(ALA) - Forum on Metadata for Digital Reference
American Library Association (ALA) Annual Conference
Forum on Metadata for Digital Reference
Heather Tunender
The Reference and User Services Association and Library of Congress held a forum on Metadata for Digital Reference. The forum began with a status report from Dr Mary S. Woodley concerning the LC/RUSA Selection Criteria Task Force Report. The Task Force was formed in September 2003 with the goal to "compile/review/disseminate selection criteria for electronic resources." In her presentation, Dr Woodley reviewed the criteria the Task Force has compiled thus far and requested feedback from interested colleagues. The Task Force needed to receive feedback as soon as possible, because the final report had to be completed by September 30, 2003. Dr Woodley's presentation is available online (www.msu.edu/~wellsat/annual 2003.ppt). However, some of the unique electronic resources selection criteria that have been identified include: ease of searching, interface/ease of navigation, user guides, content, special software/hardware required, remote access and archiving/access to backfiles.
The draft Task Force Report is available online at: www.msu.edu/~wellsat/sctf.html,where you will also find a list of the Task Force members and their contact information.
Susan R. Morris reported on the Library of Congress' (LC) recent decision to catalog electronic resources using the single record approach. The decision came out of a recommendation from an LC study group formed to examine how the LC would handle the upcoming so-called "serials bubble." LC catalogs around 10,000 new serial records per year and has a staff of approximately 32 serials catalogers. They expect to get 5,000 to 7,000 new electronic serials over the next three years. Morris noted that the decision was mainly an economic one,because ideally they "would like a separate record for each manifestation that is displayed." The bibliographic record will note the electronic version. A serials management system with holdings information is being investigated.
Heather Tunender (tunender@lib.uci.edu) is the Electronic Reference Services Librarian at the University of California, Irvine, Irvine, California, USA.
