http://digitalcommons.usu.edu/nasig/

President’s Corner
Executive Board Minutes
—March Conference Call
Treasurer’s Report
2010 Election Results
2010 Conference Sponsors Announced
Photos from UKSG Conference
25th Conference (2010)
—PPC Update: Vision Speakers
—CPC Update
—Mentoring Program
—Horizon Award Winner Essay
—Biz Meeting Agenda & Brainstorming Topic
Profiles
—Conference All-Timers
Other NASIG News
—ECC Solicits Feedback on Communication
—2009 Proceedings Available
—Report on 2009 Tuttle Project
—Committee Annual Reports
——25th Anniversary TF
——Archivist
——Awards & Recognition
——Bylaws
——Continuing Education
——Database & Directory
——Electronic Communications
——Library School Outreach
——Membership Development
——Newsletter
——Nominations & Elections
——Proceedings
——Program Planning
——Publications/Public Relations
Other Serials & E-Resources News
—NC Serials Conference
—CONSER Ops Meeting
—ASA Promotes Library Choice
Columns
—Checking In
—Citations
—Title Changes
PDF

Looking Back: UKSG and the Fury of Iceland

I write this column having just returned—much more recently than planned—from a wonderful UKSG meeting followed by a harrowing experience of travel chaos, one that I shared with our past president, Jill Emery, and our Merriman Award winner, Selden Lamoureux.

First the happy memories: the UKSG meeting was fantastic.  Though it was sadly impossible to attend every session, the ones I attended were almost uniformly excellent.  My notes contain particular praise for plenary sessions featuring Richard Wallis of Talis (“We all overestimate the impact of new technology in three years and underestimate its impact in ten”), Conrad Wolfram of Wolfram Research (“High-powered computation changes everything, even the way we think about what knowledge is and how it’s shared”) and of course Carol Tenopir of the University of Tennessee, who shared her brilliant recent work on tracking and analyzing the research library’s return on institutional investment.  There were very stimulating sessions on issues and controversies in bibliometrics, and on social networking as an essential tool of academic research.  I attended excellent breakout sessions too, from the likes of Paul Harwood (who discussed emerging trends in library-delivered e-textbooks), Jill Taylor-Roe (who followed up on some of her incisive research findings related to the sustainability of Big Deals) and Ian Russell (on the future of society journal publishing), not to mention Jill Emery’s very fine presentation on a selection/deselection tool developed in cooperation at the universities of Texas and Georgia and those institutions’ move towards patron-driven selection.

The venue was as good as the program.  The Edinburgh International Conference Center is situated in the heart of the city center, and is the most fully and graciously staffed meeting space I’ve ever experienced; the entrance was staffed by uniformed attendants, and at the head and foot of every escalator there were stately ladies in matching suits who charmingly kept all of us heading the right directions.  The meeting rooms were comfortable, the food was delicious, and the UKSG’s organizers did their usual logistical magic to make everything feel smooth and well-organized.

Then the meeting ended, and all hell broke loose.

On Wednesday night following the close of the conference, an Icelandic volcano whose name is actually physically impossible to say erupted and began blanketing northern Europe in a cloud of airplane-killing ash.  Jill, Selden and I found ourselves trapped.  Since England was initially unaffected and my flight had a connection in London, I got rebooked for a later flight out of Heathrow and took the train south; Jill and Selden, who were both booked to fly directly out of Edinburgh, remained there to wait it out.  After a couple of days it became clear that this situation might drag on for a week or more.  Some of our colleagues made plans to escape via train through southern Europe, beyond the cloud’s reach.  Since flights were moving without problem between Ireland and North America, I rebooked again and hopped over to Dublin, but by the time I got there Irish airspace had closed as well.  Things finally settled down after a very tense six days.  Jill and Selden took the ferry to Belfast and flew home from there, and a day later I was able to fly out of Dublin.  All in all, we spent an extra eight days in the British Isles—which may not sound terrible (and indeed there were many, many people worse off than us, including some Brits still stranded abroad as I write), but it was certainly one of the more stressful travel experiences any of us will ever have.  Hopefully, in fact, it was the most stressful travel experience any of us will ever have.  All of us are now safely home, though, and can laugh about it.  Ha.

Looking Forward: Palm Springs and our 25^th Anniversary

I’ve already promised a complete lack of snow for our 25^th anniversary conference in Palm Springs next month.  I’m now prepared to make another promise: there will be no volcano eruptions anywhere near our event.  And I can now also promise an excellent program, as well as beautiful (and startlingly affordable) accommodations, great meeting spaces, top-notch golf, very good restaurants, and shopping that rivals what you’ll find in Los Angeles.  Vendors and publishers are signing up in gratifying numbers to participate in our newly-instituted Vendor Exposition, and there are great special events lined up as well.  But what will really make this conference worth the investment will be the opportunity to meet with, learn from, and forge new connections with professionals from every link in the serials information chain.  Come help us celebrate our past and prepare for our future!

I look forward greatly to seeing you there.

[Note: Please report promotions, awards, new degrees, new positions, and other significant professional milestones.  You may submit items about yourself or other members to Kurt Blythe at kcblythe@email.unc.edu.  Contributions on behalf of fellow members will be cleared with the person mentioned in the news item before they are printed.  Please include your e-mail address or phone number.]

Michael A. Arthur leads off this month with news of his recent promotion from assistant to associate librarian at the University of Central Florida.

Michael’s contact information remains:

Michael A. Arthur
Head of Acquisitions and Collections Services
University of Central Florida Libraries
P.O. Box 162666
Orlando, FL  32816-2666
Phone: 407-882-0143
Fax: 407-823-6289

Clinton K. Chamberlain’s contact information does not remain the same given his move to another university within the University of Texas system.  “Formerly coordinator for electronic resource acquisitions at UT Austin, I’m now coordinator for information resources at UT Arlington.  In my new position I oversee collection development and acquisitions (serials, electronic resources, monographs), as well as preservation.

Clinton K. Chamberlain
Coordinator for Information Resources
University of Texas at Arlington
Phone: 817-272-2949
E-mail: clint.chamberlain@uta.edu

Another man who has moved is Adam Chesler, who writes, “I’m the new director of content for the American Society for Training and Development.”  ASTD (based in Alexandria, VA), established in 1943, is the world’s largest association dedicated to workplace learning and performance professionals.  Adam adds, “We provide resources for learning and performance professionals, educators, and students — research, analysis, benchmarking, online information, books, newsletters, training guides, and T+D, our monthly magazine.  I’ll be managing the teams responsible for acquiring and publishing all that content.”

Adam may now be reached at:

Phone: 703-683-8141
E-mail: achesler@astd.org

July 2009 found Kate B. Moore moving into a tenure-track position at Indiana University Southeast.  Kate reports, “My title at IUS is coordinator of electronic resources/assistant librarian.  Previously I worked as a staff member in the Serials Acquisitions Unit at the Herman B. Wells Library, Indiana University Bloomington, and graduated with my MLS from IUB in May 2009.”  Kate also took over as the PDF editor of the NASIG Newsletter, and was one of last year’s NASIG Student Award winners.

Allow your faithful column editor to offer his congratulations and to state that Kate may be found at:

Kate B. Moore
Assistant Librarian
Coordinator of Electronic Resources
Indiana University Southeast
Phone: 812.941.2189
E-mail: kabmoore@ius.edu

“Same place, different title” for Buddy Pennington, who recently had his title changed from serial acquisitions librarian to electronic resources & serials librarian to better reflect his growing responsibilities with electronic resources.

Buddy’s contact information is still:

Buddy Pennington
Electronic Resources & Serials Librarian
University of Missouri – Kansas City
800 East 51st Street
Kansas City, MO  64110
Phone: 816-235-1548
Fax: 816-333-5584
E-mail: penningtonb@umkc.edu

[Note: Please report citations for publications by the membership—to include scholarship, reviews, criticism, essays, and any other published works which would benefit the membership to read.  You may submit citations on behalf of yourself or other members to Kurt Blythe at kcblythe@email.unc.edu.  Contributions on behalf of fellow members will be cleared with the author(s) before they are printed.  Include contact information with submissions.]

In an otherwise light quarter for scholarship (at least in terms of submissions to this column), the prolific Barbara Pope appears for the fourth time in the last six columns.  This column’s editor needs to take a page out of her book (and read the pages of her numerous publications, as well).

Barbara Pope, review of Academic Library Outreach: Beyond the Campus Walls, ed. by Nancy Courtney. Collaborative Librarianship 2:1 (2010): 47. http://www.collaborativelibrarianship.org.

Barbara Pope, “Doing Reference Better,” KLA Connects Newsletter, (Winter 2010): 8.

[Note: New members, please consider reporting the story of how you came to be a member of NASIG.  You may submit items about yourself to Kurt Blythe at kcblythe@email.unc.edu.  Please include your e-mail address.]

New to NASIG is Sandra Brady, who is looking forward to a busy June when she will be attending NASIG for the first time and will also be changing her focus at her current library from education to electronic resource management.  While Sandra may be new to NASIG and the world of serials, she is not new to librarianship having spent ten years in the field of medical librarianship.

New not only to NASIG but also to librarianship is Melissa I. Cardenas-Dow, who joined NASIG in October 2009 after beginning work as the technical services/reference librarian at the University of Redlands Armacost Library in July 2009.  A graduate of San Jose State University’s SLIS, Melissa joined NASIG in recognition of “serials [being] such an important aspect of technical services librarianship.”  Melissa adds, “It is vital for me to improve my professional knowledge and practice by joining NASIG. I am interested in continuing my professional education and NASIG provides a great number of opportunities for me to do so.  I also look forward to NASIG conference 2010.  Palm Springs is not very far from Redlands!”

Contact Melissa at:

Melissa I. Cardenas-Dow
Technical Services/Reference Librarian
Armacost Library
University of Redlands
1249 E. Colton Ave.
Redlands, CA 92374
Phone: 909-748-8089

Derek Reece, on the other hand, has worked as a metadata librarian at the University of Texas at Arlington since 2008.  He writes, “I spend most of my time managing electronic serials in the catalog and link resolver.  I gravitated towards cataloging work due to my interests in online access to library resources and digital collections.  My supervisor suggested NASIG as a good organization to keep up with the changing serials world.  I am looking forward to networking and learning more about serials through NASIG membership.”

Also learning of NASIG from a colleague is Carmel Yurochko, who came to our organization on the advice of her former acquisitions librarian, also a member.  “After a bit of research,” Carmel writes, “I decided that NASIG is ‘the’ serials organization and I needed to join.  After working with serials for many, many years, it only made good sense.”

Carmel goes on to write:

In 1985, I started working at Duquesne University as the Serials Control clerk.  My main goal was to get tuition remission for my sons – plain and simple.  At that time, the university had only print and microform formats and I did the check-in manually.  The majority of questions asked about serials dealt with late or missing issues.  Then the library went online with our first ILS.  While attempting to straighten out our holdings, I discovered that working in serials can be a lot like detective work.  Understanding the twists and turns of serials (such as title changes, splitting into parts, returning to the original titles, reuniting the parts) all became interesting to me.  My sons graduated and after earning my MLIS in 2002, I became the official serials librarian.  As the serials world morphed into electronic journals, aggregated databases, databases, link resolvers and so on, I morphed into the serials/electronic resources Librarian.  It is still a lot like detective work, but now the questions are, “Why is this not working?”, “What happened to the access we had yesterday?” and “Why is this not in full-text?”

I was once asked, “What’s a nice girl like you doing in periodicals?”  I think the real question is why do I stay in serials?  I think I like the challenge!

Carmel may be reached at:

Carmel Yurochko
Serials/Electronic Resources Librarian
Psychology Dept. Liaison
Gumberg Library
Duquesne University
600 Forbes Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA 15282
Phone: 412-396-5233
Fax: 412-396-5639
E-mail: yurochko@duq.edu

Chair: Kathryn Johns-Masten (SUNY Oswego)

Co-chair: William Joseph Thomas (East Carolina University)

Members: Betsy Appleton (George Mason University), Susan Banoun (University of Cincinnati), Marilyn Carney (Wake Tech), Sandy Folsom (Central Michigan University), Nancy Olsen (Sage Publications)

Board liaison: Bob Boissy

Narrative of Activities:

Continuing activities

Because the duties of the NASIG publicist have now been shifted to our committee, we have also appointed a publicist-in-training to serve as a backup to the publicist while learning more about the publicist’s activities.  We hope to continue developing new venues for publicity in order to raise awareness of the organization and relevant events, for example, recent posts on the NASIG Facebook page.  We have also begun updating the list of listservs and other contacts for publicity.

As part of our charge to proactively encourage publication of serials-related literature, we send out solicitations for new NASIGuides.  Among ideas for new guides are these topics: pricing models, claiming workflows, FRBR implications for serials, and electronic resources workflow, but we are also willing to consider suggestions for appropriate new topics.  We have recently had a volunteer propose to write a NASIGuide on classification of newspapers.  Next year’s committee should probably brainstorm for new topics and new methods of distributing the calls for NASIGuides.  Committee members have recently attempted to contact authors whose NASIGuides are more than 5 years old to determine whether revision is warranted.  We will work over the coming year to get updated NASIGuides written and posted.

Joseph Thomas had planned to draft a new webpage with the goal of providing information on calls for papers, people interested in collaborating and people seeking co-authors.  Unfortunately, this project has been put on hold, and may be revisited in the coming year.  This would serve our charge of “serving in a proactive role to encourage publication of serials-related literature, whether for publication by NASIG itself or by an outside publishing agent.”

In response to a board question about committee manuals, Publications and Public Relations chairs found that we do not have a committee manual.  Drafting this manual should begin in the next year.

Completed activities

We have posted one updated NASIGuide, on “Title Changes,” to the website, and hope to have other updated NASIGuides soon.

The committee co-chairs submitted to the board revisions to the publicist’s manual, and a NASIG Publicity Guide for Committees, containing two templates: Event Guide and Policy Change Announcement.  The publicist’s manual has been uploaded to the committee’s private web page.  The publicity guidelines and templates have been uploaded to our committee’s public web page as well to the Electronic Communications Committee’s web page.

Marilyn Carney, NASIG publicist, has been publicizing NASIG-related announcements, including stepped-up announcements related to the upcoming annual conference.  She and Kathryn Johns-Masten have collaborated on a draft publicity calendar, which has been submitted to the board.  The committee has also revised its charge to reflect publicist’s duties as a member of Publications and Public Relations.

Activities That Support the NASIG Strategic Plan

We will continue to brainstorm and develop initiatives to expand and publicize the Speakers and Consultants Directory.  We also want to raise the visibility of the organization and the expertise of its members through new avenues and publicity messages, such as the recent decision to cross-publicize events with the UKSG.

Any Changes or Exceptions to the Budget

None

Actions Required by Board.

None

Names of Persons Submitting Report

Kathryn Johns-Masten
Wm. Joseph Thomas

The main business for the 2009/2010 year for the Program Planning Committee was to develop the program for the 2010 conference.

Vision Speakers

Two individual vision speakers and a closing panel were selected through discussions among the PPC and board.  We have a diverse array of vision topics and presenters, including Eric Miller, Kent Anderson, and a panel comprised of Jonathan Blackburn (OCLC), Neil Block (III), Brendan Gallagher (ByWater Solutions), Robert McDonald (Kuali OLE/Indiana University).  See the program for more information about these sessions.

Strategy and Tactics Sessions

The strategy and tactics sessions were filled through two calls for proposals and ideas.  A total of 70 proposals were received; 41 from the first call and 29 from the second call.  In committee deliberation, PPC made the decision not to combine programs on similar topics, as was common in the past, but rather to select the strongest proposal.  The final slate consists of 11 strategy and 17 tactics sessions with 47 speakers.

Preconference

One preconference is slated for this year’s conference, focusing on Resource Description and Access (RDA).  The preconference will be split between the afternoon of Wednesday, June 2, and the morning of Thursday, June 3, affording budget-conscious travelers the opportunity to arrive the morning of the preconference instead of the night before.  The preconference is currently at capacity, but anyone interested in being added to a waiting list should contact Jennifer Arnold at registrar@nasig.org.

Posters

In response to the call for proposals, 5 poster proposals were received.  A subcommittee of Michael Arthur, Karen Davidson, and Sandy Hurd is currently finalizing poster sessions; stay tuned to the program for a complete list of poster sessions.  Posters will be available 9 a.m. – 5 p.m. on Saturday, June 5, with presenters available to discuss their posters during the afternoon break.

Discussion Groups and User Groups

In response to the call for proposals, 12 proposals for discussion groups and user groups were received.  A subcommittee of Meg Mering and Danielle Williams is currently finalizing user group and discussion group sessions with facilitators; stay tuned to the program for a complete list of discussion groups and user groups.  Please note, the discussion and user groups have been combined into a single session on Saturday, June 5 at 3:30 p.m.

Schedule

Another responsibility of PPC is setting the daily schedule for conference events.  Again this year, the start time for official events is 9 a.m., with the Friday business meeting and the Saturday committee meetings occupying no-conflict times.  In response to the very small number of proposals for Sunday morning user groups, PPC has merged the discussion groups and user groups in a Saturday time slot, enabling us to close the conference 45 minutes earlier than originally planned.  We hope this change will give more attendees with afternoon flights an opportunity to see the closing panel.

Other Activities

PPC had a number of other activities this year:

• Considered the report from Evaluation & Assessment from the 2009 conference in developing the schedule and program slate
• Participated in the selection of the 2010 conference theme
• Updated the PPC manual

Current Activities

• Contacting speakers with final reminders.
• Handout coordinator Michael Hanson will be posting presentations and support materials to the NASIG website and loading this information to the conference flash drives.  Presenters will have the opportunity to update materials up to and following the conference.
• Discussion group/user group coordinators Meg Mering and Danielle Williams are confirming with facilitators.
• Poster session coordinators Michael Arthur, Karen Davidson, and Sandy Hurd are confirming with poster session presenters.

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank all our committee members (Michael Arthur, Adam Chesler, Rubye Cross, Karen Davidson, Cris Ferguson, Michael Hanson, Jared Howland, Sandy Hurd, Chandra Jackson, Meg Mering, Jean Sibley, Danielle Williams, and Paoshan Yue) for their hard work to bring together a program we are excited to present to the NASIG membership.  Steve Kelley was invaluable as our board liaison, and we appreciate his efforts to keep us all moving forward.

Respectfully submitted by,
Morag Boyd and Anne Mitchell
May 5, 2010

Committee members:

• Allyson Zellner, EBSCO
• Lori Terrill, University of Wyoming
• Joseph Thomas, East Carolina University (new co-editor for 2010-2011)

Board liaison:

• Virginia Taffurelli

Activities

• The 2009 Proceedings are comprised of thirty-three individual papers covering all preconference, vision, strategy, and tactics sessions presented at the conference.  A brief schedule regarding the editing of the 2009 papers is provided below:
  • 2009 conference reports were due to the editors on July 17, 2009.  The editors provided extensions to a few authors.  One recorder did not supply a paper after repeated reminders.  The reporter for the NASIG Newsletter who wrote a report on that session was contacted and asked to expand the paper for the Proceedings.  She agreed.  Additionally, approximately six weeks after the conference the editors learned that a recorder was expected for one of the vision sessions, although this was not indicated to the editors beforehand.  A volunteer recorder was found who was willing to write a paper for the session using a poor quality audio recording.
  • The editors used Google Docs to edit the papers and prepare them for Taylor & Francis.
  • The edited papers were uploaded to Taylor & Francis’ CATS online production system in January 2010.
  • The proofs were reviewed by the editors in early March 2010.
  • The Proceedings were published online and in print by Taylor & Francis in April 2010 as volume 58 of the Serials Librarian.  PDFs of the Proceedings were sent to the Electronic Communications Committee and have been posted on the NASIG website.
• A couple of authors expressed the desire to retain copyright to their papers.  After discussions with Taylor & Francis and the NASIG board, these authors were given the option to sign a form retaining their copyright, but allowing for publication in the Serials Librarian.  Permission was requested to post the papers to the NASIG website.
• The complimentary copies list was compiled by the editors and submitted to Taylor & Francis in March 2010.
• The editors have completed a major revision of the Proceedings Editors’ Manual.
• Joseph Thomas from East Carolina University has been selected as the new Proceedings editor for the 2010/2011 term.  He will be replacing Allyson Zellner, who rotates off prior to the 2010 conference.
• The editors have sent out a call for recorders for the 2010 conference and will be reviewing applications and making assignments in late April/early May.

Statistical Information

• None

Action(s) Required by Board

• None

Questions for Board

• None

Recommendations to Board

• None

Names of Persons Submitting Report

Lori Terrill
Allyson Zellner
Joseph Thomas

Co-chair: Bob Persing (University of Pennsylvania), 07/10

Co-chair: Maggie Ferris (University of Delaware) 09/11

Members:
Alice Bright (Carnegie Mellon University), 07/10
Maria Collins (North Carolina State University), 09/11
Cecilia Genereux (University of Minnesota), 07/10
Tzu-Jing Kao (Multnomah County Library), 07/10
Jessica Minihan (University of Mississippi), 09/11

Board liaison:
Lisa Blackwell

Activities

Most of the committee’s work this year was routine:

• Invoicing members each month due for renewal
• Reminding members who were invoiced the previous month, but haven’t paid

An extra step was added this year: when a member is two months late for renewal, their name is passed on to Membership Development, who sends them a second reminder

• Deactivating members who still haven’t renewed three months after invoicing
• Assigning usernames and passwords to new members
• Reactivating the records for returning members

Many new members join in the spring, in order to register for the conference at the member rate.  Our process for assigning usernames/passwords to new members depends on payment records, which are forwarded to D&D by the treasurer in batches.  Often, though, new members want their usernames right away, so they can log in and register for the conference.  D&D has been able to handle these requests quickly (usually the same day), but we’d like to find a better workflow.  Ideally, ArcStone would assign a temporary username/password as soon as the member creates their record.

The ArcStone system is complex enough that it’s hard to share the work among the committee members.  Most of the work falls to the co-chairs.  Despite good intentions, no progress was made this year on alleviating this situation.

Membership

The following statistics are derived from ArcStone.

*these members have been reminded and must make payment by 5/8/2010 to avoid deactivation.

Action Items

A major action item in the next few months will be the implementation of the “organizational member” category, approved in the recent bylaws revision.  The bylaws text is vague (presumably intentionally) about how this is to work.  D&D plans to give some recommendations to the board soon.

Continuing action items:

• Document committee procedures and post to committee space
• Create documentation and saved search strategies for standard reports
• Continue database records cleanup

Member US State Affiliations
5/1/2010

Member Country Affiliations

Notes:

• Country designations come from addresses supplied by members.  So members working for the same organization may be listed in different countries, depending on where they choose to get their mail.
• The two members from Trinidad and Jamaica actually work for the same institution, the University of the West Indies.
• The number of countries represented has dropped noticeably in the last few years.  For instance, we no longer have any active members from most European countries.

Submitted by Bob Persing and Maggie Ferris
Database & Directory Committee