Rethinking Technical Services

New Frameworks, New Skill Sets, New Tools, New Roles

Edited by Bradford Lee Eden

Volume 6 of the series Creating the 21st-Century Academic Library is focused on academic library technical services operations, and ways that they have been transformed and reimagined for working in today’s higher education environment. The literature on the place and role of technical services, technical services librarians, technical services staff, and technical services operations has expanded and grown in the last few years as decreased budgets, a focus on essential public services, and information discovery on the Internet has driven the profession to re-examine the need or importance of this back-end (or hidden) library department. Topics discussed in this book include frameworks for the networked environment, roles for metadata librarians in the areas of research data and digital initiatives, the renewed focus on the discovery of information and its place in academic libraries, the new “normal” in academic library technical services operations, emerging roles and opportunities for technical services managers, the re-training and re-skilling of technical services staff, hidden collections and needed or unexplored areas of expertise with technical services librarians and staff, the faceted application of subject headings (FAST) and obsolete or outdated subject terminology within Library of Congress Subject Headings, and a conversation about downsizing and moving forward within a law library technical services unit.

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Pages: 130 • Trim: 6¼ x 9¼

978-1-4422-5788-7 • Hardback • November 2015 • $123.00 • (£95.00)

978-1-4422-5789-4 • Paperback • November 2015 • $62.00 • (£48.00)

978-1-4422-5790-0 • eBook • November 2015 • $58.50 • (£45.00)

Series: Creating the 21st-Century Academic Library

Subjects: Language Arts & Disciplines / Library & Information Science / Administration & Management, Language Arts & Disciplines / Library & Information Science / General

Rethinking Technical Services

New Frameworks, New Skill Sets, New Tools, New Roles

Hardback

Paperback

eBook

Summary

Volume 6 of the series Creating the 21st-Century Academic Library is focused on academic library technical services operations, and ways that they have been transformed and reimagined for working in today’s higher education environment. The literature on the place and role of technical services, technical services librarians, technical services staff, and technical services operations has expanded and grown in the last few years as decreased budgets, a focus on essential public services, and information discovery on the Internet has driven the profession to re-examine the need or importance of this back-end (or hidden) library department. Topics discussed in this book include frameworks for the networked environment, roles for metadata librarians in the areas of research data and digital initiatives, the renewed focus on the discovery of information and its place in academic libraries, the new “normal” in academic library technical services operations, emerging roles and opportunities for technical services managers, the re-training and re-skilling of technical services staff, hidden collections and needed or unexplored areas of expertise with technical services librarians and staff, the faceted application of subject headings (FAST) and obsolete or outdated subject terminology within Library of Congress Subject Headings, and a conversation about downsizing and moving forward within a law library technical services unit.

Details

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Pages: 130 • Trim: 6¼ x 9¼

978-1-4422-5788-7 • Hardback • November 2015 • $123.00 • (£95.00)

978-1-4422-5789-4 • Paperback • November 2015 • $62.00 • (£48.00)

978-1-4422-5790-0 • eBook • November 2015 • $58.50 • (£45.00)

Series: Creating the 21st-Century Academic Library

Subjects: Language Arts & Disciplines / Library & Information Science / Administration & Management, Language Arts & Disciplines / Library & Information Science / General

Author

Bradford Lee Eden is Dean of Library Services at Valparaiso University. Previous positions include Associate University Librarian for Technical Services and Scholarly Communication at the University of California, Santa Barbara; Head, Web and Digitization Services, and Head, Bibliographic and Metadata Services for the University of Nevada, Las Vegas Libraries. He is editor of OCLC Systems & Services: Digital Library Perspectives International and The Bottom Line: Managing Library Finances, and is on the editorial boards of Library Hi Tech and The Journal of Film Music. He has recently been named associate editor/editor-designate of Library Leadership & Management, the journal of the Library Leadership & Management Association (LLAMA) within ALA.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1: A framework for transforming technical services in a networked environment
Christine Korytnyk Dulaney

Chapter 2: Transforming roles for catalog/metadata librarians through new initiatives: research data, digital humanities, and the digital repository at the University of Connecticut Libraries
Jennifer Eustis

Chapter 3: Age of discovery: a new model for libraries
Amanda Melcher

Chapter 4: Keep calm and carry on: the new technical services
Joelen Pastva, Gwen Gregory, and Violet Fox

Chapter 5: Emerging roles and opportunities for the technical services manager
Charles Sicignano

Chapter 6: Re-training and re-skilling technical services staff
Roman Panchyshyn

Chapter 7: Brave new world of technical services
Barry Gray, Anthony McMullen

Chapter 8: LC subject headings, FAST headings, apps: diversity can be problematic in the 21st century
Karen A. Nuckolls

Chapter 9: Is the “brave new world” heuristic? The professionalization of technical services as a conversation
K. Brooke Moynihan, Hildur Hanna

Index
About the Contributors
About the Editor

Reviews

Eden’s Rethinking Technical Services is specific and practical, and describessome interesting innovative projects…. If you are readingto find out where technical servicesexperiments are going on and mightcontinue (without guarantees its forecastsare correct), Eden’s book is…revealing…. [This book] merit[s] a serious reader’s attention.
— Technicalities

Every chapter in this book...is useful and offers solid advice and tips in the practice of technical services librarianship. Each chapter ends with a thorough list of references that will be most useful to the readers. This is a very relevant and useful book that is a must-read for those librarians with a passion for technical services and it will make a valuable addition to any technical services department’s collection.
— Technical Services Quarterly

The repeated evocations of a 'brave new world' in the titles of the articles may seem alarming, but the authors have more of Shakespeare’s Miranda’s wonder than Huxley’s irony; the pieces in this collection portray twenty-first century technical services as a land of opportunity rather than a dystopia.... Those interested in the evolution of metadata creation and creators should find this book useful.
— Library Resources & Technical Services (LRTS)