which includes U.S. ISSN Center Director Regina Reynolds, will conduct most future meetings by conference call. One goal is to incorporate the relevant parts of the (U.S.) National Information Standards Organization’s PIE-J recommended practices on the Presentation and Identification of E-Journals into this standard since the current version only treats print periodicals. Fuller information about ISSN will also be included.

Serials Review Article on ISSN’s 40th Anniversary

An editorial by Maria Collins, Serials Review editor, commemorating 40 years of ISSN and featuring an interview with Regina Reynolds, will be published in the forthcoming issue (Vol. 42, issue 2). 

ISSN for integrating resources

The U.S. ISSN Center has experienced an upsurge in requests for ISSN to be assigned to subscription databases, especially those available from EBSCO Information Services. ISSN is now being recognized in the U.S. and in countries such as Italy as a needed identifier for these products. The EBSCO affiliate representative to CONSER, Melanie Watts, has been working on updating prepublication records for the ISSN Section and is being trained to create or update descriptions in OCLC for EBSCO databases to expedite the process of having ISSN assigned to them.

The U.S. ISSN Center is working on a request from IEEE, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, for 1,000 ISSN to be assigned to print and online versions of conference proceedings. The project began with batch searching by ProQuest of the CONSER and PCC files in WorldCat to identify CONSER serial records and PCC monograph records that can be used for copy cataloging. Original cataloging will be done by ISSN librarians at the Library of Congress with help from CONSER institutions that have volunteered to assist.

Literature Section and Children’s and Young Adults’ Cataloging Program (CYAC)

The CYAC (Children’s and Young Adults’ Cataloging) Program has been working mainly on three initiatives recently.  First, a push has been made to keep the CYAC web site up-to-date and correct, and changes have been made partly based on users’ input through the CYAC email account which is linked to the site.  Second, an exploration is underway to find the best means of promoting the Program and its activities through social media, in hopes of creating a place where a community of librarians and others interested in cataloging juvenile materials can exchange ideas and offer support.  Third, efforts continue to identify and encourage catalogers in libraries with strong juvenile literature collections, or simply with an interest in the CYAC Program, to become ECIP Cataloging Partners. We welcome input about the site, URL < www.loc.gov/aba/cyac/>

Network Development and MARC Standards Office

Bibliographic Framework Initiative (BIBFRAME)

This initiative is an investigation of the emerging Linked Data environment for sharing of bibliographic descriptions that currently use the MARC Format. Documentation of the project is available from the BIBFRAME web site, URL < www.loc.gov/bibframe>.  In 2015, the Library of Congress continued development of the Bibliographic Framework model and vocabulary maintaining a stable version of the vocabulary and data entry editing tools, and transformation tools that converts MARC records to BIBFRAME descriptions. These were updated and combined with other new components to support a BIBFRAME Pilot that enabled input of native BIBFRAME descriptions by 44 catalogers beginning in late September 2015. The Pilot officially ended March 2016, with an extension until July 2016 for some formats, notably images. The Pilot used the BIBFRAME Vocabulary 1.0 and covered materials including monograph sound recording, music, maps, DVD, CD-ROM, visual image, and others.

The following tools and components were used for the Pilot:

BIBFRAME Editor (BFE).  The BIBFRAME Editor was integrated with profiles provided by the Profile Editor. Lookups and type-aheads were also developed for resources within id.loc.gov that were needed by the Editor. The enhanced BIBFRAME Editor was released on GitHub, UJRL < github.com/lcnetdev/bfe External >.

BIBFRAME Profile Editor . A BIBFRAME Profile Editor, which was needed to make the BFE flexible for use with different forms of material, was used for creation and editing of BIBFRAME profiles for use with the BFE in support of the BIBFRAME Pilot. It is available from GitHub, URL  < github.com/lcnetdev/profile-edit External >.

BIBFRAME Vocabulary 2.0 released

Based on experience of the last two years coming from the BIBFRAME listserv, the comments from the GitHub site for the conversion programs, expert advice, the Pilot experience, and comments from a Program for Cooperative Cataloging task group, the vocabulary was redeveloped and published as 2.0 in April 2016.

BIBFRAME infrastructure

In 2015 NDMSO began the process of revamping servers and systems to handle new traffic loads anticipated for linked data resolution, label lookup, and other services related to the BIBFRAME project and the LC Linked Data Service (LDS), id.loc.gov.   Installation of an upgrade to MarkLogic (the platform used for BIBFRAME and LDS), new virtual servers, and additional storage continued through the first half of 2016.

Other projects

LC Linked Data Service (ID) < id.loc.gov> . ID makes vocabularies available in RDF and other semantic-oriented formats. NDMSO leveraged the system, which averages over 300,000 page view and machine-only visits per day, to support the BIBFRAME Pilot. In May 2016 new batch downloads of the RDF Name Authority File and LCSH were made available.

PREMIS (Preservation Metadata Implementation Strategies). The Office announced and released in January 2016 a major new version, PREMIS 3.0, with a revised data model and enhanced intellectual entity and hardware/software environment components. The controlled vocabularies for PREMIS 3.0 semantic units were added/updated in the Linked Data Service id.loc.gov, PREMIS 3.0 was put on LC’s GitHub account, and 3.0 use cases and examples were created and added to the PREMIS web site, URL < www.loc.gov/premis>. The PREMIS 3.0 Ontology subgroup continued working on a revision/update.  The Editorial Committee, chaired by Peter McKinney of the National Library of New Zealand, is looking for ways to engage the community and understand how PREMIS works/overlaps with other standards/initiatives/systems/projects, such as PCDM, METS, and Hydra/Fedora.

MODS (Metadata Object Description Schema) and MADS (Metadata Authority Description Schema) . Supporting documentation (Guidelines, Outline, and updated XSLT’s) for MODS 3.6, which was released in 2015, was published on the NDMSO web site with the XSLT’s also put on LC’s GitHub account. Issues/fixes for MODS 3.6 were tracked and discussed for the next revision (3.7). A draft of MADS 2.1 was completed, the stimulus for which was the addition of RDA elements. It is being reviewed and tested in June by the MODS/MADS Editorial Committee, with community review planned for July and release in August 2016. Additional MADS issues under consideration include assuring that MADS is in sync with MODS and better coordinating the MADS in RDF and BF specs. MADSRDF was augmented to allow many more “Real World Object” elements (primarily related to RDA) to be conveyed, building toward a more robust division between authority labels and real object information.

MARC 21 formats.   NDMSO supported the MARC 21 environment with public vetting of change proposals and discussion papers. There are 11 proposals and 14 discussion papers on the agenda for the June 2016 MARC Advisory Committee (MAC) at ALA Annual Conference in Orlando. The papers come from several areas of the MARC community:  additional adjustments for RDA, additional adjustments by the German-language community for authority file conventions; and subfield additions that convey relationship information/codes (URI and record identifiers) in a MARC record. In April 2016, Update 22 for the formats was published online reflecting the changes agreed to in January 2016. The MARC site continued to be the fifth-highest in page views on the Library of Congress web site.

SRU search protocol. Version 2.0 of SRU (Search and Retrieve via URL) along with CQL (Contextual Query Language), an OASIS (Advancing Open Standards for the Information Society) standard, is progressing in the work program of ISO/SC4 (International Organization for Standardization Subcommittee 4) for fast track processing as an ISO Standard.

EDTF (Extended Date/Time Format) .  In 2015 EDTF was accepted into the work program of ISO/TC 154 to be developed as Part 2 of the universally used basic date standard, ISO 8601, and an international working group is actively pursuing the standardization. 

Web activity. The Office supported multiple Library Services units in their Web presentations including Veterans History Project (VHP) newest online exhibit, The Persian Gulf War: 25 Years Later.  

Policy and Standards

RDA 2016 Update

The 5th annual update to Resource Description & Access (RDA) was published in April 2016, containing the changes based on constituency proposals discussed at the 2015 meeting of the Joint Steering Committee for Development of RDA (now renamed: RDA Steering Committee). To assist catalogers applying the new and revised instructions, PSD provided a summary table that highlights changes to RDA, available on the PSD web site, URL  < www.loc.gov/aba/rda/pdf/summary_rda_changes_2016.pdf [58 KB]>.

Library of Congress-Program for Cooperative Cataloging Policy Statements (LC-PCC PSs)

The RDA Toolkit release in February 2016 contained 20 revised statements. The LC-PCC PSs included in the April 2016 release of the RDA Toolkit focused on the changes to RDA as a result of the constituency proposal process. The release included changes to 12 statements and 4 new statements; 2 statements were deleted. Summaries for each LC-PCC PS release are available at URL < www.loc.gov/aba/rda/lcps_access.html>.

PCC RDA Authorities Phase 3 Task Group

Staff at LC and the NACO Nodes (British Library, OCLC, Inc., and Sky River) continue to work with Gary Strawn (Northwestern University) and the Program for Cooperative Cataloging Phase 3 RDA Authorities Task Group to prepare for the final phase of recoding all eligible name authority records in the LC/NACO Authority File (LC/NAF) with the appropriate RDA indicia. Although it was hoped that Phase 3B would take place during 2015, the date of the production change has not yet been set pending a successful test of the process. The two major tasks to be achieved in Phase 3B are (1) recoding AACR2 authority records as RDA when 1XX fields contain no RDA-contrary elements and (2) enhancing records with other data elements including the addition of 024 fields for ISNIs (the International Standard Numerical Identifier) to names in the LC/NAF that match the list of ISNIs supplied by OCLC-Leiden (these additions may occur on records already coded as RDA). Announcements on the timing of the changes will be made after testing has been completed.

Headings for Malaysian Jurisdictions, Features, Etc

The Library has completed a project to update the name and subject authority records associated with place names in Malaysia. The University of California, San Diego, assisted with the name authority updates. This project was a result of a change to RDA 16.2.2.9, which removed Malaysia from the list of federations that includes the United States, Canada, and others. The unqualified state name remains valid for descriptive use for the time period before Sept. 16, 1963, when the current Malaysian federation was formed.

Headings for Taiwanese Jurisdictions

The Library has begun a project to update geographic name headings for places in Taiwan to reflect current U.S. Board of Geographic Names (BGN) policy. Following RDA and LC-PCC PS 16.2.2.3, a conventional name will be used if BGN lists one, and places without a conventional form will use the BGN authorized form with pinyin romanization. Taiwanese place names were excluded from the pinyin conversion project in 2000 because at the time, Wade-Giles romanization was used by BGN. Library of Congress Subject Headings for geographic features in Taiwan were updated in 2015.

Online Training for LCSH

In cooperation with the Simmons College School of Library and Information Science, the Policy and Standards Division (PSD) is developing free online training in Library of Congress Subject Headings. The training is being developed primarily to meet internal training needs of the Library of Congress, but it is also made freely available through the Cataloger’s Learning Workshop (CLW) web site as a service to the library community. Training units are divided into two or more modules, each consisting of a lecture and one or more exercises or quizzes. Technology requirements include an Internet connection and the ability to play audio and video files. The initial modules have been mounted on the CLW at URL < www.loc.gov/catworkshop/LCSH>; additional modules will be added as they are completed.

The instructors are Janis L. Young, M.A., M.S.L.S., a senior cataloging policy specialist in PSD, and Daniel N. Joudrey, M.L.I.S., Ph. D., an associate professor at Simmons SLIS.

Questions or comments about the training may be directed to Janis L. Young at jayo@loc.gov.

Proposal to Change the LC Subject Headings Aliens and Illegal aliens

In response to requests from constituents who consider the phrase “illegal aliens” to be pejorative and disappearing from common use, the Policy and Standards Division of the Library of Congress, which maintains Library of Congress Subject Headings, has proposed that the headings Aliens and Illegal aliens both be replaced.

If approved, the heading Aliens will be replaced by Noncitizens, which is currently a Used For (UF) reference to Aliens. Illegal aliens will be replaced by two headings: Noncitizens and Unauthorized immigration. Other headings that include the word aliens or the phrase illegal aliens (e.g., Church work with aliens; Children of illegal aliens) will also be revised.

Proposals to revise Aliens, Illegal aliens, and all of the related headings appear on Tentative List 1606a.

The Library of Congress is accepting comments from the library community and the general public through July 20, 2016. Because of the high number of comments that is expected, comments will be accepted only through an online survey, the link to which is available at the top of Tentative List 1606a.

Review of the comments by the Policy and Standards Division will begin after July 20, 2016. Final disposition of the proposals will be announced later this year.

Indian Law Schedules

Library of Congress Classification subclasses KIA-KIK, Law of Indigenous Peoples in North America, specifically Canada and the United States, are now in their final form and are fully authorized for use, as is the associated expansion of KF, Law of the United States (General), at KF8200-8578. Proposals for additions or changes to KIA-KIK and KF8200-8578 may now be submitted through the proposal system in Classification Web following normal procedures.

The electronic Indigenous Law Portal/Guide to Law Online (URL < https://guides.loc.gov/american-indian-law>), based on the schedule for the Law of Indigenous Peoples in the Americas, includes all of North America, including Mexico.

LCDGT Pilot Phase 3

Library of Congress Demographic Group Terms (LCDGT) is intended to describe the creators of, and contributors to, resources, and also the intended audience of resources. Terms may be assigned in bibliographic records and in authority records for works. After approval of the initial 387 demographic group terms in June 2015 and of more than 400 additional proposals December 2015, PSD has determined that phase 3 of the pilot will continue through the end of 2016. Proposals are being accepted for terms that are needed in new cataloging only. Because of workload considerations, proposals that appear to be made as part of retrospective projects, or projects to establish terms that are not needed for current cataloging, will not be considered.

All proposals should follow the guidelines on form of authorized term, references, scope notes, research, etc., presented in the draft Demographic Group Terms Manual.

SACO members should use the Proposal System when making proposals and send an email to saco@loc.gov to inform Coop staff that the proposals are ready, according to the normal procedure.

PSD is also continuing to accept proposals from catalogers who do not work at LC or in a SACO institution. They may contribute through a online survey (this survey is now closed). The survey requests the same information that the Proposal System does, but in a simplified format. PSD staff will make the formal proposals, which will be vetted during the standard editorial process. The survey will be available for the duration of Phase 3 of the pilot.

Cataloger’s Desktop

Last year’s work on Cataloger’s Desktop resystemization has been receiving additional fine tuning. Desktop has been moved to the cloud, dramatically improving system reliability and response times. There have been two very visible changes over the past six months: (1) It is now possible for Desktop users to search and access Classification Web from within Cataloger’s Desktop; (2) A “Find Similar” feature allows subscribers to refine and redirect their search results based on identifying metadata found in Cataloger’s Desktop resources. Another search enhancement will be added in the coming months to allow users to see suggested search results as the query is being typed. This “type ahead” feature should speed up searches and improve search precision.

There have also been several enhancements to Desktop’s security, including with a major upgrade to password security. LC staff continue to work with the Desktop contractor to improve system security to protect subscriber’s search experience.

Suggestions for improving Cataloger’s Desktop should be sent to Bruce Johnson at < bjoh@loc.gov>. Subscribe to the free Cataloger’s Desktop discussion list at URL < www.loc.gov/cds/desktop/ugroup.html>.

ALA-LC Romanization Tables

Ongoing exploration of additional enhancements to the Japanese table was supported by Library of Congress staff. A proposed new table for Deseret, the alphabet developed in the 19th century by the regents of the University of Deseret (now the University of Utah) as a more phonetically faithful alphabet for the English language, was received from Kjerste Christensen of Brigham Young University. The proposal was approved by CC:DA in February, 2016. A revision of the Mongolian table is being developed by Wayne Richter. No completion target date has been set.

All current ALA-LC romanization tables are available at URL < www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/roman.html>, as well as in Cataloger’s Desktop. Any questions about romanization table development should be directed to Bruce Johnson (Policy & Standards Division) at < bjoh@loc.gov>.

Training (Cooperative and Instructional Programs Division)

The Library of Congress provided training in September 2015 for the approximately 40 catalogers involved in the LC BIBFRAME Pilot. This training, developed by the Cooperative and Instructional Programs Division (COIN) in close collaboration with the Network Development and MARC Standards Office, involved a brief ‘refresher’ on the concepts of Linked Data and the Semantic Web, and hands-on practice using the LC-developed BIBFRAME Editor. COIN is also developing follow-up and refresher training to reinforce the September training and to keep pilot participants continuously informed on development changes in the use of the Editor and in the workflow for the Pilot. The 44 BIBFRAME Pilot participants were true pioneers, embarking on an endeavor very few had explored and working in a system that was still under development with limited functionality.  They were instructed to remain flexible and calm and far exceeded expectations in these two areas.   Between late spring and September 2015, they attended 19 hours of instruction on the Semantic Web, Linked Data and use of the BIBFRAME Editor. 

The Participants began using the Editor immediately after their training in its use.  They entered data into both the LC ILS and the BIBFRAME Editor, creating MARC records in LC ILS first.  Weekly ‘de-briefings’ were held to help the participants, instructors, and developers learn from each other about ‘best practices’ and what did or did not ‘work’.  Participants were encouraged to make suggestions based on their experiences and many of these suggestions were implemented right away.  Eventually, more formal ‘refresher’ training was held and they were instructed to enter data into the BIBFRAME Editor and then create a MARC record in LC ILS.   This critical change, which reflects how catalogers will work in production, was possible because of the participants’ active involvement in the development of the BIBFRAME Editor. 

Phase One of the LC BIBFRAME Pilot lasted six months (Oct. 1, 2015 – March 31, 2016), but pilot participants are continuing to catalog in the BIBFRAME Editor to retain their skills, so BIBFRAME data continues to be created and analyzed. After the LC Pilot BIBFRAME 2.0 test is underway, the data created using version 1 of the BIBFRAME model will be discarded.  BIBFRAME 2.0 model and vocabulary have been released and will form the basis of the next phase of a pilot in fall 2016. The data created under 2.0 will be different than data created now.

Library of Congress Acquisitions and Cataloging Production

Acquisitions Work	FY2016 (Oct. -May)	FY2015
Items purchased for LC collections		650,293
Items acquired for LC by non-purchase		2,207,385
Expenditures for collections purchases		$22,799,388.91

Bibliographic Records Completed	FY2016 (Oct. -May)	FY2015
Original	81,010	183,979
Collection-level cataloging	N/A	1,660
Copy cataloging	44,799	74,940
Minimal level cataloging	8,470	11,398
Total records completed	134,279	271,977
Total volumes cataloged	N/A	268,250*

Authority Work	FY2016 (Oct. -May)	FY2015
New name authority records	46,675	84,659
New LC Subject Headings	N/A	4,934
New LC Classification Numbers	N/A	3,901
Total authority records created	46,675	93,494

*Reflects change in additional service copy policy

Library Services / Collections and Services Directorate (CS)

Major activities of the Collections and Services Directorate (CS) include developing the Library’s collections in all languages, subjects areas and formats; organizing and managing the secure storage of over 160 million items in the Library’s collections; physically serving requested collections and currently providing on-site as well as off-site reference/information services through 17 research centers and collection access points on Capitol Hill and via the Internet; and coordinating collections-based digitization projects to increase public access to high-research value Library materials. The Library’s National Audio-Visual Conservation Center (NAVCC) at its Packard Campus in Culpeper, Va., consolidates, develops, preserves and provides broad public access to a comprehensive collection of the world’s audiovisual heritage of moving images and recorded sounds. With new systems for born-digital collections acquisition, preservation and reformatting, and playback-on-demand access, NAVCC has significantly increased the amount of Library audio-visual collections digitized for preservation and available for public service. CS divisions also play a critical role in effective collections inventory control, essential to the security of collections. As part of the space management program, CS manages collections storage on the Library’s Capitol Hill campus, at the state-of-the-art high density storage modules at Ft. Meade, Md.; the Packard Campus; the Landover annex in Landover, Md., and at the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) center at Valmeyer, Ill., records storage site.

Personnel Changes

Qi Qiu was appointed head of the Scholarly Services Section, Asian Division, effective Feb. 22, 2016. 

Robert Lipartito was appointed assistant head of Reader Services in the Music Division, effective June 15, 2016, and is currently serving as acting head.

James “Jay” Sweany was appointed assistant chief of the Humanities and Social Sciences Division, effective May 29, 2016.

Michael North was appointed head of the Rare Book Reading Room, Rare Book and Special Collections Division, effective March 21, 2016.

Stephanie Stillo was appointed curator of the Lessing J. Rosenwald Collection in RBSCD, effective June 13, 2016.

Motion Picture, Broadcasting, and Recorded Sound Division/National Audio-Visual Conservation Center (NAVCC)

Recorded Sound Preservation

The first brown wax cylinders from the American Folklife Center (AFC) collections were digitized in the NAVCC Audio Preservation Laboratory using the Archeophone cylinder reproducer. This new workflow digitizes Library cylinders for the first time at preservation quality (96kHz/24bit), while including comprehensive metadata. Completed during the year were the Passamaquoddy Indian cylinders recorded by Jesse Fewkes in 1892, the earliest known field recordings. The work has continued with later materials selected by AFC experts for both good physical condition and tribal permissions, and will be an ongoing workflow staffed by a rotating crew of NAVCC audio engineers in 2016.

The preservation of the Studs Terkel Collection reached the half-way milestone this year, as more than 3,000 hours of content have been digitized from the analog tapes on loan from the Chicago History Museum. The collaboration to document and preserve this unique collection of Terkel’s WFMT Chicago radio programs, as well as the unpublished interviews he recorded for his books, began in 2011. A public web site dedicated to Studs Terkel and featuring the recordings preserved at the Library’s Packard Campus was launched in 2014 and continues to add content received from the Library in periodic shipments.

Processing and preservation of the Les Paul Collection was a top priority preservation project this year, with a focus on the lacquer disc recordings Paul recorded in the 1940s and early 1950s. Over 2,000 discs were processed and over 150 discs were digitized.

Moving Image Preservation

Feature films preserved included the Dorothy Arzner-directed Craig’s Wife (Columbia, 1936), Employee’s Entrance (Warner Bros., 1933), A Modern Hero (Warner Bros., 1933), and four films in the Fred Wiseman/Zipporah Films Collection: The Cool World (1963), Titicut Follies (1967), High School (1968), and Hospital (1970). The Cool World, High School, and Hospital are all on the National Film Registry, while the new preservation of Titicut Follies premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in September.

With funding from the National Film Preservation Board, NAVCC initiated the Silent Film Project, the goal of which is to borrow, catalog, digitally preserve, and ensure the availability of silent films for public viewing and research. Private collectors are engaging in the project by lending their small gauge silent films that do not otherwise survive or only survive in a less complete form. MBRS is actively coordinating with private collections to borrow silent films released on 16mm, including Kodascope and Universal Show-At-Home features. The Library will also consider borrowing 8mm, 9.5mm, and 28mm prints. Since the launch of the project, films that have been borrowed from collectors include East Side-West Side (1923), Lash of the Whip (1924), Golden Trails (1927), Love at First Flight (1928), A Hero on Horseback (1927), Hoofbeats of Vengeance (1929) and Guardians of the Wild (1928). Many of the films that have been borrowed are the only prints known to exist, or are more complete than any existing archival holdings. All borrowed films are scanned for preservation and access purposes.

NAVCC restored the Charles and Ray Eames multiscreen presentation Think, which was originally shown at the 1964-1965 New York World’s Fair using a combination of motion picture film and slides on 15 screens (nine screens of film, six screens of slides). The film was transferred from the original interpositives and projection prints, and the soundtrack from the original magnetic six-channel track. Transfers of slides were provided by the Prints and Photographs Division. The film was assembled and prepared for presentation by the Moving Image Section using Final Cut Pro. It will be part of “The World of Charles and Ray Eames” exhibitionat the Barbican Museum in London from October 2016 to February 2017.

Newly preserved television programs included such Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) standards as The Great American Dream Machine, Austin City Limits, Soul!, and Black Journal, all of which were preserved from 2-inch Quadruplex tapes. The video lab also preserved more than 200 tapes in a variety of formats in the Leonard Bernstein Collection.

Music Division

The Music Division’s critically acclaimed concert series is highly visible and draws an impressively wide demographic range of patrons to the Library.  Eventbrite, the new ticketing infrastructure for the Music Division’s public programs, has eliminated all service charges , making the concert tickets totally free. The new platform is also in line with the Library’s aim to focus on digital resources, by giving our concert staff direct control over the platform’s application at the Library, providing free mobile and digital ticketing options for members of the public, and enabling greater digital outreach for building and diversifying our audience base.

The Martha Graham Dance Company came to the Library of Congress for a 10-day spring festival, March 24-April 2, 2016 . As the centerpiece for a wide-ranging celebration marking the Library’s 90th anniversary as a presenter of the performing arts, the festival highlighted historic Library of Congress dance commissions from Martha Graham and revealed the world premiere of a new commission from Swedish choreographer Pontus Lidberg. Set to music by Irving Fine, the new work is a co-commission of the Library of Congress and the Martha Graham Center of Contemporary Dance.

For the first time in years, the Music Division is hiring in the area of bibliographic access. Upcoming vacancy announcements will recruit for a section head and two catalogers.

Performing Arts Reading Room Renovation

The planning/design phase of a complete renovation of the Performing Arts Reading Room will begin in 2016. The reading rooms for Recorded Sound, Moving Image, and Music will be merged into one reading room. The renovation includes a complete redesign of all staff work areas as well. Construction should begin in 2017-2018.

Tap Dance in America

The Music Division has a new online publication of Tap Dance in America: A Twentieth-Century Chronology of Tap Performance on Stage, Film, and Media by Constance Valis Hill. The 3,000-record database is searchable by title, date, venue, dancer, choreographer, director, producer, and performance medium, as well as by names of tap numbers and tap choreographies. In addition to the records of tap performance on stage and film, Hill has contributed biographies of 20th century tap dancers, from elders Bill Robinson and Fred Astaire to 21st century young bloods. Also included is a substantial essay, “Tap Dance in America: A Short History.” While the chronology is not complete, it is the most exhaustive and detailed collection of tap documentation on record, and has been donated for the express purpose of promoting and sustaining research and scholarship in tap dance, America’s first vernacular dance form.

ISMN (International Standard Music Number)

The Music Division continued to administer the ground-breaking U.S. ISMN online registration system.

Serial and Government Publications Division (SER)

The Serial and Government Publications Division (SER) performs a wide range of collection development, collection description, collection preservation, and reference service activities for its temporary and permanent collections.  SER’s permanent collections include: newspapers, comic books, pulp magazine, and several government document collections.  The newspaper collection consists of approximately 1,100,000 current loose newspaper issues, over 38,000 bound volumes, and more than 748,443 microfilm reels. The newspaper collection also includes many original print holdings of commemorative and anniversary editions, and first printings of significant United States documents. The comic book collection includes more than 11,000 titles and more than 138,000 issues. SER’s pulp magazine collection is based on original print issues that have been reformatted to microfilm or preserved through facsimile reproduction; additionally, the original color covers of over 9,000 issues have been preserved. The Division is the official repository of archival sets of U.S. Federal Advisory Committee (FAC) documents, holding approximately 63,971items.  SER also houses master copies of U.S. Federal Depository Library Program (FDLP) documents distributed on microfiche. As of FY 2013, SER is also custodial for bound serials with minimal level cataloging (WMLC), a collection of approximately 5,000 volumes stored off-site. SER holds the complete United Nations working document set in multiple formats. SER is also the custodial stakeholder for digitized newspapers acquired through the National Digital Newspaper Program, now approximately 10.9 million pages. The current periodical collection includes more than 40,000 domestic and foreign titles, including government serials, and 1,176,000 loose items that reside temporarily in the Division prior to binding or microfilming and transfer to the general collection.

Collection activities

With an increased funding allocation for microfilm reformatting of newspapers beginning October 2015, SER has begun to address the backlog of newsprint issues (newspapers and periodicals) needing preservation microfilming. The division participates in the Library’s preservation microfilming program, filming titles that are not available for commercial purchase. Many of the titles filmed are from developing countries and ethnic US communities and are held by few if any other US institutions, so filming SER’s issues makes the titles available for Interlibrary Loan.
SER acquired several significant additions to its collections in the past year.   In addition, by way of Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Small Press Expo (SPX), the Division continued to acquire by donation additional items (including award-winning web sites) from creators participating in the 2015 SPX annual expo. At the Division’s annual SPX program,  the creators behind Locust Moon Press (Josh O’Neill, Andrew Carl and Chris Stevens ) told the fascinating story of publishing the 2015 Eisner Award winning volume, Little Nemo: Dream Another Dream. The division is in its fifth year of collaboration with SPX. 

SER also acquired some rare and valuable original newspaper and comic book issues, including:

• A single issue of the Chicago Defender, Oct. 1, 1955, is one of the few print issues located in the marketplace covering the Emmett Till murder, a key civil rights event.  The Defender was a prominent African-American newspaper and was published in Emmett Till’s home town.
• Alexander Street Press’ Underground and Independent Comics, Comix, and Graphic Novels, Volume II database.  The second volume adds extensive coverage of the pre-Comics Code era horror, crime, romance, and war comics.
• One volume of the London Gazette for the year 1776.  The content is replete with British political discussions regarding the war of independence and coverage of battles from a British perspective.  It also contains the first report of the Declaration of Independence in a British (and arguably European) newspaper (August 10) in which it stated, “I am informed that the Continental Congress have declared the United Colonies free and independent States.”
• By way of Memorandum of Understanding with the Small Press Expo (SPX), acquired by donation 952 items from the SPX annual expos of 2013 and 2014. In addition, two web sites of Ignatz award-winning creators were added to the Small Press Expo webarchive.

National Digital Newspaper Program/ Chronicling America

Begun in 2004, the National Digital Newspaper program (NDNP) is a partnership between the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and the Library of Congress (LC) to provide free public access to historic American newspapers through the Chronicling America web site (URL <http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/>). Applying digital technologies for enhancing and sustaining access to this important primary source of American history, the program will, over the long-term, fund digitization of historic newspapers in all U.S. states and territories. To support access to newspapers not available in digital form, the site also offers bibliographic information for 153,000 American newspapers published from 1690 to the present, including library holdings. In addition to providing enduring access, the Library’s responsibility to sustain NDNP content over time provides a testing ground for the viability of new digital acquisition and preservation strategies and architectures at the Library.

Each two-year award provides funding to a state library, historical society, or university library. The institution is responsible for selecting, digitizing, and delivering 100,000 newspaper pages, representing its state and regional history within the scoped time period of the collection (1836-1922), using technical specifications established by the Library. In 2015, two new awardees – Delaware and Wisconsin - joined 38 other states and territories currently participating in the program. These states and territories include California, Connecticut, Florida, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, New Mexico, Nevada, North Carolina, North Dakota, Puerto Rico, South Dakota, Tennessee, Vermont, Virginia and West Virginia. Other states – Arizona, Hawaii, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas, Utah and Washington have “graduated” from the program, no longer receiving awards, but continue to be involved in program activities.

Library participation in the program, a joint operation by the Office of the Chief Information Officer’s (OCIO) Repository Development Group and Library Services’ Serial and Government Publications Division (SER), continues to be successful in meeting program goals. Project teams (technical and quality assurance) in these service units worked together to develop technical guidelines and requirements, monitor operations, improve data infrastructure, and provide access to the content.  A joint LC/NEH oversight committee also actively worked on other ongoing program management, outreach, and awardee support. Currently, the program supports 23 active awardees in various stages of data production, receiving approximately 150,000 images per month (7 TB).

In specific accomplishments since June 2015, Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers added more than 1.4 million pages to provide full-text access to almost 11 million newspaper pages published between 1836 and 1922 (approximately 43 million digital items), representing 2000 selected newspapers from 38 states and territories and the District of Columbia. The site now hosts more 128 non-English ethnic newspapers, published in French, German, Italian and Spanish. These titles, representing 323,000 pages, are in French and Spanish from Arizona, Louisiana, New Mexico, and Texas; Italian from Pennsylvania,  Vermont and West Virginia; and German from Iowa, Indiana, Maryland, Minnesota, Missouri, North Dakota, Ohio and Pennsylvania. More, including additional languages, are expected in the coming year. More than 1100 newspaper history essays written by awardees, describe the background and significance of each digitized title.

New content is added to the site as it is accepted into the collection. To stay updated on new additions, view the Recent Additions RSS feed at URL < chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/newspapers/feed/>.

Chronicling America distributes another general interest RSS (Real Simple Syndication) feed through the Library’s GovDelivery service, notifying subscribers of interesting NDNP program news and content updates, and announces new Topics Guides created by SER staff.  Interested members of the library community and the public may subscribe at URL < www.loc.gov/rss>. Twitter users can follow @librarycongress, using #ChronAm to discover highlights of the collection.

Newspaper Topics Pages

SER continued producing its series of research pages called Topics in Chronicling America, commonly referred to as Topics Pages, designed to aid users of the NDNP’s Chronicling America. Topics Pages (URL < https://www.loc.gov/research-centers/newspaper-and-current-periodical/about-this-research-center/>) focus on newsworthy historic events reported in the American press between 1836 and 1922 and searchable in Chronicling America. Topics Pages consist of three parts:  the timeline, which lists important dates related to the topic; a list of suggested search terms or search strategies to locate stories; and a bibliography of between ten and fifteen sample stories from Chronicling America’s digital newspaper collections. SER now provides Topics Pages for more than 270 subjects, with newly added guides for Ida B. Wells, Andrew Carnegie, John Phillips Sousa, and the 16th Amendment.

Orientation and Outreach

SER sponsors an orientation to its collections and its reading room, the Newspaper and Current Periodical Reading Room, the last Tuesday of each month at 10:00.  Members of the general public are welcome. In addition, SER organizes special orientations and tours for university classes and other groups with interests related to the collections. In mid-November 2014, SER joined the Library’s Twitter feed, providing tweets on a daily basis under the #ChronAm and #NewsRR hashtags.

Library Services / Partnerships & Outreach Programs Directorate (POP)

See NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL OUTREACH (NIO)

Library Services / Preservation Directorate (PRESERV)

The mission of the Preservation Directorate at the Library of Congress is to ensure long-term, uninterrupted access to the intellectual content of the collections in original or reformatted form. The Preservation Directorate fulfills this mission directly through the provision of conservation, binding, mass deacidification, reformatting, materials testing, and staff and user education; and indirectly through the coordination and oversight of all Library-wide activities relating to the preservation and physical protection of the collections.

The Library of Congress will be announcing a new Director for Preservation during summer 2016.  The Preservation Directorate division chiefs have been serving as acting director on a rotational basis.    

Outreach

The Preservation Directorate web site, URL < www.loc.gov/preservation>, serves as the Library’s main preservation outreach channel. Changes and updates in the past year include further development of Spanish-language preservation resources (URL < www.loc.gov/preservation/espanol>), creating multiple access links to the preservation FAQ (URL: < www.loc.gov/preservation/about/faqs/index.html>), and the addition of informational pages for new programs, such as the Harper-Inglis Post-Graduate Fellowship.

The Preservation Directorate hosted five Topics in Preservation Series (TOPS) lectures, four of which represented the continuation of larger, longer research projects. Four of the five were approved for filming by the speakers and are or will be accessible via the Preservation web site in the near future, at URL < www.loc.gov/preservation/outreach/tops/index.html>.

Preservation Week 2016 was focused on the Florence Flood, which happened fifty years ago this November.  Two events included a viewing of the of the rare Franco Zeffirelli film, Florence: Days of Destruction (Italian title: Per Firenze) 1966 and a presentation by Andrew Robb about the influence of the Florence Flood on the conservation profession. This talk will be available on the web site in the near future, and the film will be shown during ALA’s "Now Showing @ ALA Film Program" on June 25.

Preservation Directorate staff assisted the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) Preservation and Conservation Core Activity (IFLA- PAC) by representing the PAC on the IFLA level Cultural Heritage Programme Advisory Committee, which was formed in 2015. The PD continues to contribute to the PAC as an active regional center. Before the 2016 IFLA conference in Columbus, Ohio, a satellite meeting or preconference on the topic of high-density storage for physical and digital collections will be held at the Library of Congress, Aug. 10-11, 2016, in collaboration with IFLA’s Preservation and Conservation Section and IFLA PAC Strategic Programme and organized by Preservation Directorate staff.  See URL < iflapac.2016preconference.org External >. Registration is free and the deadline has been extended to June 30, 2016.

Education Opportunities

The Preservation Directorate planned and managed programs that brought professionals at different levels of their careers to the Library for practical experience and training in areas of preservation and preservation research expertise. Opportunities ranged from simple ad hoc short-term volunteer arrangements to more involved year-long professional fellowships with other important cultural heritage organizations.  All of these programs provided Directorate staff an opportunity to contribute toward the development of a new generation of preservation experts while also accomplishing needed work with the Library’s collections.  Examples include:

The Binding and Collections Care Division (BCCD) hosted a volunteer in its Collections Care Section (CCS) for a total of 250 hours to learn treatment protocols and contribute to the overall treatment of general collections.  Another volunteer will start June 13 and will work in CCS.
The Conservation Division (CD) welcomed three conservation graduate program interns from the Winterthur/University of Delaware Program in Art Conservation, the Art Conservation Program at Buffalo State, and the Queen’s University Art Conservation Program; a professional conservator from Japan; and a recently graduated preventive conservation professional from Brazil, supported by a Brazilian government grant. 
The Preservation Reformatting Division (PRD) hosted a graduate program intern from the Graduate School of Library and Information Science (GSLIS) at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

The Preservation Research and Testing Division (PRTD) is hosting  11 interns, fellows and visiting scholars: four Junior Fellows, two American Chemical Society SEED fellows (a program for financially disadvantaged science students), a University of Maryland science undergraduate, one CLIR (Council on Library and Information Resources) /Mellon doctoral fellow, a CLIR/Mellon postdoctoral fellow, and a doctoral student from the U.K.

Binding and Collections Care Division & Mass-Deacidification Program (BCCD)

The Binding & Collections Care Division manages the care of the Library's general and reference collections through binding preparation and contract management; collections conservation; and collections housing, using state-of-the-art automated box-cutting machines. Staff assist in serial processing for binding as well as reviewing monographs for appropriate binding or housing.  Housing and treatment are key strategies for protecting and making collections fit for use for generations to come. Several new staff have been hired or are soon to be hired, not limited to current Library employees.

Mass deacidification is a process to treat modern acidic library collections to reduce the degradation of the paper fibers by neutralizing the acid found in the processed papers and extends the life of the paper significantly.  A new Mass Deacidification Contract was awarded. The Manuscript Division’s U.S. Work Projects Administration Records collection is currently being deacidified in the sheet treater.

Conservation Division (CD)

The Conservation Division cares for the Library's special collections, including rare books and manuscripts, works of art and other unique documents on paper, photographs, maps, objects, and other special formats. Conservation also monitors storage and exhibition environments, stabilizes materials for optimized storage, exhibition, and digitization, and manages the Library's collections emergency team in the event of collections emergencies.

Shelly Smith was appointed as the new Head of the Book Conservation Section. She was formerly head of treatment conservation at the New York Public Library where she also oversaw the Collection Stabilization program.

The Library achieved a new milestone in its program to design and construct storage vaults for highest significance special collections which feature enhanced security features and environmental control. Staff from the Conservation Division collaborated with colleagues from the Music Division, Facility Services and the Architect of the Capitol to plan and prepare for the construction of two new vaults for the Musical Instrument Collection and the printed rare materials that comprise the Library’s Music Treasures.

The Conservation Division has created the Harper-Inglis Conservation Post-graduate Fellowship. Funded by a generous donation by the late Mr. Thomas B. Inglis, this fellowship will enable young professionals to spend one or two years to work closely with the Library conservation staff and pursue an independent research project that aims to further knowledge in the conservation of library materials. Shannon Brogdon-Grantham was selected as the first Harper-Inglis Fellow and will start her fellowship in September 2016.

Preservation Reformatting Division (PRD)

The Preservation Reformatting Division (PRD) provides access to at-risk Library materials by converting items to new formats such as microfilm, facsimile copies or digital reproductions; PRD also captures tangible media files for long term storage and retrieval.  Work to convert materials is accomplished through programs for microphotography and digital capture, either in-house or through contractors. The vast majority of material microfilmed continues to be foreign newsprint serial publications that are voluminous to store, highly acidic, and not well suited for digitization. Digital capture is typically monographic, pre-1923 (i.e., public domain) U.S. imprint items from the Library’s General Collections.

PRD has developed optical and floppy disk reformatting workflows for monographs containing such media. Using the forensic recovery of evidence device (FRED), PRD digital conversion specialists and technicians identified and automated disk label scanning, ISO file capture and post-processing operations for long-term storage.

Preservation Research and Testing Division (PRTD)

PRTD staff conducted research to assess factors that endanger our collections, focused on five areas: environmental preservation of traditional materials, audiovisual and digital materials, and time-based media; technology transfer to develop best non-invasive techniques for analysis and identification of substrates and media to ensure stability and preservation; and the development of an experimental sample reference collection to support and reduce risk to collections. The Division has continued to be active in establishing long-term research projects for preservation of Library materials in storage and exhibit; quality assurance of library materials; and the development of new specifications, contributing to core Library activities through the three programmatic areas of analytical services, research projects, and quality assurance (QA).

An exciting development for PRTD was the award of a two-year CLIR/Mellon post-doctoral fellowship in Data Curation for Medieval Studies, where the research will be focused on the integration of scientific and humanities data, expanding our understanding of collection content.
PRTD has continued a close relationship with the George Washington Forensic Science Master’s Program. The PRTD Chief lectures on the program to educate students on the techniques used in preservation science, and to initiate a better understanding of material properties, the interaction of materials with the environment, and the consequent potential degradation mechanisms that can occur.

PRTD staff taught the Catholic University of America (CUA) School of Library and Information Science Master’s level preservation course with excellent response to new areas of preservation challenges. Division staff were invited presenters and keynote speakers at various international conferences and symposia including the International Raman Users Group (IRUG), Oxford University Imaging Symposium, International Council on Museums–Conservation Committee conference on science and education, and others.

Library Services / Technology Policy Directorate (TECH)

New Digital Collections Division

The Acting Librarian has approved the creation of a new Digital Collections Management & Services (DCMS) division within the Technology Policy Directorate of Library Services. The division chief position is to be posted this summer. One goal for this reorganization is to provide administrative consolidations that can bring efficiencies and improve support services with as little disruption to current work as possible. Another goal is to create a unit for ingesting and managing born-digital, general collections content. The DCMS Division will have two sections: Digitization Services and Digital Content Management. Eventual total staffing of the division is planned to be approximately 40 individuals.

Federal Agencies Digitization Guidelines (FADGI)

The Library continues to lead the Federal Agencies Digitization Guidelines Initiative (FADGI), a group of 20 federal agencies collaborating on the development of digitization guidelines and best practices.

FADGI Still Image Working Group

The closing date for public comment on the 2016 Technical Guidelines for Digitizing Cultural Heritage Materials was Dec. 1, 2015. Significant additions have been made to the document based on the comments received. The Guidelines have also been reviewed by ISO TC/42 JWG26, which is formulating ISO standards related to cultural heritage imaging. As a result of this ISO review the 2016 Guidelines will be fully compliant with the emerging ISO standards relating to cultural heritage imaging. The new Guidelines will be presented to the FADGI Still Image Working Group for finalization in the next few months.

OpenDICE, our next generation digitization quality monitoring tool, is finished and undergoing validation testing at Image Science Associates. Validation testing is expected to be complete in the next few months, after which the program will be released. OpenDICE has all the essential functionality of DICE (Digital Image Conformance Evaluation), the original digitization quality conformance program, and will be available at no cost.

FADGI Audio-Visual Working Group

The FADGI Audio-Visual Working Group published a revised version of the Audio Analog-to-Digital Converter Performance Specification and Test Method Guideline (High Level Performance) report in February, 2016, which specifies a set of metrics and methods pertaining to the performance of the audio analog-to-digital converters (ADCs) used in preservation reformatting workflows. The 2016 version is an update to the version published in August 2012 and includes adjustments to the methods, pass-fail recommendations for several of the metrics, and explanatory notes. This project included field tests in three federal agencies--the Voice of America, the National Archives, and the Library's Packard Campus/National Audio-Visual Conservation Center. Comments are welcome through early summer 2016.

In addition, the Audio-Visual Working Group published the approved version of the Digitizing Motion Picture Film: Exploration of the Issues and Sample SOW report in April 2016, which includes an introductory essay, a set of tables that describe a range of film “inputs” and digital “outputs,” and concludes with a model statement of work for outsourced conversion of film to video. The report was produced by a FADGI subgroup led by staff from the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), with active participation from the Library of Congress including the Packard Campus, American Folklife Center and Technology Policy Directorate.

The Audio-Visual Working Group continued its development on the new draft of the AS-07 MXF application specification.  AS-07 provides a detailed profile for a digital file “wrapper,” one key part of a digital file format for audio-visual preservation. The specification includes a list of permitted encoded content bitstreams; defines a means for the carriage of multiple timecodes; the handling of captions, subtitles, and Timed Text; a minimal core metadata set; program segmentation metadata; and embedded content integrity data. The effort is being carried out under the auspices of the Advanced Media Workflow Association (AMWA). A set of sample files and a new version of the specification are expected to be published in early summer 2016.

The Audio-Visual Working Group initiated a new project in May 2016 to evaluate embedded metadata needs for the DPX (Digital Picture Exchange) format, often used for digitized motion picture film. The emerging effort will investigate federal agency community needs and current practices as well as gaps in software tools. This project is led by staff from the National Museum of African American History and Culture, with significant participation from NARA, National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center, Smithsonian American Art Museum and the Library of Congress including the Technology Policy Directorate, American Folklife Center and Packard Campus.

Integrated Library System Program Office (ILSPO)

Integrated Library System

The Library is currently running the LC Integrated Library System (ILS) on Voyager 8.2.0.

The Library will introduce a new, responsive design in the LC Online Catalog at the ALA 2016 Annual Conference.  In 2015 the ILS Program Office incorporated its OpenURL resolver, called FindIt!, into the record displays for books, serials and integrating resources.  Catalog users can click on the FindIt! button to discover all the options for access to titles as licensed content in the Library’s E-Resources Catalog or other sources.

New Responsive Design in LC Online Catalog

The new user interface to the LC Online Catalog incorporates responsive Web design, which enables optimal viewing and interaction across a wide range of devices. Responsive design provides easy reading and navigation with a minimum of resizing, panning, and scrolling, regardless of the size of the device, from desktop computer monitors to mobile phones, tablets, etc. The Library’s Web metrics show that more and more users are accessing its Web properties from smart phones or tablets.

Responsive design is inherently accessible, that is, ADA-compliant, making the LC Online Catalog accessible to all users including those with disabilities.

Web metrics informed many of the decisions in the redesign. For example, the LC Online Catalog now has its own branding and the Library’s Ask A Librarian Service is presented prominently on every page. Standard Web features that are familiar to smart phone users are now in use in the OPAC. While the underlying functionality and indexing will not change, the new user interface will improve the usability of the catalog for all users, no matter how they access it.

The Library will make the new responsive design user interface available at URL < catalog 2.loc.gov> in a beta release prior to the conference. The existing user interface will remain available at URL < catalog.loc.gov>. In August the Library will move the new user interface into production at catalog.loc.gov and the old user interface will be deprecated and available for a month at catalog2.loc.gov. The Library encourages users to try the new design and provide feedback to ils@loc.gov.

The new design allows much more flexibility in the design and enables the Library to add functionality, such as integration with the Library’s openURL resolver, FindIt! Library developers have added new functionality such as “Cite Record,” which provides easy copy and paste of citations into bibliographies, and the ability to view and save bibliographic records in XML and MODS. The new design also provides better information security for patrons requesting materials from the Library’s stacks.

The new user interface reflects the Library’s latest Web standards and provides a modern look and feel that users have come to expect of search systems on the Web, especially on mobile devices.  The LC Online Catalog is in the forefront of the redesign of the Library’s web site. The look and feel introduced in the catalog will be rolled out to the rest of the web site over the next year, with the goal to implement responsive design throughout.

In September 2015, the ILS Program Office implemented Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) technology in the LC Online Catalog and its other Web properties. SSL is a commonly used cryptographic protocol designed to protect communication over the Internet. This encryption technology ensures the privacy, integrity, and authenticity of web site communication, thus securing the user's OPAC session to prevent eavesdropping and tampering. All OPAC sessions now use the URL < http s://catalog.loc.gov> instead of < http://catalog.loc.gov>. Users will see a small padlock icon preceding the URL in the address bar of most browsers.  Existing URL links to the LC Online Catalog will be seamlessly redirected from http to https.

Market Research for Next Generation ILS

In fiscal 2015, the ILS Program Office began market research for a Next Generation Integrated Library System. The ILSPO is conducting outreach to ILS vendors to discuss the future of Next Generation systems and learn about technological trends and improvements on the horizon in order to develop the Library’s requirements for a next generation system.

LCCN Permalink

LCCN Permalink (URL < lccn.loc.gov>), a web service that allows users to create permanent URL links to bibliographic and authority records in the Library's Online Catalog and authority records in the LC Authorities Service (URL < authorities.loc.gov>) , enables researchers to reference materials from the Library's collection in blogs, reference guides, web pages, emails, bibliographies, and more. Resolving more than 15,000 requests daily, LCCN Permalink for bibliographic records has recently been enhanced with links to MARC21 records, in addition to LC holdings information and OpenURL links to the Library’s Find It SFX resolver along with COINS metadata.  LCCN Permalink is completely standards-based, leveraging widely used XML technologies, Z39.50/SRU, and metadata schemas.

In December, 2015, the ILS Program Office implemented Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) technology in LCCN Permalink. Existing URL links for LCCN Permalinks will be seamlessly redirected from http to https.

LC EAD (Encoded Archival Description) Archival Finding Aids

Since January 2016, Collections and Services Directorate divisions have created 54 new EAD archival finding aids, bringing the total number of LC EAD finding aids to 2,288. At URL < findingaids.loc.gov>, users can access 61.9 million archival items in LC's collections through these documents.  Finding aids from the Asian Division and the Veterans History Project were created for the first time in FY16. In addition, production-level efforts integrate digitized archival collection content with EAD finding aids metadata (as seen, for example, in the Rosa Parks Papers, the Thomas Biggs Harned Collection of Walt Whitman Papers, and the William T. Sherman Papers). The EAD Technical Team has also initiated extensive discussions to plan for the Library’s conversion to EAD3 next year.

LC Persistent Identifiers

Library staff registered approximately 151,907 handles this fiscal year. As of June 2016, the Library's handle server contained 3,770,497 handles. Library staff continue to assign handles to born-digital e-resources stored by the Library’s digital repository services and for content digitized in LC cooperative projects; U.S. legislation searchable in Congress.gov; and digital books created by the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped. Access requests processed by LC’s handle server are 23 percent higher than in the same period last year with 14,812,454 requests for the period from January to May 2016, compared to 12,010,565 requests for the period from January to May 2015.

Electronic Resource Management System (ERMS)

Library Services (LS) staff and Congressional Research Service (CRS) staff completed the migration of descriptive metadata to the Library’s ERMS to support use by Congressional Research Service (CRS) staff. This change provides better service to CRS analysts who regularly access e-resources in the course of their work. The Library expects significant cost-savings in the consolidation of effort and use of a single system by Library Services, the Law Library and the Congressional Research Service.

The Library’s ERMS currently contains approximately 982,000 bibliographic, 1,263,300 holdings, 1,738 resource, and 1,400 license records. In fiscal 2015 patrons and LC staff performed 1,012,068 searches in the Electronic Resources Online Catalog.

Managing the Library’s Digital Collections

A major focus of the ILS Program Office’s activity in 2015 was the ingest and management of digital collections.  The ILS Program Office continued working with the Repository Development Center, Office of the Chief Information Officer, to further integrate the Delivery Management Service (DMS) with the LC ILS as part of the eDeposit Project. Holdings records for deposited digital e-journals are updated in the LC ILS and persistent identifiers (handles) are assigned as the content is ingested from publishers.

ILSPO worked with the Repository Development Center and the Acquisitions and Bibliographic Access Directorate to define requirements for the ingest of e-books received from CIP Program partners.  The resulting software enables creation of holdings records and assignment of persistent identifiers (handles) for the e-books files as they are ingested from publishers. This project leverages and utilizes the previous programming of the Content Transfer System and other repository services developed by the Repository Development Center. The Library aims to ingest over 5,000 e-books from CIP participants in fiscal 2016.

HathiTrust

In fiscal 2015, the Library of Congress implemented a new method for staff and patrons to access materials in the HathiTrust, a partnership of academic and research institutions offering a collection of millions of titles digitized from libraries around the world.  The HathiTrust Digital Library is a digital preservation repository that provides access to digital content.  LC staff and patrons have access to Library of Congress titles that are in the public domain and that have been digitized by the Library or another member of the HathiTrust.

The new method of authentication uses a system called Shibboleth to authenticate users for access to the full range of services offered in the HathiTrust Digital Library. Authenticated users may download full-PDFs of public domain works; access the Collection Builder application, which makes it possible for users to aggregate works into permanent collections either for private use or to share publicly with others; access content for researchers with a print disability (only in the U.S.; see URL < www.hathitrust.org/accessibility External >); and access works held in print by partner institutions that are missing or brittle and also out of print (only in the U.S.; see URL < www.hathitrust.org/out-of-print-brittle External >).

Detailed information on Shibboleth access and how to log in to the HathiTrust Web site is available here at URL < www.hathitrust.org/shibboleth External >

LC patrons with Reader Identification Cards and LC staff with patron accounts in the Integrated Library System (ILS) will be prompted to select the Library of Congress from a drop-down menu and then provide the first two letters of their surname and their account number in order to access the full functionality of the HathiTrust Digital Library.

NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL OUTREACH

On Oct. 1, 2015, the Library's National and International Outreach (NIO) service unit was officially launched. NIO combines many of the public-facing programs and activities that highlight the Library’s unique role as a national cultural institution and a major asset for the lifelong learning of America’s citizens. The goal of NIO is to increase collaboration among our programs and staff, foster partnerships with other prominent cultural and academic institutions, and make the Library’s unique resources of greater benefit to Congress, the American people and the world. NIO's public programs are organized into three directorates: National Enterprises, National Programs, and Scholarly and Educational Programs.

Personnel Changes

• Eugene Flanagan was appointed Director for National Programs, effective March 7, 2016.
• John Y. Cole is named the Library of Congress Historian, a new position dedicated to serving as the top technical expert and adviser on the history of the Library of Congress, documenting institutional history and conducting historical research, effective June 12, 2016. Cole was formerly director of the Center for the Book.
• Pam Jackson is the new director of the Center for the Book, effective June 12, 2016. She was formerly the deputy assistant director for the Government and Finance Division at the Congressional Research Service. Before joining the Library in 2003, she served for 11 years as the CEO of the Coleman A. Young Foundation, a charitable foundation dedicated to the educational development of at-risk youth and college-bound students.

NATIONAL ENTERPRISES DIRECTORATE

Business Enterprises

Cataloging Distribution Service

Cataloging Distribution Service (CDS), a unit of the Office of Business Enterprises (BE), markets, publishes, and distributes the Library’s cataloging data and cataloging-related services for catalogers within the Library and for libraries around the world. CDS will have two product experts available in the Library’s booth to demonstrate and answer questions about Cataloger’s Desktop and Classification Web, the Library’s web-based subscription services. Product demonstrations in the exhibit booth are available on a walk-in basis, and formal presentations will be held daily in the booth theater.

CDS will also host four presentations for new catalogers. Participants in our training presentations will receive a free, hard-bound copy of “Eyes on the Nation: A Visual History of the United States,” written by Vincent Virga and published by the Library’s Publishing Office, while supplies last.

Cataloger’s Desktop. A booth theater presentation, “Cataloger’s Desktop 101: A Brief Introduction,” will be presented on Saturday, June 25, at 12:30 p.m. and on Monday, June 27, at 11 a.m.  For a free 30-day trial subscription to Cataloger’s Desktop, visit URL < www.loc.gov/cds/desktop/OrderForm.html>.

Classification Web. A booth theater presentation,“Classification Web 101: A Brief Introduction,” will be presented on Saturday, June 25, at 10 a.m. and Sunday, June 26, at 10 a.m. For a free 30-day trial subscription to Classification Web, visit URL < www.loc.gov/cds/classweb/classweborder.html#ordering>.

CDS Promotions Available in the Exhibit Booth.  Bookmarks featuring the Library of Congress Classification System are available for free to booth visitors.  Also available to all visitors is a pencil advertising Cataloging Distribution Service. All promotions are available while supplies last.

Duplication Service

See Library of Congress Exhibit Booth

Retail Service

See Library of Congress Exhibit Booth

Federal Research Division

The Federal Research Division, a division of National Enterprises/National and International Outreach (NE/NIO), supports analysts, program managers, and policy makers throughout the federal government (excluding Congress) and the District of Columbia by utilizing the Library’s collections and other information sources worldwide to provide customized research, analysis, and information management products and services on a wide range of domestic and international concerns. As a cost-recovery unit, FRD sustains its mission through the assessment and collection of fees from client agencies.

In the past year, FRD worked with clients across the federal sector on concerns including state privacy and security legislation, juvenile justice and delinquency, elder financial exploitation, federal strategic sourcing, immigration integration strategies, threat assessments, security forces and command and control systems, and financial readiness curricula for consumer protection information.  In addition, FRD continued to support the National Digital Library, making substantive collections-related content available to both federal and public users via the FRD homepage.

FEDLINK

FEDLINK celebrated its 50th anniversary of working together to achieve optimum use of the resources and facilities of federal libraries and information centers by promoting common services, coordinating and sharing available resources, and providing continuing professional education for federal library and information staff.  FEDLINK serves as a forum for discussion of the policies, programs, procedures, and technologies that affect federal libraries and the information services they provide to their agencies, to the Congress, the federal courts and the American people.

Services

FEDLINK provided its members with $75.7 million in Transfer Pay services, $5.9 million in Direct Pay services, and an estimated $106.5 million in the Direct Express service--in total, approximately $188 million of information resource purchasing done on FEDLINK contracts. This saved federal agencies more than $36.7 million in vendor volume discounts and approximately $49.9 million in cost avoidance.

FEDLINK awarded new contracts to support serials, information resources, preservation, conservation, and digitization services, cataloging and other library staff support services.  FEDLINK renewed a contract with Information International Associates to support CENDI, the interagency working group of senior scientific and technical information managers from 16 federal agencies.  FEDLINK established an interagency agreement with the Office of Science and Technology Information, U.S. Department of Energy, to support Science.gov, a web portal integrating access to federal science and technology information.

Federal library activities

FEDLINK’s Advisory Board (FAB) focused on a variety of broad federal information issues including FEDLINK’s status as the commodity manager of Information Retrieval for the Federal Strategic Sourcing Initiative (FSSI), the Library of the United States Project (LOTUS), interlibrary loan groups among federal libraries, new technologies for federal librarians, FEDLINK’s research agenda, and the Federal Library Census. The FEDLINK Education Working Group, in concert with other FEDLINK working groups, sponsored seminars, workshops, and brokered conferences for nearly 1,500 members of the federal library and information center community.

Awards

The FEDLINK Awards Committee announced the following awards on May 10, 2016:

• 2015 Federal Library/Information Center of the Year in the Large Library/Information Center Category (with a staff of 11 or more employees): National Library of Education, Washington, D.C.
• 2015 Federal Library/Information Center of the Year in the Small Library/Information Center Category (with a staff of 10 or fewer employees): Knowledge Information Service (KIS) of the New England Veterans Integrated Service Network 1 (VISN1), Manchester, N.H.
• 2015 Federal Librarian of the Year: no announcement
• <2015 Federal Library Technician of the Year: Paul Darr, Library Technician, Defense Language Institute English Language Center (DLIELC), Joint Base San Antonio Lackland, Tex.

Human Resources Working Group

The Human Resources Working Group (HRWG) examined the librarian series in terms of its title, series assignment, and description/factors and determined the description was outdated.  After several public discussion groups, federal librarians agreed to keep the title “librarian,” remain under the umbrella series 1400, and revise the series description and factors. The working group also completed revising the 1410 series and sent out the revision to the FEDLINK Federal Advisory Board and to more than 40 federal librarians from a variety of federal agencies who volunteered to review the draft revision. Following the review, the HRWG addressed and adjudicated the comments and completed additional revisions.  Discussions with federal agency human resource professionals are ongoing.

Publishing Office

The Library of Congress Publishing Office publishes and co-publishes books and other products that describe, illuminate, and interpret the Library’s collections and services. By creating publications, coloring books, calendars, puzzles, cards, and other products, the Publishing Office stimulates interest in Library collections among readers of varied ages and socioeconomic backgrounds. Staffed by writers/editors with deep knowledge of Library collections, the Publishing Office is uniquely suited to identify and showcase the Library’s most famous assets, as well as its little-known treasures.

By spearheading a new effort to develop a comprehensive and sustainable e-book publishing strategy for the Library, the Publishing Office will play a leading role in the institution’s efforts to serve the public interest by making the riches of its collections more widely available to citizens through digitization and discoverability.

NATIONAL PROGRAMS DIRECTORATE

Center for the Book (CFB)

Gene Luen Yang, the Library’s National Ambassador for Young People's Literature, will be on the Teen and Graphic Novels stages at the National Book Festival on Sept. 24, 2016.

Books & Beyond

The Center for the Book continues with its popular book series, Books & Beyond, which features authors who have researched their works at the Library of Congress. In the past six months, 10 programs have been offered. They can be found in webcasts at URL < www.read.gov/webcasts>.

Poet Laureate

Juan Felipe Herrera, U.S. Poet Laureate, has agreed to serve a second year in the position. Herrera’s second term will begin Sept. 1, 2016. He will follow previous multiyear laureates such as Natasha Trethewey, Kay Ryan, Ted Kooser and Billy Collins. Details about his second-term project will be announced in late summer.

At the 2015 National Book Festival, Herrera announced the official project of his first term, La Casa de Colores—including an invitation to Americans to contribute a verse to an "epic poem" about the American experience. La Casa de Colores is on the Library's poetry web site, URL < www.loc.gov/poetry/casadecolores>.

Young Readers Center

The Young Readers Center hosted more than 36,000 visitors last year. The center continued its popular Friday Story Time programs; expanded its school programs; participated in educational programming; and expanded access to special populations by adding more braille books, an audio player, and more books in foreign languages. Special programs included a program for military families with Jill Biden.

Read.gov

The Center for the Book’s web site, Read.gov, continues to be popular for its digitized versions of classic books, its webcasts and its specialized pages for kids, teens, adults, educators, and parents.

Letters About Literature

The Center is a longtime sponsor of the Letters About Literature contest for children in grades 4-12, which encourages them to write a letter to an author (living or dead) explaining how that writer’s work affected them.  The new award winners were announced on June 2. For more information, go to URL  < www.loc.gov/today/pr/2016/16-099.html>. 

National Book Festival

Plans are well underway for the 2016 National Book Festival, to be held Saturday, Sept. 24, 2016, at the Washington Convention Center in downtown Washington, D.C. This is the Library’s largest event, and as always, is free and open to the public. The program will include a lineup of over 120 authors, and this year will feature a special mainstage with appearances by Stephen King, Salman Rushdie, Bob Woodward, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Shonda Rhimes, and Raina Telgemeier.  Other festival authors include Stacy Schiff, Colson Whitehead, Carl Hiaasen, Eileen Myles, Douglas Brinkley, and many others. For the full program and ongoing updates, see the book festival web site.

Presentations on the National Book Festival will be offered in the Library’s booth at 9:30 a.m. on Saturday and Monday during ALA Annual Conference in Orlando. Free National Book Festival posters will be available any time.

National Digital Initiatives

NIO has launched a new program called National Digital Initiatives (NDI). NDI’s purpose is to broaden awareness of the Library’s innovation and grow the use of its digital resources through outreach and external partnerships. NDI is currently defining and pursuing several program areas to accomplish three strategic goals: expand the use of Library’s digital resources through more visitors, innovative uses, and new audiences; promote the Library as a digital innovator by acting as a facilitator or incubator for innovative projects; and grow the national capacity for cultural memory by working effectively with the cultural community.

National Film and Recording Preservation Boards and Registries

National Film Preservation Board and Registry

The Film Board met in Washington, D.C. in October 2015 to discuss various ongoing preservation and access initiatives, as well as suggestions for the National Film Registry. The newest 25 selections to the National Film Registry were announced Dec. 16, 2015 in the Library’s News Releases (see URL < www.loc.gov/today/pr/2015/15-216.html>).

Thus far in 2016, the board has focused on such issues as international partnerships to repatriate “lost” American silent films; a National Screening Room to display films held by U.S. archives; updating the U.S. Silent Feature Film Database; and the Traveling Archivists/Experts program, which sends luminaries in the audio-visual community to archives and preservation schools for workshops and lectures.

National Recording Preservation Board and Registry

The Recording Board met in Washington, D.C. in November 2015 to discuss implementation of selected preservation and access recommendations found in the National Recording Preservation Plan and to review possible selections for the next Recording Registry. The latest 25 titles for the National Recording Registry were announced in March 2016 (see URL < www.loc.gov/today/pr/2016/16-056.html>).

Other recent initiatives include the latest edition of the multi-year, Peabody-Award winning radio series “Inside the National Recording Registry,” produced by Ben Manilla Productions and hosted through the years by first NPR and now Studio 360 (see URL < www.wnyc.org/feeds/series/studio/inside-national-recording-registry External >), and a two-day Radio Preservation Conference held in late February 2016, which served as the initiation of a lengthy project to identify, archive, and preserve endangered radio collections throughout the United States.

National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped (NLS)

NLS hosted the National Conference of Librarians Serving Blind and Physically Handicapped Individuals, April 3-7, 2016, in San Francisco, Calif. The conference was attended by about 140 network library staff from across the country. The highlight this year was hands-on training, which ran in three tracks each morning and included a full day on grant writing. Other topics included the BARD Mobile apps for iOS and Android, best practices for managing a recording studio, reader advisory tools and strategies, and Unified English Braille for non-braille readers. NLS also updated participants on its plans to release BARD Mobile Express, which will accelerate patrons’ access to books and magazines; agreements with commercial audiobook producers to enable file sharing with NLS to increase patron access to books; and plans for the next generation of talking books players to accept wireless delivery of talking books. NLS also discussed the need to provide braille display hardware for its patrons.

New identity

NLS launched a new identity to celebrate its 85th anniversary on March 3, the date President Herbert Hoover signed legislation establishing the Books for the Blind program, which later became NLS. The brand is the centerpiece of a strategic communications plan to build enrollment. The brand mark, auxiliary to the Library of Congress brand, will be featured on the covers of NLS magazines, directories, reference guides, and other products. Materials carrying the brand were also released in a Network Library Toolkit, first reviewed at the national conference in April 2016.

Guidelines for Braille and Talking Book Service

The revision of the 2011 ALA ASCLA (Association of Specialized & Cooperative Library Agencies) Revised Standards and Guidelines of Service for the Library of Congress Network of Libraries for the Blind and Physically Handicapped is underway, with the Working Committee preparing for a meeting for late June. The working committee, including Richard Smith, NLS chief of the Network Division, presented the plans for the update at the NLS National Conference and requested input from the network of cooperating libraries. The working committee plans to submit the first official draft in August 2016.

Unified English Braille (UEB)

On Jan. 4, 2016, Louis Braille’s 107th birthday, UEB became the official literary braille code for the United States—and NLS was ready for it. All books and magazines assigned on or after this date, beginning with John Grisham’s The Frontier (BR21266), are now produced in UEB. The Braille Authority of North America (BANA),overseeing the use, teaching, and production of braille in the U.S., adopted the code in November 2012. BANA then began preparing constituents for the change to ensure implementation in 2016. The U.S. joins seven other English-speaking countries in this effort to modernize the code for contemporary users.

SCHOLARLY AND EDUCATIONAL PROGRAMS DIRECTORATE

Intern and Fellowships Programs

The Intern and Fellowship Programs (IFP) Division focuses on supporting experiential learning for America’s current and future workforce through a portfolio of programs and a small, resourceful staff. IFP’s activities promote use of the Library’s collections in both analog and digital formats, connect born-digital content to born-digital learners, and build expertise in critical digital preservation skills.

Digital Preservation Outreach and Education (DPOE)

DPOE fosters outreach and education about digital preservation on a global scale. To date, DPOE has conducted two needs assessment surveys to identify gaps in current professional practice; convened subject matter experts to develop, regularly review and update a digital preservation curriculum and a set of guiding principles; developed coursework and designed a train-the-trainer workshop; hosted eight train-the-trainer workshops with external collaborators (six in the U.S.–D.C., Alaska, Illinois, Indiana, California and Kentucky–and two in Australia); and supported the exchange of knowledge for a national network through an email list and calendar of training opportunities.

DPOE continues to add content to enhance its baseline curriculum and accommodate online delivery through webinars and videos. Other program plans include exploring new collaborative opportunities to host regional train-the-trainer workshops with additional organizations to expand the network of 175 trainers. On-demand and online training product development will begin later this year, and the next iteration of the biennial training needs assessment survey will be conducted in summer 2016. For more program information, please visit URL < www.digitalpreservation.gov/education>.

National Digital Stewardship Residency (NDSR )

The National Digital Stewardship Residency, developed through a partnership between the Library of Congress and the Institute of Museum and Library Services, is a field experience program that offers recent masters and doctoral graduates the opportunity to work on relevant projects at leading institutions. The program has grown from being entirely based in the Washington, D.C., area in 2013, to cohorts in New York and Boston, and now nationwide.

The mission of the NDSR is to build a dedicated community of professionals who will advance our nation’s capabilities in managing, preserving, and making accessible the record of human achievement held in digital form. This will enable future generations to fully realize the potential of digital resources now and for years to come. The NDSR pilot was held in Washington, D.C. from September 2013 to May 2014, and managed by the Library of Congress. The second cohort began its residency in June 2015, and finished in June 2016, with the five residents working on projects at the American Institute of Architects, D.C. Public Library, the Government Publishing Office, the National Library of Medicine, and the U.S. Senate Historical Office. The second iteration of the program incorporated changes and enhancements informed by evaluation of the pilot year. A third iteration of the D.C. cohort is scheduled to begin in October 2016.

One of the most exciting developments for NDSR this year was the expansion of the program nationwide through three new IMLS grants to the American Archive of Public Broadcasting, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and Harvard University for the Biodiversity Heritage Library. George Coulbourne, chief of Internship and Fellowship Programs, represents the Library on the Advisory Boards for the American Archive of Public Broadcasting and the Philadelphia Museum of Art projects. Other future plans for the NDSR program include piloting a regional residency program in D.C./Maryland/Virginia, as well as the development of a comprehensive residency field manual. For more program information, visit URL < www.loc.gov/ndsr>.

The 2016-2017 National Digital Stewardship Residency (NDSR) application period for the Washington, DC cohort is now open. The one-year residency is a paid position from September 2016 through September 2017, and is open to recent masters and doctoral graduates with an interest in digital stewardship. Developed by the Institute for Museum and Library Services and the Library of Congress, the program prepares recent graduates for the professional world of digital stewardship through field work at one of five host institutions in the Baltimore-Washington area. To learn more about the program and how to apply for this opportunity, visit the web site at URL < www.digitalpreservation.gov/ndsr>.

Junior Fellows Program

For over a decade, Junior Fellows has offered undergraduate and graduate students the opportunity to explore the Library’s collections and to assist with digital preservation outreach activities through a ten-week summer project. Fellows are mentored by Library of Congress staff as they work on projects to extend their educational portfolios while supporting the Library’s efforts to tackle a range of 21st-century information management challenges. Now under the stewardship of IFP, the Junior Fellows Program will continue offering unique learning experiences for summer interns and providing opportunities to showcase the Library’s collections in innovative ways. Forty Junior Fellows were selected for the 2016 summer program out of roughly 800 applicants; they are working in various service units across the Library on projects as diverse as Fire Insurance Maps Online, to a Pre-Columbian Ceramic Archaeological Database and Imaging Project, to Digital Preservation Lifecycles in the Veterans History Project.

Hispanic Association of Colleges & Universities (HACU) National Internship Program

The Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities (HACU) National Internship Program has bolstered the Library’s commitment to diversity since 2005. The Library was awarded the Exceptional Public Sector Partner Award in recognition of its leadership at HACU’s 2015 annual conference. Over the last decade, the Library has hosted and provided on-the-job training for more than 160 students. This summer the Library will host eight students.

Library of Congress–Montgomery College Pilot Project

Last year the Library of Congress and Montgomery College, in a partnership between the Library and the Paul Peck Humanities Institute, began a pilot project to increase awareness and use of the Library’s collections and services by Montgomery College faculty, librarians, and students, and with the purpose of developing a model program that supports the educational and research activities of community colleges, colleges, and universities nationwide. The 18-month pilot recently ended, and on May 16 at the Library the six fellows, four faculty members and two librarians presented a celebratory showcase on how they had infused primary source materials into their instructional designs and coursework.

World Digital Library (WDL)

The World Digital Library (URL <https://www.wdl.org>) remains focused on three priorities: adding historically and culturally important content from its worldwide network of partners; recruiting new partners; and building a growing community of engaged users. Libraries that have contributed content for the first time include the national libraries of Andorra and of Romania. The King Abdulaziz Public Library of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, has joined the project. Among the  spectacular items added to the WDL in recent months are two Bibles, the ca. 750 Codex Aureus from the National Library of Sweden (URL < www.wdl.org/17185 External >) and a ca. 1280 Hebrew Bible from the Complutense University of Madrid (URL < www.wdl.org/17841>), known to have been used extensively for the composition of the Hebrew text of the Complutensian Polyglot Bible of 1514 (URL < www.wdl.org/10636 External >). The WDL is in the process of completing a project funded by Carnegie Corporation of New York to add collections of the Library of Congress from and about Afghanistan, with the aim of making Afghanistan’s cultural heritage accessible to libraries and educational institutions in the country. The WDL has embarked on an initiative to migrate content from the Russian-American Meeting of Frontiers project (URL < frontiers.loc.gov>) to the WDL (URL < www.wdl.org/en/search/?additional_subjects=Meeting+of+Frontiers External >), with nearly 3,000 items migrated to date.

Kluge Center

The Kluge Center continues to bring top scholars from around the world into periods of residency at the Library of Congress. The application period for Kluge Fellowships is now open. Applications are being accepted now through July 15. The fellowships are open to scholars worldwide with a Ph. D. or other terminal advanced degree conferred within the seven years prior to the deadline.

The Kluge Center continues to host near weekly lectures and events showcasing the work of its scholars. Visit the news page (URL < www.loc.gov/ kluge/news/>) for the upcoming schedule, and read about the work of our scholars on the Kluge Center’s blog, Insights, at URL < blogs.loc.gov/kluge/>.

Educational Outreach

The Library’s Educational Outreach Team, through its Teaching with Primary Sources Program (TPS), provides educators with methods and materials that build student literacy skills, content knowledge, and critical thinking abilities.

Teachers-in-Residence

For the 2015-16 school year, Educational Outreach welcomed two Teachers in Residence—one STEM educator and one elementary school librarian who worked primarily with the Library’s audio-visual collections. The 2016-17 Teacher-in-Residence will join us in September 2016. She is a kindergarten teacher, who will help us grow our outreach efforts to early elementary educators.

Online Conference for Educators

The Library’s Educational Outreach team will offer its second online conference for educators on Oct. 25-26, 2016, 4:00-8:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. Recordings from last year’s conference are now available at URL < www.loc.gov/teachers/professionaldevelopment/webinar/online-conference-2015.html>.

Two NOFAs issued spring 2016

This spring, the Library’s Educational Outreach team announced two Notices of Funds Availability.  Later this summer, organizations that responded and have been selected to receive funding will be announced. The grants will (1) support the development of engaging web- and mobile-based applications on the subjects of Congress and civic participation, for use in K-12 classrooms; and (2) support professional development opportunities for teachers related to teaching with primary sources.

Student Discovery Sets

The Educational Outreach team is addressing the needs of the growing tablet-based educational community by launching the Library of Congress Student Discovery Sets, free educational e-books. These interactive e-books allow students to electronically draw on, analyze, and explore primary sources from the Library’s collections. See URL < itunes.apple.com/us/artist/library-of-congress/id361683896?mt=11 External >.

Summer Teacher Institute

Our professional development offerings include five Summer Teacher Institutes held at the Library. During the summer of 2016, one of the weeks will have a STEM focus. See URL  < www.loc.gov/teachers/professionaldevelopment/teacherinstitute>.

New Storytelling App

Rare and out-of-print children’s books from the collections of the Library of Congress are now available through the Story Bug app developed by Cricket Media. See URL < itunes.apple.com/us/app/story-bug-read-books-together/id892990715?mt=8 External >.

Interpretive Programs Office (IPO)

IPO has mounted the following new exhibitions in 2016:

• Jazz Singers (Feb. 11-July 23, 2016) in the Performing Arts Reading Room, First Floor, James Madison Memorial Building
• Jacob Riis: Revealing “How the Other Half Lives” (April 14-Sept. 5, 2016) in the South Gallery, Second Floor, Thomas Jefferson Building
• WWI: American Artists View The Great War (May 7, 2016-May 6, 2017) in the Graphic Arts Galleries, Ground Floor, Thomas Jefferson Building

Exhibitions scheduled soon include: America Reads; Jahant Photos; Baseball Sheet Music; Drawing Justice; and World War I.

Visitor Services Office

In fiscal year 2015, the Visitor Services Office hosted a record 1.24 million visitors (a 13 percent increase over the previous year) to the historic Thomas Jefferson Building; and 1.6 million to the Library of Congress campus. Staff and volunteers in VSO led 8,000 guided tours for 152,000 participants, including 706 student tours and 28 foreign language tours; responded to 310,000 queries from visitors or researchers on site; hosted 200,000 unscheduled group participants and managed operations related to all other visitors.

VSO served the Congress by working with 398 House and 66 Senate offices to reserve tours for 45,675 constituents; provided guided tours to 58 Members of Congress and/or their spouses and 418 of their guests; and supported several congressional events.

Within VSO, 380 volunteers served as docents or staff information and researcher guidance desks; volunteers donated 36,260 hours (equivalent of 17.5 FTE employees) to the Library.

Visitor Services arranged Library-wide programs for 1,890 professional visitors, including 239 librarians, from 102 countries.