LC CATALOGING NEWSLINE

Online Newsletter of the Cataloging Directorate
Library of Congress

Volume 11, no. 7    ISSN 1066-8829    June 2003


CONTENTS
David A. Smith to Receive Melvil Dewey Award
New Catalogers at LC
CMT Issues Strategic Plan
BIBCO Operations Committee Meeting Summary
CONSER Operations Committee Annual Meeting Summary

David A. Smith to Receive Melvil Dewey Medal

David A. Smith (former chief of the Decimal Classification Division at the Library of Congress) is the recipient of the 2003 Melvil Dewey Medal from the American Library Association (ALA). The Dewey Medal recognizes "recent creative leadership in the areas of librarianship that were of special importance to Melvil Dewey: library management, training, cataloging and classification, and the tools and techniques of librarianship." The ALA announcement of the award on April 24 recognized Smith's leadership in ensuring the viability of the Decimal Classification Division at the Library of Congress, preserving the Library's role as the world's largest Dewey classifying agency, and promoting innovative uses of the Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC) worldwide. In addition to his service to Dewey, Mr. Smith made great contributions to the production of the National Union Catalog, Pre-1956 Imprints, a major tool of librarianship. He also promoted the development of automated library tools and techniques and enjoyed a distinguished reputation as a manager at the Library of Congress.

Smith's library career spanned forty years, all in the federal government. He came to the Library of Congress as a serials cataloger in 1963 after two years as an intern and cataloger at the National Library of Medicine. In 1966 he was named assistant head of the English Language Section of the former Shared Cataloging Division. In 1967, he was promoted to associate catalog editor in the National Union Catalog (NUC) Publication Project, which produced the National Union Catalog, Pre-1956 Imprints. Smith became principal catalog editor in 1969, and was quickly promoted to assistant head and then head of the entire project. Under his leadership, the project doubled its production. The 685 volumes of the main A-Z sequence of the NUC brought together more than eleven million catalog records and represented the most complete extant documentation of the human printed record ever produced.

Smith next became the first chief of the Special Materials Cataloging Division, established in 1981. He led that division through the implementation of the Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules, 2nd Edition (AACR2) for cataloging of music, audiovisual materials, computer files, and microforms; the implementation of online music cataloging; and the start of online cataloging for NUCMC, the National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections, in RLIN. He served as acting director for cataloging in 1991, while the directorate prepared to reorganize along wholebook lines.

Smith became chief of the Decimal Classification Division in 1987. Over the next fifteen years, he worked with division staff, OCLC Forest Press, and the Decimal Classification Editorial Policy Committee to complete three editions of the full Classification (the 20th edition, published in 1987; the 21st, published in 1996; and the 22nd, published in 2003) and two editions of the Abridged DDC (the 12th and 13th). Smith ensured the smooth entry of the DDC into the digital future by supporting the development of Dewey for Windows (TM) and WebDewey (TM). Smith was a member of the LCCN Editorial Advisory Board for nearly ten years. He personally classified an average of 20,000 titles each year, and has continued to perform Dewey classification on contract with the Library since his retirement in 2002.

Smith holds a bachelor's degree from Lawrence University and a master's degree in library science from the University of Illinois. He is a member of Phi Beta Kappa, Beta Phi Mu, the American Library Association, and the ALA divisions ALCTS (Association for Library Collections and Technical Services) and ACRL (Association of College and Research Libraries). He will receive the Dewey Medal and the accompanying citation donated by OCLC Forest Press on Tuesday, June 24, at the awards reception during the joint ALA/Canadian Library Association Annual Conference in Toronto, Ontario.


NEW CATALOGERS AT LC

In its continuing effort to fill vacant cataloging positions that have been authorized to be filled, below is information on the latest catalogers hired by the Cataloging Directorate.

History and Literature Cataloging Division

Both the new catalogers listed below are joining the Children's Literature Team.

Deborah Healy earned her B.A. in Asian studies with a minor in art and library science, from the University of Maryland, University College. Originally an art major, she changed her major when she became interested in Japanese culture while living in Japan.

She recently earned her M.L.S. from the State University of New York at Buffalo. While in graduate school, she completed a practicum at the University of Rochester during which she cataloged videotapes. After finishing her degree, she cataloged videotapes at the Rochester Institute of Technology's Wallace Library. She also staffed the reference desk and worked in the interlibrary loan department at the Geneva Free Public Library. Debbi returns to Rochester every other weekend to visit her family and to work as a reference librarian at the Webster Public Library.

Karen Rasmussen recently earned her M.L.I.S. from the University of Pittsburgh and completed a six-month stint as a cataloger at the George Washington University Law School Library. While a student at Pitt, she interned in the Special Collections Department of Carnegie Mellon University's Hunt Library, where she helped inventory and catalog miniature books. Before attending library school, she was an editor for the education journal, Educational Leadership, and a writer who focused on K- 12 education topics. She also worked for two years as a program specialist in what is now called the Preservation and Access Program of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

She has a B.A. in English from Pennsylvania State University and an M.A. in 19th century American literature and textual editing from the University of South Carolina. She wrote her thesis on Sarah Orne Jewett's relationship with her publishers. While at South Carolina, she worked on the South Carolina Newspaper Project to help inventory and preserve the state's historic newspapers.

Social Sciences Cataloging Division

Linda Horiuchi received her masters in librarianship degree from the University of Washington in 1990. From 1990-1995 she served as a serials cataloger at the Washington State University Library in Pullman, where she worked in the OCLC system. Later in 1995 she moved to the Idaho State University library (Pocatello campus), cataloging serials and monographs, first in OCLC, then in RLIN, and finally in the Voyager system. In 2002 she took a position at the Idaho Legislative Library in Boise. There her duties included some reference services as well as cataloging monographs and serials in law, social sciences, etc., to support legislators' information needs. She joins the Business and Economics Team.

Kenneth Hunter-Hall has worked at the Library of the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas in Rome and at the library of the Societe internationale de documentation judeo-chretienne (SIDIC) in Paris. Currently he is a lecturer at the Graduate School of Notre Dame. Hunter-Hall earned his master's degree in theology and has completed his course work and dissertation for his doctorate in sacred theology (S.T.D.) at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas. He also earned a certificate in French language at the Ecole Alliance francaise, Paris. He joins the Religion, Philosophy, and Psychology Team.


CMT ISSUES STRATEGIC PLAN

The Cataloging Management Team (CMT) held a facilitated retreat on March 10 and 11, 2003, to develop a strategic plan for fiscal years 2003 through 2008. After work leaders and stakeholders were identified for each item in the plan, acting associate librarian for Library Services Beacher Wiggins approved it, and acting director for cataloging Judith A. Mansfield presented it to staff on May 20.

The plan includes six strategic goals and thirty initiatives. The six strategic goals are:

I. Provide national and international leadership in the development and promotion of cataloging policy, practice, standards, and programs.

II. Provide appropriate and quality bibliographic and inventory control data for onsite and remote resources.

III. Attain cataloging currency and meet arrearage reduction targets.

IV. Provide leadership in the application of bibliographic control/access to digital content.

V. Develop staff resources and provide effective personnel management.

VI. Ensure secure environment for directorate staff, collections, and data.

The six goals state the work that the Cataloging Directorate needs to do to carry out its mission during the entire period from fiscal 2003 through fiscal 2008, covering both new initiatives and the ongoing operations of the directorate. Ongoing operations include cataloging production, support for cooperative cataloging programs, leadership in cataloging policy, and support for all Library programs, particularly affirmative action, effective staff management and recognition, the Library's security plan, and professional development. The directorate reaffirms its commitment to ongoing operations, whether or not they are mentioned explicitly in the strategic plan.

In addition to ongoing operations, the CMT selected thirty strategic initiatives for fiscal years 2003 and 2004--roughly the first two years of the period covered by the strategic plan. The initiatives were selected according to five criteria: the degree to which the initiative improves efficiency of operations; improves the knowledge, skills, or abilities of staff; contributes to the directorate's leadership reputation or builds partnerships; enhances the value of products or services; and supports realization of the AP3 (annual program performance plan) targets established for the directorate. Notable initiatives include:

Provide collaborative leadership in setting national standards for descriptive metadata.

Explore the interest of other parties, e.g., publishers, national libraries, researchers, in the national authority file.

Develop and implement a long range plan for the implementation of Unicode, including investigating the impact of Unicode on cataloging production.

Explore the proof of concept for a school for cataloging based at LC.

Optimize use of cataloging data from external sources.

Study means to improve timeliness in cataloging.

Develop the Cataloging in Publication (CIP) Division's New Books Program.

Promote the increased use of the catalog through the inclusion of relevant data, e.g., develop additional bibliographic enrichment projects.

Consider expanding the Program for Cooperative Cataloging to include Cataloging in Publication and decimal classification.

Initiate business process improvements (BPIs) to provide efficiencies in cataloging.

Prepare staff to work in the digital environment.

The CMT strategic planning retreat was facilitated by Judith P. Cannan, chief of the Technical Processing and Automation Instruction Office, who is also a certified facilitative leadership instructor. Extensive notes of the retreat were prepared by Joseph Bartl, leader of Music and Sound Recordings Team I, Special Materials Cataloging Division. The CMT includes the acting director; the chiefs of the Cataloging Distribution Service and the Automation Planning and Liaison Office; the directorate's cataloging automation specialist; the assistant to the director; and the chiefs and assistant chiefs of the eight divisions in the Cataloging Directorate: Arts and Sciences Cataloging Division, Cataloging in Publication Division, Cataloging Policy and Support Office, Decimal Classification Division, History and Literature Cataloging Division, Regional and Cooperative Cataloging Division, Social Sciences Cataloging Division, and Special Materials Cataloging Division.


BIBCO OPERATIONS COMMITTEE MEETING SUMMARY

A summary of the BIBCO Operations Committee Meeting may be found at //www.loc.gov/catdir/pcc/bibco/opco03.html [June 2003].


CONSER OPERATIONS COMMITTEE ANNUAL MEETING SUMMARY

A summary of the annual meeting of the CONSER Operations Committee may be found at //www.loc.gov/acq/conser/conop2003.html [June 2003]


LC CATALOGING NEWSLINE (ISSN 1066-8829) is published irregularly by the Cataloging Directorate, Library Services, Library of Congress, and contains news of cataloging activities throughout the Library of Congress. Editorial Office: Cataloging Policy and Support Office, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 20540-4305. Editor, Robert M. Hiatt; Editorial Advisory Group: Julianne Beall, John Byrum, Roselyne Chang, Jurij Dobczansky, Les Hawkins, Albert Kohlmeier, Susan Morris, Geraldine Ostrove, William Starck, Valerie Weinberg, David Williamson, and Roman Worobec. Address editorial inquiries to the editor at the above address or [email protected] (email), (202) 707-5831 (voice), or (202) 707-6629 (fax). Listowner: David Williamson. Address subscription inquiries to the listowner at [email protected].

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