ALA Midwinter 2015

Library of Congress Exhibit Booth

The Library of Congress Exhibit Booth is no. 2014 in McCormick Place West in Chicago, Illinois.  The Library of Congress’s booth manager is Isabella Marqués de Castilla.

Exhibit hours:

• Friday, January 30: 5:30-7:00 pm; ribbon-cutting and opening reception
• Saturday, January 31: 9:00 am - 5:00 pm
• Sunday, February 1: 9:00 am - 5:00 pm
• Monday, February 2: 9:00 am - 2:00 pm

Library staff making presentations in the booth theater include Colleen Cahill, Karl Debus-López, Jeanne Drewes, Paul Frank, Patricia Hayward, Guy Lamolinara, David Mao, Alicia Mroczyk, Angela Murphy-Walters, Rebecca Newland, Laverne Page, Larisa Pastuchiv, Caroline Saccucci, Donna Scanlon, Steve Short, Teri Sierra, Nate Trail, Camilla Williams, MaryBeth Wise, Tak-Yee (Tammy) Wong, and Min Zhang.  Information technology support will be provided by Thomas Odom and Rodney McKinley.

Demonstrations of Cataloging Distribution Service products are available on a walk-in basis.

Promotions at the booth. A pocket-size Library of Congress Classification reference brochure and a large, handsome poster of the same are available for free to booth visitors while supplies last. Also available to all visitors: a “screen sweep” squeegee to clean a computer screen plus a large document clip. Both items advertise Classification Web and Cataloger’s Desktop.

U.S. COPYRIGHT OFFICE

Copyright Law Review

Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-VA), chair of the House Judiciary Committee, announced a comprehensive review of the U.S. copyright law in April 2013 after Register of Copyrights Maria A. Pallante identified the need for such a review in a major lecture at Columbia Law School and in her testimony before Congress.

In the 113th Congress, the Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property, and the Internet of the House Judiciary Committee held seventeen copyright law review hearings. The first eight hearings focused on high-level issues, such as the role of copyrights in encouraging innovation in America. Afterward, members began to examine specific provisions of the law, asking whether updates may be needed, especially given digital-age changes in content delivery. Hearing topics included fair use, preservation and reuse of copyrighted works, music licensing, termination rights, and a resale royalty right. For a full list of topics, visit the Copyright Office website at URL < copyright.gov/laws/hearings>.

In December 2014, Rep. Goodlatte announced that the full Judiciary Committee rather than the Subcommittee will convene additional copyright law review hearings and handle all copyright-related issues in the 114th Congress.

Compendium of U.S. Copyright Office Practices

In August 2014, the Copyright Office released a public draft of the third edition of the Compendium of U.S. Copyright Office Practices, the first revision in more than two decades . The Compendium is the administrative manual governing the mandate and statutory duties of the Office under the U.S. copyright law. It serves both as a technical manual for the Office’s staff and as a guidebook for authors, copyright licensees, practitioners, scholars, the courts, and members of the general public. Following consideration of public comments and final review, the new edition took effect on December 22, 2014. Its implementation sets the stage for long-term improvements in copyright registration and recordation policy. The new edition was published electronically, making it easily searchable and simpler to update than a printed edition. To view the Compendium, visit the Office’s website at URL < copyright.gov/comp3>.  

Office Operations and Staffing

The Copyright Office’s operations were the subject of a congressional oversight hearing held in September 2014. The Office also welcomed the first legal fellows to join the Office under its Barbara A. Ringer Copyright Honors Program, and the Office’s first Abraham L. Kaminstein Scholar issued a major report on document recordation.

Oversight hearing

The Register of Copyrights testified on September 18 about Copyright Office operations in an oversight hearing before the House Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property, and the Internet. The Register was the sole witness at the hearing, which focused on modernizing the Office to enable it to fulfill its statutory duties. Members raised questions about resources available to the Office and its structure within the Library of Congress. At the hearing and in written testimony, the Register cited the Office’s major accomplishments over the past few years, which she said were achieved despite budget cuts and limited resources. To read the Register’s testimony, visit the Office’s website at URL < copyright.gov/laws/testimonies/091814-testimony-pallante.pdf> [PDF, 152 KB]. A transcript of the oversight hearing is available on the House Subcommittee’s website at URL < judiciary.house.gov/hearing/hearing-oversight-copyright>.

Fellowship programs

The Barbara A. Ringer Copyright Honors Program, announced in 2013, offers paid fellowships for lawyers in the initial stages of their careers who demonstrate exceptional ability and interest in copyright law. Michelle Choe and Donald Robert Stevens are the first legal fellows to join the Office’s staff under this program. They began two-year appointments in September. Choe has a law degree and a bachelor’s degree in English literature from Columbia University; Stevens has a law degree from the University of Chicago, a master’s degree in history from the University of Oregon, and a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Stanford University.

The Abraham L. Kaminstein scholar-in-residence program brings leading academics to the Office to work on mutually beneficial projects.  In 2013, Professor Robert Brauneis of George Washington University Law School was named as the Office’s first Kaminstein Scholar. During his tenure, he produced a comprehensive report about document recordation (discussed below) and a study of music registrations issued by the Office since 1978. For more information about these fellowship programs, visit the Office’s website at URL < copyright.gov/about/special-programs/ringer.html> and URL < copyright.gov/about/special-programs/kaminstein.html>.

Priorities and Policy

The Copyright Office published a report in January about recordation of copyright-related documents, and it has concluded the public outreach phase for its ongoing policy studies about music licensing, the “making available” right, and orphan works. Reports on those topics are forthcoming. The Office initiated the sixth triennial rulemaking under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act regarding exemptions from the statutory prohibition against circumventing technological measures that control access to copyrighted works. The Office also completed scanning its pre-1978 copyright catalog records.

Report on document recordation

Among other recommendations, Professor Brauneis’s document recordation report advises the Office to develop an electronic recordation system to parallel its registration system, a process that has already begun. To inform electronic recordation, the report analyzes issues such as how best to store documents and make them available to the public and how to acquire cataloging information. In preparing these recommendations, Professor Brauneis analyzed two dozen public comments on document recordation and held public meetings in Los Angeles, Calif.; Santa Clara, Calif.; and New York, N.Y. To read the full report go to URL < copyright.gov/docs/recordation>.

Music licensing study

The Office is evaluating the effectiveness of existing methods of licensing music, especially in light of current technologies and the digital environment. It received 136 public comments on this issue and held public meetings in Los Angeles, Calif.; Nashville, Tenn.; and New York, N.Y. For more information, go to URL < copyright.gov/docs/musiclicensingstudy>.

Study on the “Making Available” right

The Office is assessing U.S. law as it relates to the right of “making available” and “communication to the public” – rights that two World Intellectual Property Organization treaties require signatory countries, including the United States, to recognize. The Office received 55 public comments on this topic and held a public roundtable in Washington, D.C. For more information, go to URL < copyright.gov/docs/making_available>.

Study on orphan works and mass digitization

Orphan works (i.e., works whose owners cannot be identified or found for the purpose of requesting permission) have been the focus of ongoing discussions at the Office for several years. The Office published a major report on orphan works in 2006. In 2011, it published a related report about mass digitization and copyrighted works, including orphan works. The Office received nearly 350 comments in the current study and held two days of public roundtables in Washington, D.C. For more information, go to URL < copyright.gov/orphan>.

DMCA rulemaking

The Office has initiated the sixth triennial rulemaking proceeding under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which provides that the Librarian of Congress, upon the recommendation of the Register of Copyrights, may exempt certain classes of works from the prohibition against circumventing technological measures controlling access to copyrighted works. In response to a notice of inquiry published in September 20014, the Office received 44 proposals for classes of works to be exempted. In December, the Office announced three rounds of public comment on the exemptions proposed. For more information, go to URL < copyright.gov/1201>.

Historical copyright records

The Office continues to move forward with a multiyear effort to digitize its entire inventory of copyright records for works registered between 1870 and 1977. In fiscal 2014, the Office completed scanning its copyright card catalog, a seven-year project involving 36 million records, with the exception of six drawers of extremely fragile cards that must be processed separately. Ultimately, the Office aims to make all of its copyright records fully searchable online. 

Public Outreach and Copyright Education

The Office implemented a refresh of its public website on July 31, 2014. The refreshed site features better organization as well as navigation tools, multimedia resources, and online access to publications including the newly revised Compendium of U.S. Copyright Office Practices.

Trade and Foreign Relations

With the staff of other federal agencies, Copyright Office lawyers have been providing expert advice on intellectual property matters during negotiations over two international trade and investment agreements. The Office of the United States Trade Representative is leading the negotiations. Besides the United States, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) involves Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, and Vietnam. Chief negotiators for the TPP began meeting in Washington, D.C., in December 2014, hoping to resolve outstanding issues. The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) involves the United States and the European Union. The next round of TTIP meetings will take place in Brussels in early February 2015.

OFFICE OF THE LIBRARIAN

Personnel Changes

David Mao, Law Librarian of Congress, was appointed Deputy Librarian of Congress, effective January 12, 2015. He also continues as acting Law Librarian pending a national search to appoint a permanent Law Librarian.

Robert Dizard, Jr., Deputy Librarian of Congress, was reassigned as Senior Advisor to the Librarian of Congress, effective December 14, 2014.

Robert Newlen, Assistant Law Librarian for Legislative and External Relations, was appointed Chief of Staff, effective  January 12, 2015. He had been acting chief of staff since December 2014. The chief of staff has Library-wide program and management responsibilities and also oversees the offices of Communications, Congressional Relations, Development, Chief Financial Officer, Contracts and Grant Management, General Counsel and Special Events and Public Programs.

Mary Klutts was appointed Chief Financial Officer, effective January 12, 2015. She had been acting chief financial officer since June 2014.

Tammy Brown was appointed mediator in the Library’s Office of Opportunity, Inclusiveness, and Compliance on July 28, 2014.

John Mondragon was appointed associate director for operations, Human Resources Directorate, on July 28, 2014.

Office of the Librarian / Congressional Relations Office (CRO)

Library Appropriations for Fiscal 2015

The final 2015 appropriation approved by Congress in December 2014 increased the overall legislative branch funding by $42 million over the fiscal 2014 level. While the House was held to level funding, the Senate and several support agencies saw an increase; the Government Accountability Office received a $17 million increase, and the Library received $11.9 million more than fiscal 2014, a 2.1 percent increase, approximately midway between the House allowance and the Senate committee allowance, $2.1 million less than the Library’s request.

Outlook for the 114th Congress

The new Congress was sworn in on Tuesday, January 6, 2015. The Congressional Relations Office had already met most of the members of the incoming freshman class in the House shortly after the November 2014 elections, when the Committee on House Administration, Majority Leader Steve Scalise, and Minority Whip Steny Hoyer hosted events at the Library and members on both sides of the aisle came to socialize, meet the Librarian, and see the Thomas Jefferson Building and the Civil Rights Act and Magna Carta exhibitions. The Congressional Research Service (CRS) participated in training sessions for the new Members, and held the traditional New Members Orientation in Williamsburg, Va., beginning on January 9, 2015.CRO will be contacting the new Members early in the 114th Congress to acquaint them with the Library’s collections, programs and services.

In the freshman class for the 114th Congress there are a total of 58 new Representatives (43 Republicans and 15 Democrats; three other House members, one Republican and two Democrats, were sworn in earlier to fill vacant seats). Thirteen new Senators (12 Republicans and one Democrat) were sworn in the same day. Several new Members in both chambers have served previously as Members, and quite a few have been Hill staff. The lineup in the House will be 246 Republicans and 188 Democrats; the Senate will consist of 54 Republicans, 44 Democrats, and two Independents who will caucus with the Democrats.

Budget Issues, Fiscal 2016 and Beyond

The federal government will face another possible sequestration scenario in fiscal 2016, after the current budget agreement expires, unless Congress again agrees to spending caps that are different from those set in 2011. The nation will also approach another debt ceiling deadline in March 2015, although the Treasury could avoid broaching the limit until fall of 2015. While federal employees received a 1% pay increase in January 2015 and agencies received authority for retroactive transit subsidy increases for 2014, agencies and employees may be asked again to absorb budget cuts to minimize sequestration. The House and Senate Budget Committees, under new chairmanships, will begin work on new budget numbers going forward.  There have been indications that Congress may consider raising budget caps for defense spending, which would put further strain on non-defense, discretionary spending categories, in which the Library’s budget is included.

Key Member Update

There are a number of changes to the key committees with jurisdiction over the Library.

House

The Committee on House Administration (CHA) will continue to be chaired by Rep. Candice Miller (R-MI), who was chair in the 113th Congress. Rep. Robert Brady (D-PA) will continue as Ranking Member. The returning Republican members will include Reps. Gregg Harper (R-MS), Richard Nugent (R-FL), and Aaron Schock (R-IL).  New members will be Reps. Barbara Comstock (R-VA) and Rodney Davis (R-IL). We anticipate additional changes in committee membership on CHA. The membership of the Joint Committee on the Library has not yet been established, but chairmanship will move to the Senate for the 114th Congress.

The House Appropriations Committee Chairman Harold Rogers (R-KY) will return, with Rep. Nita Lowey (D-NY) returning as Ranking Member. The Legislative Branch Subcommittee will be chaired by Rep. Tom Graves (R-GA), and Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) will continue as Ranking Member. Other Republican members for the 114th Congress are Reps. Mark Amodei (R-NV), Scott Rigell (R-VA), David Young (R-IA), and Evan Jenkins (R-WV). The Subcommittee Democrats have not yet been officially named.

The House Judiciary Committee will be again chaired by Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-VA), with Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) continuing as Ranking Member. Rep. Darrell Issa becomes Chairman of the Subcommittee on Court, Intellectual Property, and the Internet, although Chairman Goodlatte has indicated that he will continue to oversee copyright law revision through the full committee.

Senate

On the Senate side, with the new Republican majority, the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration will be chaired by Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO), and include Sens. Lamar Alexander (R-TN), Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Thad Cochran (R-MS), Pat Roberts (R-KS), Richard Shelby (R-AL), Ted Cruz (R-TX), Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV), John Boozman (R-AR), and Roger Wicker (R-MS). The last three are all new to the Committee with this Congress. Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) will become Ranking Member, and other Democrats on the roster will be Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Dick Durbin (D-IL), Tom Udall (D-NM), Mark Warner (D-VA), Pat Leahy (D-VT), and Amy Klobuchar (D-MN). Sitting on the Democrat side will also be Angus King (I-ME).

The Senate Subcommittee on Legislative Branch membership has changed substantially. The Subcommittee Chair will be Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV), and the Ranking Member will be Sen. Brian Schatz (D-HI). Both are new to the Appropriations Committee in the Senate. The rank and file subcommittee membership has yet to be named.

The Senate Judiciary Committee chairman’s gavel goes to Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA), and Sen. Pat Leahy (D-VT) will become Ranking Member.

Library of Congress Caucus

The Congressional Relations Office is also working with the staff of Reps. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) and Robert Aderholt (R-AL), co-chairs of the Congressional Library of Congress Caucus, on possible events in the next year for current and new Caucus members, possibly in conjunction with the Congressional History Caucus that was formed by House members in 2014. The Library of Congress Caucus as of the beginning of the 114th Congress includes 58 House members.

Legislative Branch Information Transparency

The House’s Bulk Download Task Force , co-chaired by Robert Reeves, Deputy House Clerk, and Chuck Turner of the Legislative Branch Appropriations Subcommittee staff, began meeting in the fall of 2012 and continues to meet to discuss how to better create and share legislative information among Hill offices and make it available to the public.

The Library has been a key contributor to Task Force initiatives, including designing and administering two legislative data challenges, issued through the General Services Administration crowd-sourcing website, Challenge.gov. The Library has also provided presentations on new and upcoming features for Congress.gov. Legislative Branch staff and outside groups have expressed a great deal of interest in the availability of additional data in the official website for U.S. federal legislative information Congress.gov, and the timelines for retiring its predecessor websites, THOMAS and LIS. The Library has been directed to work with the House, Senate and Government Publishing Office to make bill and bill status information available via GPO’s FDSys public information site, and the entities are working to meet a directive in the fiscal 2015 appropriations act to make bill status information available as well. The Senate has announced that it will be participating in bulk downloadable data via FDSys.

Copyright Revision Hearings

see also under COPYRIGHT OFFICE

During the 113th Congress, the House Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property and the Internet held a series of over a dozen hearings on copyright law and policy. Library staff, primarily from the Copyright Office, but also including Greg Lukow, Director, Packard Campus, appeared on the panel and provided testimony and responded to members’ questions relating to possible copyright act revisions. It is anticipated that work will be ongoing throughout the 114th Congress on “the next great Copyright Act.”

Government Publishing Office

The final fiscal 2015 appropriations act included a provision re-naming the Government Printing Office the “Government Publishing Office.” The Public Printer and the Deputy Public Printer have been re-designated as the Director of the Government Publishing Office and the Deputy Director of the Government Publishing Office, respectively.

Office of the Librarian / Office of Security and Emergency Preparedness (OSEP)

The Office of Security and Emergency Preparedness (OSEP) continued developing the Library’s security and emergency preparedness programs, focusing on managing security at the Library’s Capitol Hill buildings and outlying facilities, implementing additional physical security controls to protect the collections, enhancing the emergency preparedness program, and strengthening the Library’s employment suitability and personnel security programs.

The Protective Services Office (PS) continued to improve electronic and physical security controls to protect collections and assets in all Library buildings on Capitol Hill and at the Library’s off-site facilities. The office implemented security controls for two major exhibitions, “Magna Carta: Muse and Mentor” and “The Civil Rights Act of 1964: A Long Struggle for Freedom.”  PS furthered its initiative to provide additional security measures to strengthen access controls for special format collections areas, and it collaborated with the Collections Security Oversight Committee (CSOC) to broaden the office Site Assistance Visit (SAV) program. The SAV program addresses minimum standards for security and preservation components established in the Library’s Strategic Plan for Safeguarding the Collections.

The Emergency Preparedness Office (EPO) continued to educate and train Library staff on revised Occupant Emergency Action Plans and Continuity of Operations (COOP) Plans, emphasizing readiness at the Library’s off-site facilities. A Table Top Exercise was conducted in November 2014 at the Library’s COOP site for personnel from the Office of Support Operations assigned to the Emergency Relocation Group. The day-long event validated the service unit’s mission-essential functions and identified follow-up actions. Recently, EPO hosted key management staff from the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) for a joint discussion on best practices and lessons learned in emergency management, disaster response operations, and continuity plans.

The Personnel Security Office (PSO) continued to administer the Library’s employee and non-employee suitability programs and to manage the Library’s security clearances for access to classified national security information.

LAW LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

David Mao, Law Librarian of Congress, was appointed Deputy Librarian of Congress, effective January 12, 2015. He also continues as acting Law Librarian pending a national search to appoint a permanent Law Librarian.

Congress.gov, the official website for U.S. federal legislative information, went through tremendous changes in 2014 incorporating new content and enhanced functionality to provide public access to accurate, timely, and complete legislative information. Among the highlights:  In February, advanced search, browse, and appropriations tables were added. In June, the Library’s update included nominations data, accounts for the system, and saved searches. For the September release, the beta label was removed. Additionally, the Resources directory, most-viewed bills list, and live video of House hearings were incorporated.

LIBRARY SERVICES

Personnel Changes

• Roberta I. Shaffer retired as Associate Librarian of Congress for Library Services on August 22, 2014. Mark Sweeney, director for Preservation, is serving as acting associate librarian from Aug. 25, 2014 through Feb. 2015.
• Mary Bucknum, Helen Kristi Conkle, and Robert Dardano, Jr., were appointed senior collections development analysts in the Collection Development Office, effective Dec. 8. 
• Michael Buscher was appointed head of the Reference Team and Center, Geography and Map Division, effective Oct. 20, 2014.
• Vera Clyburn was appointed chief of the US Arts, Humanities, and Sciences Division, effective Sept. 7. 
• Elmer Eusman was appointed acting director for Preservation, effective Oct. 8, 2014. 
• Karen Fishman was appointed director of the Motion Picture & Television and the Recorded Sound Research Centers, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division, effective Oct. 20, 2014.
• Kevin Ford, digital project coordinator in the Network Development and MARC Standards Office, resigned Oct. 24, 2014.  
• Zbigniew Kantorosinski was appointed chief of the Germanic and Slavic Division, effective Sept. 7.
• Everette Larson retired as head of the Hispanic Reading Room, Oct. 3, 2014.
• Jane McAuliffe was appointed permanent director of the Office of Scholarly Programs (OSP) on Oct. 14, 2014. Carolyn Brown retired as director on July 11, 2014. Dr. McAuliffe is immediate past president of Bryn Mawr College and in 2013-14 was a distinguished visiting scholar at the Kluge Center of OSP.   
• S. Lynn McDonald, FEDLINK network coordinator, retired on Sept. 30, 2014.
• Hector Morey was appointed head of the Africa Section, Acquisitions and Bibliographic Access Directorate, effective Aug. 10, 2014.
• Jane Sanchez was appointed chief of the Humanities and Social Sciences Division, Collections and Services Directorate, effective Oct. 6.  
• Jessalyn Zoom was appointed head of the History and Military Science Section, US Arts, Sciences, and Humanities Division, effective Aug. 25. 

American Folklife Center/Veterans History Project

Now in its 14th year, the Veterans History Project continues to meet its congressional mandate to collect, preserve and make accessible the war stories of America’s veterans. In 2014, more than 5,000 collections were added to the archive, which currently totals approximately 95,000 collections, of which more than 15,000 are digitized. Individual volunteers and organizations nationwide, including many libraries, help gather and submit oral histories and supporting materials for the VHP collection. 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 veterans database and links to VHP’s RSS and social media sites. Among many notable activities in 2014, VHP marked the centennial anniversary of the beginning of World War I with a book talk, an “Experiencing War” Web feature and blog posts published on “Folklife Today.”

Libraries continue to play a pivotal role in this effort by distributing information, coordinating VHP interviewing events and making their facilities available to local VHP volunteers. For additional information, see URL < www.loc.gov/vets>, or phone 202-707-4916. 

Collection Development Office

The Collection Development Office (CDO) was formally established in December 2013. It directly supports the Library’s goal to acquire and maintain a universal collection of knowledge and the record of America’s creativity to meet the needs of Congress, researchers and the American public. It ensures that the Library's analog and digital collections reflect the breadth and depth of knowledge published in all media, languages, and regions of the world.  Acquisitions Budget Update. Fiscal year 2015 began Oct. 1, 2014, with the Library under a budgetary Continuing Resolution. In mid-December, a full-year Federal Budget was passed and signed into law. The Library received the very welcome news that its GENPAC appropriation, under which acquisitions for all Library collections (except those of the Law Library) are made, had increased by $1,658,350 (or 11.79 per cent) to $15,715,672. After several very lean budget years, this increase served to restore some of the base funding that had previously been lost. The final internal GENPAC allocations for fiscal 2015 are being developed now and should be approved within the next few weeks.

Staffing of the Collection Development Office

Three LC staff members have been appointed to fill the Senior Collections Development Analyst positions in the CDO. The vacancy announcement was limited internally. The following individuals were selected and began work in CDO on December 8: Mary Bucknum, formerly of the American Folklife Center; Kristi Conkle, formerly of the Humanities and Social Sciences Division; and Bob Dardano, formerly of the African, Latin American and Western European Division.

These individuals will focus their work in three general areas: collections assessments; continuing evaluation and revision of the Library’s Collections Policy Statements; developing, arranging and/or leading training classes, specialized orientations or information briefings.

Shortly after the Senior Collections Development Analyst positions were filled, the existing Electronic Resources Coordinator position became administratively a part of CDO. Donna Scanlon, the incumbent, began her new reporting arrangement in mid-December. Her responsibilities and duties did not change. The Electronic Resources Coordinator position was created in 2010 as a direct report to the Director for Collections and Services. The position focuses on collection development, evaluation of information resources and consultation/liaison services. The Electronic Resources Coordinator’s responsibilities align directly with the CDO’s mission and functions. Had the CDO been in existence when the Electronic Resources Coordinator position was created, the position undoubtedly would have been placed in CDO.

Summary of LC Actions Related to Charlie Hebdo

The Library currently has no holdings of the French serial Charlie Hebdo, which was the target of the tragic January 7, 2015, attack in Paris. With the significance of this publication having been permanently altered, the following actions are being taken by the Library:

• A new subscription order for current issues (2011 and forward) of this publication has been placed with Amalivre, the Library’s French vendor.  It is anticipated that it will be at least a month until the first issue is received. 
• The appropriate recommending officers (collection development specialists, mostly in reference or area studies positions) will identify selected back issues for possible acquisition.
• The Library has initiated the process to harvest the publication’s website (URL < www.charliehebdo.fr External >  on a continuing basis. The site appears to exist as a complement to the print publication and consists mainly of limited blog posts from various authors.
• The Bibliothèque Nationale de France is creating a web archive of resources related to the attack and succeeding events. The BnF has asked members of the International Internet Preservation Consortium, including the Library of Congress, to nominate URLs of web resources for such an archive. The Library plans to submit URLs of U.S.- based web comics that have been produced in response to the attack.

Fiscal 2014 Acquisitions Statistics

In fiscal 2014 (October 2013--September 2014), more than 3.3 million items (primarily analog) were acquired by the Library. Approximately 75 per cent of the items received are added to the Library’s permanent collections. Many of the others are used in the Library’s Duplicate Materials Exchange Program or the Surplus Books Program.

eDeposit Program

See under ACQUISITIONS AND BIBLIOGRAPHIC ACCESS DIRECTORATE (ABA)/U.S. Arts, Sciences, and Humanities Division

Recommended Format Specifications

See under ACQUISITIONS AND BIBLIOGRAPHIC ACCESS DIRECTORATE (ABA)/ U.S. Arts, Sciences, and Humanities Division

National Book Festival

The 15th annual Library of Congress National Book Festival will be held in the Washington Convention Center, Saturday, Aug. 29, 2015. The 2015 Festival will be made possible through the support of National Book Festival Board Co-Chair David M. Rubenstein and many other generous supporters.

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)

Cataloging Distribution Service

see under PARTNERSHIPS AND OUTREACH PROGRAMS/Business Enterprises

Cataloging in Publication (CIP) Program

Effective Oct. 1, 2014, Caroline Saccucci, Program Manager of the Library of Congress Dewey Section, also began serving as the Acting Program Manager of the Cataloging in Publication Section. She continued a split assignment as supervisor of record for the Literature Section, with the support of an acting team lead from among the Literature Section staff. The Literature Program Manager vacancy will be filled in early spring 2015; applications are limited to Library Services employees. Also in 2015, Library of Congress managers will review the feasibility of merging the Dewey and CIP Sections in the U.S. Programs, Law, and Literature Division with an eye toward leveraging the strengths of both programs to support each other. The missions and identities of both the Dewey and CIP programs will be retained.

At the beginning of fiscal 2015, the CIP Technical Team (CIPTT) was established as a part of the CIP Section. The CIPTT is responsible for checking in books submitted via the Cataloging in Publication and the Preassigned Control Number programs; the team also processes CIP e-book records, including CTS check-in and CIP verification. The CIPTT replaces the former CIP contract and consists of four technicians and one supervisory technician. The CIPTT supervisor is Christopher Crawford-Franklin.  

Cataloging in Publication Program Activities and Representation at ALA Midwinter Meeting

Caroline Saccucci and Camilla Williams, CIP Program Specialist, will give presentations on the CIP e-book metadata creation and ingestion initiative at the following meetings: ALCTS Public Libraries Technical Services Interest Group, Saturday, January 31, 8:30-10:00, McCormick Place West W185d and the ALCTS Cataloging and Classification Research Interest Group, Sunday, February 1, 10:30-11:30, McCormick Place West W176a.  They will also give this presentation at the LC Exhibit Booth on Saturday, January 31, 1:00-1:30 and Sunday, February 1, 3:30-4:00.  Karl Debus-López, Chief of the U.S. Programs, Law, and Literature Division, to which the CIP Program reports, will give a presentation on the proposed changes to the CIP Data Block as supported by the results of the CIP Data Block Survey (described below) at the ALCTS Public Libraries Technical Services Interest Group, Saturday, January 31, 8:30-10:00, McCormick Place West W185d and at the LC Exhibit Booth, Sunday, February 1, 2:00-2:30.

CIP E-Book Program

The CIP E-Book Program, which was launched in August 2012, continues to grow. To date, ABA catalogers have provided CIP pre-publication metadata for 5,765 e-books. The number of publishers participating in the CIP E-book Program now stands at 155. As is the case with print books, participating publishers have agreed to send the Library of Congress copies of their electronic books in exchange for the metadata.

Beginning July 15, 2914, ten publishers began submitting their e-books for ingestion in the Library’s Content Transfer Service (CTS), a web-based software which allows publishers to submit their e-books and enables CIP staff to review the submissions for completeness and move them into long-term storage. Staff of the CIP Program received training on how to work in CTS, evaluate the e-books, complete the CIP verification of the e-book bibliographic records, and add the e-books to the Library’s collections. Library management has set a target of 2,500 new CIP e-books to be received by the end of fiscal 2015. Accordingly, the CIP Program drafted a plan to increase the number of ingested e-books steadily to 2,500 and concurrently increase the number of participating publishers. As of December 2014, sixteen publishers have accounts in CTS to submit their CIP e-books, and these publishers have sent 1,159 e-books--almost half of the target for this fiscal year. Managers for the CIP Program also initiated discussions with attorneys in the Library’s Office of the General Counsel to develop user access policies for these e-books. Until the access policies and technologies are in place, the CIP e-books will be stored in a dark archive, and the corresponding bibliographic records will be suppressed in the Library of Congress Online Catalog (OPAC); the bibliographic records are, however, distributed to the bibliographic utilities for use by vendors, libraries, and other organizations. This initiative has been a collaborative effort among various stakeholders at the Library of Congress: the Acquisitions and Bibliographic Access Directorate, the Office of Strategic Initiatives, the Integrated Library System Program Office, and Information Technology Services. You can find more information about the CIP E-Book Program at URL < www.loc.gov/publish/cip/ebooks>.

ECIP Cataloging Partnership Program

Since 2009 the CIP Program has been encouraging external libraries to assist in ECIP cataloging, allowing them to focus on their own presses or specific subject or geographic areas of interest. This approach has been successful with the quantity of ECIP Cataloging Partners’ contributions to the Program growing over the years. In fiscal 2014 twenty-two partner libraries created pre-publication metadata for 6,377 titles, representing 13 percent of the total 50,040 ECIP records completed. The quantity of ECIP’s cataloged by the partner libraries grew by 24 percent over fiscal 2013. In October 2014, CIP Program management, in conjunction with the Office of the General Counsel, developed an official partnership agreement letter, stipulating the terms of the partnership between the Library of Congress and the partnering institutions. This letter was sent to all current partners for signature, and all future partners will be asked to sign before they are accepted into the program.  ProQuest officially joined as a partner in October and will focus on cataloging the pre-publication titles by Wiley imprints. ProQuest is the first publisher of digital content to join the partnership program and will take advantage of a long-standing collaboration between the Library of Congress and ProQuest in the ISSN Program. ProQuest is currently cataloging in the test database and will move to production status in the near future. Two libraries, Harvard University, and the University of North Carolina (UNC), are on the cusp of joining the program.  Harvard will catalog titles published by the Harvard University Press and Tupelo Press, and UNC will catalog UNC University Press titles. With the addition of ProQuest, Harvard, and UNC there will be 25 partner institutions participating in the program. We are always looking for new ECIP cataloging partners. If you are interested in joining the program, please contact Karl Debus-López at kdeb@loc.gov. You can find more information about the ECIP Cataloging Partnership Program at URL < www.loc.gov/publish/cip/partners>.

CIP Data Block Survey

The Cataloging in Publication Program along with external partners completed a survey on the CIP data block in May. The purpose of the survey was to ask libraries how they use the CIP data block in their cataloging activities and to get their input on whether it should be changed to incorporate new RDA and electronic resource elements. A total of 422 respondents representing libraries from all sectors (school, college, university, public, corporate, military, government, prison, church, law, hospital, medical, national, and foreign) as well as many vendors of library materials answered the survey. We have completed analyzing the data and have designed a proposed new look for the CIP data block. You can learn more about this initiative at the ALCTS Public Libraries Technical Services Interest Group, Saturday, January 31, 8:30-10:00, McCormick Place West W185d and at the LC Exhibit Booth, Sunday, February 1, 2:00-2:30.  More information about the survey can be found at URL < www.loc.gov/publish/cip/topics/survey.html>.

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

The Cooperative and Instructional Programs Division in the ABA Directorate continues to provide the secretariat for the Program for Cooperative Cataloging and its four component programs, NACO, SACO, BIBCO, and CONSER. The COIN Division also provides cataloging for the National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections, a cooperative program  that is more than 50 years old.

Name Authority Cooperative Program (NACO)

On January 6th, 2015, the Library of Congress completed the LC/NACO Authority File changes for Phase 3A, the most recent round of changes to the LC/NACO Authority File based on deliberations of the PCC RDA Authorities Phase 3 Task Group. This group is charged with planning and implementing changes to the LC/NAF that will programmatically bring the remaining portion of the LC/NACO Authority File into alignment with RDA. An estimated 190,000 changes were made, including changes in the authorized access points / headings in the 1XX field. Current work is focusing on Phase 3B, scheduled to take place in mid-2015. Phase 3B includes a much larger number of records, but the authorized access points (1XX) are not affected.

For more information see under ACQUISITIONS AND BIBLIOGRAPHIC ACCESS DIRECTORATE/Policy and Standards.

The NACO Program is pleased to announce the creation of three new funnel/consortium projects: 1) NACO Georgia Funnel; 2) Five College Library Consortium Funnel Project (Massachusetts); 3) Kentucky/West Virginia Consortium Project.

The National Library Board of Singapore has joined the NACO Program, increasing the program’s international visibility.

Subject Authority Cooperative Program (SACO)

In conjunction with the Music Library Association (MLA), and under the oversight of the Policy and Standards Division (PSD), SACO members at MLA assisted in creating approximately 560 genre/form terms for musical works. The terms appear on Tentative List 1514, to be approved on February 2, 2015.

The PCC Secretariat is sponsoring a SACO workshop entitled “Proposing New and Revised Topical Subject Headings” for about 30 SACO members on Friday, January 30th in conjunction with the ALA Midwinter Meeting. Janis L. Young will be the principal presenter. The PCC Secretariat and PSD thank the University of Chicago for generously hosting the workshop on its campus.

SACO members have been assisting with the ongoing project to convert LCSH headings for fictitious characters and real non-human entities to RDA authorized access points. SACO members have assisted in canceling over 150 LCSH headings in favor of new RDA authorized access points since September 2013.

Monographic Bibliographic Record Program (BIBCO)

The BIBCO Participants’ Manual was revised to clarify and enhance instructions for creating BIBCO Standard Records with only subjects assigned from Faceted Application of Subject Terminology (FAST), a fully enumerative faceted subject heading schema derived from the Library of Congress Subject Headings.

The PCC Secretariat created a BIBCO Electronic Cataloging in Publication (ECIP) FAQ for use by the Library of Congress ECIP Cataloging Partnership Program members to facilitate the cataloging workflow and to ensure record quality. The BIBCO Participants’ Manual, available on the BIBCO website (see URL < www.loc.gov/aba/pcc/bibco/documents/BPM.doc> [Word, 565 KB]), will be included in a forthcoming version of Cataloger’s Desktop. To facilitate interest in the BIBCO funnel membership, the PCC Secretariat created a homepage (see URL < www.loc.gov/aba/pcc/bibco/funnels.html>) that included a newly developed BIBCO Funnel FAQ document, specifying general membership information, utility authorization, funnel coordinator, and funnel statistics.

In order to support members working in special formats, the PCC Secretariat conducted a survey on training needs in special formats in August 2014. The PCC Standing Committee on Training has been tasked to develop and conduct the training based on the survey results (see URL < www.loc.gov/aba/pcc/bibco/documents/RDASpecialFormatsSurvey.pdf> [PDF, 125 KB]).

Cooperative Program for Serials Cataloging (CONSER)

The Serials Cataloging Cooperative Training Program (SCCTP) Basics Serials Cataloging Workshop was revised to incorporate RDA in the spring of 2014. The material was tested by SCCTP trainers in online sessions given throughout September 2014 and is available without charge on the CONSER website at URL < www.loc.gov/aba/pcc/conser/scctp/scctp-materials.html>.

Modules of the CONSER Cataloging Manual are being revised to incorporate decisions made by the PCC Policy Committee in November 2014 on handling microform reproductions under RDA. Outcomes from the November 2014 PCC Policy Committee Meeting are posted on the PCC website at URL < www.loc.gov/aba/pcc/documents/PoCo-2014-Outcomes.doc> [Word, 58 KB].

All new BIBCO and CONSER bibliographic contributions follow RDA instructions beginning January 1, 2015. Additional information and guidelines are available from the announcement posted on the PCC website at URL < www.loc.gov/aba/pcc/documents/PoCo-2014-Outcomes.doc> [Word, 59 KB].

National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections (NUCMC)

For the first time in the program’s history, the National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections (NUCMC) was a registered exhibitor at the Annual Meeting of the Society of American Archivists. The SAA Annual Meeting was held in Washington, D.C., in August 2014. The NUCMC booth was staffed by three COIN staff members with assistance from a former intern. The booth contained three high-impact panels that provided information about the program as well as a laptop on which the staff could show the NUCMC website to prospective repositories. The booth attracted positive attention from meeting attendees, several of whom were in immediate need of NUCMC’s services and were unaware of their eligibility to participate in the program. Brochures and other handouts were distributed and five institutions expressed interest in joining the program.

Staff of NUCMC concluded work on the program’s five-year Web observance of the sesquicentennial of the Civil War.  The installment for fiscal 2015, Part 5, “At War’s End: A Nation Mourns and Rebuilds,” focuses on the final battles waged, the surrender at Appomattox, Lincoln’s assassination, veterans’ organizations, and Reconstruction. This observance highlights the bibliographic access provided by the program to the nation’s hidden documentary heritage. The final installment will be available on the NUCMC website by February 2015. (See URL  < www.loc.gov/coll/nucmc/>).

Dewey Decimal Classification (DCC) at the Library of Congress

Effective October 1, 2014, Caroline Saccucci, Program Manager of the Library of Congress Dewey Section, began a split assignment as the Acting Program Manager of the Cataloging in Publication (CIP) Section.  She also continues as supervisor of record for the Literature Section, with the support of an acting team lead from among the Literature Section staff.  The Literature Section Head position will be posted and filled in 2015. Also, in 2015 Library of Congress managers will review the feasibility of merging the Dewey and CIP Sections with an eye toward leveraging the strength of both programs to support each other. The missions and identities of both the Dewey and CIP Programs will be retained.

Dr. Julianne Beall, who retired in March 2014, continued to volunteer on a part-time basis in the Dewey Program.  She attended the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) World Library and Information Congress 2014 in Lyon, France, August 16-21. At the International Dewey Users Group meeting, she gave a presentation (prepared with Diane Vizine-Goetz, Senior Research Scientist, OCLC Research) entitled “Fiction Finder, Cookbook Finder, and Dewey.” With Michael Panzer, Editor in Chief of the Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC), she met with representatives of translation teams for Arabic, French, Italian, Norwegian, and Swedish translations of DDC. She also met with the team from the National Library of Vietnam, which had finished translating DDC 23 and is doing much training in application of DDC.

The Dewey Section is training staff in the Germanic and Slavic Division to use the AutoDewey software to generate DDC numbers for titles in Scandinavian languages, Russian, and German.  Ms. Saccucci and Dr. Beall discussed the feasibility of using AutoDewey to create Abridged Dewey numbers for works on history, not to include biography, using Denmark as a test case because it uses only two time periods and does not have a breakdown by region in Abridged Dewey. If this is successful, it could apply to other countries as well and would expand the use of AutoDewey beyond literature.

In fiscal 2014, the Dewey Section staff and others in the ABA Directorate added DDC to 86,630 bibliographic records; additionally, the Dewey Section classifiers added LC Classification stems to 1,910 bibliographic records cataloged by the National Library of Medicine as part of the CIP Program. For the first quarter of fiscal 2015 (October-December 2014), the total classified was 24,972.  During the same time period, the Dewey Section assigned the LC Classification stem to 418 bibliographic records.

Germanic and Slavic Division

ABA continues to update its exchange records to eliminate inactive subscriptions and credit the Library’s exchange partners more accurately. The Scandinavian, Baltic and Central Germanic Section is leading the way with 1,500 of the 14,000 inactive exchange subscriptions--titles for which no check-in activity has occurred on either the permanent holdings record or recent check-in components (in the ILS acquisitions module) within the last three years.

A senior librarian in the East and Central Europe Section (ECE) completed the cataloging of four collections of ephemera from Ukraine and Belarus: 2004 presidential elections in Ukraine; 2010 presidential elections in Belarus; 2012 parliamentary election in Ukraine, and the Euromaidan Protests of 2013-2014.  Altogether there are 606 items (leaflets, pamphlets, calendars and booklets,  bumper stickers, buttons, magnets, doormats, newspapers, posters and postcards) arranged in 15 containers, 131 name authority records and 2 subject headings established.  These collections are housed in the European Division’s secure storage area.

At the request of the Library’s European Division, since January 2014, two ECE Section staff have monitored the Internet for digital documentation in the form of electronic newsletters and websites on current events in Ukraine to add to the “Ukraine Conflict” collection on “Archive It” at URL < archive-it.org/collections/4399 External >. The site documents the recent political crisis in Ukraine, which began in November 2013 with the Euromaidan, a wave of demonstrations and civil unrest demanding closer European integration, and which ultimately led to the 2014 Ukrainian revolution.  Contributions were also made by the Archive-It team and subject matter experts from Stanford University, Global Investigative News Network, and the Library of Congress (Bohdan Kantor of the Information Technology Services Directorate). Content includes news outlets, social media, blogs, and government websites. Sites are written in English, Ukrainian, Russian, and other languages.

ISSN (International Standard Serial Number)

ISSN 40th anniversary

The U.S. ISSN Center in the ISSN Section, U.S. Programs, Law, and Literature Division, will participate in the ISSN Network’s year-long celebration of the 40th anniversary of the ISSN International Centre and the ISSN standard. The ISSN International Centre will host a blog with historical and news items. A special ISSN anniversary issue of the journal Ciencia da Informacão (ISSN 1518-8353) will be published by the Brazilian Institute of Science and Technology Information (IBICT).

ROAD update

The ISSN International Centre’s ROAD Directory of Open Access Scholarly Resources (URL <road.issn.org>) has been redesigned and updated to include downloading of records in RDF as well as MARC XML and schema.org tagging.

Core e-Journals

The U.S. ISSN Center is participating in the current “Core e-journals campaign” initiated by the ISSN International Centre to ensure ISSN are assigned to e-journals worldwide that are included in key directories and databases. The U.S. portion of the project consists of over 1000 titles. When ISSN are assigned to these journals, publishers are notified and requested to display the ISSN.

ISSN Manual

A new edition of the ISSN Manual is expected to be available by the end of January 2015. It replaces the 2012 edition and includes clarified rules for ISSN assignments and some elements new to ISSN records such as RDA content, media, and carrier types, source of description and others.

PIE-J survey

The National Information Standards Organization (NISO) standing committee for the recommended practice PIE-J: Presentation and Identification of e-Journals is planning a survey to assess whether the document needs updating or further clarification. The survey will have questions for publishers, vendors, and librarians.

ProQuest LC position

ProQuest is recruiting candidates to fill their unique position, Metadata Librarian, Cataloging, located in the U.S. ISSN Center at the Library of Congress, following the departure of the incumbent. Working hours of this full time position are equally divided between duties such as updating and troubleshooting ProQuest’s databases and ISSN assignment, interacting with publishers, and CONSER record creation.   

ISSN Governing Board

Karl Debus-López, Chief of the U.S. Programs, Law, and Literature Division, was elected to a second two-year term as Chair of the ISSN Governing Board. The ISSN International Centre sent out a request for proposals for a contractor with a deep knowledge of the international bibliographic environment and standards community to assist the ISSN IC, Governing Board, and ISSN Network with its strategic planning process.  The contractor will be chosen in the next month with a goal of completing the strategic plan by Fall 2015.

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

Administrative (Staff and workload)

Caroline Saccucci, Dewey Program Manager, continues her split assignment as Acting Literature Program Manager, and is also serving as Acting CIP Program Manager.  Angela Murphy-Walters, Senior Cataloging Specialist, became Acting Team Lead for Literature on October 14th, handling day-to-day operations while Caroline manages personnel matters. 

The CYAC staff continues training a Literature cataloger in the CYAC cataloging of graphic novels, novels in verse, and teen fiction. Currently, the focus is on young adult novels. One of the goals of the merger of the Children’s Literature and Literature sections is to increase the number of catalogers with children’s literature cataloging expertise.

The section is working to reduce arrearages in anticipation of a move to “swing space” as a multi-year renovation project is completed. We hope to move together into a new area sometime in fiscal 2015.

PZ7.1

As reported at the Annual Meeting, we are now assigning PZ7.1 to all authors publishing juvenile fiction for the first time in 2015 or beyond. Some authors are still being assigned PZ7 numbers if, for example, they previously had stories in rhyme for children published but are writing non-rhyming juvenile fiction for the first time.

Small Press Expo graphic novels

CYAC Program members met with two members of the Serials and Government Publications Division, Newspaper Section, about graphic novels received through an agreement with the Small Press Expo that occurs each year in Bethesda, Md. We will begin cataloging graphic novels, most of which are for adults but some for children, as soon as workload permits.

CYAC anniversary

Plans have begun for a celebration of the CYAC Program’s 50th anniversary this year. We hope to celebrate with Cataloging of Children's Material Committee members at the end of the committee meeting during ALA Annual Conference, and then hold a more formal event at the Library in November.

Cataloging policy decisions

The CYAC Program has decided that we will not use CHILDREN OF PRESIDENTS on juvenile fiction, but use PRESIDENTS--FAMILY, instead.

National Union Cataloging of Manuscript Collections (NUCMC)

See under Cooperative Cataloging Programs

Network Development and MARC Standards Office

Bibliographic Framework Initiative (BIBFRAME)

The Library of Congress published on the web in November 2012 a high level model for the BFI at URL < www.loc.gov/bibframe/docs/model.html>.  A major focus of BFI is an effective migration plan for the community to make a transition from MARC to a new framework based on a Linked Data (LD) model, while retaining as much as possible the robust and beneficial aspects of our library environment.

In late 2014 planning began for a collaborative pilot of BIBFRAME by the LC Acquisition and Bibliographic Access Directorate, where most LC cataloging takes place, and the cataloging units of the Motion Picture, Broadcasting, and Recorded Sound Division.

In early 2014, in order to encourage experimentation in the wider community with aspects of the BIBFRAME model the Network Development and MARC Standards Office published and documented a core RDF-based vocabulary that is kept relatively stable (URL: < www.loc.gov/bibframe>). The focus of the Office then turned to coding a basic BIBFRAME Editor (BFE) that enables creation of BIBFRAME descriptions. It was made available for download in April 2014. It is emphasized that it is intended not as a fully functional system but a very basic module from which developers could more easily experiment with aspects of the BIBFRAME model and vocabulary. A new testbed activity was organized that is open to all, but participants must be engaged in an actual project to join.

The Office also sponsored and published on the BIBFRAME website a study of models used for Moving Image and Recorded Sound material that was carried out by AudioVisual Preservation Solutions (AVPreserve), with the report examining that material against common community description models and BIBFRAME.

Other projects begun in the last 6 months, with consultant assistance, include making BIBFRAME descriptions an option for result sets from Z39.50 and SRU searches to the LC Voyager LCDB database, joining the MARCXML, MODS, and DC result set formats already available (completed but awaiting implementation on the LC system). Another study is investigating use of the SRU protocol for retrieving from a triple store backend. The AV study described above will be followed up later in Spring 2015 by an investigation of the overlap of PREMIS and BIBFRAME vocabularies and how the two might work together. In addition two small contracts are developing tools that are due in February 2015. One is for development of a search and display “stub” system that could be used by experimenters; a second is for a profile editor that would enable experimenters to easily adjust the templates used by the BFE.

MARC

MARC: Update No. 19 to the MARC 21 formats was published online in October 2014. It was a small update covering the changes approved by the MARC Advisory Committee in  June 2014, which included minor changes for various subject idiosyncrasies. The Update was provided to the Library’s Cataloging Distribution Services to keep its Cataloger’s Desktop product in synch with the web-published MARC documentation.

The 2014 ALA Annual Conference was the second meeting of the new MARC Advisory Committee (MAC) which took on the responsibility of continuing MARBI's mission to foster open discussion about the MARC standard and to review and vote on proposed changes to the MARC formats. The MARC partners--Library of Congress, Library and Archives Canada, British Library, Deutsche Nationalbibliothek--are the conveners of the MAC. 

LC's Linked Data Service (ID/LDS) Project

The period from June 2014 through December 2014 for LC's Linked Data Service - Authorities & Vocabularies (ID/LDS) (URL: < id.loc.gov>) was primarily a maintenance period. ID/LDS was strengthened in small but meaningful ways, particularly with an eye toward leveraging it more and more in support of BIBFRAME. Notably, changes were offering a new serialization– JSON-LD –which is a recent World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Recommendation for sharing Linked Data as JSON. Small datasets, such as the RDA Content Type and Media Type lists, were added to LC’s Linked Data Service in support of BIBFRAME also. New datasets were added including the Thesaurus for Graphic Materials and the American Folklore Society Ethnographic Thesaurus.

ID/LDS is primarily for developers to enable them to interact programmatically with vocabularies (as “linked data”) commonly found in standards promulgated by LC. The system provides the vocabularies for individual records and bulk download in a number of formats including various RDF and XML formats, in addition to a web interface for end users. Because ID/LDS contains nearly all of the Library’s authority data, ID/LDS is foundational to BIBFRAME (described above), which is actively exploring an RDF model and embracing linked data ideas.   

Digital portal projects

The Performing Arts Encyclopedia (PAE), Veterans History Project (VHP), and other portal projects continue to enable the Office to investigate new approaches to digital site creation and delivery to end users. The PAE (URL < www.loc.gov/performingarts>) was updated to be compatible with enhancements made to the overall Library of Congress website, as well as to make content and link updates. Two new features were also added to the VHP site (URL < www.loc.gov/vets>): World War I Remembered: 100 Years Later and Stories from the Stacks: VHP Staff Picks.

MODS

The MARC to MODS 3.5 mapping and XSLT were updated to reflect the 3.5 revision of MODS, the Metadata Object Description Schema. These transformations are used extensively by the international community and by LC in a number of applications, including the Permalink service that resolves Library of Congress Control Numbers and exposes LC records as MARC, MARCXML, MODS, and Dublin Core. The MODS/RDF Working Group under the leadership of Melanie Wacker at Columbia University began the process of reviewing that ontology and considering any changes. Rebecca Guenther of LC chaired a group that completed a MODS-to-BIBFRAME mapping that will result in a tool to convert MODS records to BIBFRAME. In addition the committee began working on MODS 3.6 to be released in 2015.

PREMIS

The PREMIS Editorial Committee’s accomplishments in 2014 included work on version 2.3 which was released in late 2014. This was a major step toward version 3.0 which will incorporate a revised data model that expands the ability to provide preservation metadata at the level of the Intellectual Entity and better capabilities to describe software and hardware environments that are key to the ability to preserve digital objects for the long-term. The Committee is in the final stages of issuing the revised Data Dictionary and schema.

The PREMIS Conformance Working Group developed a revised conformance statement that provided more specific levels of conformance than the one initially published in October 2010. The exercise has revealed variation in how PREMIS has been implemented in various systems. The group is working on reconciling the two statements with the 3.0 revision. In addition it is analyzing the types of events that repositories perform on objects to determine a core set of event types.

Other standards projects

The Extended Date/Time Format (EDTF) 1.0 specification, based on ISO 8601 (Representation of Dates and Times), defines features to be supported in a date/time string beyond those contained in ISO 8601. It was completed and submitted to the International Organization for Standardisation (ISO). <URL www.loc.gov/standards/datetime/pre-submission.html>

OASIS Standard searchRetrieve, encompassing Version 2.0 of SRU (Search and Retrieve via URL) along with CQL (Contextual Query Language) was approved by OASIS to move forward as an ISO Standard.

Vendor records for cataloging. In 2014, NDMSO processed over 47,500 MARC 21 bibliographic records from foreign vendors for use by in acquisitions and cataloging work. The records represented items shipped to LC and were loaded directly to LC’s Voyager database, allowing acquisitions staff to process new receipts without costly keying of new records. NDMSO continued to work with various vendors on enhancements or corrections so that valid, loadable MARC 21 records can be sent to LC and other libraries that subscribe to their record services. Preliminary work was begun for loading UTF-8 records from Israel.

LC processed records from nearly 30 agencies for materials from the following countries and regions: Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bolivia, Bosnia and Herzegovina,  Colombia, Costa Rica, Croatia, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, France, Germany, Greece, Guatemala, Honduras, Hungary, Italy, Lithuania, Macedonia, Mexico, Netherlands, Nicaragua, Paraguay, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Romania, Serbia, Spain, United Kingdom, Uruguay, Venezuela, Russia and other former Soviet Socialist Republics, Scandinavian and Baltic countries, and countries in West Africa.

Policy and Standards

Paul Frank of COIN continues to manage the LCSH Monthly List process that is handled by the Data Integrity Section in the Policy and Standards Division (PSD).

Publications

All subject cataloging and classification publications are now freely available online in PDF form from the Acquisitions and Bibliographic Access web site, URL < www.loc.gov/aba>.

New editions of the following resources will be available in February 2015: Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) (37th edition); Library of Congress Genre/Form Terms for Library and Archival Materials (LCGST) (2015 edition); (LCMPT) Library of Congress Medium of Performance Thesaurus for Music (first edition); Library of Congress Classification (LCC) schedules (various editions).

Revision of manuals

Sixteen Subject Headings Manual (SHM) instruction sheets and three instruction sheets in the Classification and Shelflisting Manual (CSM) have been updated since the 2014 ALA Annual Conference.

Subscription-Based Access to Current Documentation

LCSH, LCGFT, LCMPT, and LCC remain available through LC’s subscription-based service Classification Web, and the SHM and CSM are available through Cataloger’s Desktop.

PCC RDA Authorities Phase 3 Task Group

As part of the implementation of RDA: Resources Description & Access by the Program for Cooperative Cataloging, several phases of bulk changes to the Library of Congress/NACO Authority File (LC/NAF) have been made. The most recent round of changes is based on deliberations of the PCC RDA Authorities Phase 3 Task Group. This group is charged with planning and implementing changes to the LC/NAF that will programmatically bring the remaining portion of the LC/NACO Authority File into alignment with RDA, as well as populate existing name records with additional enhancements whenever possible.   

The Task Group’s analysis identified several clean-up projects needed prior to final Phase 3 testing and implementation; therefore, the Task Group split the project into two distinct phases:  Phase 3A and Phase 3B. Phase 3A began on December 8, 2014, and after a break for the December holidays finished on January 6, 2015.  An estimated 190,00 NARs were changed according to the following categories: changes involving the music medium of performance statement (subfield $m), changes involving subfield $c of personal names, addition of a 667 note to undifferentiated personal name records, and the reformulation of any field 678 not suitable for public display as a 670 field. Additional enhancements to the name records included: evaluation of the contents of the 370 field to comply with the best practices guidelines to align the names provided to match the authorized access point in the LC/NAF,  generate the 382 field from certain music medium of performance statements, and generate the 046 field as appropriate. Detailed descriptions of the changes as well as of the upcoming Phase 3B are contained in the Task Group’s report found at URL < files.library.northwestern.edu/public/rdaphase3/docs External >. Phase 3B is projected to take place during the summer of 2015, with the exact date yet to be determined.

As testing commenced and several problems were discovered, certain categories of changes related to the subfield $c were removed from being candidates for Phase 3B. As a result of this exclusion the final totals were less than had been anticipated. Because of problems with the subfield $c changes, PSD would prefer that for the time being bibliographic record changes only be run on the music bibliographic records. Testing for bibliographic changes for the music headings is scheduled to begin later in January.

LChelp4RDA email account retired

The LChelp4RDA@loc.gov email account was established by PSD in 2010 to answer questions from catalogers, at LC and from the broader community, related to the testing and implementation of RDA.  Now that most targeted communities have implemented RDA, the number of questions to the account is down to a trickle, so the account is being retired. The policy@loc.gov account should be used instead of LChelp4RDA for any cataloging-related questions.

RDA development

PSD developed five RDA change proposals for discussion at the November 2014 meeting of the Joint Steering Committee for Development of RDA in Washington, D.C.  A total of 47 proposals and discussion papers, as well as responses to those documents, were discussed at the meeting. A brief summary of the outcomes related to the meeting is available at URL: < www.rda-jsc.org/2014JSCmeetingoutcomes.html External >.

Library of Congress-Program for Cooperative Cataloging Policy Statements

The RDA Toolkit release in October 2014 contained four new policy statements and 19 revised statements; there were no changes to the LC-PCC PSs in the August 2014 release of the Toolkit because of the migration of maintenance platform to a new content management system. The next set of updates to the LC-PCC PSs will be in February of 2015. This release will contain policy statements reconciling the PCC requirements for non-book cataloging from the CONSER Standard Record and the BIBCO Standard Record.

Headings for Malaysian jurisdictions, features, etc.

As announced at the 2014 ALA Annual Conference, LC is working on a project to update the name and subject authority records associated with place names in Malaysia to reflect changes to RDA 16.2.2.9, which removed Malaysia from the list of federations that includes the United States, Canada, and others. The University of California, San Diego (UCSD) is helping with the name authority updates. 

The Library of Congress and UCSD are working on the authority records state by state, so it may be months before changes are made to a particular place name. Until the changes are made, catalogers should continue to use the existing headings in their established form. Earlier forms of name for the states without “(Malaysia)” and associated authority records will remain in the LC/NACO Authority File. These will be valid for descriptive use for the time period before September 16, 1963, when the current Malaysian federation was formed. For example, the creator of a 1934 compilation of states laws is Kedah, and the creator of a 2010 compilation of state laws is Kedah (Malaysia).

To date, the name authority and subject heading revisions have been completed for entities in the following states of Malaysia: Johor, Kedah, Pahang, and Sabah.

072 fields in LCSH authority records

Subject specialists in PSD continue to add subject category codes (i.e., Subject Headings Manual instruction sheet numbers) to proposals for new and revised headings that fall into several pattern and free-floating categories. Headings for land vehicles, types of educational institutions, and Christian denominations, as well as some religions and wars, are eligible for coding at this time.

Ethnic groups (SHM H 1103)

In October 2014, PSD announced that the free-floating subdivision –Industries would be cancelled from SHM H 1103. The subdivision was limited to use under headings for preliterate peoples, but was almost uniformly assigned to peoples who are literate.  Moreover, in cases where the literacy status of a particular group could not be readily determined and the group still exists, it seemed safe to assume that members of the group might be preliterate today but literate in the future. The application of the subdivision was so problematic that it was removed from LCSH altogether, even in cases where it was established under a specific heading. The proposals to cancel the subdivision appeared on Tentative List 1501. Bibliographic records will be revised as time permits.

Removing the subdivision –Industries from SHM H 1103 brings PSD closer to being able to include an 072 field in the authority record for every ethnic group established in LCSH.

Library of Congress Classification

American Indian law schedules. The KIA-KIK schedule (Law of Indigenous Peoples in the Americas: North America) was soft-released in June 2014, and the related expansion of KF (Law of the United States) in the range KF8200-8578 has likewise been input into the schedules. Catalogers are still requested to refrain from using it because captions, references, and notes are being fine-tuned to ensure consistency. 

The Library will make an announcement when KIA-KIK and KF8200+ are in their final form and approved for use; the announcement is expected in spring 2015. Questions about the project should be directed to Libby Dechman at email address edec@loc.gov.

Concurrently, Library Services and the Law Library of Congress have entered into an agreement to collaboratively create an electronic Portal for Indigenous Law, based on classes KIA-KIK and the federal Indian law class (KF8200-8578). It will provide access to the digital content of legal source materials at LC and other institutions, and to tribal Web sites. Maps have been introduced as navigation tools.  So far, the Arctic Region (including Northern Canada and Alaska) and the United State regions can be searched at URL < https://guides.loc.gov/american-indian-law>. The Portal is a component part of the Law Library’s Guide to Law Online.

Law of Hawaii. The KVJ schedule (Law of Hawaii (to 1900)) is complete, and it has been added to Classification Web. It is currently being given a trial run at the University of Hawaii Law Library/School of Law. Dr. Jolande Goldberg, law classification specialist in PSD, continues to collaborate with colleagues at the University of Hawaii and the Hawaii State Archives officials on native terminology of the pre-1900 law of Hawaii classification schedule.  Questions about the project should be directed to Jolande Goldberg at email address jgol@loc.gov.

Turkish literature.  Revisions have been made to the PL schedule in order to better accommodate Turkish literary authors.  Since the PL schedule (Languages of Eastern Asia, Africa, Oceania) was first published in 1935, all Turkish literary authors from all periods have been classified in PL248.A-Z. Not only did this lead to crowding, but the 1981 revision to the LC filing rules was also having a negative impact because all new authors had to be interfiled with authors who first received a literary author number as long as 80 years ago. Until 1981, letters with a diaeresis were filed as the letter plus a trailing “e” (e.g., Ö was filed as Oe). Under the post-1981 rules, diacritics are ignored when filing (e.g., Ö is filed as O). It is not uncommon for Turkish names to begin with an Ö or Ü, so there were two different A-Z arrangements in PL248.O+ and PL248.U+, complicating the classification of new authors.

To ameliorate the situation, the scope of PL248.A-Z was revised in December 2014. It now covers those authors who began to publish in 2014 or earlier. Authors beginning to publish in 2015 and later will be classified in the newly established number PL249.A-Z. The existing literary author numbers for authors whose names begin with O, Ö, U, and Ü were also revised to allow for alphabetical arrangement according to the current filing rules. All authors whose number was changed are now printed in the schedules, and the 053 fields (LC Classification numbers) in their personal name authority records have been revised. The bibliographic records will be revised as time and resources permit.

Library of Congress Genre/Form Terms (LCGFT) for Library and Archival Materials

Since early 2007, the Library of Congress has been developing Library of Congress Genre/Form Terms for Library and Archival Materials (LCGFT), whose terms describe what something is rather than what it is about, as subject headings do. LCGFT’s coverage will expand significantly in early 2015 with the inclusion of “general” terms and terms for literature and music.

General terms

In January 2015 PSD approved approximately 175 “general” genre/form terms for inclusion in LCGFT. The terms describe works such as abstracts, dictionaries, periodicals, and yearbooks, which are not specific to a particular discipline, and also include some other terms that do not fall neatly into a particular discipline (e.g., logic puzzles; passenger lists).  The “general terms” project was a partnership undertaken by PSD and the ALA/ALCTS Subject Analysis Committee’s Subcommittee on Genre/Form Implementation, which formed the General Terms Working Group.  Additional information on this project may be found on the Acquisitions and Bibliographic Access website at URL < www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/genre_form_general_terms.html>.

At this time, PSD has no plans to cancel any of the LCSH headings or form subdivisions that overlap with the “general” terms. Libraries choosing to implement the terms in their cataloging should assign them in addition to subdivided subject headings.

Music terms

In February 2015 PSD will approve approximately 560 genre/form terms for musical works. The terms appeared on Tentative List 1514, to be approved on Feb. 2, 2015. PSD requested comments from the library community; please email Janis L. Young at jayo@loc.gov  through Jan. 26, 2015.

The music genre/form project is a partnership undertaken by PSD and the Music Library Association’s Bibliographic Control Committee, Form/Genre Task Force. Additional information on the project may be found at URL < www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/genremusicalworks.html>.

Literature terms

In March 2015 PSD will approve approximately 390 genre/form terms for literary works. The terms appeared on Tentative List 1515, to be approved on March 2, 2015. PSD requested comments from the library community; please email Janis L. Young at jayo@loc.gov through Feb. 18, 2015.

The literature genre/form project is a collaboration undertaken by PSD and the ALA/ALCTS Subject Analysis Committee’s Subcommittee on Genre/Form Implementation, which formed the Working Group on LCGFT Literature Terms. More information on the literature project may be found at URL < www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/genreliterature.html>.

Subject Headings Manual (SHM)

The Subject Headings Manual (SHM) will be revised in spring 2015 to reflect new policies on assigning genre/form terms to works of literature. Until the documentation is complete, PSD recommends that libraries wishing to implement the genre/form terms assign subject headings according to the existing policies in the SHM, along with the new genre/form terms.

LC Implementation of New Genre/Form Terms

The Library of Congress’ Acquisitions and Bibliographic Access Directorate, which catalogs most of the textual works acquired for the Library’s general collections, has not yet decided when it will implement the “general” or literature genre/form terms. Likewise, the Music Division and the Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division, which catalog books on music, music, and musical sound recordings, have not yet determined when they will implement the music genre/form terms in new cataloging. Separate announcements will be made when those details are available.

The LC Policy and Standards Division thanks the members of the ALA and MLA task forces for their time and effort in these projects. Special thanks are also due to MARCIVE, Inc., which created MARC records for the proposals from a Word document provided by the groups.

Library of Congress Demographic Group Terms

Library of Congress Demographic Group Terms (LCDGT) remains under development and will be used to describe the creators of, and contributors to, resources, and also the intended audience of resources. Terms from LCDGT will be coded in MARC 21 fields 385 and 386, for audience and creator/contributor characteristics, respectively, in bibliographic records and authority records for works. The Policy and Standards Division plans to approve the initial group of terms by the middle of 2015. The primary source for access to the approved terms will be Classification Web, and the terms will also be made freely available on LC’s web site. For more information, contact Janis L. Young at jayo@loc.gov.

Cataloger’s Desktop

In fiscal 2014 work on Cataloger’s Desktop focused on completely resystemizing the service. The underlying FAST Search software had become obsolete and the decision was made to migrate to open source retrieval software. LC staff conducted a series of focus group interviews to determine what Cataloger’s Desktop subscribers were looking for in the service, and the overwhelming message was that Desktop needed to be “search first” focused, rather than “browse first” as had been the case since 1994. Notwithstanding the resystemization work, Desktop continued to have 100 percent system reliability. With the new system, Desktop is hosted on the cloud, and system response time has improved from 2-8 seconds under the legacy system to under one-quarter second in the new one. Extensive context-sensitive help, training videos, quick tips, and webinars were developed and posted for the new Desktop system. User feedback was extremely positive. Additional videos and training will be developed as the need arises. Library staff will give presentations about the new interface at the LC exhibit booth, no. 2014, at the McCormick Place convention center in Chicago.

The Library is always eager to hear from subscribers about how we can improve Cataloger’s Desktop. Suggestions for new content or improved features 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

During 2014, two revision proposals and two new tables were approved, and five revision proposals are in varying stages of development. Staff in PSD and elsewhere in the Library of Congress worked closely with ALA’s Committee on Cataloging: African and Asian Materials (CC:AAM) and Committee on Cataloging: Description and Access (CC:DA) to develop and review these tables. Highlights since ALA Annual Conference in June 2014 include:

Five table revisions are in various stages of development. A proposed Mande languages (in N’ko script) table was developed by Charles Riley of Yale University. The draft has completed constituent review and final comments are being reviewed. A CC:AAM vote is anticipated shortly.  A proposed Cham table was developed by Larry Ashmun of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and recommended by CORMOSEA. The draft is currently undergoing constituent review with a response deadline of Feb. 5. A revision of the Uighur table was developed by Wayne Richter (Western Washington University). This proposal was initially submitted in 1999, but additional work was needed to complete it. The draft proposal is currently undergoing constituent review with a response deadline of Feb. 5. A Tibetan revision proposal based on the Wylie transliteration scheme is being developed by Lauran Hartley (Columbia University). The draft proposal is currently undergoing constituent review with a response deadline of March 1.

All current ALA-LC romanization tables are available on the Web 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 at < bjoh@loc.gov>.

U.S. Arts, Sciences, and Humanities Division (USASH)

eDeposit Program

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). The eDeposit program has now added over 4,400 individual e-serial issues to the collections of the Library of Congress to date and plans to expand this number dramatically in the coming year.  In order to do this, the Library is pursuing two courses.  One is to develop a simpler method for smaller publishers to upload their content directly to the Library through a web interface. The other is through the use of Special Relief Agreements, which allow publishers to submit digital content in lieu of physical content and to provide  the Library’s patrons with access to that content through their own platforms. The Library has three such agreements in place already–with Walter De Gruyter, Emerald Publishing and Hindawi–which include over a thousand individual serial titles, and has made it a priority to explore the expanded use of these agreements to other publishers in the coming year. Moreover, in the case of De Gruyter, the Special Relief Agreement has brought the Library not merely hundreds of e-serials, but hundreds of e-books for its collection as well. Between these two developments, the Library will do much to build the amount of digital content in its collection and do so across a broad spectrum of publishers.

Recommended Format Specifications

In 2014 the Library of Congress released its Recommended Format Specifications (URL < www.loc.gov/preservation/resources/rfs/>).  These specifications are the result of years of work examining the physical and technical characteristics of creative works. Dividing those creative works into six basic categories–Textual, Still Image, Audio, Moving Image, Software and Electronic Gaming and Learning, Datasets/Databases–the Library has identified those characteristics which will best advance preservation and long-term access. Not only is the Library using the Specifications as guidance in its own acquisitions work, but it hopes that they will be of use to others involved with creative works. No matter what role a person or an organization has within the realm of creative works--creator, publisher, producer, distributor, vendor, archivist, etc.–each has a personal interest and advantage in ensuring that creative works last and remain accessible. The Specifications are aimed at helping to fulfill this need for all the stakeholders involved with creative works. The Library is gratified by the interest which the Specifications have garnered from interested parties across the country and around the world. Given the fluid nature of creation, especially in the digital age, the Library is committed to performing an annual review and revision of the Specifications so that they may adequately and accurately reflect the realities of creative works.  Already, we have identified some potential improvements with regard to Still Images, Software and Datasets/Databases.  Therefore, the Library is actively soliciting comments, feedback and input from any interested parties in the coming months. The Library needs to receive this input by March 31st, so that we may have the time to prepare the revisions for release on June 30th. Please email comments to the attention of Ted Westervelt at thwe@loc.gov

Library of Congress Acquisitions and Cataloging Production

Acquisitions Work	FY2014	FY2013	FY2012
Items purchased for LC collections	717,339	1,001,354	736,341
Items acquired for LC by non-purchase	2,630,724	1,585,323	2,868,948
Expenditures for collections purchases	$24,539,936	$20,497,843	$21,054,706

Bibliographic Records Completed	FY2014	FY2013	FY2012
Original	186,657	166,973	212,332
Collection-level cataloging	1,692	2,217	3,406
Copy cataloging	62,629	64,782	74,750
Minimal level cataloging	25,826	31,190	40,133
Total records completed	276,804	265,162	330,621
Total volumes cataloged	359,072	363,467	350,201

Authority Work	FY2014	FY2013	FY2012
New name authority records	77,652	75,318	91,321
New LC Subject Headings	1,786	4,016	4,227
New LC Classification Numbers	5,806	2,273	2,312
Total authority records created	85,244	81,607	97,860

Library Services / Collections and Services Directorate (CS)

European Division

Erika Spencer is the new reference librarian for France and will attend the ALA Midwinter Meeting in Chicago. The European Division web page added more than 20 finding aids and other items in fiscal 2014. 

Geography and Map Division (G&M)

The Geography and Map Division Research Room’s renovation was completed in July 2014, with a new custom designed reference desk, upgraded map reference tables and security systems, state of the art GIS equipment, dedicated large format scanners for public use, an enclosed seminar room/ rarity encloser and separate lecture space with a wall-size interactive whiteboard for showcasing the Division’s collections and distance learning, a display area for Congressional and public orientations, and new display cases for rotating exhibits of the Division’s rare maps, globes, and  three dimensional objects. The construction of the new Secured Storage Facility (SSF) for the Geography and Map Division’s rare atlas collections was completed in late September 2014 with the installation of compact shelving.

The Geography and Map Division’s website was visited 1,476,344 times with 6,224,303 maps viewed. The number of maps scanned and available on the Geography and Map Division’s website surpassed 40,000 in February 2014.

The Geography and Map Division acquired several significant cartographic items, including a   Comanche pictograph  depicting a battle between Comanche and Apache bands in the Sierra Blanc Mountains of New Mexico, certified by Territorial Governor Juan Bautista de Anza in 1787; a set of manuscript maps produced by Agustin Codazzi, shortly after Venezuelan independence (1830), that were used in the production of the first printed atlas of Venezuela, Atlas físico y politico de Venezuela (Paris, 1841); and geospatial data coverage of Iran (1:25,000 scale vector data) and Myanmar (1:50,000 scale digital vector and raster data).

The G&M Division’s print technology collection was enhanced with the transfer of 19 copper printing plates of topographic maps from the U.S. Geological Survey covering five varied geographic areas in the U.S. as well as the Turkey–Armenia border.

Four issues of the Philip Lee Phillips Map Society of the Library of Congress Newsletter and an Occasional Paper, Maps of the First World War: An Illustrated Essay & List of Select Map in the Library of Congress proved very popular.  A second printing of Maps of the First World War was published. The Philip Lee Phillips Map Society passed the one million dollar mark in total donations to date.

The G&M Division greatly leveraged its scanning program through the Library’s Third Party Digitization Program. A team funded by the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency scanned nearly 10,000 maps of Africa. Where there are no copyright or sensitivity issues, these maps will become available online in 2015. Another team funded by Historical Information Gatherers scanned 48,674 Sanborn Fire Insurance maps. The Sanborn scans will be available on the Library’s website three years after the delivery date.

John Hessler of G&M coordinated the annual Jay I. Kislak Lecture in the Archaeology and History of the Early Americas. The lecturer was the noted archaeologist Richard Hansen, an expert on the northern Maya regions of Guatemala. More than 200 academics, curators and interested members of the general public attended.

The G&M Division and the Philip Lee Phillips Map Society hosted the Division’s annual spring conference, which this year was devoted to 20th century cartography. Twelve invited scholars discussed their research and debated the future of cartography in the digital and computer age during the two-day event entitled, From Terra to Terabytes: The History of Cartography in the 20th Century and Beyond. More than 250 scholars, map collectors, and LOC staff attended.

The G&M Division and the Washington Map Society continued to co-sponsor evening lectures in the G&M Research Center, as they have for the past 35 years.

The Division’s Twitter account (“LOCMaps”) tweeted 207 times to 8,563 followers, an increase of 1,675 followers from fiscal 2013. These tweets, consisting of brief descriptions of maps from the collection accompanied by an image of the map and a direct link to the map, were viewed 468,491 times over the course of the fiscal year. The choice of featured maps for the LOCMaps Twitter site is based on both historical and current events.  Additionally, the site advertises the Library’s unparalleled cartographic collections and drives traffic to the LC website.The most popular included a Mother’s Day tweet about a Civil War soldier dedicating a map to his mother (viewed 2,907 times); a map of Washington, D.C.’s Metro (subway) system; a map printed on cloth, which doubles as a lens cleaner (viewed 1,246 times); and a “Daily Mail Map of War and Commerce” outlining the “comparative powers of the belligerent powers” during World War I (viewed 2,282 times).

The Geography and Map Division and the Academia Sinica Digital Center, Taiwan, coauthored a bilingual annotated atlas of 475 historical Chinese maps in the Division’s collection that span approximately 700 years and several Chinese dynasties, titled Reading Imperial Cartography: Ming–Qing Historical Maps in the Library of Congress. Dr. Tien-jen Lin from the National Palace Museum provided descriptive annotations to 157 full-color maps. The G&M Cataloging Team leader, Min Zhang, translated the text in English. Phillips Society Steering Committee member Cordell Yee of St. John's College wrote a contextual essay providing historical background for the Chinese maps. A second edition is now available.

John Hessler authored Columbus’ Book of Privileges: the claiming of a New World (Levenger Press and the Library of Congress, 2014).

Hispanic Division

The Hispanic Division completed compiling and editing vol. 69 (Social Sciences) of the Handbook of Latin American Studies in 2014 and it was published by the University of Texas Press in Austin, Tex. This important scholarly annotated bibliography is also available online.

On Oct. 3, 2014, Dr. Everette Larson, head of the Hispanic Reading Room and ALA member who for many years worked in the LC Exhibit Booth, retired after 46 years with the Library, serving patrons in the reading room and enhancing the Hispanic Division home page that is also available in Spanish and Portuguese in addition to the English-language original.

Humanities and Social Sciences Division (HSS)

Only a Driver’s License (photo identification) is required to register to use Library’s Reading Rooms!

Upcoming event. On Presidents Day, February 16, 2015, the magnificent Main Reading Room (MRR) in the Library’s Thomas Jefferson Building will open to the public for a special open house. The Main Reading Room opens on two Federal holidays each year, usually Presidents Day and Columbus Day, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Photography is permitted, and Library staff are hosts to demonstrate the Library’s online resources and discuss access to the Library’s vast onsite collections. On that day, no other reference services are available and all other Library of Congress reading rooms and buildings are closed.

Reference Librarian Positions will be posted soon

Due to recent retirements and staff departures, the Local History & Genealogy (LH&G) and the Main Reading Room sections will be posting vacancies for reference librarians this spring. Information about these positions will be posted on USAJOBS.gov and the Library’s employment website (URL < www.loc.gov/hr/employment>).

Outreach: Connecting Users with LC’s Collections

Research orientations. During fiscal 2014, HSS staff conducted 123 research orientations to 1,666 researchers. Classes included both regularly scheduled programs offered by MRR and LH&G, and orientations in response to special requests in specific subject areas. Presentations were made for a wide variety of institutions: American Historical Association Seminar of Historians; Colgate University; College of William and Mary; Friends of DeKalb Public Library; Ft. McNair Scholars; Georgetown Law School; Great Lakes College Association; Howard University; National Diet Library of Japan; National Library of Medicine; Oxford University Graduate School; Rutgers University; Shenandoah University; State University of New York (SUNY) Washington Internship; University of California Washington Center; and U.S. Department of State International Visitor Leadership Program.

Program Sponsored by HSS. On Sept. 15, 2014, noted literary critic Maureen Corrigan discussed her recent book, So We Read On: How the Great Gatsby Came to Be and Why It Endures.

Main Reading Room open houses in 2014. On July 16, the Main Reading Room closed early to host the Congressional Research Service’s 100th Anniversary Gala, and hosted 325 invitees. On Aug. 12, the MRR hosted an open house for 223 members and guests of the Inner Circle of Advocates. This event was sponsored by the Library’s Development Office. On the evening of Aug. 15, the Main Reading Room opened for a group of 1,133 members of the Society of American Archivists. On the Columbus Day holiday, October 13, HSS staff, joined by staff from the Collections Access, Loan and Management; Serial & Government Publications; Prints and Photographs; Science, Technology & Business; Geography & Map; and Hispanic divisions and the Preservation Directorate welcomed 5,562 appreciative visitors to the Main Reading Room between 10 a.m. and 3:00 p.m. Following the 2014 elections, the Main Reading Room hosted three evening open house events for members of Congress and staff.

Digital projects

Web Archiving. HSS, in collaboration with other divisions at the Library, continued work on the Election 2014 Web Archiving project. Staff processed 2,331 records and submitted 1,269 records for crawling from October 2013 through December 2014. Sites being crawled are for Congressional (Senate and House) and gubernatorial candidates from Democratic, Republican, major independent, and third parties.

HSS staff continued adding websites to the Public Policy Web Archive, The Civil War 150 Web Archive and to the War of 1812 archiving project.

Key acquisitions

In fiscal 2014, HSS received 310 gift books and periodicals including local histories, genealogies, and 100 art books from Charta, an Italian art-book publishing firm. The Library received the following electronic databases that were recommended by HSS staff: Arts: Search; AskArt.com; Book Citation Index; Literature Criticism Online update for July 1, 2012–June 30, 2014.

Prints and Photographs Division (P&P)

The Prints and Photographs Division collections have more than 15.5 million pictures and offer many useful picture research aids at URL < /research-centers/prints-and-photographs/about-this-research-center/>. You can also enjoy collection highlights through the blog Picture This! at < blogs.loc.gov/picturethis>.

The Prints and Photographs Division reference and cataloging services are summarized online, including a cataloging & digitizing toolbox at < www.loc.gov/rr/print/cataloging.html>.

New cataloging guidelines for pictures now available in online publication

The Library of Congress and the Association of College and Research Libraries have updated the cataloging guidelines for describing pictures and made them available in a free online book, “Descriptive Cataloging of Rare Materials (Graphics).” The guidelines cover still images of all types: photographs, prints, drawings, born-digital pictures, book illustrations, posters, postcards, cartoons, comic strips, advertisements, portraits, landscape, architectural drawings, bookplates and more. “Descriptive Cataloging of Rare Materials (Graphics)” or DCRM(G) is available online at URL < id.loc.gov/vocabulary/descriptionConventions/dcrmg.html > and as a hypertext document in the Library’s subscription database Cataloger’s Desktop, < desktop.loc.gov >.

Flickr Commons Pilot Project

The Flickr Commons Pilot Project reached its seventh birthday on Jan. 16, 2015. The Library now offers more than 22,700 photographs, which have received more than 59,700 comments and 333,000 favorites. We continue to gain valuable identifications for the pictures in Flickr and have updated the catalog records for close to 7,000 photos to improve collection access. Our followers have exceeded 60,000. The Flickr Commons added 20 new members in the past year, for a total of more than four million photos from 98 members. The Library’s photos can be seen and tagged at < www.flickr.com/photos/library_of_congress/ External >.

Prints & Photographs Online Catalog

The Prints & Photographs Online Catalog (PPOC) queries increased eight percent in fiscal 2014, to 6.6 million. The provision of new content, including approximately 50,000 digitized items, continues to make PPOC a popular destination for researchers.

New Online reference aids

• David Seymour (CHIM) Photograph Collection, URL < www.loc.gov/rr/print/coll/david-seymour-photograph-collection.html>
• Farm Security Administration / Office of War Information (FSA/OWI) Collection: Subject Index, < www.loc.gov/rr/print/coll/FSA-class-list-introduction.html>
• Lautenberg, Bonnie, photographer. How They Changed Our Lives: Senators As Working People ,URL < www.loc.gov/rr/print/coll/Lautenberg.html>
• Pictures of Congress: An Overview, URL < https://guides.loc.gov/us-congress-images/>
• Spanish Civil War Visual Materials, URL < www.loc.gov/rr/print/coll/spanish-civil-war-visual-materials.html>
• Travel Posters, URL < www.loc.gov/rr/print/coll/travel-posters.html>
• Vergara, Camilo José, photographer. Tracking Time to Document America’s Post-Industrial Cities, URL < https://guides.loc.gov/vergara-collection-guide/introduction>

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 737,800 microfilm reels. The newspaper collection also includes many original print holdings of commemorative and anniversary editions, and first printings of significant U.S. documents. The comic book collection includes more than 9,000 titles and more than 133,000 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, and master copies of U.S. Federal Depository Library Program (FDLP) documents distributed on microfiche. As of fiscal 2013, SER is also the custodial division 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 9 million pages. The current periodical collection includes more than 49,000 domestic and foreign titles, including government serials, and 1,176,000 loose items that reside temporarily in the Division prior to binding and transfer to the general collection.

Collection activities

SER acquired several significant additions to its collections in the past year. The Division accepted a donation of approximately 5,500 comic book issues to harvest for missing issues and titles no longer available through copyright claiming (comic book publishers often deplete supply shortly after publication, so successful retrospective claiming is difficult). In addition, the Division continued to acquire by donation additional items (including award-winning websites) from creators participating in the 2014 annual Small Press Expo, SPX. The Division also sponsored its annual SPX program with a talk by noted creator and Retrofit Comics publisher Box Brown, How to Make Comics Every Day and Still Be Alive, to coincide with the annual SPX.  The division is in its fourth year of collaboration with SPX.

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

• 5 eighteenth century issues of the Edinburgh Evening Courant published during the American Revolution, including two relating to the Declaration of Independence;
• 15 rare issues of the New York Packet and the American Advertiser published by Scottish immigrant Samuel Loudon, covering the American Revolution;
• Comic books: Negro Romance no. 1 (1950), held by no other public institution (according to OCLC), and no. 38 (April, 1940) of Detective Comics, containing the first appearance of Batman's sidekick, Robin;
• By way of Memorandum of Understanding with the Small Press Expo (SPX), acquired by donation 1,282 items from the SPX annual expos of 2013 and 2014.  In addition, 13 websites of Ignatz award-winning creators were added to the Small Press Expo web archive.

The Division hosted a number of unpaid interns and volunteers, who exchanged their talents for the learning experience of working with curatorial collections.  They made significant contributions in accessioning custodial collections (government documents, historic newspaper issues and comic books), processing collection backfiles (comic books), and interpreting collections for outreach (newspapers and comic books). In addition to hosting eight unpaid interns during the annual Alternative Spring Break programs of the University of Illinois, University of Kentucky, and the University of Michigan, SER also hosted eleven unpaid intern students during the summer of 2014 from the College of William and Mary and the University of Virginia and a Montgomery College intern in fall 2014. The Division also hosted four Junior Fellows who spent the summer of 2014 working on comic books, pulp magazines, and Topics Pages for Chronicling America.

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 to provide free public access to historic American newspapers through the Chronicling America website (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 150,000 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. The new 2014 awardees--Nevada and South Dakota--joined Connecticut, Florida, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan, Mississippi, New Mexico, North Carolina, Puerto Rico, Tennessee, Vermont and Virginia as active current participants. Other states–Arizona, California, Hawaii, Kentucky, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, 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 Strategic Initiatives’ (OSI) Repository Development Group and Library Services’ SER Division, 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 26 active awardees in various stages of data production, receiving approximately 150,000 images per month (7.4 TB).

Since June 2014, Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers added more than 1.5 million pages to provide full-text access to nine million newspaper pages published between 1836 and 1922 (approximately 36 million digital items), representing 1,600 selected newspapers from 36 states and territories and the District of Columbia. The site now hosts more than 68,000 pages in French or Spanish from Arizona, Louisiana, New Mexico, and Texas, 6,000 pages in Italian from Pennsylvania and Vermont and more than 180,000 pages in German from Iowa, Ohio, Maryland, Minnesota, Missouri, North Dakota, Ohio and Pennsylvania, increasing access to non-English ethnic press. More are expected in the coming year. More than 800 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 (see URL < /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 marked up and published to the web a record 58 new Topics Pages in fiscal 2014, covering such varied topics as Female Spies in World War I; Comics: Mr. Skygack; From Mars; and Civil War Ballooning.

Orientation and outreach

SER sponsors an orientation to its collections and its  Newspaper and Current Periodical Reading Room on 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)

Business Enterprises

See also under Library of Congress Exhibit Booth

Cataloging Distribution Service (CDS)

Cataloging Distribution Service (CDS), a unit of the Office of Business Enterprises (BE), markets, publishes, and distributes the Library’s cataloging records 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 of Congress Exhibit Booth to demonstrate and answer questions about Cataloger’s Desktop and Classification Web, our 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.

Cataloger’s Desktop

CDS booth staff will continue to receive user feedback on the three major enhancements to the user interface that were launched in September 2014. A booth theater presentation, “More Than Just a New Look: Cataloger’s Desktop New Interface”, will be presented on Saturday, January 31 at 12:30 p.m. and on Monday, February 2 at 11:00 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: Behind the Scenes”, will be presented 10:00 a.m. on Saturday, January 31 at 10:00 a.m. and Sunday, February 1. For a free 30-day trial subscription to Classification Web visit URL < www.loc.gov/cds/classweb/classweborder.html#ordering>.

For information on product development, see ACQUISITIONS AND BIBLIOGRAPHIC ACCESS DIRECTORATE/Policy and Standards/Cataloging Tools in this document.

Center for the Book

The Library’s Center for the Book was es­tablished by Congress in 1977 to “stim­ulate public interest in books and read­ing.” A public-private partnership, the center sponsors educa­tional programs that reach readers of all ages through its affiliated state cen­ters, collaborations with nonprofit read­ing promotion partners and through the Young Readers Center and Poetry and Literature Center at the Library of Congress. In collaboration with the Children’s Book Council (CBC) and the CBC Foundation, and with support from publishers, the center sponsors the National Ambassador for Young Peo­ple’s Literature. The center also main­tains and updates the Library’s literacy-promotion website at URL < read.gov>.

What Is Love? Romance Fiction in the Digital Age: An International Multimedia Conference

Registration is now open for those wishing to attend the conference “What Is Love? Romance Fiction in the Digital Age” on Tuesday, Feb. 10, and Wednesday, Feb. 11, at the Library of Congress.

The two-day event is hosted by the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress. Harlequin, a division of HarperCollins Publishers, is the lead sponsor. Additional support is provided by the Popular Romance Project; the Nora Roberts Foundation; the Romance Writers of America; and Berkley/NAL, imprints of Penguin Random House.

Romance fiction is the second-best-selling genre in the publishing industry, generating more than $1 billion in publisher revenues in 2013, according to Bookstats.  Romance accounts for 21 percent of the adult fiction market. The conference will include business and social interests, romance literature scholarship and public engagement with people who love the genre. The Popular Romance Project, led by Laurie Kahn of Blueberry Hill Productions, also includes the feature-length documentary film “Love Between the Covers,” directed by Kahn. There will be a preview screening of the film at the Library of Congress on the evening of Feb. 10.

The conference and film screening are free and open to the public; attendees are asked to register at URL < www.popularromanceproject.org/prp-conference External >.

Letters About Literature

More than 50,000 young readers from across the country participated in the 2013–2014 Letters About Literature competition. Open to students in grades four through 12, the competition challenged young people to write letters to their favorite authors explaining how their writing changed their lives. The top letters in each competition level for each state were chosen. Then, national, national honor and national runner-up winners were chosen from each of the three competition levels: level 1 (grades four-six), level 2 (grades seven and eight) and level 3 (grades nine and 10). The following are the national winners in the three competition levels:

• Level 1 (tie)—Becker Miller of Wellesley,  Mass., who wrote to Dr. Seuss about his book One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish.
  Jayanth V. Uppaluri of Clayton, Mo., who wrote to Sharon Draper about her book Out of My Mind.
• Level 2—Jisoo Choi of Ellicott City, Md., who wrote to Anne Frank about her book The Diary of a Young Girl.
• Level 3—Devi Acharya of University City, Mo., who wrote to George Orwell about his books Animal Farm and 1984.

Literacy Awards

Created and sponsored by philanthropist David M. Rubenstein, the Library of Congress Literacy Awardsseek to reward those organizations that have been doing exemplary, innovative and easily replicable work over a sustained period of time and to encourage new groups, organizations and individuals to become involved. Recipients of the 2014 annual awards, announced at the 2014 National Book Festival on Aug. 30, are Room to Read, receiving the David M. Rubenstein Prize ($150,000); SMART, receiving the American Prize ($50,000); and The Mother Child Education Foundation, receiving the International Prize ($50,000). The literacy awards program is administered by the Center for the Book. Final selection of prizewinners was made by Librarian of Congress James H. Billington, who solicited recommendations from an advisory board of literacy experts.

Other fiscal 2014 activities

With St. Mary’s College Center for Environmental Literacy, the Center for the Book co-sponsored River of Words, an environmental poetry and art program.

The Young Readers Center

The center, located in the Thomas Jefferson Building, continued to grow in popularity, with new programs and activities for children that attracted nearly 33,000 visitors during the year.

The Poetry and Literature Center

The center, which fosters and enhances the public’s appreciation of literature, is the home of the Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry. Natasha Trethewey, the Library’s Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry for 2013-2014, presided over the 2014 literary season, which also featured many distinguished poets and writers reading from their works. 

National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped

During the past year, the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped focused on building its collections and improving services. As a result selections offered to talking-book readers in 2014 increased by 50 percent, and a study was undertaken to explore opportunities for advancing braille offerings. NLS implemented a new system to update the way information about users, circulation, and equipment is collected and reported. The program also partnered with the Bureau of Engraving and Printing to issue the iBill currency reader to blind and visually impaired U.S. citizens and legal residents.

More talking books

In 2014, NLS increased its annual offering of titles to patrons by 50 percent. NLS contracted for the production of 3,224 talking books, substantially exceeding the target of 2,100 titles. The proliferation resulted from agreements that NLS entered into with three commercial book publishers to receive narration files without cost. NLS also contracted for the production of 42 magazines in audio format and for the conversion of 6,001 older titles from analog to digital audio format. In addition, NLS increased its offerings to patrons by inviting network libraries that produce digital audio materials to submit copies for posting on the Braille and Audio Reading Download (BARD) site. These regional products are now available for all NLS patrons in the United States and abroad.

Braille study

NLS engaged the LOC Federal Research Division (FRD) to assist with modernizing the braille program. FRD conducted a comprehensive study of the NLS braille program and produced a report laying the groundwork for upgrading braille products. One suggestion was that NLS distribute a braille eReader for use with digital braille files, which would reduce the need to produce costly hard-copy braille books and get books to readers faster.

New network information system

To improve the timeliness and accuracy of data collected from its national network of cooperating libraries, NLS developed and began migrating network libraries to a new information system. The Patron Information and Machine Management System (PIMMS) updates and replaces two older systems: the Comprehensive Mailing List System (CMLS), which manages patron records and magazine subscriptions, and the Blind and Physically Handicapped Inventory Control System (BPHICS), which manages equipment inventory. PIMMS is expected to make tracking of patron usage and equipment distribution more efficient and effective.

Currency reader goes public

On Jan. 2, 2015, the Bureau of Engraving and Printing (BEP) Currency Reader Distribution Project opened to the public, allowing all citizens and legal residents who are blind or have a visual disability to request a free currency reader. The device, offered as a result of a legal decision, identifies U.S. banknotes by speaking, vibrating, or tone signals. NLS, which was asked to partner with BEP in January 2014, will handle the distribution of the devices through its warehouses. The iBill currency reader was first released during a pre-pilot at the summer conferences of the American Council of the Blind, the Blinded Veterans Association, and the National Federation of the Blind. Additionally, a pilot was offered in which NLS patrons were permitted to pre-order their readers. By December 2014 NLS had shipped more than 12,000 iBill currency readers to eligible patrons.

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 January-February 2015 issue of Library of Congress Magazine featured the Preservation Directorate’s work. The electronic version is available as a downloadable PDF at URL < www.loc.gov/lcm>.

Outreach

Under the auspices of the U.S. Dept. of State, Senior Book Conservator Yasmeen Khan conducted conservation seminars and workshops at three cultural institutions in Turkmenistan: the Institute of Manuscripts, the National Library and the Fine Arts Museum. In addition, she gave an evening presentation to Turkmen visitors at the U.S. Embassy’s Information Resource Center on the Library of Congress and its conservation activities; and a workshop was filmed by Turkmen State Television. She will be providing the Dept. of State with a report on further steps that should be taken in regard to conservation training at the respective institutions. A short announcement of her visit and a YouTube video of a workshop were posted by the Public Affairs Office of the U.S. Embassy in Turkmenistan at the following URL < youtu.be/g8o8ly4VmHQ External >.

The Preservation Research and Testing Division hosted a number of Topics in Preservation Series presentations, included the development of the Oddy test, the Biology of the Book (new DNA testing using erasure samples to determine animal type, location of origin etc.) and a TOPS three-day symposium on Research Infrastructures with Italian colleagues.

Additional updates can be found below and on the Preservation web site, URL < www.loc.gov/preservation>. New additions to the web pages include the Collections Care Treatment Manual and an update of practices for Preservation Facsimile, URL < www.loc.gov/preservation/care>.  The valuation of collections was updated and can be downloaded as an excel file with formulas, URL < www.loc.gov/preservation/emergprep/insurancevaluation.html>.

By continuously updating the site, the Library aims to improve user accessibility and navigation of the Library’s web properties, as well as to the Library’s strategic plan to lead in the advancement of knowledge.

Preservation Directorate staff assisted the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) Preservation and Conservation Core Activity (IFLA-PAC) by providing scans of early issues of IPN (International Preservation News) to be mounted on the IFLA website. The PD continues to contribute to the PAC as an active regional center, as well as supporting the IFLA Preservation and Conservation Section through web support.

Selected publications by PD staff since ALA 2014 Annual Conference include:

• Drewes, Jeanne. ” Preservation Management Handbook book review” forthcoming in LRTS, v. 59, issue 2; April, 2015.
• France, F.G. 2014. Fugitive modern media and challenges of long-term exhibition. In ICOM-CC 17th Triennial Conference Preprints, Melbourne, 15–19 September 2014, ed. J. Bridgland, art. 1601, 8 pp. Paris: International Council of Museums. (ISBN 978-92-9012-410-8)
• France, Fenella G. and Toth, Michael B. “Integrating science and art: the scriptospatial visualization interface”, IFLA WLIC 2014 – Lyon - Libraries, Citizens, Societies: Confluence for Knowledge External , Session 149 - Art with Science and Technology Libraries (2014) In: IFLA WLIC 2014, 16-22 August 2014, Lyon, France < library.ifla.org/id/eprint/763 External >

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

The Binding & Collections Care Division manages the care of the Library's permanent research collections through binding preparation and contract management; collections conservation; in-house binding such as pamphlet binding; and collections housing, using state-of-the-art automated box-cutting machines. 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 papers. Staff assists 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.
Mass Deacidification contractors continue to treat the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) archive. This preservation action is expected to be completed this year after more than twelve years of work. The NAACP collection is one of the largest and most used collections in the Manuscript Division. Deacidification extends the life of the paper significantly.

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.

Conservation and curatorial staff from the Library collaborated on many aspects of the Platinum and Palladium Photographs symposium held in Washington, D.C., in October 2014. Coordinated by the National Gallery of Art, the symposium was part of a multi-year project to better understand platinum and palladium photography and to reassess approaches for their conservation treatment, long-term preservation, and safe display. This is important to the Library since its holdings contain a substantial amount of this type of photographic material. As part of the symposium, Library staff created a short-term exhibition of platinum photographs from the Library’s collections, a tour of Library collections, teaching in a symposium workshop devoted to how platinum photographs are made, and research papers at the symposium on topics including the use of mercury and how that may affect permanence; the use of glycerine development; the platinum photographs of F. Holland Day; and the use of chelators in the treatment of deteriorated platinum and palladium photographs. See URL:
< conservation-us.org/docs/default-source/education/platinum-event-summary14oct2014-2.pdf?sfvrsn=2 External >

In 2014, CD staff stabilized, treated and rehoused several collections as part of the Digitization Support program, including the Gastronomie Collection, the Alan Lomax Papers, and the Bob Hope VIP Letters. This last collection includes letters, telegrams, photographs and special occasion cards that Bob Hope collected in his lifetime that were sent to him by other Hollywood celebrities, as well as U.S. presidents, congressmen, governors, cabinet members, military brass, and international heads of state. The entire collection of approximately 2,500 items was scanned and will be online soon for the public.

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. Work to convert materials is accomplished through programs for microphotography and digital capture. Microfilming, both vendor and in-house production, represents most of the reformatting work in PRD. The division reformatted nearly 2,000,000 pages in fiscal 2014 and conducted quality review prior to returning film to custodial divisions. The vast majority of material microfilmed continues to be foreign newsprint serial publications that are voluminous to store, are highly acidic, and are not well suited for digitization.

PRD staff has developed optical and floppy disk reformatting workflows for the monographs containing such media. PRD digital conversion specialists and technicians were involved in identifying and automating disk label scanning and post-processing operations, and in reconfiguring PRD work areas and computer systems to support the reformatting workflows and ISO disk image and file copy operations. Since June, 2014 staff ingested and saved to long term storage 606 titles, totaling about 4.03 terabytes (Project total from the start: 1,512 titles, 4.412 TB).

The Digital Preservation Laboratory acquired a Digital Intelligence Forensic Recovery of Evidence Device (FRED), a computer hardware and software system designed to safely recover and analyze optical and magnetic media.  Staff of DPL is working with the LC archivists to identify and document useful extraction and analysis functions and to develop relevant digital forensic knowledge bases and skills.

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 Preservation Research and Testing Division (PRTD) has continued to be been 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 expansion of the QA program included testing of all building materials for the Architect of the Capitol for new secure storage facilities (SSFs) since these locations will locate high profile collection items and with a lower air flow to maintain a tighter control, require a higher level of scrutiny than general collection areas.

PRTD hosted 16 interns and visiting scholars during the summer of 2014. These students worked on a range of projects, including continued testing for the 100-Year Natural Aging Study, further development of the Center for Analytical Scientific Samples–Digital (CLASS-D) to establish standards for the digital preservation of scientific research data, continued research into 20th -century fugitive media such as media used in the Herblock Collection, research into verdigris corrosive ink, assessment of glass degradation, and hyperspectral imaging of flasks in the Library’s Kislak Collection. The addition of 1,940 scientific samples into the CLASS-D database expanded the range of materials types in the database, and the data needed to describe and source these samples.

Research trends have indicated an increasing awareness of the challenges of protecting modern media materials; this includes both fugitive inks and 20th -century materials, and audio-visual materials. There continue to be requests from colleagues from a range of library, archive, cultural heritage and academic institutions to learn more about PRTD’s scientific reference sample collections (CLASS), a substantial increase in collaborations and collaborative activities, and increased requests for non-invasive hyperspectral imaging to assess documents and objects. A request from the United States Geological Survey (USGS) determined that spectral imaging can capture non-visible hydrological data from 19th- and 20th-century records. This area of fugitive media has only recently been recognized more widely, and a presentation at the International Council of Museums Conservation Committee conference this year generated much discussion and requests from EU colleagues for collaboration.

Notable collaborations

The Division has been involved in a large number of major collaborations. These include the University of South Carolina collaborative research into the degradation of magnetic tape and advances with the non-invasive tool to identify tape condition, and the three-day symposium with Italian colleagues and the Embassy of Italy into the development of research infrastructures for humanities and cultural heritage scientific data and datasets. An additional collaboration with the Catholic University of America’s Cultural Heritage Information Management (CHIM) program had PRTD hosting three Masters’ students for their practicum session, working on data management through the division’s Center for Library Analytical Scientific Samples – Digital (CLASS-D). As a continuation of the Collections Demography research program with the Center for Sustainable Research, University College London (UCL), potential MOOC training classes are being developed. In addition, PRTD will be hosting doctoral students from the new Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT) in Science and Engineering in Arts, Heritage and Archaeology (SEAHA) as a heritage partner, where students will gain experience from academic, heritage and industry partner advisors. An additional collaboration with the University of Pennsylvania libraries will develop a national study to assess what condition information is needed to determine when additional copies can be removed from circulation.

Library Services / Technology Policy Directorate (TECH)

Integrated Library System Program Office (ILSPO)

Integrated Library System

The Library continues to add enhancements to the new user interface to the Library of Congress Online Catalog at URL < catalog.loc.gov>.  In December 2014 the ILS Program Office incorporated its open URL 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.

The old user interface to the LC Online Catalog is still available at URL < catalog2.loc.gov>, but eventually it will be taken down.  Users of the old interface are encouraged to try the new version of the LC Online Catalog, which has all the functionality of the old version.

There were several factors behind the decision to migrate the LC Catalog to a new, modern user interface:

Making the LC Online Catalog accessible to all--The new user interface to the LC Online Catalog is accessible to all users including those with disabilities.  The Library’s experts in assistive technology have tested the new design with screen readers such as Window-Eyes and JAWS to ensure that users who prefer those tools can use the LC Online Catalog. The new user interface meets the requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), but the old interface does not.  This change supports the Library’s mission to make its resources available to Congress and the American public.

Flexibility in design to enable new functionality--The new software allows much more flexibility in the design and will enable 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.

Because the vendor is no longer developing the old software, there will be no further enhancements and bugs in the software will not be fixed. The new software will continue to offer new functionality as well as support for the latest versions of popular browsers, so users can access the full functionality of the LC Online Catalog.

Implementing the Library of Congress Web standards--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.  This update brings the LC Online Catalog into harmony with the Library’s home page and other LC web pages, which will give users a more consistent experience across the Library’s web site.
The Library upgraded the LC Integrated Library System (ILS) to Voyager 8.2.0 in February 2014.

LCCN Permalink

LCCN Permalink ( 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 ( catalog.loc.gov) and authority records in the LC Authorities Service ( authorities.loc.gov), continues to be popular, resolving approximately 15,000 requests each day.  LCCN Permalink enables researchers to reference materials from the Library's collection in blogs, reference guides, web pages, emails, bibliographies, and more.

The Library recently e4nhanced LCCN Permalink to include 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.

LC EAD (Encoded Archival Description) archival finding aids

Since January 2014, LS Collections and Services divisions created 151 new EAD archival finding aids, bringing the total number of LC EAD finding aids to 2,158. At findingaids.loc.gov users can access 58.6 million archival items in LC's collections through these documents. A monthly RSS feed provides information on the Library’s new and substantially revised finding aids ( www.loc.gov/rss/#updates).

LC persistent identifiers

Library staff registered approximately 192,203 handles since January 2014 to manage and provide persistent identifiers for LC-generated electronic resources.  As of January 2015, the Library's handle server contained 3,555,840 handles.  Over the past year, LC staff assigned handles to materials digitized by a number of LC cooperative projects (including content scanned for the Sloan project and sent to Internet Archive and HathiTrust), to U.S. legislation searchable in Thomas, and to digital books created by NLS, and to items in the Library repository efforts). In addition, handles are assigned to born-digital electronic resources stored by the Library’s digital repository services.

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 886,000 bibliographic, 1,041,000 holdings, 1590 resource, and 1,280 license records. In FY14 patrons and LC staff performed 1,013,620 searches in the Electronic Resources Online Catalog. For the first time the Library surpassed the one million record mark for coverage entries loaded in a single month.

HathiTrust authentication via Shibboleth

In December 2014, the Library of Congress implemented a new method for staff and patrons to access materials in the HathiTrust. The Library is a member of 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 http://www.hathitrust.org/accessibility).
• Access works held in print by partner institutions that are missing or brittle and also out of print (only in the U.S.; see http://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: http://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.

OFFICE OF STRATEGIC INITIATIVES

Personnel Changes

Elizabeth R. Scheffler, Director of Public Records and Repositories in the U.S. Copyright Office, is detailed to the position of Associate Librarian of Congress for Strategic Initiatives/Chief Information Officer and Judith A. Conklin, chief of the Automation Planning and Liaison Office, is detailed to the position of Deputy Associate Librarian for Strategic Initiatives, effective January 26.

National Digital Newspaper Program

See under LIBRARY SERVICES/COLLECTIONS AND SERVICES DIRECTORATE/Serial and Government Publications Division

Office of Strategic Initiatives / National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program (NDIIPP)

The Library of Congress’ National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program (NDIIPP) has continued to expand the Library’s web archives and work with a network of partners, including the National Digital Stewardship Alliance (NDSA), to address common issues of storage and verification, data and metadata management, and access and discovery of diverse digital materials. This past year, NDIIPP staff man­aged 29 web archive collections comprising more than 9.2 billion files or 582 terabytes of data. Information about the program and its activities can be found at URL < www.digitalpreservation.gov>.

Digital Preservation Outreach and Education (DPOE)

DPOE fosters outreach and education about digital preservation on a national scale. To date, DPOE has conducted two needs assessment surveys to identify gaps in current professional practice, convened subject matter experts to review existing digital preservation coursework and develop a set of guiding principles, developed a baseline curriculum to support the design and delivery of a train-the-trainer workshop, hosted four workshops working with external collaborators, revised the baseline curriculum, and supported the exchange of knowledge for a national network through an email list and calendar of training opportunities.

DPOE is currently working to add more advanced content modules to its curriculum, define resource-specific levels of digital preservation activities, develop online training resources, and collaborate with organizations to expand its network of trainers. Collaboration with national and international communities of digital preservation practitioners will help form a unified effort and advance the program to provide working professionals with the knowledge they need to preserve their digital assets over time.

National Digital Stewardship Residency (NDSR)

The National Digital Stewardship Residency is a field experience program that offers recent masters and doctoral graduates the opportunity to work on relevant projects at one of many institutions, currently in the Washington, DC, Boston, and New York City areas.  The program was developed through a partnership between the Library of Congress and the Institute of Museum and Library Services.  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 pilot NDSR program (September 2013 – May 2014) was held in Washington, DC and managed by the Library of Congress.  Residents in that class worked on projects at one of 10 different Washington, DC area institutions.  The second Washington, DC class of five individuals will work 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 residency term is scheduled for June 2015 – June 2016. For more program information please visit URL < www.loc.gov/ndsr>.

Federal Agencies Digitization Guidelines (FADGI)

The Library continues to lead the Federal Agencies Digitization Guidelines Initiative (FADGI), a group of 19 federal agencies collaborating on the development of digitization guidelines and best practices (see URL < www.digitizationguidelines.gov>). The Still Image Working Group met on September 30 and the Audio-Visual Working Group met on December 2.

During 2014, three Working Group efforts have compared digital formats in terms of suitability for preservation. URL < www.digitizationguidelines.gov/guidelines/File_format_compare.html >. Two efforts pertain to target formats for digitization, i.e., the formats you digitize to.  Matrix tables in these reports compare formats in terms of about 40 factors grouped under four general headings: sustainability, cost, system implementation (full lifecycle), and settings and capabilities (quality and functionality factors).  The third effort concerns the acquisition and management of born digital video recordings.

The still image format comparison analyzed JPEG 2000, JPEG (DCT), TIFF, PNG, and PDF, and several subtypes.  A draft version was posted to the FADGI Web site in April.  Comments were received and an updated version was posted in September.  Meanwhile, the two video reports were posted for public review in December.  The comparison of target formats for video digitization analyzed the wrappers AVI, MOV (QuickTime), Matroska, MXF, and MPEG-2 (ad hoc file wrapper), and the encodings uncompressed (various types), lossless JPEG 2000, ffv1, and MPEG-2 (encoding).  The born digital video report presents eight case histories from six federal agencies that describe representative examples of the acquisition and management of born digital video.

Other FADGI activities are in progress. On the still image side, the group is continuing to refine its guidelines and to modify and improve the tools being developed to support the evaluation of scanning device performance. On the audiovisual side, work has begun to develop tools and methods to measure the performance of audio analog-to-digital converters, thereby beginning the implementation of the audio-digitization-device performance guideline published in 2012.  URL < www.digitizationguidelines.gov/guidelines/digitize-audioperf.html>.

Office of Strategic Initiatives / Web Services Division

Content delivery work

Web Services is the Library’s main Web team, creating and managing websites and applications while providing strategic input across all aspects of the Library’s web program. Our team works to provide project management, requirements analysis, information architecture, visual design, development, integration, testing, and operational support to hundreds of Library websites and applications, as well as managing the technical and policy aspects of the Library’s external social media and content distribution presence.

Key work in progress

Over the past three years, Web Services has been focused on the strategic content delivery area, supporting the development of new capabilities while maintaining support for the large body of content and functionality already extant on loc.gov and related sites. The focus on implementation of systems and supporting processes for content delivery and core technology is enabling significant improvements to the Library’s ability to deliver content and services in a modern, supportable, user-focused manner.

Congress.gov

Web Services has continued to collaborate with the Library’s Information Technology Services (ITS), Congressional Research Service (CRS), and Law Library on new releases of Congress.gov, the official website for U.S. federal legislative information. In June 2014, a major release of the site added significant new features, including individual user accounts that allow users to save searches and receive alerts on legislative activity. In September 2104, a significant milestone in the Library’s overall plan for Legislative information was met with a release that removed the “beta” label from the site, and began to redirect traffic from the legacy THOMAS site directly to Congress.gov. The September release also included substantial improvements to searching and browsing, and the addition of a large portal of legislative information-related resources for users. The project team continues to work to improve and extend Congress.gov, with three major releases planned for 2015.

Library Collections - Objects, Sets, and Formats

Web Services continues to collaborate with content owners across the Library to improve access to collections materials. Work continues to blend migration of items and supporting materials from legacy applications to new presentations, and implementing streamlined processes to quickly add new collections. In the second half of 2014, dozens of migrated collections and new collections were added to loc.gov. Highlights include the launch of the Alan Lomax Collections of Michigan and Wisconsin Recordings (see URL < www.loc.gov/collections/alan-lomax-in-michigan/about-this-collection>), a large addition of content to the Civil Rights History Project (see URL < www.loc.gov/collection/civil-rights-history-project/about-this-collection>), Warren G. Harding-Carrie Fulton Phillips Correspondence (see URL < www.loc.gov/collection/warren-harding-carrie-fulton-phillips-correspondence/about-this-collection>), Phillips/Mathée Collection (see URL < www.loc.gov/collections/phillips-mathee-collection/about-this-collection/>), World War I Sheet Music (see URL < www.loc.gov/collections/world-war-i-sheet-music/about-this-collection>), and more. In addition to new collections, dozens of collections have been migrated from legacy presentations to a new standard presentation, adding features such as faceted search, improved image viewers, and mobile-friendly design. Users working with collection items can now also take advantage of a dramatically improved page turner/image viewer, which offers new views for multipage/image objects, along with improved handling of captions and transcripts.

Search

During 2014, the Library continued the effort to retire legacy search systems, replacing them with core loc.gov/search functionality. In addition to improving content available through the search system, the Web Services team continues to work with our partners in ITS to implement functional improvements, including a new slideshow view for search results, improvements to search thumbnails, and user experience revisions for our gallery and grid views.

Navigation/User Experience

Web Services is working with content owners across the Library to convert existing programs and site sections to mobile-friendly universal designs. Recent work includes the National Recording Preservation Plan, and the National Film Registry.

Office of Strategic Initiatives / Repository Development Center (RDC)

The Repository Development Center develops repository services for the Library of Congress. The group is responsible for creating software tools and services used in dozens of Library initiatives including digitization of physical collections, acquisition of new digital collections, and processing of digital materials added through networks such as the World Digital Library, Cataloging in Publication(CIP) agreements, Copyright Deposit via demand, Copyright Deposit for special relief and the National Digital Newspaper Program. Hundreds of terabytes of digital collections encompassing hundreds of thousands of items have been collected using the repository services for use, display, and preservation by the Library of Congress.

Office of Strategic Initiatives / Educational Outreach Division

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

In 2014, educational resource specialists at the Library of Congress and our partners in other institutions and organizations across the country provided a wide variety of primary sourced-based professional development opportunities for educators.  From workshops to institutes, from conferences to webinars, our efforts reached teachers on-site, off-site, and at a distance.  All totaled, the TPS program served 23,196 teachers from 374 Congressional Districts—86.5 percent of the nation’s 435 Congressional Districts.

The majority of these teachers were served by our 28 institutional partners comprising the TPS Educational Consortium who delivered TPS workshops and academic courses to teachers in 17 states. Another 197 school districts, universities, library systems, cultural institutions, and educational associations operating in 44 states and the District of Columbia, incorporated TPS materials into their programs for teachers under the TPS regional program.

The most robust of our professional development offerings included five Summer Teacher Institutes held at the Library. During one week, we offered our first ever Seminar for Science Educators.  Participants included K-12 science teachers (of a variety subject areas), including some library media specialists. Also, in conjunction with the Library’s exhibit on the Civil Rights Act of 1964, staff offered a Civil Rights Institute which focused on related collections. In total, 136 educators from 33 states, representing 104 congressional districts participated in the summer programs. During the summer of 2015, we will again be offering five institutes.  See URL < www.loc.gov/teachers/professionaldevelopment/teacherinstitute>.

During 2014, educators who were unable to participate in on-site or in-person programs had more opportunities than ever to connect with the Library. The Library promoted and conducted seven webinars, serving more than 400 educators.  In addition, we conducted webinars for collaborating organizations such as National History Day, reaching an additional 250 participants.  Through a continued collaboration with PBS Teacherline, 90 teachers completed the online Teaching with Primary Sources course in 2014, bringing the total number of educators served in the past three years to 429.  In the second quarter, the TPS Teachers Network beta site, a professional networking site for educators interested in using Library of Congress primary sources more effectively in their classrooms, officially launched.  By the end of 2014, more than 1,200 educators were actively using the site.

In 2014, the Educational Outreach team also provided the Library's large and growing K-12 audience with tools and resources via a wide range of distribution channels, from print journals to social media.  We published two new primary source sets, a set of resources for the 50,000 National History Day teachers, six “Sources and Strategies” articles in Social Education (the journal of the National Council for the Social Studies), and launched a new feature called “Right to the Source” in The Science Teacher (the journal of the National Science Teachers Association).  We also worked with HISTORY on the publication of a special edition Idea Book for Educators related to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and have distributed it in print and online.

In addition, Educational Outreach addressed the needs of the growing tablet-based educational community by launching the Library of Congress Student Discovery Sets, six free educational ebooks. These interactive ebooks 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 >.

In 2014, the Library’s website for teachers, loc.gov/teachers, increased its readership by nearly 15 percent over 2013 and recorded more than 10 million views for the year.  We continued to build the audience of @TeachingLC, the Library's Twitter feed for K-12 educators, acquiring more than 5,000 new followers, including teachers, librarians, authors, educational organizations and thought leaders, and members of Congress. Finally, we published 106 posts on the Teaching with the Library of Congress blog, showcasing the Library's collections and strategies for using them in the classroom, and encouraging readers to share their teaching strategies with us.

Teacher-in-Residence

Annually, the Library of Congress recruits an educator to work with its Educational Outreach division to help teachers and school librarians incorporate the Library’s digitized primary sources into the classroom. Each Teacher-in-Residence undertakes a project to benefit his or her home school or dis­trict to be implemented during the fol­lowing academic year. For the 2015-16 school year, we will be actively seeking a STEM (science/technology/math/engineering) educator to work with our team. Rebecca Newland, our current Teacher in Residence, will be present “Resources for Teaching with the Library of Congress” at the LC booth on Saturday at 2:00 and Monday at 10:30.

Office of Strategic Initiatives / Information Technology Services Directorate (ITS)

Information Technology Security Group (ITSG)

The ITSG operates the Library’s IT Security Program. ITSG has continued to make improvements to various areas of operational security. The Library’s Information Technology Security Directive 01 (DIR01) was updated to add new IT security policies that ensure the Confidentiality, Integrity, and Availability of Library information. ITSG is developing an Ongoing Authorization (OA) program, in line with National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) guidance, to continuously monitor system IT security controls. This program allows the ITSG and Service Units to make near real time risk-based decisions regarding their systems IT security.

Technology Assessment Group (TAG)

The Technology Assessment Group (TAG) is responsible for performing in-depth studies in information technology’s constantly growing and changing hardware and software architecture, programming, and analysis tools and practices. The group recommends to the Director new technology which offers users efficient and effective access to information in a variety of disparate forms and formats.

In the last year, TAG has continued to test new releases of the new Windows OS and Office software releases. TAG has also continued a project to evaluate and test possible internal LC uses of Linux and other open source software systems.

The TAG supported Accessible Technology Demonstration Center (ATDC) continued to provide Section 508 and Americans with Disabilities Act reasonable accommodations to staff members and also to some reading room patrons.  TAG worked with other Library units to improve the accessibility of internal and public web pages.  TAG has acquired and is continuing to use an automated scanning system to help test webpages for ADA compliance.

Research & Development, Library Services/Law Library (R&D/LS&LL)

The Research and Development Group for Library Services and the Law Library (R&D/LS&LL) is responsible for all activities relating to systems analysis, design, selection, acquisition, development, integration, support, and maintenance related to specific systems and projects for Library Services (LS) including the National Audio-Visual Conservation Center (NAVCC) and the National Library Services for the Blind & Physically Handicapped (NLSBPH) and for the Law Library of Congress (LL), as well as Voyager ILS support for the U.S. Copyright Office (COP), and support for the Office of Compliance (OOC). 

Web Duplicate Material Exchange Program (WebDMEP) Project

Of special note, the Web Duplicate Material Exchange Program (WebDMEP) Project is designed to take the current Web based DMEP Application and re-engineer it into a more modern, robust program with increased efficiency and supportability. The new application will also allow a number of enhancements to be incorporated, such as automated clearing of the user shopping carts at the end of each month and allowing institutions to create multiple user sub accounts. A number of manual supporting tasks currently performed by Library Services staff will also be automated including fully automating inventories and the material upload process.  Additionally, the Surplus Books Program will be incorporated as a module of the new system.  The projected implementation date is 4th QTR CY2015, except for the Surplus Books module, which is planned to be completed later in CY2016.

Consolidated Traffic Manager (CTM) Project

The Consolidated Traffic Manager (CTM) Project is an effort to develop a software application that will allow the Library to achieve significant savings by combining two separate projects, eCIP Traffic Manager Modernization and ISSN Traffic Manager Enhancements into one.  eCIP Traffic Manager currently allows publishers to submit CIP requests and have then forwarded automatically through the internal workflow process. The new application will also consolidate all of the eCIP modules into a single common application, resulting in less maintenance and reducing the requirements for additional skill sets to maintain some of the “one-off” modules that currently exist.   The ISSN Traffic Manger will allow publishers of serial publications to request ISSN numbers for their publications online. Additionally, the CTM will automate the ISSN workflow and will provide selected updates automatically to both LS staff and to the publishers.  Combining both Traffic Managers will allow the sharing of a common back-end, including database that will result in significant cost and time savings during development and in on-going maintenance once in production.  The projected implementation date is 1st quarter, calendar year 2015, for the PCN Module; other modules will follow throughout calendar year 2015.

HathiTrust Shibboleth Project

The HathiTrust Shibboleth service was been successfully implemented in Dec 2015. This authentication service will facilitate access to the digital content provided by more than 60 partners in the HathiTrust by all registered patrons of the Library’s Voyager ILS, including members of Congress, both on and off the Library’s main campus.

Research & Development, Digital & Web Initiatives (R&D/D&WI)

The R&D Digital & Web Initiatives (R&D/D&WI) group supports and develops the National Library Search for Project ONE.  The goal of the Project ONE Search effort is to implement the Library’s new web strategy with a focus on faceted searching, objects, formats, and sets and providing access to more digital content from a single site. This is the third year of this high priority Library program. This year’s major accomplishment was the revamp of the Library’s home page in the new streamlined Project ONE format. Also, multiple additional Library collections were added to the Project ONE environment. The National Library is available at URL < www.loc.gov>.

Research & Development, Congressional Research Service (R&D CRS)

The R&D CRS group is responsible for software development and operational maintenance of the Library ’s critical systems that manage and disseminate legislative content.  The customer facing systems supported include THOMAS for the general public and LIS (Legislative Information System) for use by the Congressional Research Service, members of Congress and their staff, and other Legislative Branch agencies.  The group also develops and maintains content management systems that are used by the Congressional Research Service’s Legislative Analysis and Information Section for legislative content quality assurance and other value add operations, such as the preparation of summaries and digests of bills and resolutions of the United States Congress.

Congress.gov/Legislative Beta. R&D CRS has continued to collaborate with the Library’s Web Services division, Congressional Research Service (CRS), and Law Library on new releases of this now established system. With the version 2.0 release in September 2014, the “beta” label was officially removed and the system is now accessed at URL < congress.gov>.  For a complete list of enhancements in v2.0, see URL < congress.gov/about/enhancements>.

THOMAS & LIS. With the September 2014 congress.gov 2.0 release, the http://www.thomas.gov and http://thomas.loc.gov URLs are now redirected to the new congress.gov (sede URL < congress.gov>. The THOMAS URL is now http://thomas.loc.gov/home/thomas.php. In January 2015, both THOMAS and LIS were updated to support the dissemination of legislative content from the new/114th Congress.

R&D Infrastructure Group (R&D INF)

The R&D Infrastructure (R&D INF) group is responsible for the management of enabling technology for the Office of the Librarian (LIBN/O), including Office of the Chief Financial Officer (OCFO), Office of the General Counsel (OGC), Congressional Relations Office (CRO), Office of Special Events & Public Programs (OSEPP), Office of Communications/Public Affairs Office (OC), and Office of Contracts and Grants Management (OCGM), and Office of Support Operations (OSO).This includes performing project management, systems requirements analysis, design, selection, acquisition, development, integration, support, and maintenance. In addition, this group acts as a customer service liaison between all these support units and ITS.

The R&D INF group supported several major initiatives in 2014. In collaboration with OCFO, leadership was provided for several updates to the Library Financial Management System (Momentum), as well as led the Strategic Planning Office (OCFO/SPO) Strategic Planning System (eLCplans) enhancement project. The newly enhanced system provides features that follow the Library’s new strategic planning process. The group also worked on upgrading the Online Learning Center System in support of OSO/HRS that provides online and instructor-led classes for all of the Library’s employees. The upgrade added new features to enhance the usability and transferred the system to a more stable and sustainable platform. The group provided extensive technical support to OSO/ISS in enhancing the Tririga Platform system that supports the FAME program, including the deployment of the Asset Management System that houses information on all physical assets within the Library. R&D INF also provided support for the upgrading of the Event Planning and Management system for OSO/ISS. The new upgrade allowed the system to be more stable and operate on new Microsoft Office.