Mary Bolin - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Mary Bolin

School of Information Student Research Journal, 2022

The websites of 71 US research universities were the source of data on the relationship of academ... more The websites of 71 US research universities were the source of data on the relationship of academic libraries and campus writing centers, which provide support for developing written communication skills. All 71 institutions have writing centers, generally administered by the academic success operation, the English department, or a college such as arts and sciences. Just under half (n=35) of the institutions have a writing center located in the library. In 16 of those institutions, the library is the only location of the writing center. The general issues of academic success and “library as place,” as well as the space that was gained by weeding and storage of print collections, has led to this and other opportunities for collaboration between academic libraries and other campus units, part of the ongoing transformation of library organizations and their programs and services.

Advances in Library Administration and Organization

This article examines the discourse of appointment, promotion, and tenure (APT) documents for aca... more This article examines the discourse of appointment, promotion, and tenure (APT) documents for academic librarians. Discourse analysis can illuminate the social role of language, social systems, and social practices. This qualitative research analyzes the APT documents for librarians from a group of US universities (n = 50) whose librarians are tenured faculty (n = 35). Linguistic features were examined to identify genre (text type) and register (language variety) characteristics. The documents showed strong relationships with other texts; vocabulary from the language of human resources (HR); grammatical characteristics such as nominalization; passive constructions; few pronouns; the "quasi-synonymy" of series of adjectives, nouns, or verbs; and expression of certainty and obligation. The documents have a sociolinguistic and social semiotic component. In using a faculty genre, librarians assert solidarity with other faculty, while the prominent discourse of librarians as practitioners detracts from faculty solidarity.

The Journal of Academic Librarianship, 2008

A typology of librarian status developed for land grant universities is extended to US research u... more A typology of librarian status developed for land grant universities is extended to US research universities. Land grant librarians are tenure-track faculty in 70% of institutions. Librarians in the expanded population have that status slightly more than half the time. Institution size, geographic region, and public/private governance are discussed.

The Journal of Academic Librarianship, 2005

Library Collections, Acquisitions, and Technical Services, 2000

The design of library catalogs and the maintenance of their contents equals catalog governance, t... more The design of library catalogs and the maintenance of their contents equals catalog governance, that is, professional responsibility for the catalog. The design of library catalogs and their contents are an example of the standards that are the hallmark of modern librarianship. Although design and maintenance standards have always had an array of participants, in recent years the participants in catalog design and maintenance have become more numerous and varied, and therefore its governance has become more diffuse. Although the card catalog had a standard form in which design and maintenance were linked, that is not true of today's OPAC in which the same content can take many different forms. Emerging standards, such as SGML, may actually provide a general solution in which OPACs have various, customized forms based on standard content and in which catalog librarians encode, maintain, and interpret the standard data and help guide the discussion of options for design. This article discusses the past and present governance of library catalog design and maintenance and explores issues in a "programmatic" model of governance for the catalog.

The Journal of Academic Librarianship, 2001

Collection management and technical services have a natural affi nity that is not refl ected in t... more Collection management and technical services have a natural affi nity that is not refl ected in the organization of many academic libraries, where subject librarians are oft en aligned with reference. This article examines organizational and individual approaches to librarian assignment, along with the place of collection management in the organization.

(2010). Collections (Zea E-Books). Paper 2.

School of Information Student Research Journal

Linguistics is an interdisciplinary field that draws from study of languages, including English, ... more Linguistics is an interdisciplinary field that draws from study of languages, including English, and fields such as psychology, sociology, cognitive science, computer science, and anthropology. Library and Information Science (LIS) is also interdisciplinary, and can be studied using techniques from the humanities, social science, and science. The many theories and methods of linguistic research can be extremely useful and have significant explanatory power for LIS. This article presents a research agenda for LIS that proposes the use of linguistic analysis methods. The elements of language are phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics. The study of linguistics includes those areas, but also includes discourse analysis, linguistics universals and typology, sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics, language and cognition, language acquisition (including child language and second language acquisition), and many other topics and approaches. Language is a semiotic system, a system of signs. Halliday (1978) calls language a social semiotic. Written and spoken language are systems of signs that are used and understood by speakers. Languages and variants of languages are used in speech communities (e.g., speakers of Parisian French) and discourse communities (e.g., librarians) for purposes that include those of business and commerce, education, government, medicine, law, and every kind of human social and cultural event and occasion. We talk to each other, we read and write, and we carry out daily endeavors and longterm goals using language. As librarians, we already recognize the significance of the language that we use, in controlled vocabularies, in OPAC displays, in library signage and marketing, and in planning and problem-solving. As researchers, we can use the techniques of linguistic analysis to further unpack those plans and problems, and discover new theories and frameworks for helping library patrons discover and use information. There is substantial and groundbreaking work being done in areas of library and information science such as search engine optimization, semantic web, natural language processing, and linked data. Those subjects are certainly linguistically oriented and often draw on the techniques of linguistic analysis, but this article does not focus on that area of the LIS and related literature. It provides information on frameworks, theories, and methods used in linguistics as they might be applied to many areas of LIS.

Linguistics is an interdisciplinary field that draws from study of languages, including English, ... more Linguistics is an interdisciplinary field that draws from study of languages, including English, and fields such as psychology, sociology, cognitive science, computer science, and anthropology. Library and Information Science (LIS) is also interdisciplinary, and can be studied using techniques from the humanities, social science, and science. The many theories and methods of linguistic research can be extremely useful and have significant explanatory power for LIS. This article presents a research agenda for LIS that proposes the use of linguistic analysis methods. The elements of language are phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics. The study of linguistics includes those areas, but also includes discourse analysis, linguistics universals and typology, sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics, language and cognition, language acquisition (including child language and second language acquisition), and many other topics and approaches. Language is a semiotic system, a system of signs. Halliday (1978) calls language a social semiotic. Written and spoken language are systems of signs that are used and understood by speakers. Languages and variants of languages are used in speech communities (e.g., speakers of Parisian French) and discourse communities (e.g., librarians) for purposes that include those of business and commerce, education, government, medicine, law, and every kind of human social and cultural event and occasion. We talk to each other, we read and write, and we carry out daily endeavors and longterm goals using language. As librarians, we already recognize the significance of the language that we use, in controlled vocabularies, in OPAC displays, in library signage and marketing, and in planning and problem-solving. As researchers, we can use the techniques of linguistic analysis to further unpack those plans and problems, and discover new theories and frameworks for helping library patrons discover and use information. There is substantial and groundbreaking work being done in areas of library and information science such as search engine optimization, semantic web, natural language processing, and linked data. Those subjects are certainly linguistically oriented and often draw on the techniques of linguistic analysis, but this article does not focus on that area of the LIS and related literature. It provides information on frameworks, theories, and methods used in linguistics as they might be applied to many areas of LIS.

Now when the angel greets Mary, he says: 'Greetings to you, Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with... more Now when the angel greets Mary, he says: 'Greetings to you, Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you.' Well up to this point, this has simply been translated from the simple Latin, but tell me is that good German? Since when does a German speak like that-being 'full of grace'? One would have to think about a keg 'full of' beer or purse 'full of' money. So I translated it: 'You gracious one'. This way a German can at last think about what the angel meant by his greeting. Yet the papists rant about me corrupting the angelic greeting-and I still have not used the most satisfactory German translation. What if I had used the most satisfactory German and translated the salutation: 'God says hello, Mary dear' (for that is what the angel was intending to say and what he would have said had he even been German!) If I had, I believe that they would have hanged themselves out of their great devotion to dear Mary and because I have destroyed the greeting. "I shall say 'gracious Mary' and 'dear Mary', and they can say 'Mary full of grace'. Anyone who knows German also knows what an expressive word 'dear' (liebe) is: dear Mary, dear God, the dear emperor, the dear prince, the dear man, the dear child. / do not know if one can say this word 'liebe' in Latin or in other languages with so much depth of emotion that it pierces the heart and echoes throughout as it does in our tongue."-Martin Luther "An Open Letter on Translation" (Emphasis added) As usual, Luther hits the nail on the head. In the passage quoted above, he is indignant about the criticism his German Bible translation has received from critics who clearly did not share or understand his aim of making a Bible in authentic German, not merely a "faithful" rendering of the Latin (not even the Bible's original language) word-for-word in German. This passage from Luther's famous and eloquent letter about the agonizing struggle that is the process of translation implicitly expresses the aims of scholars such as Anna Wierzbicka and others. Wierzbicka and her colleagues, in developing semantic primes and an accompanying Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM), have the ambitious goal of analyzing the words such as German liebe whose "depth of emotion ... pierces the heart" and to analyze words in the context of their culture. This paper looks at semantic analysis, including semantic fields, through the lens of NSM as described by Wierzbicka and others, how primes combine syntactically to make

The modern languages collection supports the teaching, research and service activities of the uni... more The modern languages collection supports the teaching, research and service activities of the university, but its primary audience is the faculty, staff, and students of the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures in the College of Arts and Sciences, with a focus on support for the departmental curricula. Specific and transient research needs of department faculty and graduate students are supplemented through Interlibrary Loan. Materials are not purchased for the general public, although they may use the collection. The collection focuses on works classified in particular areas of the P classification, curriculum and research support are also provided by works classified in history, religious studies, and other areas.

Electronic Green Journal

This volume cites titles added during 1991 to the holdings on environmental topics at the Library... more This volume cites titles added during 1991 to the holdings on environmental topics at the Library of Congress and the New York Public Library. Cited are 3,200 publications in all languages and formats on alternative and renewable energy, endangered species, pesticides, pollution, public policy, law and legislation, conservation, waste management, and other areas. This is a new addition to G.K. Hall's bibliographic guides, joining annual volumes covering such subjects as law, computer science, black studies, education, and music. Each of these cites popular and scholarly titles, children's books, periodicals, videocassettes, and government documents. Complete bibliographic data is provided. There are no annotations. Author, title, and subject entries are listed alphabetically under the "main entry" (for author, if any, or title), with full library cataloging information, including Library of Congress and Dewey classification numbers. Other access points provide briefer citations. There are also cross references from unused subject terms. While this arrangement, reminiscent of a card catalog, no doubt helped keep this Bibliographic Guide to a manageable size, it is irritating now that we are accustomed to finding the same data retrievable through any access point in on-line catalogs and bibliographic utility databases. While it is useful to have so many citations brought together, any investigator with access to a modem would probably find it easier to let her fingers do the walking through dozens of on-line library catalogs and other databases, thus compiling a similar or more focused list with relative ease. Like the National Union Catalog and other such printed reference tools, any of the volumes in the series of which this Guide is a part would be dubious purchases for any fairly sizable library with access to computerized sources. While they could be useful to libraries lacking on-line resources, unfortunately they are probably too expensive for many smaller institutions.

Technical Services Quarterly

ABSTRACT The University of Nebraska–Lincoln (UNL) is a medium-sized research university with a li... more ABSTRACT The University of Nebraska–Lincoln (UNL) is a medium-sized research university with a library system that serves faculty, undergraduates, and graduate students across a wide array of fields and disciplines. Providing access to library resources quickly and with rich and accurate metadata can be a challenge. The UNL Libraries tested a number of metadata generators, web-based tools that can generate usable metadata in MARC format and other output formats. The research focused particularly on Metadata Maker, a metadata generator that can be used to reduce cataloging backlogs by quickly producing usable MARC records with a minimum of training. Those records can be uploaded into library catalogs and databases and enhanced and edited by catalog librarians and by staff with more expertise.

Resource Sharing & Information Networks, 1994

The history of library autorrmticm in Idaho is iilustrative of the come of library automation thr... more The history of library autorrmticm in Idaho is iilustrative of the come of library automation throughout the United States. Idaho's effort to automate Its libraries is the stmy of cooperative ventures designed to help libraries work: together to further their own interests. The role of LSCA, the Idaho State Library, the geogaphy, and other unique chri~acteristicx of the state, as well as the role of WLN, are examined. The history of library automation in Idaho is not so much the story of individual projects in the state as it is the story of the work that has been done to automate Idaho's libraries<ooperative ventures that have helped connect different libraries in the huge and sometimes isolated state of Idaho. Again and again, automation turns out to be something libraries are doing together, with the underlying goal, perhaps not of cooperation, but of fairly benign self-interest. A major part of the story of library automation in Idaho has been the story of work done by the Idaho State Library and of money from LSCA. HOW LONG IS THE HISTORY? When taking a historical perspective, the first question to ask is, how long is history? The history of library automation in Idaho, and

Resource Sharing & Information Networks, 1999

Environmental Impact Statements (EISs) have been published by federal agencies such as the Nation... more Environmental Impact Statements (EISs) have been published by federal agencies such as the National Marine Fisheries Service, the U.S. Forest Service, the U.S. Geological Survey, and thc Environmental Protection Agency, since the 1970s. These governmenk documents can be an important source of environmental information. Some EISs are depository ilelns, but most are not. Only a small number of each EIS is printed, and they are not always easy to identify and acquire. Their important content and fugitive nabre makes it essential to catalog them to make their existence widely known. This article uses the timber sale EISs published by the Forest Service as examples of the benefits, problems, and techniques of cataloging this material. [Article uoyim cr~~actihble fur. a fee fionr The Ha~vot-th D O C I I~I~I Z~

Planning for the Future, 2014

Continuing education and training are essential for a vital and productive organization and for e... more Continuing education and training are essential for a vital and productive organization and for employee adaptability and job satisfaction. Libraries of all types are organizations that value learning. Training and development for library employees is expensive, and can be out of reach for smaller institutions, or libraries that are not well-funded. Regardless of funding, libraries of all types can benefit from the wide variety of training and continuing education opportunities available on the Web as open access resources. These include documentation, journal articles, reports and white papers, online courses, videos, podcasts, and so on, from many different reliable sources. This chapter surveys major sources and types of open access online learning, and evaluates their usefulness for library employees.

The Journal of Academic Librarianship, 2008

This article appeared in a journal published by Elsevier. The attached copy is furnished to the a... more This article appeared in a journal published by Elsevier. The attached copy is furnished to the author for internal non-commercial research and education use, including for instruction at the authors institution and sharing with colleagues. Other uses, including reproduction and distribution, or selling or licensing copies, or posting to personal, institutional or third party websites are prohibited. In most cases authors are permitted to post their version of the article (e.g. in Word or Tex form) to their personal website or institutional repository. Authors requiring further information regarding Elsevier's archiving and manuscript policies are encouraged to visit: http://www.elsevier.com/copyright

Technical Services Quarterly, 1991

Statistics about cataloging activity are collected tor several reasons: to monitor productivity a... more Statistics about cataloging activity are collected tor several reasons: to monitor productivity and workflow and to satisfy requests from outside agencies and the library administration about the size and nature of the library's collection. Several spreadsheets developed at the University of Idaho Library to collect statistics about cataloging activity and technical services activity and costs are examined here. Although our effectiveness is hard to measure, librarians and library staff arc concerned about how good a job we are doing. At the University of Idaho (UI) library, in common with most libraries, one thing we do to monitor our performance is to keep statistics about our activities. Statistics serve many purposes, and what is appropriate for one institution may be of no use to another. Moreover, there is often a strong but hard-to-discern historical reason for keeping certain statistics which makes it hard for a library to distinguish gathering essential information from mere habit. Nevertheless, sharing information about statistics-keeping is useful for distinguishing the essential from the habitual. Although library literature includes information about library data collection,' spreadsheet models for library use, 2 and the cost of technical services in particular,' little or nothing has been written specifically about what data is collected regarding cataloging pro

School of Information Student Research Journal, 2022

The websites of 71 US research universities were the source of data on the relationship of academ... more The websites of 71 US research universities were the source of data on the relationship of academic libraries and campus writing centers, which provide support for developing written communication skills. All 71 institutions have writing centers, generally administered by the academic success operation, the English department, or a college such as arts and sciences. Just under half (n=35) of the institutions have a writing center located in the library. In 16 of those institutions, the library is the only location of the writing center. The general issues of academic success and “library as place,” as well as the space that was gained by weeding and storage of print collections, has led to this and other opportunities for collaboration between academic libraries and other campus units, part of the ongoing transformation of library organizations and their programs and services.

Advances in Library Administration and Organization

This article examines the discourse of appointment, promotion, and tenure (APT) documents for aca... more This article examines the discourse of appointment, promotion, and tenure (APT) documents for academic librarians. Discourse analysis can illuminate the social role of language, social systems, and social practices. This qualitative research analyzes the APT documents for librarians from a group of US universities (n = 50) whose librarians are tenured faculty (n = 35). Linguistic features were examined to identify genre (text type) and register (language variety) characteristics. The documents showed strong relationships with other texts; vocabulary from the language of human resources (HR); grammatical characteristics such as nominalization; passive constructions; few pronouns; the "quasi-synonymy" of series of adjectives, nouns, or verbs; and expression of certainty and obligation. The documents have a sociolinguistic and social semiotic component. In using a faculty genre, librarians assert solidarity with other faculty, while the prominent discourse of librarians as practitioners detracts from faculty solidarity.

The Journal of Academic Librarianship, 2008

A typology of librarian status developed for land grant universities is extended to US research u... more A typology of librarian status developed for land grant universities is extended to US research universities. Land grant librarians are tenure-track faculty in 70% of institutions. Librarians in the expanded population have that status slightly more than half the time. Institution size, geographic region, and public/private governance are discussed.

The Journal of Academic Librarianship, 2005

Library Collections, Acquisitions, and Technical Services, 2000

The design of library catalogs and the maintenance of their contents equals catalog governance, t... more The design of library catalogs and the maintenance of their contents equals catalog governance, that is, professional responsibility for the catalog. The design of library catalogs and their contents are an example of the standards that are the hallmark of modern librarianship. Although design and maintenance standards have always had an array of participants, in recent years the participants in catalog design and maintenance have become more numerous and varied, and therefore its governance has become more diffuse. Although the card catalog had a standard form in which design and maintenance were linked, that is not true of today's OPAC in which the same content can take many different forms. Emerging standards, such as SGML, may actually provide a general solution in which OPACs have various, customized forms based on standard content and in which catalog librarians encode, maintain, and interpret the standard data and help guide the discussion of options for design. This article discusses the past and present governance of library catalog design and maintenance and explores issues in a "programmatic" model of governance for the catalog.

The Journal of Academic Librarianship, 2001

Collection management and technical services have a natural affi nity that is not refl ected in t... more Collection management and technical services have a natural affi nity that is not refl ected in the organization of many academic libraries, where subject librarians are oft en aligned with reference. This article examines organizational and individual approaches to librarian assignment, along with the place of collection management in the organization.

(2010). Collections (Zea E-Books). Paper 2.

School of Information Student Research Journal

Linguistics is an interdisciplinary field that draws from study of languages, including English, ... more Linguistics is an interdisciplinary field that draws from study of languages, including English, and fields such as psychology, sociology, cognitive science, computer science, and anthropology. Library and Information Science (LIS) is also interdisciplinary, and can be studied using techniques from the humanities, social science, and science. The many theories and methods of linguistic research can be extremely useful and have significant explanatory power for LIS. This article presents a research agenda for LIS that proposes the use of linguistic analysis methods. The elements of language are phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics. The study of linguistics includes those areas, but also includes discourse analysis, linguistics universals and typology, sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics, language and cognition, language acquisition (including child language and second language acquisition), and many other topics and approaches. Language is a semiotic system, a system of signs. Halliday (1978) calls language a social semiotic. Written and spoken language are systems of signs that are used and understood by speakers. Languages and variants of languages are used in speech communities (e.g., speakers of Parisian French) and discourse communities (e.g., librarians) for purposes that include those of business and commerce, education, government, medicine, law, and every kind of human social and cultural event and occasion. We talk to each other, we read and write, and we carry out daily endeavors and longterm goals using language. As librarians, we already recognize the significance of the language that we use, in controlled vocabularies, in OPAC displays, in library signage and marketing, and in planning and problem-solving. As researchers, we can use the techniques of linguistic analysis to further unpack those plans and problems, and discover new theories and frameworks for helping library patrons discover and use information. There is substantial and groundbreaking work being done in areas of library and information science such as search engine optimization, semantic web, natural language processing, and linked data. Those subjects are certainly linguistically oriented and often draw on the techniques of linguistic analysis, but this article does not focus on that area of the LIS and related literature. It provides information on frameworks, theories, and methods used in linguistics as they might be applied to many areas of LIS.

Linguistics is an interdisciplinary field that draws from study of languages, including English, ... more Linguistics is an interdisciplinary field that draws from study of languages, including English, and fields such as psychology, sociology, cognitive science, computer science, and anthropology. Library and Information Science (LIS) is also interdisciplinary, and can be studied using techniques from the humanities, social science, and science. The many theories and methods of linguistic research can be extremely useful and have significant explanatory power for LIS. This article presents a research agenda for LIS that proposes the use of linguistic analysis methods. The elements of language are phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics. The study of linguistics includes those areas, but also includes discourse analysis, linguistics universals and typology, sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics, language and cognition, language acquisition (including child language and second language acquisition), and many other topics and approaches. Language is a semiotic system, a system of signs. Halliday (1978) calls language a social semiotic. Written and spoken language are systems of signs that are used and understood by speakers. Languages and variants of languages are used in speech communities (e.g., speakers of Parisian French) and discourse communities (e.g., librarians) for purposes that include those of business and commerce, education, government, medicine, law, and every kind of human social and cultural event and occasion. We talk to each other, we read and write, and we carry out daily endeavors and longterm goals using language. As librarians, we already recognize the significance of the language that we use, in controlled vocabularies, in OPAC displays, in library signage and marketing, and in planning and problem-solving. As researchers, we can use the techniques of linguistic analysis to further unpack those plans and problems, and discover new theories and frameworks for helping library patrons discover and use information. There is substantial and groundbreaking work being done in areas of library and information science such as search engine optimization, semantic web, natural language processing, and linked data. Those subjects are certainly linguistically oriented and often draw on the techniques of linguistic analysis, but this article does not focus on that area of the LIS and related literature. It provides information on frameworks, theories, and methods used in linguistics as they might be applied to many areas of LIS.

Now when the angel greets Mary, he says: 'Greetings to you, Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with... more Now when the angel greets Mary, he says: 'Greetings to you, Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you.' Well up to this point, this has simply been translated from the simple Latin, but tell me is that good German? Since when does a German speak like that-being 'full of grace'? One would have to think about a keg 'full of' beer or purse 'full of' money. So I translated it: 'You gracious one'. This way a German can at last think about what the angel meant by his greeting. Yet the papists rant about me corrupting the angelic greeting-and I still have not used the most satisfactory German translation. What if I had used the most satisfactory German and translated the salutation: 'God says hello, Mary dear' (for that is what the angel was intending to say and what he would have said had he even been German!) If I had, I believe that they would have hanged themselves out of their great devotion to dear Mary and because I have destroyed the greeting. "I shall say 'gracious Mary' and 'dear Mary', and they can say 'Mary full of grace'. Anyone who knows German also knows what an expressive word 'dear' (liebe) is: dear Mary, dear God, the dear emperor, the dear prince, the dear man, the dear child. / do not know if one can say this word 'liebe' in Latin or in other languages with so much depth of emotion that it pierces the heart and echoes throughout as it does in our tongue."-Martin Luther "An Open Letter on Translation" (Emphasis added) As usual, Luther hits the nail on the head. In the passage quoted above, he is indignant about the criticism his German Bible translation has received from critics who clearly did not share or understand his aim of making a Bible in authentic German, not merely a "faithful" rendering of the Latin (not even the Bible's original language) word-for-word in German. This passage from Luther's famous and eloquent letter about the agonizing struggle that is the process of translation implicitly expresses the aims of scholars such as Anna Wierzbicka and others. Wierzbicka and her colleagues, in developing semantic primes and an accompanying Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM), have the ambitious goal of analyzing the words such as German liebe whose "depth of emotion ... pierces the heart" and to analyze words in the context of their culture. This paper looks at semantic analysis, including semantic fields, through the lens of NSM as described by Wierzbicka and others, how primes combine syntactically to make

The modern languages collection supports the teaching, research and service activities of the uni... more The modern languages collection supports the teaching, research and service activities of the university, but its primary audience is the faculty, staff, and students of the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures in the College of Arts and Sciences, with a focus on support for the departmental curricula. Specific and transient research needs of department faculty and graduate students are supplemented through Interlibrary Loan. Materials are not purchased for the general public, although they may use the collection. The collection focuses on works classified in particular areas of the P classification, curriculum and research support are also provided by works classified in history, religious studies, and other areas.

Electronic Green Journal

This volume cites titles added during 1991 to the holdings on environmental topics at the Library... more This volume cites titles added during 1991 to the holdings on environmental topics at the Library of Congress and the New York Public Library. Cited are 3,200 publications in all languages and formats on alternative and renewable energy, endangered species, pesticides, pollution, public policy, law and legislation, conservation, waste management, and other areas. This is a new addition to G.K. Hall's bibliographic guides, joining annual volumes covering such subjects as law, computer science, black studies, education, and music. Each of these cites popular and scholarly titles, children's books, periodicals, videocassettes, and government documents. Complete bibliographic data is provided. There are no annotations. Author, title, and subject entries are listed alphabetically under the "main entry" (for author, if any, or title), with full library cataloging information, including Library of Congress and Dewey classification numbers. Other access points provide briefer citations. There are also cross references from unused subject terms. While this arrangement, reminiscent of a card catalog, no doubt helped keep this Bibliographic Guide to a manageable size, it is irritating now that we are accustomed to finding the same data retrievable through any access point in on-line catalogs and bibliographic utility databases. While it is useful to have so many citations brought together, any investigator with access to a modem would probably find it easier to let her fingers do the walking through dozens of on-line library catalogs and other databases, thus compiling a similar or more focused list with relative ease. Like the National Union Catalog and other such printed reference tools, any of the volumes in the series of which this Guide is a part would be dubious purchases for any fairly sizable library with access to computerized sources. While they could be useful to libraries lacking on-line resources, unfortunately they are probably too expensive for many smaller institutions.

Technical Services Quarterly

ABSTRACT The University of Nebraska–Lincoln (UNL) is a medium-sized research university with a li... more ABSTRACT The University of Nebraska–Lincoln (UNL) is a medium-sized research university with a library system that serves faculty, undergraduates, and graduate students across a wide array of fields and disciplines. Providing access to library resources quickly and with rich and accurate metadata can be a challenge. The UNL Libraries tested a number of metadata generators, web-based tools that can generate usable metadata in MARC format and other output formats. The research focused particularly on Metadata Maker, a metadata generator that can be used to reduce cataloging backlogs by quickly producing usable MARC records with a minimum of training. Those records can be uploaded into library catalogs and databases and enhanced and edited by catalog librarians and by staff with more expertise.

Resource Sharing & Information Networks, 1994

The history of library autorrmticm in Idaho is iilustrative of the come of library automation thr... more The history of library autorrmticm in Idaho is iilustrative of the come of library automation throughout the United States. Idaho's effort to automate Its libraries is the stmy of cooperative ventures designed to help libraries work: together to further their own interests. The role of LSCA, the Idaho State Library, the geogaphy, and other unique chri~acteristicx of the state, as well as the role of WLN, are examined. The history of library automation in Idaho is not so much the story of individual projects in the state as it is the story of the work that has been done to automate Idaho's libraries<ooperative ventures that have helped connect different libraries in the huge and sometimes isolated state of Idaho. Again and again, automation turns out to be something libraries are doing together, with the underlying goal, perhaps not of cooperation, but of fairly benign self-interest. A major part of the story of library automation in Idaho has been the story of work done by the Idaho State Library and of money from LSCA. HOW LONG IS THE HISTORY? When taking a historical perspective, the first question to ask is, how long is history? The history of library automation in Idaho, and

Resource Sharing & Information Networks, 1999

Environmental Impact Statements (EISs) have been published by federal agencies such as the Nation... more Environmental Impact Statements (EISs) have been published by federal agencies such as the National Marine Fisheries Service, the U.S. Forest Service, the U.S. Geological Survey, and thc Environmental Protection Agency, since the 1970s. These governmenk documents can be an important source of environmental information. Some EISs are depository ilelns, but most are not. Only a small number of each EIS is printed, and they are not always easy to identify and acquire. Their important content and fugitive nabre makes it essential to catalog them to make their existence widely known. This article uses the timber sale EISs published by the Forest Service as examples of the benefits, problems, and techniques of cataloging this material. [Article uoyim cr~~actihble fur. a fee fionr The Ha~vot-th D O C I I~I~I Z~

Planning for the Future, 2014

Continuing education and training are essential for a vital and productive organization and for e... more Continuing education and training are essential for a vital and productive organization and for employee adaptability and job satisfaction. Libraries of all types are organizations that value learning. Training and development for library employees is expensive, and can be out of reach for smaller institutions, or libraries that are not well-funded. Regardless of funding, libraries of all types can benefit from the wide variety of training and continuing education opportunities available on the Web as open access resources. These include documentation, journal articles, reports and white papers, online courses, videos, podcasts, and so on, from many different reliable sources. This chapter surveys major sources and types of open access online learning, and evaluates their usefulness for library employees.

The Journal of Academic Librarianship, 2008

This article appeared in a journal published by Elsevier. The attached copy is furnished to the a... more This article appeared in a journal published by Elsevier. The attached copy is furnished to the author for internal non-commercial research and education use, including for instruction at the authors institution and sharing with colleagues. Other uses, including reproduction and distribution, or selling or licensing copies, or posting to personal, institutional or third party websites are prohibited. In most cases authors are permitted to post their version of the article (e.g. in Word or Tex form) to their personal website or institutional repository. Authors requiring further information regarding Elsevier's archiving and manuscript policies are encouraged to visit: http://www.elsevier.com/copyright

Technical Services Quarterly, 1991

Statistics about cataloging activity are collected tor several reasons: to monitor productivity a... more Statistics about cataloging activity are collected tor several reasons: to monitor productivity and workflow and to satisfy requests from outside agencies and the library administration about the size and nature of the library's collection. Several spreadsheets developed at the University of Idaho Library to collect statistics about cataloging activity and technical services activity and costs are examined here. Although our effectiveness is hard to measure, librarians and library staff arc concerned about how good a job we are doing. At the University of Idaho (UI) library, in common with most libraries, one thing we do to monitor our performance is to keep statistics about our activities. Statistics serve many purposes, and what is appropriate for one institution may be of no use to another. Moreover, there is often a strong but hard-to-discern historical reason for keeping certain statistics which makes it hard for a library to distinguish gathering essential information from mere habit. Nevertheless, sharing information about statistics-keeping is useful for distinguishing the essential from the habitual. Although library literature includes information about library data collection,' spreadsheet models for library use, 2 and the cost of technical services in particular,' little or nothing has been written specifically about what data is collected regarding cataloging pro