ALA Midwinter 2017

Cooperative Cataloging Programs/Program for Cooperative Cataloging (PCC)

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

The PCC Policy Committee (PoCo) met at the Library Nov. 3-4, 2016. A highlight of the meeting was a visit from the new Librarian of Congress, Dr. Carla Hayden. The committee began planning for the PCC strategic planning session scheduled for 2017 and approved changes to the election process to allow PoCo members to serve as “at-large” representatives rather than as representatives of particular PCC programs. The PoCo also received updates on many of the PCC task groups working on linked data preparedness, identity management, and other topics. Outcomes are published at URL < https://www.loc.gov/aba/pcc/documents/PoCo-2016/PoCo-2016-Outcomes.docx>.

Two new PCC task groups were formed. The PCC Steering Committee established the PCC BIBFRAME Task Group to unify the efforts of BIBCO and CONSER in examining BIBFRAME 2.0 vocabulary; see URL  < https://www.loc.gov/aba/pcc/documents/PCC-BF-TG-Charge.docx>.

This task group comprises 28 members from 23 PCC institutions. Since August 2016, the group has been meeting on a monthly basis to carry outits charge. The PCC Standing Committee on Standards formed the Task Group on Supplements and Special Numbers to Serials to review policies for cataloging these materials; see URL < https://www.loc.gov/aba/pcc/documents/LC-PCC-PS-2.12-1-TF-charge.pdf> [PDF, 36 KB].

The NACO Program continues to grow. Four new NACO funnels were formed in 2016, with more than 20 institutional members: NACO Military Funnel; Illinois Public Library Funnel; North Texas Funnel; and Wisconsin Funnel. In September 2016, the PCC Secretariat hosted an online NACO training workshop for more than 40 attendees.

SACO participants now have program-sanctioned training in LCSH policies and practices through a series of online interactive training modules on the Cataloger’s Learning Workshop (CLW) web site, URL < https://www.loc.gov/catworkshop/lcsh/>.

The design for a new PCC directory was completed in 2016 and a contract is in place to build the directory by the end of fiscal year 2017. Each PCC institution and funnel coordinator will set up an institution or funnel profile in the system. The directory will be used to conduct elections, report BIBCO and CONSER statistics, and maintain contact and other information.

CYAC

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

Dewey Decimal Classification (DCC) at the Library of Congress

See Cataloging in Publication (CIP) and Dewey Program

eDeposit Program

See under COLLECTION DEVELOPMENT OFFICE

ISSN (International Standard Serial Number)

Karl Debus-López, chief of the US Programs, Law, and Literature Division at the Library of Congress, continues his third two-year term as Chair of the International Standard Serial Number (ISSN) Governing Board.  Regina Romano Reynolds is director of the U.S. ISSN Center, located in USPRLL.

ISSN Directors Meetings

The 41st Annual Meeting of Directors of ISSN Centres was held in Brasilia, Brazil, Nov. 7- 11, 2016.  Regina Reynolds, represented the U.S. The meeting was hosted by the Instituto Brasileiro de Informaçào em Ciência e Tecnologia (IBICT), a science and technology institute that hosts the ISSN Centre for Brazil. Key topics were: promoting ISSN use and coverage in Latin America; evolution of the ISSN Network; and revision of the ISSN standard to allow the ISSN to better identify digital continuing resources and function well in the linked data environment. Development of a customer relations management system at the ISSN International Centre in Paris, France (ISSN IC) that would allow, among other functions, the IC to charge for ISSN assignments was presented. Another discussion centered on opening a portion of ISSN data to provide free access to ISSN metadata in support of ISSN use in linked data applications. The 2017 meeting will be held in Rabat, Morocco, and the 2018 meeting will be in Washington, D.C., at the invitation of the Library of Congress.

Revision of the ISSN Standard

An International Organization for Standardization (ISO) ballot to open the ISSN Standard, ISO 3207, for a systematic revision was approved. A working group is being formed to update the standard to better accommodate developments in the digital environment that have taken place since the last revision in 2007. The ISSN IC’s proposed revision topics include clarifying how many ISSN to assign for multiple digital formats; providing interoperability with emerging identifiers such as ISNI (International Standard Name Identifier) and with ONIX for serials mandatory metadata; and preparing ISSN for a role in the linked data environment.

IEEE Project

With help from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of California San Diego, and the University of Colorado, the project to catalog and assign ISSN to more than 500 IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) conference publications is continuing.

Law Cataloging

In fiscal 2016, the Law Section processed books in 77 languages, creating 12,142 new bibliographic records, not including reclassed items. The top five languages received were English (6,180, or 39 percent), Spanish (2,334, or 15 percent), Chinese (1,174, or seven percent), German (777, or five percent), and Portuguese (710, or five percent).

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

Literature Section staff members continue to work on the goals of keeping the CYAC (Children’s and Young Adults’ Cataloging Program) web site up-to-date and correct, exploring social media options for promoting the CYAC Program and its activities, and identifying and encouraging catalogers in libraries with strong juvenile literature collections, or simply with an interest in the CYAC Program, to become ECIP Cataloging Partners.

The section gained two new librarians, one in October and one in December 2016.

Network Development and MARC Standards Office

Bibliographic Framework Initiative (BIBFRAME)

See under ACQUISITIONS AND BIBLIOGRAPHIC ACCESS DIRECTORATE

EDTF (Extended Date/Time Format)

In 2015 EDTF was accepted into the work program of ISO/TC 154 to be developed as Part 2 of the universally used basic date standard, ISO 8601. An international working group is actively pursuing the standardization.

LC Linked Data Service (ID) <id.loc.gov>

Library of Congress Linked Data Service (LDS/ID) provides a Web service interface for developers–whether local or external to LC–to programmatically interact with data values commonly found in standards promulgated by LC. The service’s initial launch, in fiscal 2009, provided access to the Library of Congress Subject Headings. In fiscal 2010 several additional lists were made available: Thesaurus for Graphic Materials;MARC Relator codes; and several preservation vocabularies. In fiscal 2011, NDMSO added the LC Name Authority File (8 million records), and in fiscal 2012-2015 several classification schedules and a variety of services were added to ID in order to use the data in support of MARC and PREMIS metadata standards and the BIBFRAME Pilot. NDMSO will continue to publish data value lists at ID, which has become a model for Linked Data not only within the library community but also the broader semantic Web community.

In fiscal 2016, NDMSO staff continued improvement of the LDS/ID with new URI caching and purging mechanisms to improve access and new security policy and metrics. Work was begun to build a new server environment to host ID on the Marklogic 8 platform. A review and revamping of programs for loading and publishing datasets in ID to achieve the objectives of improved efficiency and consistency, and to take advantage of the capabilities in the new Marklogic 8 environment, was begun with contractor support.

Several changes were made to a number of datasets to enhance accuracy and access. The most significant change was the improvement of Library of Congress Demographic Group Terms (LCDGT) toallow terms to be collocated at a broad level. Other changes included enhancing definitions and adding versioning. To keep up to date with a major new revision of PREMIS (version 3), five new PREMIS datasets were added to ID.

ID makes vocabularies available in RDF and other semantic-oriented formats. NDMSO leveraged the system, which averages over 300,000 page view and machine-only visits per day, to support the BIBFRAME Pilot. In support of BIBFRAME, NDMSO added information to BIBFRAME records, fixed Real World Object (RWO) display issues, and migrated BIBFRAME vocabulary to ID.In May 2016 new batch downloads of the RDF Name Authority File and LCSH were made available.

MARC 21 formats

NDMSO supported the MARC 21 environment with public vetting of change proposals and discussion papers.

MODS (Metadata Object Description Schema) and MADS (Metadata Authority Description Schema)

Supporting documentation (Guidelines, Outline, and updated XSLT’s) for MODS 3.6, which was released in 2015, was published on the NDMSO web site with the XSLT’s also put on LC’s GitHub account. Issues/fixes for MODS 3.6 were tracked and discussed for the next revision (3.7). A draft of MADS 2.1 was completed, the stimulus for which was the addition of RDA elements. It was  reviewed and tested in June 2016 by the MODS/MADS Editorial Committee, with community review planned for July and release in August 2016. Changes were actually approved in September 2016 and release of MADS 2.1 is expected soon in 2017. Additional MADS issues under consideration included assuring that MADS is in sync with MODS and better coordinating the MADS in RDF and BF specs. MADSRDF was augmented to allow many more “Real World Object” elements (primarily related to RDA) to be conveyed, building toward a more robust division between authority labels and real object information.

PREMIS (Preservation Metadata Implementation Strategies)

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

SRU search protocol

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

Policy and Standards

Merger of PSD and COIN divisions

In July 2016, the Director for Acquisitions and Bibliographic Access, Beacher Wiggins, began a process to merge two ABA divisions: the Policy & Standards Division and the Cooperative and Instructional Programs Division. These divisions are prime candidates for merging because of the overlap, intersection, and related tasks carried out by the staff of both divisions. These include the focus on standards; sharing cataloging policy decisions; responding to queries from the cataloging community; interacting with internal and external constituents as LC experts; providing training and briefings; and producing/maintaining documentation. A new organizational structure is under consideration for completion by the close of 2017.

ALA-LC Romanization Tables

In the past year, one proposed new table was approved. A proposed new Deseret table, from Kjerste Christensen of Brigham Young University, was approved by ALA ALCTS CC:DA (Committee on Cataloging: Description and Access). Ongoing exploration of additional enhancements to the Japanese table was supported by Library of Congress staff. A minor correction to the Ukrainian table was posted in December 2016. A revision of the Mongolian table is being developed by Wayne Richter, Western Washington University. No completion target date has been set.
All current ALA-LC romanization tables are available at URL < www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/roman.html>, as well as in Cataloger’s Desktop. Any questions about romanization table development should be directed to Bruce Johnson at bjoh@loc.gov.

Cataloger’s Desktop

Over the past six months, the focus on Cataloger’s Desktop development has been on enhancing search and retrieval through two major projects. The first project, “Query suggestions,” enables Desktop to anticipate what the searcher wants by typing ahead as searches are entered into the searchbox. For example, if “ser” is typed into the searchbox, a dropdown box appears just below the searchbox with up to 8 suggested queries and 5 suggested Cataloger’s Desktop resource titles. Each suggested query or title highlights matches to what you’ve typed in the searchbox and can be selected by either left mouse-clicking or using the down arrow key and then clicking “enter.” This feature also takes advantage of Desktop's fuzzy matching capabilities (e.g. “serr” will retrieve “serials”).

The second project, “Metadata enhancement,” makes Cataloger's Desktop searches narrower, better focused, and more precise by programmatically enhancing metadata attached to Desktop resources. The change involved generating a terminology dictionary created from glossaries, dictionaries, and term lists recommended by roughly two dozen subject matter experts from inside and outside LC. These terms were deduped, and generic or ambiguous terms were removed from the resulting vocabulary. Once the vocabulary was complete, it was indexed against the 330+ Cataloger's Desktop resources, and metadata were added at the paragraph level. The resulting metadata support dramatically improved access without requiring the searcher to use the “right” terminology. This vocabulary has also been added to Desktop's suggested search feature, which enables Desktop to anticipate what the searcher is looking for.

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

Library of Congress-Program for Cooperative Cataloging Policy Statements

The RDA Toolkit release in August 2016 contained 43 new, revised, or deleted LC-PCC PSs developed by PSD staff in conjunction with the PCC Standing Committee on Standards. There were six updates in the October 2016 release. Summaries for each LC-PCC PS release are available at URL < www.loc.gov/aba/rda/lcps_access.html>. The next release will be in February 2017.

Law of Indigenous Peoples

Subclass KIL, Law of Indigenous Peoples of Mexico, is now in its final form and is fully authorized for use. Proposals for additions or changes to KIL may now be submitted through the proposal system in Classification Web following normal procedures. Drafts of classification schedules for the indigenous law of Belize, El Salvador, and Nicaragua have been completed. Schedules for the indigenous law of Honduras and Guatemala are in the initial draft stage.

Indigenous Law Portal

Between February and December 2016, the Indigenous Law Portal was visited 23,371 times, with 46,331 individual page views. The users were from 144 countries; the six countries with the highest number of users were: United States (87 percent of users); Canada (2 percent); United Kingdom (1 percent); and India, Australia, and Germany (0.8 percent of users each).

Online Training for LCSH

In cooperation with the Simmons College School of Library and Information Science, PSD is developing free online training in Library of Congress Subject Headings. The training is being developed primarily to meet internal training needs of the Library of Congress, but it is also being made freely available through the Cataloger’s Learning Workshop as a service to the library community. Training units are divided into two or more modules, each of which consists of a lecture and one or more exercises or quizzes. Technology requirements include an Internet connection and the ability to play audio and video files. The initial modules have been mounted on the Catalogers Learning Workshop web site, URL < www.loc.gov/catworkshop/LCSH>.  Since ALA 2016 Annual Conference, a unit on the Subject Headings Manual and another describing types of headings (e.g., chronological headings; corporate names as subjects) and their application have been added.

The instructors are Janis L. Young, MA MSLS, a senior cataloging policy specialist in PSD, and Daniel N. Joudrey, MLIS, Ph. D., an associate professor at Simmons.  Questions or comments about the training may be directed to Janis L. Young at jayo@loc.gov.

Subject Heading Illegal aliens

In 2014 and again in early 2016, the Library of Congress was asked to change the LC subject heading Illegal aliens. The proposal was not accepted in 2014. When the Library was asked in 2016, cataloging policy specialists again examined the ways that illegal activities and objects are represented in Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH). The Library has done extensive research on alternate headings based on survey feedback and additional research based on literary warrant. A final decision is pending but not expected to be announced until late January. The decision will be announced through the normal process.

Art Genre/Form Project

PSD continues to partner with the Art Libraries Society of North America to develop art genre/form terms that will be added to Library of Congress Genre/Form Terms for Library and Archival Materials (LCGFT).

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.  Phase 3 of the LCDGT pilot has been extended through the end of 2017. Proposals for terms that are needed in new cataloging only are being accepted. Because of 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, which is available at URL  < www.loc.gov/aba/publications/FreeLCDGT/freelcdgt.html>.

SACO members should use the Proposal System when making proposals and send an email to saco@loc.gov to inform Coop staff that the proposals are ready, according to the normal procedure. Questions or comments about the pilot may be directed to Janis L. Young at jayo@loc.                                              

Library of Congress Acquisitions and Cataloging Production

Library Services / Collections and Services Directorate (CS)

Major activities of the Collections and Services directorate include developing the Library’s collections in all languages, subjects areas and formats; organizing and managing the secure storage of over 160 million items in the Library’s collections; physically serving requested collections and currently providing on-site as well as off-site reference/information services through 17 research centers and collection access points on Capitol Hill and via the Internet; and coordinating collections-based digitization projects to increase public access to high-research value Library materials. The Library’s 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 increases 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., at the Packard Campus in Culpeper, Va., at the Landover annex in Landover, Md., and at the Cabin Branch storage facility near Clarksburg, Md.  

African and Middle Eastern Division

The African and Middle Eastern Division (AMED) marked the 25th anniversary of the modern Armenian Republic at its annual Vardanant Day Event on Sept. 21, 2016, with a major presentation by Christina Maranci of Tufts University on “A World Monument: Zvart’nots’, Armenia, and the Wars of the Seventh Century.”  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 Librarians (AJL).  The “Conversations with African Poets and Writers” series continued for its fifth year in 2016, is co-sponsored with the Poetry and Literature Center in partnership with the Africa Society of the National Summit on Africa.

Asian Division

Victoria “Tori” Hill retired as assistant chief of the Asian Division, effective July 29, 2016. 

Humanities and Social Sciences Division

A new version of the Ask a Librarian home page is now available at URL < https://ask.loc.gov/>.  Key changes include:

• The link to “General Inquiries”  is at the top of the page to welcome any and all queries from people who don’t have time to choose a more specific Ask a Librarian form. As needed, the Digital Reference Team will continue to quickly re-route inquiries to other Ask a Librarian accounts.
• The list of the 26 specialized Ask A Librarian forms is streamlined for easier viewing and selection of the relevant contact point.

On Jan. 25, 2017, the Library will host Dr. Daniel Russell, Google’s Senior Research Scientist for Search Quality & User Happiness, for a talk entitled “Why Library & Research Skills Matter to Everyone”. His talk will be at 10:00 am in the Mumford Room of the James Madison Memorial Building. That afternoon, Dr. Russell will offer an advanced research skills workshop for reference librarians.  Enrollment is full.

Music Division

Robin Rauch was appointed head of Reader Services, Music Division, effective July 25, 2016.

Damian Iseminger, was appointed Head of the Bibliographic Access Section, Music Division, effective Jan. 9, 2017.  He came to LC from the New England Conservatory where he was the Head of Cataloging and Electronic Resource Management.

The Music Division’s concert series is highly visible, critically acclaimed and draws an impressively wide demographic range of patrons to the Library.  95 individual events were included in the 90th anniversary season n 2015-16.  A substantial gift from the Reva and David Logan Foundation funded jazz concerts and residencies for a special project in spring 2016, including a commission for the composer and bandleader Maria Schneider. The Music Division’s In the Muse blog and the Performing Arts at the Library of Congress Facebookpage continue to reach constituencies.

Serial and Government Publications Division (SER)

Collection Activities

With an increased funding allocation for microfilm reformatting of newspapers beginning October 2015, SER has begun to address the backlog of newsprint issues (newspapers and periodicals) needing preservation microfilming. The division participates in the Library’s preservation microfilming program, filming titles that are not available for commercial purchase. Since of the titles filmed are from developing countries and ethnic US communities and are held by few, if any, other US institutions, filming SER’s issues makes the titles available for interlibrary loan.

SER acquired several significant additions to its collections in the past year.   By way of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Small Press Expo (SPX), the Division continued to acquire by donation additional items (including award-winning websites) from creators participating in the 2016 SPX annual expo, totaling 893 items. At the Division’s fifth annual SPX program, speaker Gary Groth, legendary comic book editor, publisher, and a founder of Fantagraphics Books, recounted the history of Fantagraphics, as it grew from a small, upstart press operating in College Park, Md., into the influential and noteworthy publisher it is today, celebrating its 40th anniversary. 

Other noteworthy acquisitions in 2016 include:

• The first 32 issues of the Tree of Liberty, the second newspaper published in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, covering August 16, 1800-March 21, 1801.  The Tree of Liberty began during the campaign for the election of 1800.
• One volume of The Amherst Journal, and the New-Hampshire Advertiser, Jan. 16, 1794- Jan. 9, 1796, a rare complete run of the title. The Library is the only institution with a complete run.
• An early issue of The Boston News-Letter, June 12, 1760, with reporting of the French and Indian War.
• Three issues of the Pennsylvania Gazette from 1778 (February 1, March 4, and March 14, 1778) printed on Benjamin Franklin's press by Hall and Sellers in York, Pa., the headquarters of the Continental Congress at the time.
• 14 Golden and Silver Age comics purchased by a Madison Council member in honor of his grandchildren.  The six early Superman issues from its first year of publication (no.3-4, 7-10) and eight comic books featuring Silver Age firsts for the Fantastic Four (no.1-4), X-Men (no.1-2, 4), and the Incredible Hulk (no.1) comprise the Comic Collection Donated in Honor of Frankie Darrow, Birdie Darrow, and Samuel Furman.
• Golden Age comic book issues of All-Star Comics, Wonder Woman, and Miss Fury containing early appearances of iconic American superheroes.
• Seven new subscriptions were recommended and placed: one print periodical, four microfilm periodicals, and two microfilm newspaper titles.

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 public domain 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 154,000 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 awardee institution is responsible for selecting, digitizing, and delivering 100,000 newspaper pages representing its state and regional history using technical specifications established by the Library. The new 2016 awardees–Alaska, Colorado, Maine and New Jersey--joined 22 other states currently participating in the program. These states and territories include California, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Nebraska, Nevada, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Puerto Rico, South Dakota, Texas, West Virginia and Wisconsin. Other states–Arizona, Hawaii, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, New Mexico, New York, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, and Washington–have “graduated” from the program, no longer receiving awards, but continue to be involved in program activities. In fiscal 2016, the Library of Congress added approximately 151,498 pages from its own collection to the site. 

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 26 active awardees in various stages of data production.

In specific accomplishments this year, NDNP added more than 1.28 million pages to the Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers web site, providing full-text access to a total 11.2 million newspaper pages published between 1789 and 1922 (approximately 45 million digital items), representing 2,104 selected newspapers in 38 states, Puerto Rico, and the District of Columbia. The site now hosts 129 titles with more than 354,000 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 (approximately 220,000 pages), with additional contributions in Finnish (3,200 pages), French (28,000 pages), Italian (6,400 pages), and Spanish (96,000 pages). More than 1,100 unique newspaper history essays written by awardees and edited by NEH describe the selected digitized titles. User traffic to  Chronicling America totaled 3.8 million visits and 40.8 million page views in fiscal 2016.

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/>.

NEH has solicited proposals from institutions to participate in the National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP) in 2017, at URL < www.neh.gov/grants/preservation/national-digital-newspaper-program>.  Proposals were due to NEH by Jan. 12, 2017.

Orientation and Outreach

SER sponsors an hour-long orientation to its collections and its reading room, the Newspaper and Current Periodical Reading Room, the last Tuesday of each month at 10:00 am. Members of the general public are welcome. In addition, SER organizes special orientations and tours for university classes and other groups with interests related to the collections. In addition, the  Chronicling America weekly RSS (Real Simple Syndication) feed service notifies subscribers of content updates, new services and interesting highlights of the collection. Almost 22,000 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 2016, there were 35 new Topics Pages featuring Badminton, Ida B. Wells, Native American Education, 16th Amendment, and Planes of World War One, among others.

Library Services / Preservation Directorate (PRESERV)

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

The vacant Library of Congress Director for Preservation position was not filled in 2016. The position was newly posted in December 2016 and interviews are anticipated to take place during January and February 2017.

Outreach

The Preservation Directorate web site (URL: < https://www.loc.gov/preservation/>) is the Library’s main portal into its many collections preservation activities. Recent work to the site includes functional and content edits to reflect less of the Library’s organizational structure, to better integrate the Library’s digital preservation efforts across the Library, and to highlight the Library’s service as the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) Strategic Programme for Preservation and Conservation (PAC) regional center for the U.S. and Canada. Since July 2014, the Library has worked in collaboration with the Foundation of the American Institute for Conservation to bulk-distribute the Emergency Response and Salvage Wheel (Spanish version). During that time nearly 8,000 wheels have been distributed. Additional and ongoing site improvements aim to improve relevance, usability, and navigation, and to further the Library’s strategic plan to lead in the advancement of knowledge.

Select Presentations and Publications include Sylvia Rogers Albro’s book Fabriano: City of Medieval and Renaissance Papermaking (Delaware: Oak Knoll Press in Association with the Library of Congress, 2016); Jeanne Drewes’s presentation “The Unlucky Ditch,” a panel on Disaster Preparedness and Response at the Florence Flood, 1966: A Fifty-Year Retrospective Symposium at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Mich., Nov. 3-4, 2016; and Fenella France’s presentation “Expanding Capabilities of Existing Spectral Imaging Technologies for Cultural Heritage,” presented at the Materials Research Symposium (MRS), Boston, Mass., November 2016.

Education Opportunities

The Preservation Directorate planned and managed programs that brought professionals at different levels of their careers to the Library for practical experience and training in areas of preservation and preservation research expertise. For example:

• The Conservation Division (CD) is hosting two Advanced Conservation Interns: a conservation graduate program intern in book conservation from the University of the Arts London/Camberwell College of Arts and a conservation graduate program intern in paper conservation from University College London.
• The Preservation Research and Testing Division (PRTD) hosted a total of 11 interns, fellows and visiting scholars. Four junior summer fellows, a University of Washington science graduate student, one CLIR/Mellon doctoral fellow, and a CLIR/Mellon postdoctoral fellow and a UK doctoral student.
• The PRTD Chief, Fenella France, is teaching a Masters level Preservation Course for the Catholic University of America (CUA) Department of Library and Information Science.

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

In August 2016, BCCD led the Directorate’s work to host the preconference co-sponsored by IFLA’s Preservation and Conservation Section and PAC, held in the James Madison Memorial Building prior to the 2016 IFLA World Congress in Columbus, Ohio, on the topic of high-density and environmentally secure storage for library materials.

The program offered 65 international delegates tours of the facilities at Ft. Meade and the Packard Campus to learn about the Library’s unique challenges for its large number and variety of materials, its storage space within its historic buildings, and a view of a state-of-the-art facility for audio-visual materials preservation. Fourteen countries were in attendance, with the U.S. having the largest contingent. Papers and presentations from the preconference will be available in the near future on the IFLA web site: http://iflapac.2016preconference.org/programme/ External

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.

In October 2016, the last items in the Rosa Parks Papers that remained in Conservation received their final treatment: two heart-shaped birthday cards to “Auntie Rosa” from her nephew, with words spelled out in rice and puffed cereal. They were housed in sealed packages made of acid-free sink mats sealed between acrylic sheets.  The food materials are now segregated from the collection, and the vulnerable and fragile objects may be safely handled or exhibited. With the completion of this treatment, the Conservation Division has processed all Rosa Parks materials in preparation for their digitization.

Preservation Reformatting Division (PRD)

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

In fiscal 2017 PRD will finalize planning and implement a pilot project to digitize foreign newsprint from the originals. The pilot will center on up to three sample sets of deliverables, each from a different vendor, to both test the vendors’ ability to produce the intended product and to evaluate the Library’s internal processes. PRD is working with stakeholder Library divisions to select content that will provide each vendor with content with similar characteristics (language, size, physical condition, etc.), and a similar page count (from 50,000 to 100,000 pages per vendor). In addition to JPEG 2000 master files, metadata (XML, using NDNP schema) and OCR (ALTO), project deliverables include a final report from each vendor detailing (though not limited to) summary results of the project, successful workflow strategies employed and conclusions and lessons learned.

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 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). Quality assurance has expanded to include a wide range of building materials with a focus on assessing “green” certified materials.
An exciting development for PRTD was the reverse engineering of wax cylinders that allowed us to recognize that these materials are chemically stable but very susceptible to changes in temperature. Small incremental changes in temperature can be responsible for causing the cracking seen in historic cylinders, leading to a recommendation to control and slow temperature change when materials are being moved from cold or cool storage to ambient temperatures.

PRTD staff were unfunded co-awardees on a $350,000 National Endowment for the Humanities grant with George Washington University and Catholic University of America to research glass degradation for flutes and 19th century glass.

Library Services / Technology Policy Directorate (TECH)

Alvert Banks was appointed director for technology policy, effective Dec. 25, 2016.
Beth Dulabahn was appointed chief of the new Digital Collections Management and Services Division, effective Dec. 25, 2016

Digital Collections Management and Services Division (DCMS)

In June 2016 the Digital Collections Management & Services Division (DCMS) was created within the Technology Policy Directorate. The division is tasked with providing leadership, infrastructure, support, and coordination for the acquisition, management and preservation of digital collections. Primary areas of responsibility for the new division include lifecycle management of digital collections not within scope of other curatorial divisions in Library Services, digital lifecycle management support for other curatorial divisions, formulation and administration of policy related to the Library’s digital collections, and web harvesting and digitization support, including execution of digitization contracts and formulation of digitization specifications. The new division will play a critical role as the Library expands its digital collections.

Federal Agencies Digitization Guidelines Initiative (FADGI)

Since 2007, FADGI, a collaborative group of 20 federal agencies led by the Library of Congress, has focused on developing technical guidelines, methods, and practices for the digitization of historical content in a sustainable manner. After 10 years and many successful projects, the FADGI Still Image and Audio-Visual working groups are expanding their scope to include selected aspects of born digital content alongside content reformatted through digitization. To reflect this growing area of interest and FADGI’s broadened scope, members approved a proposal in September 2016 to change the meaning of the acronym FADGI from the Federal Agencies Digitization Guidelines Initiative to the Federal Agencies Digital Guidelines Initiative. The name change went into effect in early 2017 and is supported with a new logo and a streamlining of the FADGI Web site, which retains the former URL < www.digitizationguidelines.gov>

Starting in 2017, published FADGI guidelines will carry the CC0 1.0 Universal External license to declare unambiguously that the work is available for worldwide use and reuse. Because FADGI work is the product of U.S. federal government personnel in the scope of their employment and therefore not subject to copyright in the United States (17 U.S.C. §105), FADGI work products have always been in the public domain. The inclusion of the CC0 1.0 Universal license, however, clarifies the Public Domain Dedication for both U.S. and international users of the FADGI guidelines.

FADGI Still Image Working Group Activities

The 2016 revised Guidelines for Digitizing Cultural Heritage Materials were published in September and are available on the FADGI web site. These updated and expanded guidelines provide extensive guidance for digitizing a wide range of cultural heritage materials. These guidelines are fully compliant with new ISO cultural heritage digitization standards recently approved for publication.

OpenDICE  is a new edition of the DICE (Digital Image Conformance Evaluation) digitization quality conformance monitoring tool that has been used by FADGI members for several years. OpenDICE has passed validation testing and is available on the FADGI web site. This tool has all the essential features of DICE, and is available as open source at no cost.

FADGI Audio-Visual Working Group Activities

The Audio-Visual Working Group continued its development on the new draft of the AS-07 MXF application specification.  AS-07 provides a detailed profile for a digital file "wrapper," one key part of a digital file format for audio-visual preservation. The specification includes a list of permitted encoded content bitstreams; defines a means for the carriage of multiple timecodes; the handling of captions, subtitles, and timed text; a minimal core metadata set; program segmentation metadata; and embedded content integrity data.

The MXF AS-07 project achieved two milestones in the last six months. In early July 2016, the broadcast industry trade group Advanced Media Workflow Association (AMWA) approved AS-07 as a formal Proposed Specification, a significant advancement towards full acceptance as an industry-wide specification. In early September 2016, the working group released a set of graded sample files for testing and implementation purposes and several major software vendors have provided helpful feedback. As of late December 2016, the files have been downloaded over 80 times. Two noteworthy outcomes from the availability of the sample files is their use by the open source community to build, for the first time, capability for MXF files, and specifically AS-07 files, in widely-used tools including MediaInfo, a metadata reader, and MediaConch, a format validation tool funded by the European Preforma project. Further collaborations with the open source community are in development to align preservation capabilities in additional file formats including ffv1 and Matroska which will expand the Library’s investment in AS-07’s research.

In December 2016, the Audio-Visual Working Group released for public comment draft embedded file metadata recommendations for the DPX (Digital Picture Exchange) format, most often used to store imagery data from scanned motion picture film. The project, which also includes supporting technical analysis of sample DPX file headers from a wide variety of film scanners in use at federal agencies and beyond, outlines FADGI implementations of the SMPTE Core required fields as well as other elements Strongly Recommended, Recommended or Optional for FADGI use. The non-Core fields take advantage of existing header structures and define new metadata elements for the User Defined fields to document, among other things, digitization process history. This project is led by staff from the National Museum of African American History and Culture, with significant participation from NARA, NASA Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center, Smithsonian American Art Museum and the Library of Congress including the Technology Policy Directorate, American Folklife Center and Packard Campus.

Integrated Library System Program Office (ILSPO)

Integrated Library System

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

New Responsive Design in LC Online Catalog

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

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

Web metrics informed many of the decisions in the re-design.  Standard Web features that are familiar to smart phone users are now in use in the OPAC.  While the underlying functionality and indexing have not changed, the new user interface improves the usability of the catalog for all users, no matter how they access it.

The new design incorporates the Library’s 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. Library developers have also 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.

Market Research for Next Generation ILS

In 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 (catalog.loc.gov), enables researchers to reference materials from the Library's collection in blogs, reference guides, web pages, emails, bibliographies, and more.  In 2016 the Library moved LCCN Permalink for bibliographic records to a responsive design platform and implemented Secure Sockets Layer. During the year the Library resolved more than 15,000 LCCN Permalink requests daily.

LC EAD (Encoded Archival Description) Archival Finding Aids

Since January 2016, Collections and Services divisions created 58 new EAD archival finding aids, bringing the total number of LC EAD finding aids to 2,346.  At URL < findingaids.loc.gov>, users can access 63.6 million archival items in LC's collections through these documents. More than 5,000 digital objects in 29 finding aids are also integrated with the Library’s digital collection presentations.  The EAD Technical Team has also initiated an EAD3 conversion project.

LC Persistent Identifiers

Library staff registered approximately 200,485 handles in fiscal 2016. As of January 2017, the Library's handle server contained 3,846,680 handles, which are assigned to born digital resources stored by the Library’s digital repository applications and to content digitized for LC cooperative projects, U.S. legislation searchable in congress.gov, and digital books created by the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped. More than 28.75 million requests were processed by LC’s handle server in 2016.

Electronic Resource Management System (ERMS)

The Library’s Electronic Resource Management System provides access to electronic journals, e-books and databases from 1,927 resource collections, totaling more than one million titles. The Library maintained metadata for 1,037,300 titles and updated journal coverage entries, typically loading 1,700,000 coverage records monthly. The ERMS successfully fulfilled 1,549,378 search requests in fiscal 2016.

Acquiring content for the Library’s digital collections

A major focus of the ILS Program Office’s activity in 2016 was the ingest and management of digital collections.  Holdings records for deposited digital e-journals through the Copyright eDeposit Project are updated in the LC ILS and persistent identifiers (handles) are assigned as the content is ingested from publishers—for 10,412 e-serials ingested in fiscal 2016. See also under COLLECTION DEVELOPMENT OFFICE.

The Library continued its intake of e-books through the Cataloging in Publication (CIP) Program, adding 2,367 books in EPUB and PDF formats to the Library’s collection. The CIP e-book program also expanded the number of participating publishers to 727, including large, small and academic publishers.

See also under ACQUISITIONS AND BIBLIOGRAPHIC ACCESS DIRECTORATE/ Cataloging in Publication (CIP) and Dewey Program

HathiTrust Authentication via Shibboleth

In 2016, the Library of Congress implemented a new method for staff and patrons to access materials in the HathiTrust. The Library is a member of the HathiTrust, a partnership of academic and research institutions, offering a collection of millions of titles digitized from libraries around the world. The HathiTrust Digital Library is a digital preservation repository that provides access to digital content. Library of Congress 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 < http://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 < http://www.hathitrust.org/out-of-print-brittle External >).

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

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

NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL OUTREACH

Pam Jackson, formerly deputy assistant director for the Government and Finance Division at the Congressional Research Service, became director of the Center for the Book in June 2016. John Cole, after 39 years as CFB director, became Historian of the Library of Congress.
Edward L. (Ted) Widmer was appointed director of the Kluge Center, effective Oct. 2.
Joe Cappello was appointed chief operating officer, National and International Outreach, effective Oct. 2. 

GERSHWIN PRIZE FOR POPULAR SONG

A star-studded concert honoring this year’s recipient of the Library’s Gershwin Prize took place Wednesday, Nov. 16, 2016 at DAR Constitution Hall, Washington, D.C. Smokey Robinson is the ninth winner of the Gershwin Prize, which recognizes lifetime achievement in songwriting. Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden presented Robinson with the award at the concert which capped two days of events. The concert will be aired on PBS (Public Broadcasting System) stations nationwide at 9:00 pm, Friday, Feb. 9, 2017.

THE GEORGIAN PAPERS PROGRAMME

see also SCHOLARLY AND EDUCATIONAL PROGRAMS DIRECTORATE/ Intern and Fellowship Programs

On Oct. 25, 2016, Carla Hayden signed her first international agreement as Librarian of Congress–partnering the Library of Congress with the United Kingdom’s Royal Library and King’s College, London to digitize the papers of King George III (1738-1820), the English monarch who reigned when the 13 British colonies in America declared independence. Under the agreement, National and International Outreach is supporting a National Digital Stewardship Residency Program (NDSR) fellow who will split time between London and Washington to analyze the existing and proposed metadata for historical materials from this era, including the King George III papers at Windsor Castle, which have largely never been seen by the public. Overall, the Georgian Papers Programme External aims to build an open online collection containing nearly 350,000 digitized items from the Royal Archives. In addition to the NDSR fellowship, the Library will ultimately host a conference to bring together American and British researchers and historians and an LOC public exhibition of original papers of both George Washington and King George III.

NATIONAL ENTERPRISES DIRECTORATE

Business Enterprises / Cataloging Distribution Service

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

In November 2016, CDS launched an open-access version of its robust MARC distribution service. The new provision, called MDSConnect, makes available the Library’s 2014 retrospective files and provides access to Books All, Classification, Computer Files, Maps, Music, Name Authorities, Serials, Subject Authorities and Visual Materials. Nearly 25 million MARC records are available in three formats: UTF8, MARC8 and XML. The service is cloud-hosted through the Amazon Workdocs file sharing services. The open-access data is being made available primarily for research and development, at no cost to users and can be easily downloaded. Read more about MDSConnect at URL < https://www.loc.gov/cds/products/marcDist.php>.

Users of Classification Web and Cataloger’s Desktop should anticipate improved integration between the two services this year. We are developing a new design that will harmonize the “search” experience between the two services. The harmonized design will allow those who subscribe to both services “one-stop searching,” which should save significant time.

Business Enterprises / LC Shop

The Library’s Retail operation is expanding its public outreach. Marketing initiatives include broadening our licensing portfolio, as well as expanding distribution through wholesaling our exclusive product assortment.  We are actively seeking non-exclusive opportunities. To learn more about these opportunities, please contact retail@loc.gov.

Federal Research Division

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

FEDLINK

The Federal Library and Information Network (FEDLINK) is an organization of federal agencies working together to achieve best 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.

Awards

To honor the innovative ways in which federal libraries, librarians and library technicians fulfill the information needs of government, businesses, researchers, scholarly communities and the American public, the Federal Library and Information Network (FEDLINK) has opened nominations for its national awards for federal librarianship for fiscal 2016. The award winners will be honored for their contributions to federal library and information service at the FEDLINK Spring Expo in Washington, D.C., on May 9, 2017. For nomination materials, visit the Awards Working Group section of the FEDLINK website or e-mail fliccfpe@loc.gov. The nomination packet includes the nomination form, selection criteria and a list of needed supporting materials. All completed nominations must be emailed to fliccfpe@loc.gov no later than 11:59 p.m. on Jan. 27, 2017.

Nominations are being accepted for these awards:

Federal Library/Information Center of the Year

This award commends the library or information center for outstanding, innovative and sustained achievements during fiscal 2016 in fulfilling its organization's mission, fostering innovation in its services and meeting the needs of its users. FEDLINK awards are given to both small library/information centers (with staff of 10 or fewer federal and/or contract employees) and larger library/information centers (with staff of 11 or more federal and/or contract employees). All nominations must be made on behalf of an entire library or information center (e.g., a main or branch library or information center).

Federal Librarian of the Year

This award honors a federal librarian who demonstrates active and innovative leadership and professionalism in the promotion and development of library and information services during fiscal year 2016. The nominee must be a federal employee and a practicing librarian in a federal library or information center.

Federal Library Technician of the Year

This award recognizes the achievements of a federal library technician during fiscal year 2016 for exceptional technical competency and flexibility under changing work conditions. The nominee must be a federal employee and a practicing paraprofessional or library technician in a federal library or information center.

For more information, see URL < https://www.loc.gov/flicc/FliccForum/index_forumandwards.html> or send an email to fliccfpe@loc.gov.

Publishing Office

The Library will kick off National Library Week (April 9-15, 2017) with the release of a new illustrated history of the card catalog. Published by Chronicle Books in association with the Library of Congress, The Card Catalog: Books, Cards, and Literary Treasures External traces the history of the catalog from its origins 5,000 years ago to the present. The book features a foreword from Carla Hayden, Librarian of Congress, and includes more than 200 images of original catalog cards, rare edition book covers, and photographs. Learn more in the Publishing Office’s Celebrating Books brochure, which will be available at the LC booth.

The Publishing Office is developing an e-book publishing strategy for the Library. The Library of Congress eBook Publishing Program will standardize the process of content selection, format, workflow, accessibility guidelines, and business models for eBook content published by the Library and made available on the Library web site. The program is intended to facilitate off-site discoverability and accessibility of public domain publications--especially digitized titles from Library collections--and to make maximum use of various digitization efforts throughout the Library. Recommendations and a proposed path forward will follow the Jan. 31, 2016 conclusion of the Discovery/Initiation phase. Colleen Shogan, Blane Dessy, and Becky Brasington Clark have been invited to participate in several sessions at ALA Annual Conference to explore potential e-book sharing initiatives with DPLA and the New York Public Library.

NATIONAL PROGRAMS DIRECTORATE

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

Guidelines for Braille and Talking Book Service

The revision of the 2011 ALA ASCLA (Association of Specialized and Cooperative Library Agencies) Revised Standards and Guidelines of Service for the Library of Congress Network of Libraries for the Blind and Physically Handicapped is underway with the Working Committee preparing for a meeting in January 2017. The working committee, including chief of the NLS Network Division, Richard Smith, presented the plans for the update at the NLS National Conference and requested input from the network of cooperating libraries. The working committee submitted the first official draft in August 2016 for comment.

Next Generation NLS Service

NLS is laying the groundwork for the next generation of talking book and braille service. Plans include introduction of refreshable braille devices into the program, and development of the next generation of talking book machines.

NLS BARD

NLS’s Braille and Audio Reading Download (BARD) system now contains over 100,000 book and magazine titles in braille and talking book formats. These titles are available via download to all NLS patrons using BARD Mobile on iOS and Android devices or via download from the web. Titles are also all available through NLS’s 100 network libraries upon request.

Center for the Book (CFB)

Center for the Book Turns 40

In October 2017, the Center for the Book will mark its 40th anniversary with special programming.

Books & Beyond

The Center for the Book continues its popular book series, Books & Beyond, which features authors who have researched their works at the Library of Congress. In the past year, 20 programs have been offered. They can be found in webcasts at http://www.read.gov/webcasts/

Letters About Literature

The Center is a longtime sponsor of the Letters About Literature contest which encourages children in grades 4 through 12 to write a letter to an author (living or dead) explaining how that writer’s work affected them. The new award winners were announced on June 2, 2016. For more information, see URL < www.loc.gov/today/pr/2016/16-099.html/>.  In 2017, Letters About Literature turns 25.

Literacy Award Winners Share Best Practice

In October the Library hosted the annual Library of Congress Literacy Awards program, a day-long learning conference that brought together the 2016 Literacy Award winners– WETA Reading Rockets External , Parent-Child Home Program External , and Libraries without Borders External –as well as the 14 Best Practice Honorees to collaborate, teach, and empower one another in their various and diverse efforts to promote literacy and reading in the U.S. and worldwide. Attendees came from Afghanistan, Cambodia, Brazil, New Zealand and across the United States. As Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden noted, their “work is helping millions of people around the world to climb out of poverty and reach for the kind of success that only comes with literacy.” Administered by the Center for the Book, and supported through the generosity of David M. Rubenstein, the Literacy Awards recognize groups doing exemplary, innovative and replicable work, and spotlight the need for the global community to unite in striving for universal literacy.

National Ambassador for Young People's Literature

Gene Luen Yang, the Library’s National Ambassador for Young People's Literature, will continue in his role through December 2017. A new National Ambassador for Young People's Literature will be named in January 2018.

Poet Laureate

Juan Felipe Herrera, U.S. Poet Laureate, agreed to serve a second year in the position. Herrera’s second term began Sept. 1, 2016. He follows previous multiyear laureates such as Natasha Trethewey, Kay Ryan, Ted Kooser and Billy Collins. Details about his second-term project are available at URL < www.loc.gov/poetry>.

The Technicolor Adventures of Catalina Neon

The Poetry and Literature Center in the Center for the Book, in conjunction with the Hispanic Division (Library Services), Educational Outreach, and the Publishing Office, is preparing to launch the third chapter of “ The Technicolor Adventures of Catalina Neon .” This online project, part of Juan Felipe Herrera’s second-term efforts as the Library’s 21st Poet Laureate, features a bilingual, illustrated poem created by Herrera and artist Juana Medina, with input from 2nd and 3rd graders from across the country. You can check out the first two chapters, and look for the third (titled “Enter the Neon”) at URL < http://www.read.gov/catalinaneon/>.

Read.gov

The Center for the Book’s website, 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. 

Young Readers Center

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

YRC Saturday Hours

On Saturday, Jan. 28, 2017, the Young Readers Center will celebrate the grand opening of Saturday hours for children and families. The YRC will be open every Saturday from 9:00 am to 4:30 pm.  At the grand opening, Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden will officiate and award-winning authors Meg Median and Erica S. Perl will host story times. Families will also enjoy crafts, demonstrations and a VERY special guest parade.

National Book Festival

The 2016 National Book Festival was a great success, with record crowds. Plans are well underway for the 2017 National Book Festival, to be held Saturday, Sept. 2, 2017, at the Walter Washington Convention Center in downtown Washington, D.C. This is the Library’s largest event, and is always free and open to the public.   

National Digital Initiatives

In October 2015, the Library created a new division, National Digital Initiatives, to encourage digital innovation, maximize the benefit of LC’s digital collection, and increase the national capacity for cultural memory in the digital age. NDI’s focus in its inaugural year was on exploring Collections as Data, on seeking opportunities to get more value out of our own collections and on developing connections that can help advance the field. In September 2016 we hosted a summit as the public face to that work. The summit had almost 500 registrants and the livestream has been viewed more than 8,000 times to date. NDI has commissioned a report on the event day and possible next steps, at URL < http://digitalpreservation.gov/meetings/dcs16.html>.

NDI also hosted an Archives Unleashed Hackathon in 2016. In addition to making some new discoveries using data analysis on digital collections, the collaborations showed how important librarians are as experts on the data, highlighting the evolving shape of reference in this new century.

National Film and Recording Preservation Boards and Registries

National Film Preservation Board and Registry

The Film Board met in Washington, D.C., in November 2016 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. 14, 2016, and are listed at URL < https://www.loc.gov/item/prn-16-209>.  During 2017, the Board will focus on such issues as international partnerships to identify and repatriate “lost” American silent films, development of a National Screening Room to display films held by U.S. archives, updating the 11,000-title U.S. Silent Feature Film Database, and efforts to improve the preservation of commercial local television newsfilm collections.

National Recording Preservation Board and Registry

The Recording Board met in Washington, D.C., in  December 2016 to discuss implementation of selected preservation and access recommendations found in the National Recording Preservation Plan and reviewed possible selections for the next Recording Registry.  The next 25 titles for the National Recording Registry will be announced in March 2017. Other recent initiatives include the latest edition of the multi-year, Peabody-Award winning radio series “Inside the National Recording Registry,” (produced by Ben Manilla Productions and hosted first by NPR and now by Studio 360) and the Radio Preservation task force, a long-term project to identify endangered commercial radio collections throughout the US, and get them into archives in order to ensure their preservation.

SCHOLARLY AND EDUCATIONAL PROGRAMS DIRECTORATE

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 2016-17 school year, we have welcomed Teresa St. Angelo, a kindergarten teacher from New Jersey to serve as our Teacher in Residence. She is helping us grow our outreach efforts to early elementary educators.

New TPS Grantees Selected

In summer 2016, panels comprised of 45 educators helped Library staff select 23 grant recipients (from 81 proposals that were submitted) to deliver teacher professional development, develop curriculum resources, conduct research and create apps founded on the Library’s Teaching with Primary Sources (TPS) program. In addition to receiving grants, these organizations joined six existing organizations in the TPS Consortium a group, that assists in the design and dissemination of the TPS program.

Online Conference for Educators

The Library offered its second annual online conference for educators, “Discover and Explore with Library of Congress Primary Sources,” on Oct. 25-26, 2016. Hosted by the Educational Outreach team, education experts and subject matter specialists facilitated 15 sessions, presenting resources and teaching strategies for using primary sources from the Library of Congress in the classroom. We were especially pleased with the results in:

Overall participation: 715 participants over two days. 
Increased awareness: We used every communication tool available to us through the Office of Communications (press release, Facebook, and LC Twitter), and Ed Outreach’s outlets (blog, twitter, and consortium partners).
Engaging new content: And we offered certificates for Continuing Education Units so that participants could include conference sessions for teacher (re)certification.  
High ratings: 77 percent of attendees stated that to a large degree, the webinar will provide them with tools and resources to effectively integrate primary sources into classroom teaching.  More than half of the attendees stated that the webinar was much more useful than other webinars they’ve participated in previously.

Student Discovery Sets

The Educational Outreach team continues to address the needs of the growing tablet-based educational community by launching more 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. Since June 2016, the Library has published sets exploring scientific data, weather forecasting, and Thanksgiving. See URL < https://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 2017, one of the weeks will have a STEM focus; and one will focus on World War I. See URL < www.loc.gov/teachers/professionaldevelopment/teacherinstitute>.

Intern and Fellowship Programs

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

Digital Preservation Outreach and Education (DPOE) fosters outreach and education about digital preservation. To date, DPOE developed a successful curriculum to train trainers in digital preservation and co-hosted ten train-the-trainer workshops with external collaborators, in Alaska, California, the District of Columbia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Mississippi, and two in Australia. DPOE is expanding its baseline curriculum to accommodate online delivery through webinars and videos. New collaborative opportunities are being explored to co-host regional workshops with additional organizations to expand the network to a pool of 217 topical trainers. On-demand and online training products are in development. For more program information, please visit URL < http://www.digitalpreservation.gov/education>.

National Digital Stewardship Residency (NDSR), developed through a partnership between the Library of Congress and the Institute of Museum and Library Services, is a field experience program that offers recent masters and doctoral graduates the opportunity to work on relevant projects at leading institutions. The 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.

NDSR has grown from being entirely based in the Washington, D.C., area in 2013, to cohorts in New York, N.Y., and Boston, Mass., in 2014, and now nationwide. The NDSR pilot was held in Washington D.C. from September 2013 to May 2014, and managed by the Library of Congress.  Ten residents worked on projects at Washington area institutions. The second cohort of five began its residency in June 2015, and finished in June 2016. Resident alumni are assuming leadership positions related to digital stewardship and are employed in prestigious institutions around the nation. A third iteration of five NDSR-DC residents began in October 2016 and is working at the Association of Research Libraries, Georgetown University, Johns Hopkins University, the Food & Drug Administration, and the World Bank.

NDSR expanded nationally this year through three new IMLS grants to the American Archive of Public Broadcasting, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and Harvard University for the Biodiversity Heritage Library. These discipline-oriented cohorts (audiovisual archives, art information management, and life sciences) will disperse residents around the country. The new American Archive of Public Broadcasting NDSR cohort is placing residents as far afield as California, Louisiana, Minnesota, Ohio, and Wisconsin, as well as Washington and New York City. George Coulbourne, Chief of Internship and Fellowship Programs, represents the Library on the Advisory Boards for the American Archive of Public Broadcasting and the Philadelphia Museum of Art projects.

One of the most exciting developments for NDSR this year is the expansion of the program to the United Kingdom. In October 2016, the Library of Congress, the Royal Collection Trust and King’s College London signed a memorandum of understanding to share resources to aid in the digitization of the papers of King George III. One component of that agreement is the placement of an NDSR resident at Windsor Castle and the Library of Congress who will analyze existing and proposed metadata for historical materials from this era. Charlotte Kostelic, a graduate of the Queens College Graduate School of Library and Information Studies, currently working at StoryCorps, has been selected as this resident.

See also THE GEORGIAN PAPERS PROGRAMME

Junior Fellows Program

For over a decade, the Junior Fellows Summer Intern Program has offered undergraduate and graduate students the opportunity to explore the Library’s collections and to assist with Library goals through a ten-week summer project. Thirty-eight Junior Fellows (out of roughly 800 applicants) completed the 2016 summer program. They provided excellent work in various service units across the Library on projects as diverse as Fire Insurance Maps Online, a Pre-Columbian Ceramic Archaeological Database and Imaging Project, and Digital Preservation Lifecycles in the Veterans History Project. The application for the 2017 Junior Fellows Program is now available on USAJOBS.gov (keyword: Junior Fellows). The application period closes just after ALA Midwinter Meeting, on Friday, Jan. 27, 2017, at 11:59PM ET.

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

HACU has bolstered the Library’s commitment to diversity since 2005. The Library was awarded the Exceptional Public Sector Partner Award in recognition of its leadership at HACU’s 2015 annual conference. Over the last decade, the Library has provided on-the-job training for more than 230 students. In spring 2017 the Library will host six students.

Library of Congress–Paul Peck Humanities Institute Internship Program

The Library of Congress will continue to support the Montgomery College Paul Peck Humanities Institute Internship Program to strengthen the Library’s programs that engage with the higher education community to advance experiential learning and awareness and use of the Library’s collections and services. The program places honors students in internships that provide exceptional opportunities for the students to develop both personal and professional skills. In addition to the Library, Paul Peck interns work at the Smithsonian Institution and the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. The program has placed more than 200 students at the three institutions since its inception in 1998. In 2017, the Library will welcome three new interns to work in the Kluge Center and Law Library from January through May.

Interpretive Programs Office (IPO)

New Exhibitions

IPO mounted the following exhibitions in calendar year 2016:

• Jazz Singers (Feb. 11 to July 23, 2016)
• Jacob Riis: Revealing “How the Other Half Lives” (April 14 to Sept. 5, 2016)
• WWI: American Artists View The Great War (May 7, 2016 to May 6, 2017, on display in the Graphic Arts Galleries, Ground Floor, Thomas Jefferson Building
• America Reads (June 16, 2016 to Jan. 21, 2017)

Special Exhibition of Presidential Inauguration Treasures

IPO has worked with Library Services to arrange for a very special two-week display on inaugurations that will begin on Monday, Jan. 23, 2017. The exhibit will feature rarely seen in-person presidential treasures–the handwritten speeches of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln–and collections on the lighter side: menus, dance cards and souvenirs. It will also include newspapers, film clips, a demonstration of online resources and a challenging presidential history quiz. “Presidential Inauguration Treasures” will be on view from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., Jan. 23 through Feb. 4, in the rooms known as Mahogany Row, LJ 110 to LJ 113, on the first floor of the Thomas Jefferson Building. The exhibit is free and open to the public.

Upcoming Exhibitions

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

Kluge Center

The Kluge Center continues to bring top scholars from around the world into periods of residency at the Library of Congress. Kluge Fellowships are open to scholars worldwide with a Ph. D. or other terminal advanced degree conferred within the seven years prior to the deadline.
To fulfill its mission to help inform Congress and the public, the Kluge Center continues to host near- weekly lectures and events showcasing the work of its scholars. Visit the news page (URL < /programs/john-w-kluge-center/news-and-events/news/>) for the upcoming schedule, and read about the work of our scholars on the Kluge Center’s blog, Insights, at URL < http://blogs.loc.gov/kluge/>.

Some recent highlights include:

Dame Wendy Hall, Professor of Computer Science at the University of Southampton, U.K., and Kluge Chair in Technology and Society, hosted a day-long conference titled “Saving the Web: The Ethics and Challenges of Preserving What’s on the Internet” on June 16, 2016. The conference gathered leaders and scholars from around the world, including Internet pioneer Vint Cerf as keynote speaker, who discussed the potentials of “digital vellum.” Preserving the contents of the World Wide Web is an increasingly vital activity. This symposium brought together experts in this field to discuss the major issues in the debate around this topic, the future potential of Web archives to researchers and scholars, and the challenges in Web archiving that face libraries, governments, institutions and individuals.

Dr. Juan Cole, the Richard P. Mitchell Collegiate Professor of History at the University of Michigan, the Kluge Chair in Countries and Cultures of the South at the Library of Congress, and a noted expert on the Middle East, hosted a breakfast conversation open to Members of Congress and staff on July 13, 2016. Participants were able to explore pressing topics in an informal, off-the-record setting. For three and a half decades, Cole has sought to put the relationship of the West and the Muslim world in historical context. His most recent book is The New Arabs: How the Millennial Generation is Changing the Middle East. He also authored Engaging the Muslim World, Napoleon's Egypt: Invading the Middle East, and many other books. He has appeared on numerous television programs and has expertise in both Middle Eastern and South Asian Islam. 

Historian of science and Blumberg Chair in Astrobiology Nathaniel Comfort hosted a symposium titled “The Emergence of Life: On the Earth, in the Lab, and Elsewhere” on Sept. 15, 2016. The emergence of life is among the most compelling questions in astrobiology. The symposium brought together scientists, humanists, and authors to explore what we know about the origins of life, how we came to know it, and what it means.  Nathaniel Comfort was the Baruch S. Blumberg NASA/Library of Congress Chair in Astrobiology at The John W. Kluge Center and Professor of the History of Medicine at The Johns Hopkins University. He is the author of The Science of Human Perfection: How Genes Became the Heart of American Medicine (Yale, 2012), and a biographical study of the geneticist Barbara McClintock, The Tangled Field: Barbara McClintock's Search for the Patterns of Genetic Control (Harvard, 2001). He is also the editor of, and a contributor to, The Panda's Black Box: Opening Up the Intelligent Design Debate (Johns Hopkins, 2007). His blog is Genotopia and he tweets from @nccomfort. His current research focuses on the origin of life, and he is writing a biography of DNA.

Visitor Services Office (VSO)

I Spy: Presidential History at the Library of Congress

The Visitor Services Office just launched a new activity handout as part of the “I Spy” series for visiting families. Intended for children ages nine and up, I Spy: Presidential History at The Library Of Congress is a foldout brochure that lets kids discover presidential history and references in the Thomas Jefferson Building itself–such as Jefferson’s Library, and Lincoln in the Reading Room collar –and in the collections in entertaining and engaging ways. The brochure includes a drawing activity, a presidential crossword, presidential fun facts, and links to the Library’s web site to encourage children to find out more after they leave. The new brochure is a great complement to the existing “I Spy” activity for younger children and is ideal for use with the building tour/exhibition visits that VSO organizes in conjunction with IPO for visiting school groups as well.

Key visitor statistics for Fiscal Year 2016

The Office

• Hosted a record 1.42 million visitors to the historic Thomas Jefferson Building;
  1.78 million to the LOC campus.
• Led 7,700 guided tours for 143,000 participants, including 679 student tours and 22 foreign language tours; responded to 313,000 queries from visitors or researchers on site.
• Hosted 200,000 unscheduled group participants and managed operations related to all other visitors.
• Served the U.S. Congress by working with 344 House and 57 Senate offices to reserve tours for 44,607 constituents; supported several Congressional events.
• Oversaw training and performance of 380 volunteers who served as docents, or staff information and researcher guidance desks; volunteers donated 42,071 hours.
• Arranged Library-wide programs for professional visitors from 92 countries.

World Digital Library

The World Digital Library (WDL)  (URL < https://www.wdl.org External >) remains focused on three priorities: adding historically and culturally important content from its worldwide network of partners; recruiting new partners; and building a growing community of engaged users.
The World Digital Library completed a three-year project, supported by a grant from Carnegie Corporation of New York, to digitize the Afghanistan collections of the Library of Congress to make them accessible to teachers, students, and the general public in Afghanistan and around the world. More than 163,000 pages of documents were posted on the WDL web site, as well as being transferred via hard drive to ten Afghan educational and cultural institutions. The documents were presented to the Afghan Minister of Culture and a representative of Kabul University by Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden and Carnegie Corporation of New York President Vartan Gregorian at a ceremony at the Library on Sept. 21, 2016.

At the end of 2016 the WDL contained 15,173 library items comprising 817,570 pages, in 133 different languages, contributed by 136 partner libraries, museums, and archives in 59 countries. In 2016, the WDL attracted 5.4 million visitors, who accounted for 25.2 million page views. The top countries by numbers of visitors were the U.S. China, Mexico, Brazil, and Spain. English was the most heavily used of the seven WDL interface languages (29.7percent), followed by Spanish (22.8 percent), Arabic (15.8 percent), Chinese (9.6 percent), Portuguese (8.5 percent), French (7.0 percent), and Russian (6.5 percent).