ALA Midwinter 2016

Library of Congress Exhibit Booth

The Library of Congress Exhibit Booth is no. 1531 in the Boston Convention Center.  The Library’s booth manager is Isabella Marqués de Castilla.

Exhibit hours:

• Friday, Jan. 8: 5:30-7:00 pm; ribbon-cutting and opening receptiom
• Saturday, Jan. 9: 9:00 am - 5:00 pm
• Sunday, Jan. 10: 9:00 am - 5:00 pm
• Monday, Jan. 11: 9:00 am - 2:00 pm

Library staff making presentations in the booth theater include Colleen Cahill, Judith Cannan, Lindsay Conway, Jeanne Drewes, Erin Engle, Paul Frank, Linda Geisler, Tony Goodman, Patricia Hayward, Ahmed Johnson, Trish Kershaw, Guy Lamolinara, Cheryl Lederle, Alicia Mroczyk, Angela Murphy-Walters, Carlos Olave, Laverne Page, Regina Romano Reynolds, Donna Scanlon, Roberta I. Shaffer, Teri Sierra, Dawn Stitzel, and MaryBeth Wise.  Information technology support will be provided by Thomas Odom.

A complete schedule of booth theater presentations is available on this Web site. In addition, demonstrations of Cataloging Distribution Service products are available on a walk-in basis.

Promotions at the booth. A large, handsome poster of the Library of Congress Classification and pencils that advertise the Library’s Cataloging Distribution Service are available for free to booth visitors while supplies last.  Also while supplies last, the Library’s Duplication Service will distribute 10" x 12" copies of a ca.1905 vintage map of Boston to showcase its copying and reproduction services for visitors to the booth; and the Library’s Retail Service will offer bookmarks bearing its web site’s URL.

LIBRARY ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE

Personnel Changes

Dr. James H. Billington, the Librarian of Congress, retired on Sept. 30, 2015, after 42 years of federal service including 28 years with the Library. Dr. Billington was the 13th Librarian of Congress. David S. Mao, Deputy Librarian of Congress, was named acting Librarian of Congress.  Robert R. Newlen is the Library’s Chief of Staff.

Bernard A. “Bud” Barton was appointed Chief Information Officer, effective Sept. 8, 2015.

Other personnel changes are reported under each service unit in this document. 

Organizational Realignment

On May 18, 2015, Dr. James H. Billington announced a realignment plan to better position some of the Library’s programs to support its institutional vision. The new organizational structure took effect on Oct. 1, 2015, at the start of fiscal 2016.  The new structure strengthens the Library’s information technology and other support functions, elevates the outreach function, consolidates digital and analog collection management, provides a better overall support structure for staff, improves overall management and delivers continuous service improvements to the Library’s customers.

The new structure features three main changes:

Realign the Library’s institution-wide digital initiatives. Established in 2000, the Office of Strategic Initiatives (OSI) was charged with overseeing the Library’s digital initiatives and managing its information technology assets and functions.  Since then, both digital publishing and collections have matured.  At the same time, the Library’s demand for robust, dynamic information technology in every aspect of its work has become critical. The new structure aligns digital collections with analog collections. Information technology, web services and repository development function in the Office of the Chief Information Officer within the Office of the Librarian.  The Office of Strategic Initiatives no longer exists under the new operating structure.

Establish a National and International Outreach service unit. One of the Library’s principal goals has always been to share America’s spectacular national collection with those outside the Library and to engage people with the Library’s work. This new service unit manages the Library’s scholarly, educational, and interpretive programs, national and international outreach programs, and fee-for-service enterprises. The head of National and International Outreach is Jane McAuliffe, who came to the Library in 2014 as director of the John W. Kluge Center and head of the Library’s Office of Scholarly Programs.

Consolidate the institution-wide management support structure under a Chief Operating Officer in the Office of the Librarian. Like all federal agencies, the Library continues to be called to do more with less, to get value for every public dollar spent, and to make the most of the human capital that is the Library’s greatest asset. Thus, the Library-wide management support structure has been brought together into an Office of the Chief Operating Officer within the Office of the Librarian. The Office of the Chief Operating Officer began operation in mid-June 2015, overseeing Human Resources Services, Integrated Support Services, the Office of Contracts and Grants Management, the Office of the Chief Financial Officer, the Office of the Chief Information Officer, and the Office of Security and Emergency Preparedness. Some of these support units had been overseen by the Office of Support Operations service unit which no longer exists under the realignment. Edward Jablonski is the Library’s Chief Operating Officer.  

CONGRESSIONAL RELATIONS OFFICE (CRO)

Appropriations Recap for Fiscal 2016

After operating under three continuing resolutions since September 30, 2015, the House and Senate passed H.R. 2029, the “Making Appropriations for Military Construction, the Department of Veterans Affairs, and related agencies for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2016 and for other purposes” on December 18, 2015.  The omnibus also included a package of permanent and short-term extensions of tax breaks for individuals and businesses.  The bill was signed into law by President Obama also on December 18.

The $1.149 trillion package of all 12 annual appropriations bills bill funds the government in accordance with the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015. The adoption of the two-year budget and debt ceiling deal by the House and Senate in October and signed into law by the President on November 2, 2015 increased the discretionary spending limits for 2016 by $50 billion and in 2017 by $30 billion, suspended the debt limit until March 2017, and revised the procedures for implementing sequestration cuts for those years.

The bill allows for an across the board federal pay raise of 1.0% for calendar year 2016 and 0.3% increase in locality to pay to be divided among 33 existing regions determined by an advisory council using Labor Department data.  This amount was recommended by the President in his budget proposal. An omnibus tax provision provides an increase in the monthly commuter transit benefit as well as permanent parity between parking and commuter transit benefits.

Summary of the Library’s appropriations compared to House and Senate marks:

Library account	House mark (4/23/15)	Senate mark (6/11/15)	Omnibus (12/18/15)
LC Salaries & Expenses	$419,357,000	$421,607,000	$425,971,000
Copyright Office	$57,008,000	$56,490,000	$58,875,000
CRS	$106,945,000	$106,945,000	$106,945,000
NLS	$50,248,000	$50,248,000	$50,248,000
Total Budget Authority	$633,558,000	$635,290,000	$642,039,000

The Library’s funding is about $11 million above the fiscal year 2015 enacted level and close to $25 million below the fiscal year 2016 budget requests.  LC S&E, CRS and NLS appropriations do not include mandatory pay and price level requested increases. Within the Copyright Office appropriation is authority to spend $35,777,000 from receipts for salaries and expenses.

The Architect of the Capitol’s funding includes $40,689,000 for care and operation of the Library’s buildings and grounds of which $15,746,000 shall remain available until September 30, 2020 for ongoing projects. The following projects have been approved for the Library:

Operating Budget	$24,943,000
Emergency Lighting System Upgrade	$3,331,000
Collection Storage Mods 6 & 7 Design	$1,994,000
Direct Digital Controls Upgrade (Madison)	$4,321,000
East & West Pavilion Roof Replacement (TJ)	$4,100,000
Minor construction	$2,000,000
Total	$40,689,000

H.R. 2029 includes the following Library provisions:

• Authorization for the Architect of the Capitol to acquire from the Maryland State Highway Administration at no cost, a parcel of property adjacent to the Library’s Ft. Meade facility so the Library can continue building additional storage Modules.
• Reprogramming guidelines change:  the level has been increased from $500,000 to $750,000 when the Library must notify the House and Senate Appropriations Committees of changes in its budget plans.  The Committees request notification of reprogramming actions below the new threshold if such actions will affect the Library’s funding requirements for outlying fiscal years.  The Library is also directed to develop and submit any reprogramming requests of unobligated balances no later than August 1 of each fiscal year.
• LC Salaries and Expenses funding includes the following fiscal year Library requests:
  - $1,300,000 to begin the Legislative Branch Financials Management System Software Upgrade,
  - $500,000 for a Financial System Study,
  - $4,800,000 for the National Collection Stewardship Program, and
  - $8,231,000 for the digital collections and education curricula program.

H.R. 2029 includes the following directives:

• The Library is directed to follow the recommendations of the Library’s OIG and federal agency best practices related to procurement, tracking and prioritizing unobligated balances throughout the fiscal year.
• Relating to the Copyright Office:
  Regarding the additional funding to the Copyright Office in the omnibus, the Committee refers to House Report 114-110 requiring the Register to submit a detailed plan concerning necessary IT upgrades, a cost estimate for full modernization of the Copyright Office and a fund strategy with a timeframe for completion.
• Appropriated dollars above fiscal year 2015 — $2,300,000 — are not available for obligation until the Committee receives the IT plan and cost estimates per House Report 114-110.  After submission of the IT plan and cost estimate, the Register is to provide the Committees with quarterly reports on its expenditure of funds and milestones achieved to implement IT upgrades to modernize the Copyright system.

Committee on House Administration Hearing

On December 2, 2015, Acting Librarian of Congress David Mao, Register of Copyright Maria Pallante, and GAO managing director for information technology Joel Willemssen testified before the Committee on House Administration at a hearing titled, “Improving Customer Service for the Copyright Community:  Ensuring the Copyright Office and the Library of Congress are able to meet the demands of the Digital Age.” View the hearing and submitted testimony at cha.house.gov.

Key Legislation for the 1st Session, 114th Congress

H.R.4093 – To revise certain administrative and management authorities of the Librarian of Congress, and for other purposes.
Date of introduction: Nov. 19, 2015
Introduced by: Rep. Robert A. Brady [D-PA-1]
Status: Referred to the Committees on House Administration and Transportation and Infrastructure.
Overview: To revise certain administrative and management authorities of the Librarian of Congress, and for other purposes, including:

1. Authorizing NLS to provide playback equipment in all formats, including braille;
2. Establishing a National Collection Stewardship Fund;
3. Expanding uses of revolving fund;
4. Expanding authority to accept gifts and bequests; and
5. Clarifying Member service on the Joint Committee on the Library.

H.R.4092 – To reauthorize the sound recording and film preservation programs of the Library of Congress, and for other purposes
Date of introduction: Nov. 19, 2015
Introduced by: Rep. Robert A. Brady [D-PA-1]
Status: Referred to the Committees on House Administration and Judiciary.
Overview: This bill amends the National Recording Preservation Act of 2000 to extend through FY2016 the authorization of appropriations for the national sound recording preservation program of the Library of Congress and for the National Recording Preservation Foundation.
The number of members who shall serve on the Board of Directors of the National Recording Preservation Foundation is increased from 9 to 12, at least 8 of whom (currently, at least 6) must be knowledgeable or experienced in sound recording production, distribution, preservation, or restoration.
The bill amends the National Film Preservation Act of 1996 to extend through FY2026 the authorization of appropriations for the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress and for the National Film Preservation Foundation.

S.2162 - Librarian of Congress Succession Modernization Act of 2015
Date of introduction: Oct. 26, 2015
Introduced by: Sen. Roy Blunt [R-MO]
Status: Nov. 5, 2015 Became Public Law No: 114-86.
Overview: This bill limits the term of the Librarian of Congress to 10 years. The individual may be reappointed.

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

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

H.R.4006 – Statutes at Large Modernization Act
Date of introduction: Nov. 16, 2015
Introduced by: Rep. Dave Brat [R-VA-7]
Status: Referred to Committees on House Administration and Oversight and Government Reform.
Overview: To provide the public with access to the laws of the United States, and for other purposes.
Specific LOC Language:
SEC. 2. Public access to the laws of the United States.
(a) Archivist requirement To make laws available.—Section 112 of title 1, United States Code, is amended by adding at the end the following new sentence: “The Archivist shall make available anything compiled, edited, indexed, and published under this section to the public at no cost on a web site in a searchable, non-proprietary format. The Archivist shall ensure that the searchable online edition of the United States Statutes at Large is prepared in consultation and coordination with entities that develop formatting conventions used for enrolled bills and other legislative materials, which may include the Library of Congress, the Office of the Clerk of the House, the Office of the Secretary of the Senate, the Office of the Legislative Counsel of the House of Representatives and the Senate, the Office of the Law Revision Council, the Congressional Research Service, the Government Publishing Office, and such other entities that the Archivist considers appropriate.”
(b) Librarian of Congress requirement to incorporate searchable Statutes at Large Into Legislative Information Retrieval System.—Section 209 of the Legislative Branch Appropriations Act, 1996 ( 2 U.S.C. 180) is amended by adding at the end the following new subsection:
“(f) In addition to the legislative information described in subsection (b), the relevant electronic information made available under section 112 of title 1, United States Code, shall be incorporated into the legislative information service to the extent practicable.”

H.R.4241 – Copyright Office for the Digital Economy Act
Date of introduction: Dec. 11, 2015
Introduced by: Rep. Tom Marino [R-PA-10]
Status: Referred to Committee on the Judiciary.
Overview: The legislation as introduced would:

• Establish the United States Copyright Office as an independent entity within the legislative branch;
• Provide that the President will appoint a Director for one 10 year term upon the advice of a bipartisan, bicameral commission, and with consent of the Senate;
• Transfer administrative functions and legal duties from the Library of Congress to the Copyright Office;
• Allow the Copyright Office to deliver any and all communications directly to the legislative branch, free of executive review; and,
• Allow the Copyright Office to physically move out of the Library and into a new federal building.

Library of Congress Committees, 1st Session, 114th Congress

Joint Committee on the Library of Congress
House: Republican Members Gregg Harper, Mississippi, Vice-Chairman Candice Miller, Michigan Tom Graves, Georgia Democratic Members Robert Brady, Pennsylvania Zoe Lofgren, California	Senate: Republican Members Roy Blunt, Missouri, Chairman Pat Roberts, Kansas Shelley Moore Capito, West Virginia Democratic Members Charles Schumer, New York Patrick Leahy, Vermont
Senate Committee on Rules and Administration
Republican Members: Roy Blunt, Missouri, Chairman Lamar Alexander, Tennessee Mitch McConnell, Kentucky Thad Cochran, Mississippi Pat Roberts, Kansas Richard Shelby, Alabama Ted Cruz, Texas Shelley Moore Capito, West Virginia John Boozman, Arkansas Roger Wicker, Mississippi	Democratic Members: Chuck Schumer, New York, Ranking Member Dianne Feinstein, California Dick Durbin, Illinois Tom Udall, New Mexico Mark Warner, Virginia Patrick Leahy, Vermont Amy Klobuchar, Minnesota Angus King, Maine
Committee on House Administration
Republican Members: Candice Miller, Michigan, Chairman Gregg Harper, Mississippi Richard Nugent, Florida Rodney Davis, Illinois Barbara Comstock, Virginia Mark Walker, North Carolina	Democratic Members: Robert Brady, Pennsylvania, Ranking Member Zoe Lofgren, California Juan Vargas, California
House Appropriations Subcommittee on the Legislative Branch
Republican Members: Tom Graves, Georgia, Chairman Mark Amodei, Nevada Scott Rigell, Virginia Evan Jenkins, West Virginia Steven Palazzo, Mississippi Hal Rogers, Kentucky, Ex Officio, Voting	Democratic Members: Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Florida, Ranking Member Sam Farr, California Betty McCollum, Minnesota Nita Lowey, New York, Ex Officio, Voting
Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on the Legislative Branch
Shelley Moore Capito, West Virginia, Chairwoman Mark Kirk, Illinois Jerry Moran, Kansas Thad Cochran, Mississippi, Ex Officio, Non-Voting	Democratic Members: Brian Schatz, Hawaii, Ranking Member Chris Murphy, Connecticut Barbara Mikulski, Maryland, Ex Officio, Non-Voting
Senate Committee on the Judiciary
Republican Members: Charles E. Grassley, Iowa, Chairman Orrin G. Hatch, Utah Jeff Sessions, Alabama Lindsey Graham, South Carolina John Cornyn, Texas Mike Lee, Utah Ted Cruz, Texas Jeff Flake, Arizona David Vitter, Louisiana David Perdue, Georgia Thom Tillis, North Carolina	Democratic Members: Patrick J. Leahy, Vermont, Ranking Member Dianne Feinstein, California Charles E. Schumer, New York Richard J. Durbin, Illinois Sheldon Whitehouse, Rhode Island Amy Klobuchar, Minnesota Al Franken, Minnesota Chris Coons, Delaware Richard Blumenthal, Connecticut
House Committee on the Judiciary
Republican Members: Robert W. Goodlatte, Virginia, Chairman Jim Sensenbrenner, Wisconsin Lamar Smith, Texas Steve Chabot, Ohio Darrell Issa, California J. Randy Forbes, Virginia Steve King, Iowa Trent Franks, Arizona Louie Gohmert, Texas Jim Jordan, Ohio Ted Poe, Texas Jason Chaffetz, Utah Tom Marino, Pennsylvania Trey Gowdy, South Carolina Raúl R. Labrador, Idaho Blake Farenthold, Texas Doug Collins, Georgia Ron DeSantis, Florida Mimi Walters, California Ken Buck, Colorado John Ratcliffe, Texas Dave Trott, Michigan Mike Bishop, Michigan	Democratic Members: John Conyers Jr., Michigan, Ranking Member Jerrold Nadler, New York Zoe Lofgren, California Sheila Jackson Lee, Texas Steve Cohen, Tennessee Hank Johnson, Georgia Pedro R. Pierluisi, Puerto Rico Judy Chu, California Ted Deutch, Florida Luis V. Gutiérrez, Illinois Karen Bass, California Cedric L. Richmond, Louisiana Suzan DelBene, Washington Hakeem Jeffries, New York David Cicilline, Rhode Island Scott Peters, California

U.S. COPYRIGHT OFFICE

New Strategic Plan

The Copyright Office published a new strategic plan, “Positioning the United States Copyright Office for the Future,” on December 1, 2015. It presents six major goals covering technology, services, staffing, and administrative practice and discusses a number of funding strategies. The plan applies to the years 2016 through 2020. “At a time when there is an exponential increase in the ways we can create, distribute, and consume copyrighted works, neither the Copyright Office nor the copyright laws can stand still,” Register of Copyrights Maria A. Pallante stated upon the plan’s release. “This strategic plan is not a magic bullet for the future, but it is transparent, flexible, and innovative. If implemented, it will transform the Copyright Office into a model for 21st-century government.”

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

Copyright Law Review

Review of the copyright law continued this fall through a “listening tour” announced in September by Rep. Bob Goodlatte, chair of the House Judiciary Committee, and Rep. John Conyers, the committee’s ranking member. The tour will take committee members to “locations across America to hear directly from creators and innovators about the challenges they face in their creative fields and what changes are needed to ensure U.S. copyright law reflects the digital age in which we live,” Reps. Goodlatte and Conyers explained in a statement. The committee launched the tour on September 22 with a roundtable discussion in Nashville. On November 9, committee members met stakeholders in California’s Silicon Valley; on November 10, members visited Los Angeles.

Rep. Goodlatte announced a comprehensive review of the copyright law in April 2013 after Register of Copyrights Maria A. Pallante stated the need for such a review in a major lecture at Columbia Law School and in congressional testimony. Hearings have occurred in the 113th and the 114th Congresses on a wide array of copyright issues, including important music and Copyright Office matters. When the Register testified on April 29 in a hearing titled “The Register’s Perspective on Copyright Review,” she was the 100th witness, and her testimony took into account all the witness testimony to date.

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

Office Operations and Staffing

Register of Copyrights Maria A. Pallante testified on December 2 before the Committee on House Administration about how information technology infrastructure and management at the Library of Congress affect services provided to the copyright community. The Register stated that the Copyright Office requires systemic improvements, including dedicated resources, to build a modern information technology system capable of meeting the needs of digital-age stakeholders.

Within the office, 13 new copyright examiners joined the staff in August, and the 2015–16 Abraham L. Kaminstein Scholar in Residence arrived in September. The Kaminstein program permits the Register to bring leading academics to the Copyright Office to work on mutually beneficial projects. This year’s scholar will focus on pre-1978 copyright records, investigating innovative ways to digitize metadata contained in the records to make them searchable and thus more available for research.

In October, the office extended its business hours in a limited pilot program to test whether extended hours better serve stakeholders outside the Eastern time zone. Through December 31, staff in the Public Information Office responded to telephone inquiries until 8 p.m. on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. The office is now analyzing findings from the pilot to determine whether to adjust its business hours on a longer-term basis.

Priorities and Policy

The office published four reports in 2015: one about documents recordation, another about music licensing, another proposing technical upgrades and business improvements to the Copyright Office’s services, and another about orphan works and mass digitization. Details about these reports were cited in previous ALA meeting reports. They are available on the office’s web site.

Upon the recommendation of the Register of Copyrights, the Librarian of Congress adopted exemptions in October to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act’s prohibition against circumventing technological access controls to copyrighted works. In addition, the office invited public comments in two inquiries: one about the scope and operation of a mass digitization pilot program and another about photographs, graphic artworks, and illustrations. In October, the Senate Judiciary Committee asked the office to conduct a study on software in everyday products.

Anticircumvention rulemaking

The Register of Copyrights recommended exemptions on October 8 to the prohibition in copyright law against circumventing technological access controls to copyrighted works. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), codified in part in section 1201 of the law, requires the Copyright Office to conduct a rulemaking every three years to determine whether the prohibition is adversely affecting individuals in their ability to make noninfringing uses of copyrighted works. The Register makes a recommendation to the Librarian of Congress based on the record in the rulemaking, and the Librarian designates classes of works for which the prohibition on circumvention is deemed to be adversely affecting noninfringing uses. The Register’s recommendation and the Librarian’s ruling in the sixth triennial DMCA rulemaking, published in October 28, are available on the Copyright Office’s web site.

Mass digitization pilot

Following publication on June 4 of its report “Orphan Works and Mass Digitization,” the Copyright Office invited public comments on the scope and operation of a limited pilot program proposed in the report to authorize certain mass digitization projects through extended collective licensing. Based on input from the inquiry and stakeholder meetings, the office will draft a formal legislative proposal for consideration of Congress. For more information, see the office’s web site.

Visual works inquiry

The Copyright Office invited comments in 2015 on the current marketplace for photographs, graphic artworks, illustrations, and other visual works. The inquiry builds on the Office’s longstanding policy interest in these types of visual works, including its studies in areas such as small claims, the making available right, resale royalties, registration, recordation, and the interoperability of records. For details, see the office’s web site.

Software in everyday products study

Sen. Charles Grassley, chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and Sen. Patrick Leahy, its ranking member, wrote to the Register of Copyrights on October 22 to request a study of software in everyday products. The study will inform policymaking in this area, Grassley and Leahy stated, by helping legislators “better understand and evaluate how our copyright laws enable creative expression, foster innovative business models, and allow legitimate uses” of copyrighted software. For more information, see the office’s web site. 

LAW LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

Roberta I. Shaffer was appointed Acting Law Librarian of Congress, effective Oct. 5, 2015.

LIBRARY SERVICES

American Folklife Center/Veterans History Project

see under COLLECTIONS AND SERVICES DIRECTORATE /Veterans History Project

Collection Development Office

Staffing

The Collection Development Office (CDO) was formally established in December 2013. By December 2014, staffing had reached the level of four individuals plus the Collection Development Officer. In the summer of 2015, a vacancy announcement was posted for the remaining unfilled CDO position – the Senior Data Analyst. One of the staff members who had been appointed in 2014, Kristi Conkle, applied for the new position and was selected. She assumed her new duties in August 2015. This leaves a Collection Development Librarian vacancy in CDO, for which a vacancy announcement request has been submitted.

Project updates

CDO staff members are carrying out a number of challenging projects as described below.

Collections Policy Statements Review Program. CDO has implemented an ongoing program to review on a cyclical basis all of the Library’s Collections Policy Statements and associated Supplementary Guidelines. There are more than 70 such documents that guide the Library’s collecting program. They were last all reviewed in 2008. The new review program began in November 2015.

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

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

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

Foreign newspapers. CDO also took on the challenging task of analyzing the Library’s foreign newspaper subscriptions, associated microfilming backlogs and other related issues. Since the acquisition of these newspapers is decentralized (multiple acquisitions sections in Washington plus the Library’s six Overseas Offices), as is the Library’s own microfilming operation, simply gathering all of the baseline information itself has proven to be a challenge. By the end of the fiscal year, a project plan had been approved by the Associate Librarian with the following objectives:

• Form a Foreign Newspapers Coordinating Group.  This group has been formed and is  meeting regularly.
• Produce a preliminary list of titles currently received.
• Prepare a plan to eliminate the current microfilming arrearage.
• Develop a Web-based browsable list of current foreign newspaper titles available to the Library’s users that is automatically updated on a regular basis.

Library of Congress digital collecting strategy

The Collection Development Officer, with input from the Associate Librarian for Library Services, the Director for Collections and Services and the CDO staff, created the Initial Framework Draft: Digital Collecting Strategy. Six major Strategic Objectives are included, providing an outline for the Library’s future program for the acquisition of digital content. It was first presented at the September 15, 2015, Library Services Cabinet meeting. Subsequent presentations to other groups were held through October. On November 10, a revised version was presented to the Library’s Executive Committee. The next steps are:

1. Revise the framework document based on input from the Executive Committee.
2. Working with various stakeholders, develop detailed actions for each Objective.
3. Create a multi-year implementation plan.

GENPAC and resumption of new subscription orders

The 2013 GENPAC subscriptions reduction project resulted in the cancellation of 3,597 subscriptions. In fiscal year 2015 (October 2014-September 2015) the Library’s GENPAC appropriation, under which acquisitions for all Library collections except those of the Law Library are made, increased by $1,658,350, or 11.79 percent, 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. It also allowed for the allocation of $500,000 to new subscriptions. Individual allocations were made to specific recommending divisions for this purpose. A total of 1,151 new subscriptions were ordered by the end of fiscal 2015 (Sept. 30, 2015), including some that had originally been cancelled in 2013.

Additional Service Copies

In August 2013, the Librarian of Congress approved a number of recommendations related to additional service copies of monographs in the collections. The primary recommendation was to process and retain only one copy of United States monographs in the general collections, rather than two, which had been the traditional practice.  Fiscal 2015 was the first year for full implementation of the new policy, and the benefits anticipated upon adoption of the policy began to be realized.

During the year, the Collections Access, Loan and Management Division withdrew 93,806 total items from the collections. In addition, an estimated 71,000 newly-received items were not added to the classified collections during the FY as a result of the new policy.  In total, approximately 165,000 volumes were either withdrawn or not added to the collections as a result of the new policy.  That equates to an estimated 2.6 linear miles of shelf space.

A goal of the program was to find a worthwhile use for the retrospective volumes that would be withdrawn from the Library’s existing collections. The Library has now begun transferring large shipments of books to the nonprofit organizations Books for Africa and Bridge to Asia. The feedback from both organizations has been very positive, and we expect these two relationships to continue.

In May, the Deputy Librarian approved the Law Library’s implementation of the additional service copies policy.

eDeposit Program

see under ACQUISITIONS AND BIBLIOGRAPHIC ACCESS DIRECTORATE (ABA)

New Bibliographic Framework Initiative (BFI)

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

National Book Festival

The 15th annual Library of Congress National Book Festival will be held in the Washington Convention Center, Saturday, Sept. 5, 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)

Staffing and Personnel Changes

The ABA Directorate has permission to fill approximately 30 vacancies from open postings—not limited to internal applicants—in 2015-16. Every division has permission to fill one or more vacancies, and the vacancies will be announced on the USAJOBS web site and the Library’s web site as the application periods open. Most of the positions to be filled are for professional librarians and may carry specific language requirements. For example, the Southeast Europe Section, Germanic and Slavic Division, is authorized to hire a cataloger, from an “open” applicant pool including Library employees and other applicants, in early 2016. This position has a language requirement for Serbian, Croatian, or Bosnian. 

Qijie Zhang-Klein and Tania Diaz Marrero are new librarians in the Law Section, US Programs, Law, and Literature Division (USPRLL). They bring skills in cataloging legal materials in Chinese, German, Spanish, and other Romance languages. Dida Stadler, a technician in the Germanic and Slavic Division, was selected as a professional librarian in division’s Southeast Europe Section, in addition to the librarian vacancy that the section will fill in 2016. The African, Latin American, and Western European Division also gained new catalogers in 2015.      

Ana Cristán, Cooperative Cataloging Program Specialist in the Policy and Standards Division of ABA, retired on Sept. 3, 2015, after 35 years of federal service (30 years at the Library of Congress). Notable contributions from Ana’s time in PSD include development work on the Virtual International Authority File, Latin American outreach via cataloging training and documentation, RDA development and training, and automated enhancements to the LC/NACO authority file.  Cassandra Harris, a longtime member of the PSD Data Integrity Section, retired in October 2015.

The ABA Directorate joined the larger library community in mourning the passing of Allene Farmer Hayes on Aug. 9, 2015. Ms. Hayes was chief of the US/Anglo Division from December 2011 through September 2013. The Black Caucus of the American Library Association (BCALA) will introduce a memorial resolution in her honor at ALA Council meetings in Boston.   

Cataloging Distribution Service

See under NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL OUTREACH/National Enterprises Directorate

Cataloging in Publication (CIP) Program

Staffing

Caroline Saccucci continued a split assignment as Dewey Program Manager and Acting CIP Program Manager.  A proposal to merge the Dewey and Cataloging in Publication Programs at the Library of Congress was been approved by Library management on Dec. 15, 2015.  In January, key stakeholders will meet to discuss how to move forward with the reorganization.  Staff will be cross-trained in both Dewey and CIP policies and procedures.

Christopher Crawford was selected as the new CIP program specialist at the GS-9 level, effective September 6, 2015. Mr. Crawford was formerly the supervisory technician of the CIP Technical Team.  A vacancy announcement to fill the GS-9 supervisory technician position is planned for early 2016. The CIP Program was approved to hire another CIP program specialist at the GS-9 level during FY2016.  The vacancy announcement will be posted in early 2016.

CIP production statistics

The CIP Program reported the following statistics for fiscal 2015: Electronic CIP (ECIP) and CIP print galleys processed—47,782; ECIP participating publishers—5,354; Electronic Preassigned Control Numbers (EPCN’s) processed—52,070; EPCN Participating Publishers—68,710; total monographs received (ECIP and EPCN)--96,466, representing a total retail value of approximately $8.8 million; ECIP Cataloging Partnership Program—7,336 ECIPs processed by ECIP Cataloging Partner institutions. To date in fiscal 2016, the CIP Program has cataloged 8,726 ECIP and CIP print galleys. Of these, our partner institutions in the ECIP Cataloging in Partnership Program have cataloged 1,230.

E-Book and ECIP Cataloging Partnership Programs

The CIP E-books initiative received 4,244 e-books, far exceeding the fiscal 2015 target to ingest 2,500 CIP e-books. The fiscal 2016 target is to create metadata for 5,000 e-books. To date in fiscal 2016, 1,211 e-book bibliographic records have been created; 1,035 e-books have been received; and 642 have been moved to long-term storage. By the end of fiscal 2015, 198 publishers had joined the CIP E-books Program to apply for CIP e-book metadata, and 24 publishers were submitting e-books to the CIP Program.  

On Sept. 30, 2015, the new single print + e-book application was implemented. This single application allows publishers to apply for cataloging of a title in both formats.  To date in fiscal 2016, an additional 439 publishers have joined the CIP E-books Program. 

There are now 29 members in the ECIP Cataloging Partnership Program. In July 2015, the Government Printing Office (GPO) signed the partnership agreement letter to join the partnership program.  GPO will catalog CIP applications from Federal agencies.

As a way to help current and future partners, CIP Program staff created and made available on the CIP Program web page a special ECIP Cataloging Partner FAQ, at URL < www.loc.gov/publish/cip/partners/partner_faq.html>

New CIP Data Block layout implemented

The Library of Congress implemented the new CIP Data Block, the cataloging information printed by publishers at the front of the book, on September 30, 2015. There are numerous changes to the layout including the use of labels to clearly identify the different components within the block, addition of RDA: Resource Description & Access and electronic resource data elements, and a URL that links directly to the LC Online Catalog for easy retrieval of bibliographic records. Information on the new layout is available at URL  < www.loc.gov/publish/cip/news>.  Please send any questions or comments about the new layout to Karl Debus-López, Chief, U.S. Programs, Law, and Literature Division, Library of Congress, at kdeb@loc.gov.

CIP web sites in Spanish

CIP Program staff, in conjunction with staff from the African, Latin American, and Western European Division, made key CIP Program web pages available in a Spanish translation. This development will enable Spanish-language publishers in the United States to have easier access to information about the CIP Program. The translated pages will also assist the Library’s Rio de Janeiro Field Office in its outreach endeavors.

Consolidated Traffic Manager (CTM)

In July 2015, CIP and ISSN staff began working with Ardent Technologies, based in Dayton, Ohio, to develop a Consolidated Traffic Manager that will replace the aging ECIP system and develop new functionality for receipt and processing of ISSN (International Standard Serial Number) requests from publishers and other entities. It is estimated that the new system will be fully functional by July 2016.

Cataloging Policy

See under Policy and Standards

Children's and Young Adults Cataloging (CYAC)

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

Cooperative Cataloging Programs

Program for Cooperative Cataloging (PCC)

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

In November 2015, CP staff facilitated the annual meeting of PCC Policy Committee members to discuss the program’s strategic directions, most notably with regards to leadership for linked data in bibliographic, descriptive, and access data. Discussion from the meeting provided short and long-term action items to carry the PCC membership forward in identified areas. The outcomes from the meeting are available at URL < www.loc.gov/aba/pcc/documents/PoCo-2015-Outcomes.doc (DOC, 64 KB)>. The revised PCC strategic directions are at URL < www.loc.gov/aba/pcc/about/PCC-Strategic-Plan-2015-2017.pdf (PDF, 158 KB)>.

The 75 BIBCO institutions contributed 59,005 monographic records in fiscal 2015, compared to only 51,335 in fiscal 2014. The number of new records contributed by CONSER members in fiscal 2015 was 16,260, a 5.78 percent increase over the previous year. The PCC NACO contributions for new name authority records were 196,479, an increase of 1.42 percent over the previous year. Changes to name authority records decreased to 141,399 from 142,389, as there were no massive modification projects to existing records this year. New series authority records rose to 10,468 from last year’s 9,737, while series changes declined to 6,138. The PCC SACO contributions showed a decrease in new Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) authority records of 6.1 percent, to 1,460, while new Library of Congress Classification numbers from SACO totaled 240, nearly the same as the previous year’s 228. 

The PCC attracted 51 new institutions in fiscal 2015. Of these institutions, 33 were funnel members and 18 were institutional members. Forty-four new members joined NACO, and every program had some gains.  BIBCO and SACO each added three new members in fiscal 2014, while CONSER added one. As of Sept. 30, 2015, there were 914 PCC member institutions active in one or more programs.

The new BIBCO Music Funnel was established, joining the NACO Music Project and the SACO Music Funnel. The BIBCO Music Funnel includes Indiana University, Queens Borough Public Library, State University of New York at Buffalo, University of Maryland Libraries, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Wilmington, and Vanderbilt University. The BIBCO Program also gained two full-level members, Backstage Library Works and Columbia Law School Library.

The CONSER BIBFRAME Task Group was formed in the fall of 2015 to involve the continuing resources community in the development of cooperative linked data initiatives. Task group members represent stakeholders from across the continuing resources community and PCC Standing Committees. The specific charges and goals are posted on the task group web site, URL < www.loc.gov/aba/pcc/conser/bf/>.

Training

The Cooperative and Instructional Programs Division (COIN) of the Library of Congress continues to add performance support and other training material to the “RDA Refreshers” web page of the Catalogers Learning Workshop (CPLW) at URL < www.loc.gov/catworkshop/RDA%20training%20materials/rda-refreshers.html>. New materials are added occasionally, and we welcome suggestions for topics on which catalogers feel they would like more guidance.

The Library of Congress provided training in September for the approximately 40 catalogers involved in the LC BIBFRAME Pilot. This training, developed by the Cooperative and Instructional Programs Division (COIN) in close collaboration with the Network Development and MARC Standards Office, involved a brief ‘refresher’ on the concepts of Linked Data and the Semantic Web, and hands-on practice using the LC-developed BIBFRAME Editor. COIN is also developing follow-up and refresher training to reinforce the September training and to keep pilot participants continuously informed on development changes in the use of the Editor and in the workflow for the Pilot.

CYAC

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

Dewey Decimal Classification (DCC) at the Library of Congress

Caroline Saccucci continues a split assignment as Dewey Program Manager and Acting CIP Program Manager. 

In fiscal 2015, classifiers in the Dewey Program assigned the Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC) to 48,867 titles.  To date in fiscal 2016, LC classifiers have assigned DDC to 7,936 records. In fiscal 2015, the Dewey Program also contributed the Library of Congress Classification number to 1,852 clinical medical titles cataloged by the National Library of Medicine; to date in fiscal 2016, 322 clinical medical titles have been assigned LCC by Dewey Program staff.

The Dewey Program is extending the AutoDewey software to map sports biographies between DDC and LCC. This enhancement will help to reduce the workload in the Dewey Section, as material in the discipline of sports and recreation will be fully processed in the regular cataloging workflow. Public and school libraries especially will benefit from standardized DDC assignment in these areas.

Caroline Saccucci helped to coordinate a day-long OCLC Member Forum, co-sponsored by the Americas Regional Council, at the Library of Congress on Dec. 1, 2015. Representatives from approximately 80 OCLC member institutions participated in the event.

Dr. Carol Bean, former OCLC assistant editor of the Dewey Decimal Classification who maintained an office at the Library of Congress, left OCLC on Sept. 8, 2015.

Alex Kyrios began his position with OCLC as an assistant editor of the Dewey Decimal Classification on Nov. 2, 2015. He came from the Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington, D.C. Before that, he was a metadata librarian/cataloger at the University of Idaho. Four years ago, he was an OCLC intern at the Library of Congress and worked on Abridged Edition 15.  He earned an MLS degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and an undergraduate degree in English from the College of William & Mary.

Merger of Cataloging in Publication and Dewey SectionsZ

A proposal to merge the Cataloging in Publication and Dewey sections within the Library of Congress was approved by Library management on Dec. 15, 2015. Currently, there is considerable convergence between the work done within the CIP Section and Dewey Section. Most of the Dewey Decimal Classification assignments are for titles received through the CIP Program, principally at the pre-publication stage. Merging the two sections will allow even greater synergies between the two programs to develop. The missions of both programs will continue to thrive, and the combined section will be able more easily to support key goals of the Library of Congress Strategic Plan by allowing staff to be cross-trained and support both program areas instead of focusing on only one. The new section will be named the CIP and Dewey Section. Caroline Saccucci will serve as section head of the new section and program manager for both the CIP and Dewey Programs. The CIP and Dewey Section will reside in the U.S. Programs, Law, and Literature Division within the Acquisition and Bibliographic Access Directorate.

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 Library’s eDeposit project made strides this year in acquiring born-digital serials through copyright. The USASH Division worked with the U.S. Copyright Office to add 16,558 new issues of 1,441 e-serials to the Library’s collection, an increase of 1067% over the 1,419 e-serial issues added the previous year. Library Services continued to work collaboratively with the U.S. Copyright Office to build upon the special relief agreements that provided on-site Library users with access to e-serials and e-books on the platforms maintained by three publishers.  One of this year’s new participants was the open-source platform of the Hindawi Publishing Corporation. Acquisition of e-resources through copyright freed GENPAC and other funds for valuable collection resources that could be obtained only by purchase. By the end of the year, on-site researchers could access more than 19,334 e-serial issues acquired through eDeposit on two workstations in the Microform and Machine-Readable Collections Reading Room of the Library’s Thomas Jefferson Building.

ISSN (International Standard Serial Number)

ISSN Governing Board activities

Karl Debus-López, Chief of the U.S. Programs, Law, and Literature Division, is also President of the ISSN Governing Board.  Since the 2015 ALA Annual Conference, he has chaired two Governing Board meetings via teleconference to discuss the results of a strategic planning process completed earlier in the year.  One of the recommendations currently being discussed by the Governing Board is whether countries will be allowed to charge for ISSN assignment.  Regardless of what is decided by the Governing Board, the Library of Congress will not charge for ISSNs assigned by the U.S. ISSN Center.

Consolidated Traffic Manager

In July 2015, a contract was awarded to Ardent Technologies Inc. to create a new Consolidated Traffic Manager (CTM).  The CTM will replace the current Electronic Cataloging in Publication and Electronic Pre-assigned Control Number systems, which are technologically outdated.   It will also include a new system for processing of ISSN requests received from publishers.  Over the last six months, staff members in the CIP and ISSN sections have made great progress, working with the Ardent contractors, on the new APEX-based system.  It is anticipated that the Consolidated Traffic Manager will be implemented in July 2016.

Revision of the ISSN Standard (ISO 3297)

New needs are prompting the ISSN International Centre to call for a revision of the current standard which dates from 2007.  One change that might be put on a fast track process is to remove the prohibition in the current standard on charging for ISSN since current ISO practice is to not include administrative information in standards.  Other topics of interest for the revision process are whether ISSN should be assigned to a “family” of serials that would encompass all title changes or even all related editions; clarification of which digital editions or formats should be assigned their own ISSN; alignment between mandatory ISSN metadata and ONIX metadata; and expansion of information about use of ISSN with other identification and linking systems. 

ISSN Directors Meeting

Regina Romano Reynolds, ISSN Section head and director of the U.S. ISSN Center, participated in the 40th Meeting of ISSN Directors, Oct. 13-16, 2015, at the National Library of Serbia, Belgrade, She gave a presentation, “RDA and BIBFRAME: Present and Future”, that elicited questions and discussion as well as praise for the RDA training available on the LC site. A focus of the meeting was how to make at least a portion of ISSN data freely available for human and machine access on the web including a possible new business model whereby ISSN centers could optionally charge publishers a fee for assigning an ISSN. Further investigation and testing of models and services are planned. Other topics included revision of the international ISSN standard, ISO 3297, likely to begin in 2016, provision of webinar training sessions for ISSN centers around the world, and better communications among components of the ISSN Network.

ISSN Supplementary Guidelines

At the ISSN Directors meeting, the ISSN Review Group began creating a set of guidelines to supplement the ISSN Manual and answer questions that arise within the Network. The Review Group agreed that ISSN centers may assign ISSN to packages of journals such as ScienceDirect if there is a request for the assignment and certain criteria are met.  Guidance for ISSN Centers has been provided and the policy will likely evolve as it is used. 

U.S. ISSN Center brochure

In honor of the ISSN 40th anniversary and to raise its visibility, the U.S. ISSN Center developed a printed trifold full color brochure for distribution at LC events, conferences, and to visitors and new staff.  The brochure includes information about ISSN and its advantages as well as specifics about the U.S. ISSN Center. A graphic depicting the different categories of users of ISSN as well as photos of some staff members illustrate the brochure.

Serials Review article

“The Future of Serials Cataloging, CONSER, and the ISSN: Conversations from the Field,” an invited article documenting a conversation among Regina Reynolds, Steve Shadle, Shana McDanold, and Les Hawkins moderated by Eric Bergstrom, was published in Serials Review, Vol. 41, issue 4, 2015.

ISSN and the RSC

A protocol has been established between the ISSN Review Group and the RDA Steering Committee.  At the November meeting of the Steering Committee in Edinburgh, Scotland, Clément Oury, head of the Data, Network, and Standards Department of the ISSN International Centre, provided an update on ISSN activities and on the status of PRESSoo, a formal ontology designed to represent bibliographic information relating to serials and continuing resources.

LD4L support for ISSN

Following a conference call between the Linked Data for Libraries Group (LD4L) and Regina Reynolds, director of the U.S. ISSN Center, the group prepared a formal statement of interest.  The group noted that, “ISSN is well positioned to have a significant role in providing global URIs and linked data for serials… LD4L is particularly happy to hear that publishing URIs and linked data for serials is under consideration at ISSN.”  The group offered to contribute to discussion and testing as ISSN continues to pursue a linked data agenda.

NISO PIE-J Recommended Practice

The National Information Standards Organization (NISO) PIE-J Standing Committee presented a 24-month status report to NISO about this recommended practice document on the presentation and identification of e-journals that includes significant information about use of ISSN for e-journals. As of September 2015, the full document had been downloaded 8,656 times, the electronic brochure 3,016 times, and the print brochure 1,770 times. The committee decided that no changes to PIE-J were required at this time but that the Committee should continue to promote and monitor the document and brochures.

Independent Voices Project/Legacy ISSN

In cooperation with a librarian from the University of California, San Diego, the U.S. ISSN Center began assigning ISSN to both the print and digitized versions of titles in this project that has as a goal to digitize transformative serials from the 1960s, ‘70s and ‘80s.  Most are U.S. titles, including some from U.S. military personnel stationed overseas.  The titles are all expected to be open access by 2019. The collection includes many “legacy” ISSN, that is, ISSN that were machine-assigned by R.R. Bowker in the early 1970s in order to provide a critical mass of ISSN to begin the ISSN system. Many of these ISSN have never been verified against a copy of the publication.  A total of 400 to 500 ISSN are expected to be assigned or verified for “Independent Voices” titles when the project is complete.

Law Cataloging

In fiscal 2015, the Law Section processed 22,102 titles in 88 languages. The highest number of receipts was in English (6747 titles) followed by Spanish (5060 titles.) The Spanish receipts were double that of the previous fiscal year.

Over the years, the Law Section’s staff has been reduced through retirement, promotion, and death, but two new catalogers joined the section recently, one for Chinese (Qijie Zhang-Klein) and the other for Spanish materials.

Law Section Head Gabe Horchler has announced that he plans to retire on February 20th 2016, after 47 years of federal service, two in the U.S. Army and forty-five at the Library of Congress. An open posting to fill the Law Section Head position will be announced in the spring of 2016.

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

Staffing and workload

The Literature Section will train the Library’s newest CIP Program Specialist, Chris Crawford, to catalog juvenile ECIPs, to support his work as a liaison. The CYAC program has also obtained help through a staff-sharing agreement with a Dewey Section classifier who used to be a technician in the Children’s Literature Section and from a literature cataloger who completed his cross-training in CYAC cataloging in October. He will continue to focus on graphic novels but also catalog fiction titles for all ages.

Some cataloging technicians in the Literature Section are now doing descriptive cataloging of all juvenile ECIPs, as well as assigning call numbers. Catalogers will review this work as part of subject cataloging, but this is improving our turnaround time. We’ve just begun training technicians to do whole item cataloging of graphic novels, some ECIP editions that have good records available for earlier editions, and materials that require few or no headings.

The Literature Section has been approved to hire a new cataloger. The new hire will be trained in all subject areas within our scope, with the most urgent need being juvenile fiction expertise. The search should begin early in 2016.

We continue to seek new ECIP Cataloging Partners for juvenile fiction, building on the great success of our partnership with Queens Borough Public Library.  Literature Section Head Angela Murphy-Walters presented a program at the New England Library Association Conference in Manchester, N.H., in late October 2015 partly for recruitment purposes.

CYAC 50th anniversary

The CYAC Program celebrated its 50th anniversary with a staff celebration on November 18, 2015, attended by Acting Librarian of Congress David Mao, Chief of Staff Robert Newlen, US Programs, Law, and Literature Division Chief Karl Debus-López, staff, guests, and retirees who worked in the program in earlier years. We hope to have a related article published in School Library Journal soon.

Cataloging policy decisions

There were no significant policy decisions made in the past few months. The question of moving form/genre terms to 655 continues to arise, especially as more technicians are working on toy and movable books.

Outreach

We are investigating using social media to better share information with those who use CYAC cataloging, but more importantly to help develop a community through which we can all communicate about questions, problems, policy issues, etc.  Of the various choices in social media, blogging appears most practical at this time, either in the form of a CYAC feature on an existing Library of Congress blog or as an entirely new CYAC blog.   

The email address on the CYAC web site, cyac@loc.gov, has been reactivated and is checked regularly. We welcome input about the site, URL < www.loc.gov/aba/cyac/>

National Union Cataloging of Manuscript Collections (NUCMC)

See under Cooperative Cataloging Programs

Network Development and MARC Standards Office

Bibliographic Framework Initiative (BIBFRAME)

This initiative is an investigation of the emerging Linked Data environment for sharing of bibliographic descriptions that currently use the MARC Format. Documentation of the project is available from the BIBFRAME web site, URL < www.loc.gov/bibframe>. In fiscal 15, the Library of Congress continued development of the Bibliographic Framework model and vocabulary to replace MARC 21 as a cataloging metadata standard in order to reap the benefits of newer technology, particularly data linking. The Library built on the work and tools developed in fiscal 2014: a stable version of the vocabulary, data entry editing tool, and transformation tool that converts MARC records to BIBFRAME descriptions. These were updated and combined with other new components to support a BIBFRAME Pilot that enables input of native BIBFRAME descriptions. The Pilot was implemented by ABA at the end of September 2015. The following tools and components contribute to the Pilot and to the encouragement of experimentation with BIBFRAME by the community, as generally they are made available for download on the software sharing site, GitHub:

BIBFRAME infrastructure. In fiscal 2015 NDMSO began the process of revamping servers and systems to handle new traffic loads anticipated for linked data resolution, label lookup, and other services related to the BIBFRAME project and the linked data service, id.loc.gov. An upgrade to the MarkLogic datastore server to 8.0 was purchased, to allow for security updates and the inclusion of native handling of RDF triples in the database, as well as to allow for the possibility of using Javascript for various components of the system, not only xQuery. This effort is continuing in fiscal 2016 as we install the upgrade and begin to take advantage of its new features. The currently installed version of MarkLogic (5) was used to support the BIBFRAME Pilot.

BIBFRAME Editor (BFE).  Development of the BIBFRAME Editor continued in 2015, and was integrated with profiles provided by the Profile Editor.  Lookups were also developed for resources within id.loc.gov that were needed by the Editor. The enhanced BIBFRAME Editor was successfully introduced in the BIBFRAME Pilot to develop descriptions of library resources using the BIBFRAME model and vocabulary. Version 0.2 of the editor was prepared for release; see URL <https://github.com/lcnetdev/bfe>.

BIBFRAME Profile Editor . A BIBFRAME Profile Editor, which was needed to make the BFE flexible for use with different forms of material, was delivered by a contractor in February 2015.  It enabled creation and editing of BIBFRAME profiles for use with the BFE in support of the BIBFRAME Pilot. Version 1.1.1 was released to the public in July 2015 at URL < github.com/lcnetdev/profile-edit External >.

BIBFRAME discovery interface .  Influx Library Systems was contracted by NDMSO to build a proof-of-concept implementation of an open-source based discovery interface to the BIBFRAME vocabulary. MARC records were converted to BIBFRAME using the existing marc2bibframe conversion application. A docker container with an Elasticsearch search engine, Blazegraph SPARQL endpoint, FEDORA Commons datastore with a front end UI, developed using Python 3.x. Version 0.1, was released in August 2015 for experimentation with BIBFRAME by the community at URL < github.com/lcnetdev/bibframe-catalog External >.

BIBFRAME output from Metaproxy . A contract was let in fiscal 2014 to add the MARC transformation software to Metaproxy, a tool that is used by LC to enable its Integrated Library System to correctly process Z39.50 and SRU protocol queries and return records in MARCXML, MODS, and other data exchange formats. BIBFRAME was added to the possible output formats in 2014, but at the end of fiscal 2015 it was awaiting installation at the Library.

Metaproxy enhancement .  In fiscal 2015 LC contracted with IndexData to augment Metaproxy to process SRU searches against a BIBFRAME-based database and retrieve BIBFRAME data (in addition to the MARC-based database it currently expects). The project illustrated that Metaproxy could accommodate the BIBFRAME-based data model. A follow-on contract then enhanced the product to a more detailed level to enable LC to determine issues and enhancements needed for the SRU standard search protocol and its query language Contextual Query Language (CQL). These standards are maintained by the Library of Congress and used extensively by LC and the library community for information retrieval.   

AV in BIBFRAME .  The Library also commissioned a study as a follow-on to the study on modeling audiovisual material in BIBFRAME that was published in 2014 (URL < www.loc.gov/bibframe/docs/index.html#av>). The new study, “BIBFRAME AV Assessment: Technical, Structural, and Preservation Metadata”, was published Jan. 4, 2016, at URL < www.loc.gov/bibframe/docs/index.html#av>. It investigates the levels of technical metadata needed in the bibliographic description in order to use the item, versus linking to more detailed technical details needed for preservation of an item. It is completed and near publication.

Other projects

LC Linked Data Service (ID) < id.loc.gov>. NDMSO leveraged the system, which averages over 300,000 page view and machine-only visits per day, to support the BIBFRAME Pilot. ID makes vocabularies available in RDF and other semantic-oriented formats.

PREMIS (Preservation Metadata Implementation Strategies) . The Office completed and published a major new version, PREMIS 3.0, with a revised data model and enhanced intellectual entity and hardware/software environment components.  PREMIS is a standard for metadata to enable preservation of digital material.

MADSRDF (Metadata Authority Description Scheme in RDF) . The Office augmented madsrdf to allow many more “Real World Object” elements to be conveyed, building toward a more robust division between authority labels and real object information.

MODS (Metadata Object Description Standard) .  NDMSO completed MODS 3.6 with significant enhancement of the hierarchical geographic feature. MODS is an XML schema for descriptive metadata that is widely used for digital material. 

VRACore (Visual Resources Association Standard). Work was completed on a draft RDF version of the VRACore standard for the description of images and works of art that will allow for the expression of VRA metadata in the linked data environment.

MARC 21 formats . NDMSO supported the MARC 21 environment with public vetting of change proposals and discussion papers. The MARC site continued to be the fifth-highest in page views on the Library of Congress Web site.

Z39.50 implementation. NDMSO processed more than 90 million searches and responses for submittal to LC's Voyager Z39.50 server, more than 50 percent of all searches submitted to that OPAC.

SRU search protocol . Version 2.0 of SRU (Search and Retrieve via URL) along with CQL (Contextual Query Language), an OASIS (Advancing Open Standards for the Information Society) standard, was accepted into the work program of ISO.SC4 for fast track processing as an ISO Standard.

EDTF (Extended Date/Time Format) . EDTF was accepted into the work program of ISO/TC 154 to be developed as Part 2 of the universally used basic date standard, ISO 8601 . 

Web metrics . A significant increase in Web metrics analysis for Library Services units was made possible by enhanced software and broader access to software.  

Web activity . The Office supported multiple Library Services units in their Web presentations including a completely converted Poetry 180 site from a 1990s-era template to the most current Poetry template in time for the start of the 2015 school year. To support the Veterans History Project (VHP), NDMSO launched four presentations, one celebrating the 15th year of the VHP project.  

Vendor records . NDMSO processed more than 50,000 initial bibliographic control records from nearly 30 agencies to save costly keying of records for new material.

Policy and Standards

RDA Development

PSD developed three RDA change proposals for discussion at the November 2015 meeting of the Joint Steering Committee for Development of RDA (JSC) in Edinburgh, Scotland. PSD also produced responses to the other 36 proposals and discussion papers that came from other constituencies, task groups, and other communities. The changes to the RDA instructions as a result of the meeting will be published in the April 2016 Update to RDA Toolkit. LC was represented at the meeting by Dave Reser (LC Representative), and Kate James (RDA Examples Editor); Regina Reynolds (US ISSN Center) attended the meeting as an observer, invited by the Committee chair. As a result of the changing RDA governance strategy, the JSC was renamed, becoming the RDA Steering Committee at the end of the meeting.  The full transition to the new governance model will not be completed until about 2019. A brief summary of the outcomes related to the meeting is available at URL < rda-rsc.org/RSCmeetingoutcomes External >.  The Library of Congress also contributes to the development of RDA via the Fast Track process. Fast Track changes were published in the August and October 2015 releases of the RDA Toolkit.

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

The RDA Toolkit releases inAugust and October of 2015 represented 74 statements updated, new, or deleted.  Many of the updates were related to reconciling policy statements with the recommendations from the PCC Series Policy Task Group.  The next set of updates to the LC-PCC PSs will occur in February of 2016.

PCC RDA Authorities Phase 3 Task Group

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

Subject Headings Manual

Fifteen Subject Headings Manual instruction sheets have been updated since the ALA 2015 Annual Conference. Two were substantially revised to codify long-standing–but undocumented–practices regarding the amount and type of research necessary for subject heading proposals, and the procedures for citing for that research: 

• H 202, Authority Research for Subject Heading Proposals, was rearranged to emphasize research instead of the identification of patterns. The instructions on consulting reference sources were also lightly revised to clarify terminology and incorporate twenty-first century sources; and a new section including 17 examples of full authority records from various disciplines, accompanied by explanatory notes, was added.
• H 203, Citation of Sources, was renumbered and some sections were rearranged, instructions on providing information found in the reference sources were revised, and examples were updated throughout.

The revised instruction sheets are available in Cataloger’s Desktop and also in PDF format from the SHM free downloads page, URL < www.loc.gov/aba/publications/FreeSHM/freeshm.html>.

Revision to Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) Romance literature and Love stories

The subject heading Romance literature was used for literary works written in the Romance languages. The heading Love stories was assigned to fiction that deals with romantic love. Since love stories are often called romances in common parlance, the heading Romance fiction, which refers to fiction written in Romance languages, was often misapplied to love stories. Confusing the issue even more, the genre/form term for fiction that deals with romantic love is Romance fiction.

To promote consistency between LCSH and Library of Congress Genre-Form Terms (LCGFT) and to resolve the long-standing confusion over these headings, the LC subject heading Romance literature was revised in May 2015 to Romance-language literature and its narrower terms were also revised (e.g., Romance fiction was revised to Romance-language fiction; Bawdy poetry, Romance to Bawdy poetry, Romance-language). 

The heading Love stories and headings in the form Love stories, [language or country] (e.g., Love stories, Hebrew; Love stories, Argentine) were revised to Romance fiction and Romance fiction, [language or country], respectively.  Those revisions were approved in October 2015.

Geographic features in Taiwan

In October 2015, 28 LC subject headings representing geographic features in Taiwan were revised from Wade-Giles to pinyin romanization.  A “former heading” reference from the Wade-Giles form is provided in each authority record.

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

Genre/Form Terms Manual . In early January 2016, PSD published a draft Genre/Form Terms Manual that provides guidelines and instructions for making proposals and applying genre/form terms in bibliographic records and in authority records for works. The manual replaces the informal and occasionally ad-hoc guidelines that had been in place since the project to develop LCGFT began in 2007. The draft instruction sheets may be found in PDF form at URL < www.loc.gov/aba/publications/FreeLCGFT/freelcgft.html> and will appear in Cataloger’s Desktop in late 2016. Comments on the drafts may be directed to Janis L. Young at jayo@loc.gov through May 31, 2016.

Definition of Genre/Form . PSD has revised LCGFT’s definition of genre/form in response to a recommendation from the ALA Association for Library Collections and Technical Services/Cataloging and Metadata Management (ALCTS/CaMMS) Subject Analysis Committee’s Working Group on the Definition and Scope of Genre/Form for LCGFT. Among other changes, the revision no longer makes a distinction between genre and form, but instead treats them as a single unified concept. PSD believes that the new definition balances the desire of the library community to include a broad range of terms in the vocabulary with the need to provide clear guidance to those using and maintaining it. The revised definition is included in the draft Genre/Form Terms Manual and will appear in the introduction to the new edition of LCGFT, which will be published in early 2016.

Scope Notes. In November 2015, PSD determined that the style of scope notes in LCGFT should be simplified. Instead of beginning, “This heading is used as a genre/form heading for…,” scope notes will no longer have an introductory phrase. The project to revise the existing scope notes will be completed in early 2016.

Geographic Subdivision . To promote consistency in LCGFT, PSD has undertaken a project to revise all genre/form terms currently marked (Not Subd Geog) to No decision. This action will have no practical effect on assignment of terms, since neither terms marked (Not Subd Geog) nor those marked No decision may be geographically subdivided. The project affects approximately 370 of the more than 1,800 terms in LCGFT and will be completed by early 2016.

Literature Project . The literature genre/form project is a collaboration undertaken by PSD and the ALA/ALCTS/CaMMS Subject Analysis Committee’s Subcommittee on Genre/Form Implementation, which formed the Working Group on LCGFT Literature Terms.
In September 2015, PSD approved 150 literature genre/form terms that were proposed by the Working Group, thus completing the literature genre/form project. The first group of approximately 230 proposals had been approved in May 2015, but review of the remaining proposals was postponed due to staffing and workload levels in PSD.

Religion Project . The religion genre/form project was a collaboration between PSD and the American Theological Library Association. In September 2015, PSD approved 45 proposals for religion genre/form terms.

Proposals for New and Revised Genre/Form Terms . PSD is not currently accepting proposals for new and revised terms in the areas of music, literature, religion, or the “general” terms (e.g., handbooks, dictionaries), but continues to accept proposals in the areas of moving images, non-musical recorded sound, cartography, and law.

LC implementation . 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,” religion, and literature genre/form terms.

Demographic Group Terms

Library of Congress Demographic Group Terms (LCDGT) is intended to describe the creators of, and contributors to, resources, and also the intended audience of resources. Terms may be assigned in bibliographic records and in authority records for works.

Pilot Phase 2 . Phase 2 of the pilot was completed in December 2015, with the approval of over 400 proposals for new terms and also some revisions to previously approved terms. There are now approximately 800 terms in the vocabulary. The approved terms are based on guiding principles that specialists in LC’s Policy and Standards Division (PSD) have developed, and are that available on LC’s web site at URL < www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/lcdgt-principles.pdf (PDF, 243 KB)>.

Demonyms for local places . PSD has decided in principle that demonyms for the residents of local places (e.g., counties, cities, city sections) may be included in LCDGT, but the appropriate level of disambiguation among demonyms that are, or that may be, used to refer to people from unrelated places must be determined. The form of qualifier must also be decided. In November 2015 PSD published a paper entitled “Demonyms for Local Places in LC Demographic Group Terms: Analysis of the Issues” at URL < www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/lcdgt-demonyms.pdf (PDF, 190 KB)>, in which several options for disambiguation are discussed. Feedback and suggestions on the issues presented in the paper may be directed to Janis L. Young at jayo@loc.gov by January 30, 2016.

Demographic Group Terms Manual . In January 2016, PSD published the draft Demographic Group Terms Manual, which is based chiefly on the guiding principles for LCDGT (see above). The manual provides guidelines and instructions for making proposals and applying demographic group terms in bibliographic records and in authority records for works. The draft instruction sheets may be accessed in PDF form at URL < www.loc.gov/aba/publications/FreeLCDGT/freelcdgt.html> and will appear in Cataloger’s Desktop in late 2016. Comments on the drafts may be directed to Janis L. Young at jayo@loc.gov through May 31, 2016.

Pilot Phase 3. Policy specialists in PSD created all of the proposals that were approved in phases 1 and 2 of LCDGT development. The proposals that they included were chiefly intended to test theories on policies, and the approved terms highlight specific areas of concern (e.g., conflict situations; hierarchies), provide useful examples, and serve as the basis for future development. PSD believes that the vocabulary is now robust enough to support limited use, and that it is time to test the policies in a broader environment. PSD will therefore accept proposals for terms that are needed in new cataloging only. Due to PSD staffing and workload considerations, proposals that appear to be made as part of retrospective projects, or projects to establish terms that are not needed for current cataloging, will not be considered.

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

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

To encourage broad implementation of LCDGT, PSD has also created a survey to enable catalogers who do not work at LC or in a SACO institution to contribute proposals. It is available at URL < www.surveymonkey.com/r/LCDGTproposals External >.  The survey requests the same information that the Proposal System does, but in a simplified format. PSD staff will make the formal proposals, which will be vetted during the standard editorial process. The survey will be available for the duration of Phase 3 of the pilot, which is scheduled to end on May 31, 2016.

Questions and comments about LCDGT may be directed to Janis L. Young at jayo@loc.gov.

Cataloger’s Desktop

Last year’s work on Cataloger’s Desktop resystemization has been receiving some fine tuning. Desktop has been moved to the cloud, with both system reliability and response times dramatically improved. The most significant visible change over the past six months has been to make it possible for Desktop users to search and access Classification Web from within Cataloger’s Desktop. There have also been several enhancements to Desktop’s security, with a major upgrade to password security due for release with the upcoming 2016 Issue 1 in February.

In the coming months LC staff will be surveying Desktop subscribers to identify needs for future development and support. Suggestions for survey questions, new content, or improved features should be sent to Bruce Johnson at LC 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

The pace of ALA-LC Romanization Table development has slowed over the past six months. One proposed new table is currently in 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.

A proposed new Deseret table was received from Kjerste Christensen of Brigham Young University. The proposal has completed LC-internal review and is currently undergoing constituent review until January 21, 2016.

The Library of Congress responded to a preliminary report from a CEAL Working Group that is discussing the need for further revision to the Japanese romanization table. The Working Group’s term has since expired and it is unclear when a successor group will take up this effort.
A revision of the Mongolian table is being developed by Wayne Richter of Western Washington University, building on a proposal submitted in 1998. No completion target date has been set.

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 (Policy & Standards Division) at bjoh@loc.gov.

Library of Congress Acquisitions and Cataloging Production

Acquisitions Work	FY2015	FY2014	FY2013
Items purchased for LC collections	650,293	717,339	1,001,354
Items acquired for LC by non-purchase	2,207,385	2,630,724	1,585,323
Expenditures for collections purchases	$22,799,388.91	$24,539,936	$20,497,843

Bibliographic Records Completed (FY15 is ABA Directorate only)	FY2015	FY2014	FY2013
Original	183,979	186,657	166,973
Collection-level cataloging	1,660	1,692	2,217
Copy cataloging	74,940	62,629	64,782
Minimal level cataloging	11,398	25,826	31,190
Total records completed	271,977	276,804	265,162
Total volumes cataloged	268,250*	359,072	363,467

Authority Work	FY2015	FY2014	FY2013
New name authority records	84,659	77,652	75,318
New LC Subject Headings	4,934	1,786	4,016
New LC Classification Numbers	3,901	5,806	2,273
Total authority records created	93,494	85,244	81,607

*Reflects change in additional service copy policy

Library Services / Collections and Services Directorate (CS)

Major activities of the Collections and Services Directorate (CS) include developing the Library’s collections in all languages, subjects areas and formats; organizing and managing the secure storage of over 160 million items in the Library’s collections; physically serving requested collections and currently providing on-site as well as off-site reference/information services through 17 research centers and collection access points on Capitol Hill and via the Internet; and coordinating collections-based digitization projects to increase public access to high-research value Library materials. In fiscal 2015, digitization programs resulted in scans of collection items totaling 3,554,984 digital (master) files from analog collections throughout CS custodial divisions in myriad languages, subject areas and formats, including ten microfilm collections, directly supporting the Library’s mission to provide public access to high-research value Library materials. CS divisions added 88 new Encoded Archival Description (EAD) finding aids (bringing the total to 2,222 through Sept. 28, 2015), providing researchers detailed access to 60,113,182 divisional archival collection items both on-site and off-site. The Library’s National Audio-Visual Conservation Center (NAVCC) at its Packard Campus in Culpeper, Va., consolidates, develops, preserves and provides broad public access to a comprehensive collection of the world’s audiovisual heritage of moving images and recorded sounds. With its new systems for born-digital collections acquisition, preservation and reformatting, and playback-on-demand access, NAVCC significantly increased the amount of Library audio-visual collections digitized for preservation and available for public service. CS divisions also play a critical role in effective collections inventory control, essential to the security of collections. As part of the space management program, CS manages collections storage on the Library’s Capitol Hill campus, at the state-of-the-art high density storage modules at Ft. Meade, Md.; the Packard Campus; the Landover annex in Landover, Md., and at the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) center at Valmeyer, Ill., records storage site.

Personnel Changes

Joan S. Weeks, a senior instructor in the Cooperative and Instructional Programs Division and longtime leader in ALA, was appointed head of the Near East Section, African and Middle Eastern Division, effective Oct. 4, 2015.

Constance A. Carter, head of the Science Reference Section, Science, Technology, and Business Division, retired on Dec. 31, 2015, after 50 years of Library service.

African and Middle Eastern Division

The African and Middle Eastern Division celebrated the 20th anniversary of the Library’s annual program series, the Armenian Vardanants Day Event, with a major presentation by Dr. Susan Harper, a Carnegie Fellow, on “American Humanitarianism in the Armenian Crucible 1915-1923.” The Hebraic Section continued “Treasures from the Hebraic Section” presentations throughout the year, including: “The Mirror of the Text: Jewish Women and their Books through the Ages,” and a presentation to 65 librarians from the Association of Jewish Libraries (AJL). The “Conversations with African Poets and Writers” series entered into its fourth year in fiscal 2015. The series, which is co-sponsored with the Poetry and Literature Center in partnership with the Africa Society of the National Summit on Africa, included four very distinguished writers: award-winning Ivoirian writer Veronique Tadjo, the Head of French Studies at the University of  Witwatersrand in South Africa; Nigerian-American writer Chinelo Okparanta, who holds the 2013 Caine Prize for African Writing; Nigerian author Okey Ndibe, Professor of Africana Literature at Brown University; and Ethiopian poet Lemn Sissay, Chancellor of Manchester University in the U.K.

Hispanic Division (HISP)

The most important event was the celebration of the 75th anniversary of the Hispanic Reading Room held in the reading room itself. Deborah Jakubs, University Librarian and Vice Provost of Duke University, presented a keynote address about the role that the Hispanic Division and the Handbook of Latin American Studies play in the academic and library communities. A panel of four scholars followed her address. Seventy people attended the event, including local academics and members of the diplomatic corps.

The Hispanic Research Center launched a monthly orientation series in 2015. Significant improvements were made to the Division’s web page, including the Mexican Revolution web page, which was a pilot project to test the efficacy of an online exhibition that did not have a physical counterpart. The Hispanic Research Center’s web page (URL < /research-centers/hispanic/about-this-research-center/>) and the Handbook of Latin American Studies ( HLAS) web site continued to serve as major research tools connecting patrons on- and off-site to the Library’s collection with links to resources including The Archive of Hispanic Literature on Tape featuring 50 recordings online; finding aids including the EAD to the Romy Medeiros de Fonseca Archive, 1911- 2012; the Guide to the Panama Collection; the first portion of the online exhibition Distant Neighbors: The United States and the Mexican Revolution, 1910-1917; all the Division’s recent cybercasts;and current and future public events sponsored by the Division. The Hispanic Division mounted the online version of historical and biographic work Hispanic Americans in Congress, 1822-2012, on the division’s home page . It can be found at URL < External https://history.house.gov/Exhibitions-and-Publications/HAIC/Hispanic-Americans-in-Congress/ >.  In addition, HISP continues to maintain chronological and geographical lists of Hispanic Members of Congress, updating the lists with each new Congressional session.

A reviewer in the Hispanic American Historical Review called HLAS an indispensable research tool. In her keynote address during the division’s 75th anniversary symposium Deborah Jakubs described HLAS as an invaluable, indeed indispensable compilation of bibliographic data now in its 76th year.

Humanities and Social Sciences Division (HSS)

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

Personnel

The Humanities & Social Sciences Division (HSS) received the Digital Reference Team (DRT) via a realignment assignment in March 2015. Four new Humanities & Social Sciences Division librarians--Laura Berberian, Mary Champagne, Andrew Gaudio, and Megan Metcalf--were hired in August 2015.  The division now has 24 reference librarians.

Outreach: Connecting Users with LC’s Collections

On Columbus Day, Oct. 12, 2015, the magnificent Main Reading Room of the Thomas Jefferson Building was open to the public for a special open house on the federal holiday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., while all other Library of Congress on-site facilities were closed. Photography was allowed at the open house. Library staff demonstrated the Library’s online resources and discussed access to the Library’s vast onsite collections for 5,562 visitors.

Staff of the DRT conducted the “Introducing loc.gov” webinar twice each month. At the end of each webinar, participants are provided a copy of the transcript with a ready reference list of web sites for further review and study. DRT Staff conducted 21webinars for a total of 471 participants.

During fiscal 2015, HSS staff taught a total of 140 research orientation classes to 1,891 researchers. Classes were both regularly scheduled programs offered by the Main Reading Room and Local History and Genealogy staff as well as orientations in response to special requests in specific subject areas. Presentations were made for groups from American University; Carnegie Mellon University; Center for Hellenic Studies; Colgate University; College of William and Mary; G20 Finance Ministers; George Mason University; Governors Association Staff and Spouses; International Decolonization Seminar; National Center for Strategic Studies; National Genealogical Society; National Geographic Society; National Library of Medicine; Rutgers University; State University of New York, Albany; University of California, Los Angeles; University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign; Virginia Theological Seminary; and Woodrow Wilson Center Scholars.

On July 20-29, 2015, HSS staff coordinated the Library of Congress-Great Lakes Colleges Association (GLCA) Faculty-Student Research Program. This initiative involves undergraduates in their humanities professors’ research by introducing them to advanced research at the Library. For this, the program’s fourth year, HSS reference librarians served as research liaisons for three researcher teams. Each team, including a faculty member, librarian, and three to five undergraduates, spent ten days in intensive research at the Library of Congress. Teams came from Hope College (Holland, Michigan) and from two GLCA international affiliates, Forman Christian College (Lahore, Pakistan) and John Cabot University (Rome, Italy).

Access to Copyrighted e-Serials via e-Deposit

As of June 1, 2015, the Library began providing access to a growing collection of e-serials acquired through the Library’s eDeposit Program. Initiated in 2010, copyright deposit provides 2 concurrent copies of included titles on-campus. Two dedicated terminals in the Microform & Electronic Resources Center (MERC) provide access. The specific e-serial titles are found by searching the LC Online Catalog (URL < catalog.loc.gov>). Titles are indicated with the following note: To access this e-serial at the Library of Congress, see reference staff in the Microform and Electronic Resources Center (MERC), Jefferson Building, Room 139.

Manuscript Division

Manuscript Division staff helped create a third rotation of The Civil Rights Act of 1964 exhibition, mounted seven short-term exhibitions in the new agile display cases, and began planning for a future exhibition on World War I. The division cosponsored five book talks with the Center for the Book, and gave approximately 200 tours or collection displays to more than 8,650 visitors. The Division also sponsored with the Librarian’s Office six more events in the phenomenally successful “Congressional Dialogues on Great Americans” series. Supported by philanthropist David Rubenstein, “Congressional Dialogues on Great Americans” (expanded from the earlier focus on Presidents) attracted between 115 and 250 Members for each dialogue in fiscal 2015.

In 2015, the Manuscript Division released the first two of the new Project ONE web sites, both part of its Civil War Sesquicentennial digitization initiative: Alexander Hamilton Stephens Papers (URL < hdl.loc.gov/loc.mss/collmss.ms000028>) and the Records of the Confederate States of America (CSA) (URL < hdl.loc.gov/loc.mss/collmss.ms000027>). Project ONE is the Library’s new interface to its Web assets. On July 28, 2015, the division released the James Monroe Papers (URL < hdl.loc.gov/loc.mss/collmss.ms000029>), the first presidential microfilm collection to be launched directly as a Project ONE site and the Library’s first new presidential digital offering in more than a decade. On Sept. 24, 2015, the beautifully illustrated journals, 1852-1855, of William Speiden went online, documenting the U.S. naval expedition to the China Seas and Japan under the command of Commodore Matthew C. Perry. The Speiden site was followed on Sept. 29, 2015, by the long-awaited papers of Andrew Jackson, which had initially been planned as an American Memory collection to follow the 2005 release of the James Madison Papers. Since so much item-level linking had been underway long before Project ONE began, the Jackson Papers is more of a hybrid site, utilizing elements of both American Memory and Project ONE. The release of the Monroe and Jackson sites has been met with great enthusiasm by the documentary editors who have long worked with these collections and who are now exploring with the Manuscript Division ways to collaborate in the future.

Work also began in fiscal 2015 and is now well underway on the next new Manuscript Division Project ONE sites slated for the first half of fiscal 2016, namely the papers of Jedediah Hotchkiss, Edwin M. Stanton, William T. Sherman, Samuel P. Chase, Nathan W. Daniels, and Philip Sheridan.

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

American Archive of Public Broadcasting

The Library of Congress and the WGBH Educational Foundation in Boston, Mass., moved forward in fiscal 2015 with achieving the goals of the American Archive of Public Broadcasting (AAPB), a collaborative project administered by the two institutions to preserve for posterity the most significant public television and radio programs of the past 60 years and to coordinate a national effort to save at-risk public media before its content is lost to posterity. The Library is responsible for the long term preservation of the digital files, and WGBH is responsible for access and outreach to stations and content creators. The two institutions share governance responsibilities in making curatorial, operational, and financial decisions, and have been working collaboratively on all aspects of the project.

During fiscal 2015, the Library and WGBH continued implementing the first phase of the project: overseeing the digitization of approximately 40,000 hours of programs selected by more than 100 public broadcasting stations throughout the nation; ingesting this material into NAVCC’s Packard Campus Digital Archive for permanent preservation; making the material available to scholars, researchers, educators, students, and the general public at the Library’s audiovisual research centers and at WGBH; launching a web site to give the public online access to selected material; and planning to sustain and grow the project for at least five years beyond the term of the original Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) grant. The CPB agreed to a no-cost extension to allow WGBH and the Library to use grant funds through Sept. 30, 2016, to complete responsibilities of the first phase of the project. The Library and WGBH drafted an amendment to the Management Agreement between the two institutions to extend their collaboration until Sept. 30, 2020, to be renewed automatically for successive five year terms, unless either party provides written notice to the other of its intention to terminate the extension.

NAVCC collaborated with WGBH to create the co-branded, public-facing web site managed by WGBH. In April 2015, a preliminary version of the web site was launched, exposing 2.5 million inventory-level asset records to the public. The web site also included two components written by NAVCC staff: a history of the project in the context of preceding efforts to preserve public broadcasting materials; and the “About the AAPB” page. Subsequently, NAVCC staff worked closely with WGBH to prepare for the launch on Oct. 27, 2015, of an enhanced version of the co-branded, public-facing web site. This version (URL < www.americanarchive.org External >) provides on-site access at the Library and WGBH to all digitized AAPB content. The site also includes nearly 7,000 digitized files that are accessible on the site’s Online Reading Room (ORR) for research, educational, and informational purpose to users anywhere in the U.S. who agree to stipulated rules of use.

In order to establish rights clearance procedures for materials in the ORR and a digitized media access plan, in October 2014, NAVCC staff and staff from the Library’s Office of General Counsel met in Boston with WGBH Media Library and Archives staff and counsel from WGBH Business and Legal Affairs, as well as representatives from Harvard Law School’s Cyberlaw Clinic, based at Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society. Throughout fiscal 2015, these groups continued to confer weekly by telephone, developing principles and procedures to determine which materials in the collection might prudently be presented in the ORR for educational and scholarly purposes under fair use and other legal doctrines. In addition, NAVCC staff prepared a curated exhibition entitled “Voices from the Southern Civil Rights Movement” for the October 2015 web site launch and edited two additional curated exhibitions included on the site.

The Library and WGBH finalized the membership of the AAPB Executive Advisory Council, which held its first meeting on Oct. 20, 2015. The Council is composed of distinguished individuals from around the country who are passionate about public media and its long-term preservation and access. The purpose of the Council is to inform and guide the strategic direction of the American Archive with the overarching goal of ensuring that the Archive continues to serve the needs of public media stakeholders and the American people. The members of the Council are Henry Becton, Alan Brinkley, Karen Cator, Beth Courtney, Gwen Ifill, Norman Lear, Deanna Marcum, Sen. Ed Markey (D.-Mass.), Newton Minow, John Ptak, Bruce Ramer, Cokie Roberts, and Patricia Steele.

During the past year, the AAPB raised nearly $2 million to launch three new projects. The first, funded by the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) will create a National Educational Television (NET) Collection Catalog, an online catalog of some 8,000-10,000 programs that were distributed by NET, public television’s national programming unit from 1952 to 1972. The project will focus primarily on the Library’s large NET collection, but also will gather and publish information from other institutions holding NET material. The project has been designed to help institutions holding NET material make informed preservation decisions. The NET Collection Catalog also will serve scholars studying public affairs, social issues, arts, culture, the humanities, science, and education. The second project, funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian Program, will place seven Masters-level graduates of library science or archival preservation programs as paid fellows for ten months to work on digital preservation projects at seven public media stations. The third project, funded by the IMLS National Leadership Grants for Libraries Program, is a collaboration with the Pop-Up Archive to create transcripts of the 40,000 hours of digitized material in the AAPB collection using speech-to-text tools and to test ways to use crowdsourcing to engage the public to help correct the transcripts.

Music Division

The Music Division’s critically acclaimed concert series is highly visible and draws an impressively wide demographic range of patrons to the Library. Ninety-five individual events were included in the 2015-2016 90th anniversary season. Nine major commissions feature distinguished composers, funded through Music Division endowments and through co-commissioning partnerships, including Boston’s venerable Handel & Haydn Society. A substantial gift from the Reva and David Logan Foundation has funded jazz concerts and residencies for a special project in spring 2016, including a commission for the composer and bandleader Maria Schneider. Our new donor program has been very successful, bringing in a gratifying wave of contributions from concert patrons to support our series.

The Music Division’s In the Muse blog and the Performing Arts at the Library of Congress Facebookpage continue to reach constituencies. Performing Arts at the Library of Congress Facebookpage has received 5,378 “likes” since its launch on Nov. 13, 2013 and 3,236 “likes” gained in fiscal 2015 alone. The In the Muse blog issued 48 blog posts in fiscal 2015. More than 17,500 users subscribe to the blog through the Library’s GovDelivery email subscription service.

The Music Division entered into a new collaboration with New York Public Radio, through their classical music station WQXR and online contemporary music station Q2 Music. This project has resulted in direct outreach to the New York, N.Y., and international classical music communities, through the distribution of free recordings of recent Library of Congress commissions that were performed in the Coolidge Auditorium of the Library’s Thomas Jefferson Building. Patrons can stream commissions by John Adams, Sebastian Currier, Chaya Czernowin and George Lewis, among many others. This collaboration has drawn positive attention to our programming through a network of arts executives and has helped advance the Library’s relationship with the Kennedy Center and Monticello.

The 13-part Concerts from the Library of Congress radio series has been aired in 150 cities nationwide, to a domestic audience of more than 1.1 million people. Through a collaboration with EuroRadio, a division of Eurovision which distributes programming to 52 member countries in Europe, Latin America and beyond, the series is now offered in a new partnership to a much wider international audience than ever before--a projected 1.3 million listeners.  The series presents Music Division concerts packaged to highlight realia from the collections and the expertise of our curators in programming designed to burnish our brand and keep international visibility high for the Library’s music programming.

Prints and Photographs Division (P&P)

The Prints & Photographs Online Catalog (PPOC) enables researchers all over the world to locate images and gather ideas for research materials relevant to their topics. It continues to be a popular destination for picture searching. In fiscal 2015, users conducted 6,863,192 searches (an increase of nearly four percent over last year, despite periodic outages and the fact that, starting in April 2015, researchers could also access the content via the Project One search system). The number of visitors searching in PPOC also increased over last year, with 4,404,864 visitors—an increase of more than six percent over fiscal 2014. Prints & Photographs Division resources were also consulted via the Project One interface, particularly after the Library of Congress home page began pointing to that interface in July, rather than pointing to PPOC for searching for Photographs, Prints and Drawings. Comments from a few users indicate that they continue to value functionality not yet included in Project One searching, particularly the “Browse neighboring items by call number,” which is the only means of viewing untitled Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information negatives and Harris & Ewing negatives alongside negatives that may be related and have identifying information.

By the end of September 2015, the Library’s popular Flickr account held 24,579 images, having gathered more than 64,800 followers over the lifetime of the account (launched January 2008), an increase of 5,424 followers. Flickr reported more than 52 million views of images in the account this fiscal year, for an all-time total of 216,300,000 views. Weekly uploads to existing Flickr sets continued throughout the fiscal year, interspersing Bain Collection photographs that continue to engage a dedicated corps of “history detectives” with images from other collections in specialized “albums” that highlight the variety of P&P’s holdings. This year, preparation of such albums spread to more participants, including two P&P curators (Japanese Prints and Bookplates), two P&P reference staff (Harris & Ewing mysteries and more Works Progress Administration posters) and one Flickr member who has featured P&P photos in his own account and enthusiastically selected and contextualized twenty Detroit Publishing Company photographs dealing with the America’s Cup races. Featuring this varied content attracts Flickr members who don’t regularly interact with the account, and participation was particularly active for the Harris & Ewing mystery photographs, which allowed Flickr members to demonstrate their knowledge and picture analysis skills in identifying unrecognized gadgets and tracing long-lost news stories. Members’ suggestions enabled the division to provide identifications to nearly half of the previously unidentified images. As part of the division’s efforts to increase cross-channel posting of its social media efforts, Picture This blog posts featured the new albums and, in turn, attracted favorable comments and image identifications. The single images that were loaded to alert people to a delay in providing more Bain negatives proved to be popular in their own right and provided introductions to more collections.

Rare Book & Special Collections Division (RBSCD)

Public outreach remains a hallmark of the Rare Book and Special Collection Division’s program.  In fiscal 2015 the Division significantly enhanced its longstanding efforts with an ambitious calendar of exhibitions, symposia, lectures and presentations. Over the past year the Division, including the Children’s Literature Center, offered special presentations to more than 2,000 guests using nearly 3,000 items from the collections. The Division again joined with the Poetry and Literature Center to host an LGBT Pride Month event in partnership with Lambda Literary and Capital Pride. This year's event included a presentation by Stathis Orphanos, who discussed his two collections acquired this year, as well as his career in photography. RBSCD also hosted a panel on the state of LGBT publishing moderated by William Johnson of Lambda Literary, and featuring panelists Bryan Borland of Sibling Rivalry Press of Little Rock, Ark.; Lisa C. Moore of RedBone Press of Washington, D.C,; and Jennifer Joseph of Manic D Press of San Francisco, Calif. As part of this event, RBSCD hosted two separate book displays. Through these popular ventures, the Division has drawn an audience from a diverse group of interests and organizations.

At the center of RBSCD’s outreach effort is an extensive program of classroom presentations, many of them developed cooperatively with local university programs. The Division promoted the Library’s collections and programs through numerous teaching assignments. Division chief Mark Dimunation taught a graduate seminar on the “Fundamentals of Rare Book Librarianship” for Catholic University; the “History of the Book” class for the Rare Book School; and an additional Rare Book School course at the Library of Congress on “The Eighteenth-Century Book.” Of particular note is the ongoing cooperative program that has been developed with the George Washington University/Corcoran Museum School of Art. The Division has become an integral partner with the book arts classes, and numerous presentations of the Division’s important book arts collections are built into the class schedules. From these presentations, students select materials that will become the focus of their major research projects. In fiscal 2015 the American Printing History Association (APHA) and the Washington Area Group on Print Culture Studies (WAGPCS) have also joined with RBSCD to co-sponsor events and lectures. In 2015 the Division offered more than 40 presentations for Members of Congress.

The Rare Book and Special Collections Division curated the Thomas Jefferson Building South Gallery exhibition “First Among Many: The Bay Psalm Book & Early Moments in American Printing.” The project, which initially featured the display of David Rubenstein’s copy of the Bay Psalm Book along with the Library’s copy, required the preparation of 26 labels for 29 selected items, along with nine substantial narrative panels, the informational brochure, and the web site text. The exhibit, which ran from June 4, 2015, to Jan. 2, 2016, had been visited by more than 220,500 visitors as of Sept. 26th, 2015. Additional agile display case exhibitions were prepared for an exhibition of contemporary Artists Books and for the celebration of the gift of the St. John’s Bible. The Division co-sponsored several lectures and symposia, including the National Book Collecting Awards Ceremony, and hosted the American Printing History Association’s Annual Michael Denker Fellowship Award Ceremony. In its efforts to enhance public outreach, the Division hosted several specialized presentations. The Division also sponsored several special programs featuring guest speakers, such as preservation specialist Jeanne Drewes (chief of the Library’s Binding and Collections Care Division), book artist Daniel Essig, and scholar and collector Bill Fisher. Topics ranged from the books arts–Cuban Artists Books, sculptural books, dimensional bindings–to collection strengths–The Pablo Neruda Collection, Emily Dickinson, and the History of Science.

The Library received, as a gift made possible by the GHR Foundation, one of only twelve copies of the Apostles Edition of the St. John’s Bible, an illuminated manuscript produced by the monks of St. John’s Abbey and University.  On behalf of the American people, the Librarian of Congress accepted the Bible in the office of Speaker of the House John Boehner, in the presence of Pope Francis, on the occasion of the Pope’s address to Congress on Sept. 24, 2015.  The St. John’s Bible joins the RBSCD holdings of famous, rare, and historic editions of the Bible.   

Science, Technology and Business Division (ST&B)

Science, Technology and Business Division librarians used the Internet and social media to engage specific audiences, foster curiosity and intellectual endeavor. Information was added to Wikipedia, sites were recommended for web archiving, and staff worked with the Information Technology Services Multimedia Group to create stories about the science collections. The Division’s RSS feed, with more than 18,000 email subscribers, and its Inside Adams blog (84,336 unique visitors, 103,925 pages viewed, and 41 posts) gave the public direct access to its guides, webcasts, programs and lectures. Web features, such as Everyday Mysteries, and guides, such as United States Banking Periodicals, attracted researchers to the Library’s collections, as did the collection-oriented webcasts.

The Division organized a number of Global S&T Forums that attracted scientists and science policy experts to discuss a wide range of topics from the use of mustard gas in cancer chemotherapy to the effects of radiation on the children of Chernobyl. Staff updated policy officials from several government agencies, including the Library’s Congressional Research Service, on developments in Asia and beyond; participated in the interagency FedGrey Working Group whose work gives a higher profile to scientific grey literature, and submitted trivia queries based on the Library’s science collections to the web site Science.gov to increase interest in these collections. The Library’s content manager to the Science.gov Alliance submitted Science Reference Section bibliographic guides for inclusion on the Alliance’s website, significantly increasing exposure to these compilations. The Division sponsored or co-sponsored lunchtime public lectures on topics in science, technology and business including topics ranging from terrorism in cyberspace to cancer-fighting gut microbes. For the ninth year, the Division collaborated with NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center to offer several exciting and stimulating programs.  A science staff member collaborated with the Department of Energy (DOE) Bioenergy Technologies Office’s 2015 Virtual Science Fair by publishing and posting the BioenergizeME Resource Library and BioenergizeME Research Strategy Guide on the Science website. The latter was so successful that DOE asked the Division to update the site for the fiscal 2016 contest. This has been done, and the new competition is an infographic challenge rather than a virtual science fair. Division staff hosted the winners of the 2015 contest at the Library for a briefing and tour.

Serial and Government Publications Division (SER)

National Digital Newspaper Program/ Chronicling America

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

Each two-year award provides funding to a state library, historical society, or university library. The institution is responsible for selecting, digitizing, and delivering 100,000 newspaper pages, representing its state and regional history within the scoped time period of the collection (1836-1922), using technical specifications established by the Library. The new 2015 awardees–Delaware and Wisconsin--joined 19 other states currently participating in the program. These states and territories include California, Connecticut, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Nevada, North Carolina, North Dakota, Puerto Rico, South Dakota, Tennessee, Vermont, Virginia, and West Virginia. Other states–Arizona, Hawaii, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas, Utah and Washington–have “graduated” from the program, no longer receiving awards, but continue to be involved in program activities. In fiscal 2015, the Library of Congress added approximately 182,335 pages from its own collection to the site.
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.

Library participation in the program 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 works on other ongoing program management, outreach, and awardee support. Currently, the program supports 30 active awardees in various stages of data production, receiving approximately 149,000 images per month (7 TB).

In specific accomplishments this year, NDNP added more than 1.84 million pages to Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers web site , providing full-text access to a total 9.9 million newspaper pages published between 1836 and 1922 (approximately 40 million digital items), representing 1,899 selected newspapers in 38 states, Puerto Rico, and the District of Columbia. The site now hosts more than 294,400 pages in languages other than English, increasing access to non-English ethnic press published in the U.S. The majority of this content is in German (approx. 178,000 pages), with additional contributions in Finnish (3,200 pages), French (21,000 pages), Italian (6,200 pages), and Spanish (91,000 pages). Two hundred fifty-three newspaper history essays describing digitized titles, written by awardees and edited by NEH, were also added to the more than 746 already available on the site.

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/>.

In addition, the Chronicling America weekly RSS (Real Simple Syndication) feed service notifies subscribers of content updates, new services and interesting highlights of the collection. More than 19,012 users subscribe to the weekly feed through the Library’s GovDelivery email subscription service. 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. Use of the RSS feed service by Serial and Government Publication Division reference staff to highlight Chronicling America Topics Pages has been an effective tool to increase usage for these Web pages. In fiscal 2015, there were 58 new Topics Pages including: Appomattox, Babe Ruth, Bicycle Fashion, Charlie Chaplin, Civil War Ballooning, Esperanto, Female Spies, Fenians, Hypnotism, Nietzsche, Poetry in the Great War, Washington Monument, and Zimmerman Telegram. User traffic to Chronicling America totaled 3,954,921 and 40,218,598 page views in fiscal 2015.

NEH is soliciting proposals from institutions to participate in the National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP) in 2016.  Proposals are due to NEH by Jan. 16, 2016.  To submit a proposal, see URL < www.neh.gov/grants/preservation/national-digital-newspaper-program>. 

Veterans History Project

Now in its 15th 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 2015, more than 4,430 collections were added to the archive, which currently totals approximately 99,000, of which more than 15,700 are digitized and fully accessible online. Individual volunteers and organizations nationwide, including many libraries, help gather and submit oral histories and supporting materials for VHP. All collections are served in LC’s American Folklife Center Reading Room. VHP’s Web site, URL < www.loc.gov/vets>, provides access to required forms, instructional materials, a training video, a searchable database and links to VHP’s RSS and social media sites.

Among many notable activities in 2015, VHP used a generous donation from the Buffy and William Cafritz Family Foundation to run a high-visibility marketing and donation collection campaign, “Do Your Part, Washington, DC.” The campaign was targeted at the loved ones of local World War II veterans and included three training workshops, a 15-minute and 30-minute NBC4 news feature, print, digital and broadcast advertisements and an informational brochure. Organizations interested in launching a “Do Your Part” campaign in their city may contact VHP for helpful tips and customizable outreach materials.

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

Library Services / Partnerships & Outreach Programs Directorate (POP)

See NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL OUTREACH (NIO)

The Partnerships and Outreach Programs Directorate went out of existence on October 1, 2015. Most of its functions are now performed in the new service unit for National and International Outreach.

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 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 Preservation Directorate made significant contributions to the profession through participation in and  organization of symposium and conferences held at the Library: a conference sharing findings and setting a research agenda on “Audio Media Preservation through Imaging”, held in July; and a three day symposium advancing international collaborations for the development of sustainable research infrastructures for preservation data “Fostering the Transatlantic Dialogue on Digital Heritage and EU Research Infrastructures: Initiatives and Solutions in the USA and in Italy”.

Outreach

Work continues to update and upgrade the Preservation Directorate web site with current useful information.  Most recently Spanish language information on disaster response, treatment for books, paper and photographs can be found from the main page, as well as a video on disaster response in both English and Spanish. The latest insurance valuation data is for 2014 and can be downloaded as an Excel file with formulas from URL < www.loc.gov/preservation/emergprep/insurancevaluation.html> and contract language for pressure sensitive labels is available at URL < www.loc.gov/preservation/resources/specifications/index.html>. A new set of educational bookmark and poster designs is available for download at URL < www.loc.gov/preservation/resources/educational/index.html>. By continuously updating the site (URL < www.loc.gov/preservation>), the Library aims to improve user accessibility and navigation of the Library’s web properties, as well as to pursue the Library’s strategic plan to lead in the advancement of knowledge.

The Preservation Directorate hosted a number of Topics in Preservation Series presentations, included several programs that we hope will soon be available on the web including “Removing Residual Iron from Platinum and Palladium Prints”.  Information is available on the “Conservation Treatment of a Rare Early Martin Ramirez Drawing with visual images included.

PD staff assisted the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA)’s Preservation and Conservation Core Activity (IFLA- PAC) by representing the PAC on the IFLA level Cultural Heritage Programme Advisory Committee which was formed in 2015. The PD continues to contribute to the PAC as an active regional center. The 2016 IFLA conference will be held in Columbus, Ohio, with a preconference to be held at the Library of Congress, Aug. 10-11, 2016, in collaboration with the Preservation and Conservation Section and IFLA PAC Strategic Programme. See URL < www.ifla.org/preservation-and-conservation External > for the call for papers on the topic of high density storage for physical and digital collections.

Select publications

• Drewes, J. "Book Review: The Preservation Management Handbook: A 21st–Century Guide for Libraries, Archives, and Museums." Library Resources Technical Services 59, no 2 (2015): 95-96.
• Haude, M.E., G. Griswold, R.O. Hern and J.S. Tang. "An Introduction to How the Manufacturing and Disposal of Adhesives and Paints Affects our Environment." AIC News, 40, no. 3 (2015): 14-17.
• Shovlin, K.F. "'Saving our Stuff' with Preservation Week." Library of Congress Gazette 46, no. 17 (May 1, 2015): 6.

Education opportunities

The Preservation Directorate planned and managed programs that brought professionals at different levels of their careers to the Library for practical experience and training in areas of preservation and preservation research expertise. Opportunities ranged from simple ad hoc short-term volunteer arrangements to more involved year-long professional fellowships with other important cultural heritage organizations. All of these opportunities provided Directorate staff an opportunity to contribute toward the development of a new generation of preservation experts while also accomplishing needed work with the Library’s collections.  The Directorate hosted a total of 69 interns, fellows and volunteers during the fiscal year. A few good division examples of success would include:

• The Binding and Collections Care Division (BCCD) hosted 2 volunteers in its Collections Care Section (CCS) to learn treatment protocols and contribute to the overall treatment of general collections. Each volunteer worked a total of 250 hours over an approximately a six week period.
• The Conservation Division (CD) hosted 27 total interns/volunteers, including conservation graduate program interns from the Winterthur/University of Delaware Program in Art Conservation and Junior Fellows. Internship grants for the advanced conservation interns continue to be supported by the Harper-Inglis Trust Fund.
• The Preservation Reformatting Division (PRD) hosted 3 Preservation Digital Technology Interns and 1 volunteer
• The Preservation Research and Testing Division (PRTD) hosted a total of 37 interns, fellows and visiting scholars. Three CUA CHIM Masters students were hosted for their practicum session. Research topics pursued by interns included degradation of materials and the further development of a scientific sample collection database.

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

The Binding & Collections Care Division manages the care of the Library's general and reference collections through binding preparation and contract management; collections conservation; 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 processed papers and extends the life of the paper significantly.  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.

After over twelve years of work, Mass Deacidification contractors completed the NAACP archive.  The NAACP collection is one of the largest and most used collections in the Manuscripts Division.

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.

CD staff and a temporary position funded by the Howard Buffett Foundation worked on the preparation of Rosa Parks materials for digitization. Also from the Rosa Parks collection, a damaged photo button was examined and housed in preparation for future treatment to stabilize its condition. Staff and researchers can now access it. A complex rehousing of Rosa Parks family photograph album was performed so that the photographs could remain in the original album and a housing was developed and fabricated so that Parks family members could safely identify people in photographs from the collection. In addition treatment and rehousing was begun for items to be digitized from the Rosa Parks materials held in the Manuscripts Division.

PD staff completed the stabilization of the Elliott Carter collection of piano concertos and sketches for opera and ballet, which resides in the Music Division.  Elliot Carter was a 2-time Pulitzer Prize winner and composed works through several decades in the mid to late 20th century, influenced by composers such as Samuel Barber and Stravinsky. 

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. 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 an 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 workflow’s and ISO disk image and file copy operations.

IRENE (Image, Reconstruct, Erase Noise, etc.) System: Traditional methods for retrieving the sound from historical sound recording media can be technically complex, time consuming, and invasive. The Library of Congress has been collaborating with physicists at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory to develop imaging technology to provide non-invasive preservation and access to these recorded sound collections. Systems to image in both 2D (called the IRENE system) and 3D have been designed, built and refined through testing. Historical media suffers from degradation due to the chemical breakdown of the materials, damage from mishandling or improper storage, and wear from regular playback. These systems are recovering sound from fragile and broken media that was considered irretrievable until now.

Audio Preservation Through Imaging Conference: Preservation Reformatting Division and Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division organized the three-day conference in the James Madison building in collaboration with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (July, 2015). The conference featured presentations by scientists, engineers, collection managers and other interested parties from institutions around the globe. The speakers discussed a need for a larger community of developers and users to foster adoption of the technology more widely, standards for technical specifications and operation, targeted engineering and software development, access to new instrumentation and educational opportunities.

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  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).

A new collaborative initiative with the University College London Center for Sustainable Heritage developed into the Center for Centre for Doctoral Training in Science and Engineering in Arts, Heritage and Archaeology (SEAHA) to train up to 40 post-doctoral students in cultural heritage over the next 8 years. PRTD will be a heritage partner and host and supervise at least two post-doctoral students working on preservation research to advance collection care for LC collections, particularly in the further development of non-invasive methods of assessment.

The Preservation Research Framework was advanced further to expand the network of preservation research partners and achieve Program Element targets. Staff undertook a number of presentations (accepted and invited) at national and international and other venues disseminating new and current research being undertaken at the Library of Congress. PRTD also hosted other internal events to share and disseminate research and new knowledge within the Library to relevant divisions. In the summer of 2015 PRTD took leadership of the 100 Year Paper Natural Aging Study by agreeing to undertake chemical testing of all five-yearly periods of the fifteen paper samples, since a fellow institution had never been able to complete the testing. This will allow a comparison of the impact of various environments on chemical and physical properties of the various papers types.

PRTD has continued a close relationship with the George Washington Forensic Science Master’s Program. The PRTD Chief lectures on the program to educate students on the techniques used in preservation science, and to initiate a better understanding of material properties, the interaction of materials with the environment, and the consequent potential degradation mechanisms that can occur.

PRTD staff continues working with colleagues at the University South Carolina (USC) on tape degradation research results at the Department of Analytical Chemistry's seminar series. Two professors and two graduate students contributed to the understanding and development of a pre-play identification system, and the University Library houses an impressive video collection that they are willing include to advance the project.

Collaborations with colleagues at the University of Maryland into iron gall ink (IGI) research reached a significant stage in that collaborators at MD were able to definitively ascertain the crystal structure of iron (Fe) (III) gallate, the main compound in IGI. Findings settle a long-standing controversy regarding this structure, and will impact concepts upon which treatment strategies are based.

In collaboration with the Catholic University of America (CUA) School of Library and Information Science PRTD is partnering in a new Cultural Heritage Information Management (CHIM) initiative. The CHIM course of study was designed to educate cultural heritage information professionals for the 21st century and prepare students for careers in cultural institutions such as libraries, archives, and museums, with a focus on addressing the needs created by the convergence of practices in libraries, archives, and museums.

A new collaboration with the University of Virginia Rare Book School involved expanding the capacity to better link scientific and scholarly knowledge through transfer and training of researchers, curators, librarians and conservators scholars in new imaging technologies. Fiscal2015 was the first year that courses were held at the Library of Congress in Washington D.C. and the first time Rare Book School expanded out into teaching the use of technologies to capture content for scholarly research. PRTD Chief and staff taught a 5-day course on Preservation Imaging: Science, Scholarship and the Artifact garnering an excellent response to the capacity for science to reveal and share new scholarly information. The 5-day course has been requested to be repeated and other institutions have requested potential training for a range of interested staff and researchers.

Library Services / Technology Policy Directorate (TECH)

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.

In September 2015, the FADGI Still Image Working Group published a draft version of its updated general guideline, titled Technical Guidelines for Digitizing Cultural Heritage Materials. This represents a significant revision of the 2010 edition and, although the closing date for public comments was Dec. 31, 2015, the FADGI team will be happy to receive comments past that date for consideration in future revisions. The Still Image Working Group met on Sept. 17, 2015, and discussion included details of the new guideline.

During summer 2015, the Still Image Working Group launched the development of a new version of the DICE (Digital Imaging Conformance Evaluation) software application. This version will be one that can be shared openly and at no cost, replacing the current version with its dependency on a licensed “math engine”. Work on the new OpenDICE app is being carried out by a Library of Congress image scientist, who was assisted during the summer months by an intern who is also a student at the Rochester Institute of Technology. Plans call for a demonstration version of OpenDICE to be available during 2016.

The FADGI Audio-Visual Working Group published two draft documents in September 2015. The first, titled Digitizing Motion Picture Film: Exploration of the Issues and Sample SOW, includes an introductory essay, a set of tables that describe a range of film inputs and digital outputs, and concludes with a model statement of work for outsourced conversion of film to video. The report was produced by a FADGI subgroup led by staff from the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), with active participation from the Library of Congress including the Packard Campus for Audio-Visual Conservation, the American Folklife Center and the former Office of Strategic Initiatives.

The second Audio-Visual Working Group publication presented a new draft of the AS-07 MXF application specification.  AS-07 provides a detailed profile for a digital file wrapper, one key part of a digital file format for audio-visual preservation. The specification includes a list of permitted encoded essences (the underlying content bitstreams), defines a means for the carriage of multiple timecodes; the handling of captions, subtitles, and Timed Text; a minimal core metadata set; program segmentation metadata; and embedded content integrity data. The effort is being carried out under the auspices of the Advanced Media Workflow Association (AMWA).

The Audio-Visual Working Group continued its development of tools and methods to measure the performance of audio analog-to-digital converters (ADCs). This will help archives and libraries implement the FADGI ADC performance guideline published in 2012. This project included field tests in three federal agencies--the Voice of America, the National Archives, and the Library's Packard Campus--and a progress report will be published early in 2016.

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 this URL: < catalog.loc.gov>. In 2015 the ILS Program Office incorporated its OpenURL resolver, called FindIt!, into the record displays for books, serials and integrating resources. Catalog users can click on the FindIt! button to discover all the options for access to titles as licensed content in the Library’s E-Resources Catalog or other sources.

In December 2015 the Library retired the old user interface to the LC Online Catalog. The current interface has all the functionality of the old version, including context-sensitive help pages.

The several factors that drove the decision to migrate the LC Catalog to a new, modern user interface are described below.

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), whereas 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 that users can access the full functionality of the LC Online Catalog. The Library is working to implement responsive design in the LC Online Catalog to enable easy use of the catalog on all types of mobile devices.

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

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

Market Research for Next Generation ILS

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

LCCN Permalink

LCCN Permalink (URL < lccn.loc.gov>), a web service that allows users to create permanent URL links to bibliographic and authority records in the Library's Online Catalog (URL < catalog.loc.gov>) and authority records in the LC Authorities Service (URL < authorities.loc.gov>), continues to be popular, resolving approximately 35,000 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 enhanced LCCN Permalink to include LC holdings information and OpenURL links to the Library’s FindIt! SFX resolver, along with COINS metadata. LCCN Permalink is completely standards-based, leveraging widely used XML technologies, Z39.50/SRU, and metadata schemas.

In December, the ILS Program Office implemented Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) technology in LCCN Permalink. SSL is a commonly used cryptographic protocol designed to protect communication over the Internet. Users will see a small padlock icon preceding the URL in the address bar of most browsers. Existing URL links for LCCN Permalinks will be seamlessly redirected from http to https.

LC EAD (Encoded Archival Description) Archival Finding Aids

Since January 2015, LS Collections and Services divisions have created 76 new EAD archival finding aids, bringing the total number of LC EAD finding aids to 2,234.  At URL findingaids.loc.gov users can access 60.4 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 (URL < www.loc.gov/rss/#updates>).

LC Persistent Identifiers

Library staff registered approximately 178,000 new handles in fiscal 2015 to manage and provide persistent identifiers for LC-generated electronic resources. As of Oct., 1, 2015, the Library's handle server contained 3,618,000 handles. Over the past year, LC staff assigned handles to materials digitized in a number of projects; to digital books created by NLS; to legislative information managed by the Law Library; to e-books ingested through CIP and related projects; to LC-created, born-digital content; and to other objects stored in the Library’s digital repository.

Electronic Resource Management System (ERMS)

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

The Library’s ERMS currently contains approximately 982,000 bibliographic, 1,141,000 holdings, 1,738 resource, and 1,400 license records.  In fiscal 2015 patrons and LC staff performed 1,012,068 searches in the Electronic Resources Online Catalog.

Managing the Library’s Digital Collections

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

The Library increased the number of e-books ingested directly from publishers participating in the Cataloging in Publication (CIP) Program and stored them securely in a digital repository. The Library expects to ingest over 5,000 e-books from program participants in fiscal 2016.

ILSPO worked with the Repository Development Center and the Acquisitions and Bibliographic Access Directorate to define requirements for the ingest of e-books received through ECIP Program partner institutions. The resulting software enables creation of holdings records and assignment of persistent identifiers (handles) for the e-books files as they are ingested from publishers. This project leverages and utilizes the previous programming of the Content Transfer System and other repository services developed by the Repository Development Center, Office of the Chief Information Officer.

HathiTrust

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

The new method of authentication uses a system called Shibboleth to authenticate users for access to the full range of services offered in the HathiTrust Digital Library. Authenticated users may:

• Download full-PDFs of public domain works
• Access the Collection Builder application, which makes it possible for users to aggregate works into permanent collections either for private use or to share publicly with others
• Access content for researchers with a print disability (only in the U.S.; see URL < www.hathitrust.org/accessibility External >).
• Access works held in print by partner institutions that are missing or brittle and also out of print (only in the U.S.; see URL < www.hathitrust.org/out-of-print-brittle External >).

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

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

HathiTrust has done the work to clear the rights for public presentation on HathiTrust of the 750+ volumes of the National Union Catalog, pre-1956 imprints, also known as “The Mansell.” The Library of Congress catalog record for this title is at < lccn.loc.gov/67030001>. The LC OPAC record has a link to the HathiTrust presentation. The LC record also has a link to URL < www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/mansell.pdf (PDF, 78 KB)> which gives a breakdown of what is in each volume.

NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL OUTREACH

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

Personnel Changes

• Robert L. Gallucci, a former U.S. ambassador who most recently served as president of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, has been named the interim director of the Library’s John W. Kluge Center, effective Sept. 21. 
• Kathryn Mendenhall, director for National Programs, National and International Outreach, retired on Dec. 31, 2015.
• Mukta Ohri was appointed Chief of the Federal Research Division in November 2015.
• Meg Tulloch was appointed Executive Director of FEDLINK, effective Nov. 16, 2015.  She came to FEDLINK from the position of director of the National Defense University Libraries.

NATIONAL ENTERPRISES DIRECTORATE

Cataloging Distribution Service

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’s booth at ALA Midwinter Meeting 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 in the booth theater: “ Cataloger’s Desktop: Tips and Tricks,” will be presented on Saturday, January 9, at 12:30 p.m. and on Monday, January 11, at 11:00 a.m.

“ Classification Web: Insider Tips,” will be presented on Saturday, January 9, at 10:00 a.m. and Sunday, January 10, at 10:30 a.m.
For a free 30-day trial subscription to Cataloger’s Desktop visit URL < www.loc.gov/cds/desktop/OrderForm.html>. For a free 30-day trial subscription to Classification Web visit URL < www.loc.gov/cds/classweb/classweborder.html#ordering>.

Retail Service

Business Enterprises has purchased a promotional traffic `lobby sign′ to attract visitors to the Library booth. The lobby traffic sign features Cataloger’s Desktop and Classification Web booth presentations as well as Duplication Service’s free Boston map promotion.

Federal Research Division

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

In the past year, FRD worked with clients across the federal sector, including Department of Defense (DoD), Consumer Financial Protection Board (CFPB), Department of Justice (DoJ), National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the Small Business Administration (SBA), and Federal Trade Commission (FTC).  Areas of focus were equally wide-ranging, spanning various national and international concerns including state privacy and security legislation, juvenile justice and delinquency prevention, elder financial exploitation prevention and response networks, federal strategic sourcing, immigration integration strategies, threat assessments, security forces and command and control systems, and financial readiness curricula for consumer protection information. In addition, FRD continued to support the Library’s Web presence, making substantive collections-related content available to both federal and public users via the FRD homepage. Web pages include the Military Legal Resources and POW/MIA sites.

FEDLINK

FEDLINK celebrated its 50th Anniversary of working together to achieve optimum use of the resources and facilities of federal libraries and information centers by promoting common services, coordinating and sharing available resources, and providing continuing professional education for federal library and information staff. FEDLINK serves as a forum for discussion of the policies, programs, procedures, and technologies that affect federal libraries and the information services they provide to their agencies, to the Congress, the federal courts, and the American people.
FEDLINK provided its members with $75.7 million in Transfer Pay services, $5.9 million in Direct Pay services, and an estimated $106.5 million in the Direct Express service. In total, approximately $188 million of information resource purchasing was done on FEDLINK contracts. This saved federal agencies more than $36.7 million in vendor volume discounts and approximately $49.9 million in cost avoidance.

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

FEDLINK’s Advisory Board (FAB) focused on a variety of broad federal information issues including FEDLINK’s status as the commodity manager of Information Retrieval for the Federal Strategic Sourcing Initiative (FSSI), the Library of the United States Project (LOTUS), interlibrary loan groups among federal libraries, new technologies for federal librarians, FEDLINK’s research agenda, and the Federal Library Census.

The FEDLINK Education Working Group, in concert with other FEDLINK working groups, sponsored seminars, workshops, and brokered conferences for nearly 1,500 members of the federal library and information center community. 

The FEDLINK Awards Committee announced the following awards: 2014 Federal Library/Information Center of the Year in the Large Library/Information Center Category (with a staff of 11 or more employees): Barr Memorial Library, Fort Knox U.S. Army Garrison, Kentucky; in the Small Library/Information Center Category (with a staff of 10 or fewer employees): Darnall Medical Library, Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, Bethesda, Md.; the 2014 Federal Librarian of the Year: Richard James King, Branch Chief and Information Architect, National Institutes of Health Library, Bethesda, Md.; and the 2014 Federal Library Technician of the Year: Maria Walls, Library Technician, U.S. Department of Justice.

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

NATIONAL PROGRAMS DIRECTORATE

Center for the Book (CFB)

2015 Library of Congress Literacy Awards

On Oct. 28, 2015, Acting Librarian of Congress David S. Mao announced the recipients of the 2015 Library of Congress Literacy Awards, a program originated and sponsored by philanthropist David M. Rubenstein. The Literacy Awards, first announced in January 2013, help support organizations working to promote literacy in the United States and worldwide. The awards highlight and reward organizations that do exemplary, innovative and easily replicable work.

In conjunction with the awards presentation and its annual Best Practices publication and related programming, the Library of Congress encourages new groups, organizations and individuals to become involved. The Library honored Best Practices winners on Oct. 27, 2015. The 2015 Best Practices publication is available at URL < www.read.gov/documents/BestPractices2015.pdf (PDF, 5.91 MB)>.

A formal presentation to the three award winners will take place at the Library of Congress on Feb. 17, 2016. The recipients are:

• David M. Rubenstein Prize ($150,000): First Book
  First Book is a nonprofit social enterprise that works to further educational equity by tackling the scarcity of books and educational resources for millions of children growing up in low-income families in the United States and Canada. 
• The American Prize ($50,000): United Through Reading
  To help active military personnel stay involved in their children’s literacy development, United Through Reading unites military families facing physical separation by facilitating the bonding experience of reading aloud together.
• The International Prize ($50,000): Beanstalk
  Beanstalk is a volunteer-based literacy organization that provides one-on-one support to children ages 6 to 11.
  The Library of Congress Literacy Awards Advisory Board, which comprises a broad range of experts in the field of literacy and reading promotion, provided recommendations, which were then forwarded to the Librarian of Congress for final selections. The award-winning organizations best exemplified the intent of the awards. 

Ambassador for Young People’s Literature

Graphic novelist Gene Luen Yang has been appointed the new National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature for a two-year term, effective Jan. 7, 2016. The Ambassadorship is co-sponsored by the Center for the Book, the Children’s Book Council and its foundation Every Child a Reader to raise national awareness of the importance of young people’s literature as it relates to lifelong literacy, education and the development and betterment of the lives of young people.

Books & Beyond

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

Poet Laureate

Juan Felipe Herrera became U.S. Poet Laureate on June 10, 2015. He succeeds Charles Wright in the position. At the 2015 National Book Festival on Sept. 5, 2015, Herrera announced the official project of his laureateship, La Casa de Colores—which includes an invitation to Americans to contribute a verse to an “epic poem” about the American experience. La Casa de Colores is on the Library’s poetry web site at URL < www.loc.gov/poetry>.

Young Readers Center

The Young Readers Center (YRC), located in the Thomas Jefferson Building at the Library of Congress, hosted more than 36,000 visitors last year. The center continued its popular Friday Story Time programs; expanded its school programs; participated in educational programming; and expanded access to special populations by adding more braille books, an audio player; participated in educational programming and expanded access to special populations by adding player and more books in foreign languages. Special programs included a symposium on diversity in children’s books and a “Star Wars” program with four authors of “Star Wars” Young Adult books.

Read.gov

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

Letters About Literature

The Center is a longtime sponsor of the Letters About Literature contest for children in grades 4 through 12, which encourages them to write a letter to an author, living or dead, explaining how that writer’s work affected them. The new award winners were announced on June 30, 2015 at URL < www.loc.gov/today/pr/2015/15-113.html>.

National Book Festival

The 15th annual Library of Congress National Book Festival was held in the Washington, D.C., Convention Center, Saturday, Sept. 5, 2015.  The festival drew record crowds and featured more than 170 authors. Webcasts are available at URL < www.loc.gov/bookfest/>. The 2015 Festival was made possible through the support of National Book Festival Board Co-Chair David M. Rubenstein and many other generous supporters. Plans are underway for the 2016 National Book Festival, date to be announced.

National Digital Initiatives

The newly formed National Digital Initiatives (NDI) team is a small but agile group originating from the National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program, among other digital initiatives throughout the Library of Congress. In NDI the team members will continue their public outreach, community building and convener roles in service to the Library’s rich digital activities and programs. The goals for 2016 include improving the tracking and dissemination of information about Library of Congress digital activities, improving exposure of the Library’s digital resources and programs to increase audience engagement and understanding and to advance collaborations with stakeholders who have common goals for contributing to existing national and international digital initiatives. NDI staff have been leading and facilitating the nationwide search and selection of a new National Digital Stewardship Alliance (NDSA) organizational host. After founding and hosting the organization for five years, on Jan. 1, 2016, the Library will officially transfer hosting duties to the Digital Library Federation (DLF), a program of the Council on Library and Information Resources. The mission and structure of the NDSA will remain largely unchanged and it will be a distinct organization within DLF, with all organizations benefiting from the pursuit of common goals while leveraging shared resources. “The Library of Congress fully supports the selection of DLF as the next NDSA host and looks forward to working with NDSA in the future,” said Acting Librarian of Congress David Mao in a press release about the transition, available at URL < www.digitalpreservation.gov/ndsa/documents/PR-NDSA2015.pdf (PDF, 141 KB)>.

National Film and Recording Preservation Boards and Registries

National Film Preservation Board and Registry

The Film Board met in Washington, D.C., in October 2015 to discuss various ongoing preservation and access initiatives, as well as suggestions for the National Film Registry. The newest 25 selections to the National Film Registry were announced on Dec. 16, 2015 and are listed at URL < www.loc.gov/today/pr/2015/15-216.html>.

National Recording Preservation Board and Registry

The Recording Board met in Washington, D.C., in November 2015 to discuss implementation of selected preservation and access recommendations found in the National Recording Preservation Plan and to review possible selections for the next Recording Registry. The latest 25 titles for the National Recording Registry will be announced in March 2016.

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

Currency Reader Program

NLS continues to work with the Bureau of Engraving and Printing to distribute currency readers to the blind or visually impaired. Since the pilot’s inception in June 2014, more than 27,000 currency readers have been distributed to eligible individuals in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and U.S. territories. Approximately 90 percent of recipients have been serviced via U.S. Postal Service Free Matter mail. For more information visit URL < www.loc.gov/nls/resources/blindness-and-vision-impairment/devices-aids/bureau-engraving-printing-u-s-currency-reader-program>.

National Conference of Librarians Serving Blind and Physically Handicapped Individuals

NLS will hold its biennial national conference Sunday, April 3, through April 7, 2016, with a pre-conference workshop on Saturday, April 2. This conference will focus on providing updates on activities and events at NLS, training on a variety of topics, and hands-on demonstrations of software and equipment.

NLS on Facebook

In June 2015, NLS launched a Facebook page to connect with its audiences and increase awareness of the program. The page provides current information to NLS patrons and partners, as well as historical information that visitors find interesting and/or useful. The page can be found at URL < www.facebook.com/ThatAllMayRead External >.

New magazines

NLS plans to add several popular magazines to its special-format subscriber offerings this year. AARP Magazine, AARP Bulletin, and Rolling Stone will be offered in audio format. Popular Science and Cooks Illustrated will be offered in braille; and O (Oprah) Magazine will be offered in audio and braille versions.

SCHOLARLY AND EDUCATIONAL PROGRAMS DIRECTORATE

Intern and Fellowships Programs

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

Digital Preservation Outreach and Education (DPOE)

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

DPOE is currently planning to add content to enhance its baseline curriculum and accommodate online delivery through webinars and videos. Other program plans include exploring new collaborative opportunities to host regional train-the-trainer workshops with additional organizations to expand the network of 159 trainers. Plans are under way for another domestic train-the-trainer workshop scheduled for spring 2016. On-demand and online training product development will begin after the new year in 2016, and the next iteration of the biennial training needs assessment survey will be conducted in 2016. For more program information, please visit URL < www.digitalpreservation.gov/education>.

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 metropolitan Washington, D.C.; Boston, Mass.; and New York, N.Y. 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 NDSR pilot was held in Washington, D.C., from September 2013 through May 2014, managed by the Library of Congress. Residents in the inaugural cohort worked on projects at one of ten Washington, D.C., area institutions, and all have subsequently accepted jobs or fellowships related to digital curation. The second cohort began residency in the national’s capital in June 2015 and will finish in June 2016.  The five residents are working on projects at the American Institute of Architects, D.C. Public Library, the Government Publishing Office, the National Library of Medicine, and the U.S. Senate, Historical Office. The second iteration of the D.C. program incorporates changes and enhancements informed by evaluation of the pilot year. A third iteration of the D.C. cohort is scheduled to begin in June 2016. Other future plans for the NDSR program include residencies at the Library’s Packard campus for Audio-Visual Conservation, and the development of a comprehensive residency field manual. For more program information please visit URL < www.loc.gov/ndsr>.

Junior Fellows Program

For over a decade, Junior Fellows has offered undergraduate and graduate students the opportunity to explore the Library’s collections through a ten-week summer project. Fellows are mentored by Library of Congress staff as they work, through their projects, to extend their educational portfolios while supporting the Library’s efforts to tackle a range of 21st-century information management challenges.

Now under stewardship of IFP, the Junior Fellows Program will continue providing unique learning experiences for approximately 35 summer interns and opportunities to showcase the Library’s collections in innovative ways. The Junior Fellows program also promotes cross service unit collaboration, as interns are placed in various service units across the Library.

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

The Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities (HACU) National Internship Program has bolstered the Library’s commitment to diversity since 2005, and was recently recognized for its leadership when it the 2015 Exceptional Public Sector Partner Award at HACU’s annual conference. Over the past decade, the Library has hosted and provided on-the-job training for more than 150 students. Throughout a semester, HACU interns are engaged professional development activities and educational enrichment sessions across the entire Library. Interns have worked on valuable projects to support Library activities such as educational outreach, communication, program management, continuity of operations, emergency preparedness, digital resource management, and information technology and web services support. Project deliverables have included informational videos used for recruitment, metadata remediation for the Library’s digital collections, and the creation of an online calendar of national training events to support the Library’s Digital Preservation Outreach and Education (DPOE) Program.

Library of Congress–Montgomery College Pilot Project

Another program added to the IFP portfolio this year is the Library of Congress-Montgomery College Pilot Project, a partnership between the Library, the Paul Peck Humanities Institute at Montgomery College, and the Montgomery College Libraries. The aim of this partnership is to increase awareness and use of the Library’s collections and services by Montgomery College faculty, librarians, and students, with the purpose of developing a model program that supports the educational and research activities of community colleges, colleges, and universities nationwide.
The 18-month pilot began this past summer and was a catalyst for research activities of a cohort from Montgomery College. Reference librarians and other staff met with the cohort over a series of face-to-face research orientations to share their knowledge of the Library’s collections and services to discuss how the Library can enhance and support interdisciplinary research and scholarship.

During the summer and fall 2015, the cohort convened for an orientation day, participated in a week-long institute on using primary source materials for their instructional designs and coursework, and attended five research orientations.

World Digital Library (WDL)

The World Digital Library (URL < www.wdl.org External >) focused on three priorities: adding historically and culturally important content from its worldwide network of partners; recruiting new partners; and building a growing community of engaged users. Noteworthy items added included the only known copy of the journal believed to have been written on board ship during Vasco da Gama’s first voyage to India, 1497-99 (Municipal Library of Porto , Portugal, URL < www.wdl.org/10068 External >); the original score of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, 1822 (Berlin State Library, URL < www.wdl.org/15063 External >); and Chinese books and manuscripts from the National Library of China, the National Central Library, Taiwan, and the Library of Congress. New partners included the library of the Klosterneuberg Monastery in Austria and the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago. The total number of visitors to the WDL in 2015 topped 8 million. Online visitors were from more than 250 countries and territories, with the largest number from China, the United States, Brazil, and Mexico. At the annual WDL Executive Council and general partner meetings held in Alexandria, Egypt, on Nov. 4-5, 2015, the Library of Congress was re-elected Project Manager for the period 2016-2020.

Kluge Center

The Kluge Center continues to bring top scholars from around the world to conduct research in the Library’s collections, as well as offering research fellowships to talented young scholars at the post-doctoral and Ph. D. level. Ninety scholars were in residence this year. We also continue to award the Kluge Prize, recognizing outstanding achievement in the humanities and social sciences. This year’s Prize was awarded to philosophers Jürgen Habermas and Charles Taylor.

Educational Outreach

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

Teachers-in-Residence

For the 2015-16 school year, we are excited to have welcomed two Teachers in Residence—one is a STEM educator and one is an elementary school librarian who is working primarily with the Library’s audio visual collections.  We will post the application for the 2016-17 Teacher in Residence online in early 2016 at URL < www.loc.gov/teachers>.

Online Conference for Educators

The Library’s Education Outreach team offered its first online conference for educators, “The Library of Congress and Teachers: Unlocking the Power of Primary Sources,” on October 27-28, 2015 from 4:00 – 8:00 ET. Education experts and subject matter specialists facilitated 15 sessions presenting resources and teaching strategies for using primary sources in the classroom.  The event brought together more than 1500 educators from around the world, and all sessions were recorded.  They are now available at URL < www.loc.gov/teachers/professionaldevelopment/webinar/online-conference-2015.html>.

New Grants for the Creation of Civics Apps

In September 2015, the Library’s Educational Outreach team announced the selection of three organizations that will receive a total of $950,000 during the next two years to support the development of engaging web- and mobile-based applications on the subjects of Congress and civic participation, for use in K-12 classrooms.  For the press release, see URL < www.loc.gov/today/pr/2015/15-158.html>.

Student Discovery Sets

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

Summer Teacher Institutes

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

OFFICE OF THE CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICER

Personnel Changes

Bernard A. “Bud” Barton was appointed Chief Information Officer, effective Sept. 8, 2015.  The CIO is the Library’s senior information-technology leader, responsible for information-technology operations, strategy and alignment with the institution’s mission. As chief information officer, Barton also serves on the Library’s Executive Committee. Barton most recently served as chief information officer and deputy administrator of the Defense Technical Information Center (DTIC), the largest central resource for Department of Defense and government-funded research, development, technical and engineering information.

Judith Conklin was appointed Deputy Chief Information Officer for the Library, effective Dec. 28, 2015, after serving a year-long detail to the position.

National Digital Newspaper Program

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