American Library Association Journals
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Lessons Learned in Born-Digital Preservation
No full textAs more government documents are created in digital mediums, it is increasingly important that agencies could preserve and make them available to the public. This article discusses one group of government documents related to the war in Afghanistan and the landscape that would potentially preserve them. Based on the current conditions, there is a possibility that these documents and those of a similar nature may be overlooked and lost to future generations.In 2019, a series of articles published by The Washington Post provided an outlook of the war in Afghanistan mostly unknown to the public entitled “At War with the Truth.” Citing government documents, they [the documents] reveal, that despite the oversight of three presidential administrations, billions of dollars spent, and thousands of lives lost, the government failed to tell the truth about the conflict through its first eighteen years. Drawn primarily from the Lessons Learned Reports produced by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (S.I.G.A.R) and various other government documents, a story unfolds of inconsistent strategy amplified by intentionally misinforming the public about the war’s progress. These documents were largely unclassified until The Washington Post sought to obtain them through a Freedom of Information Act request prompting the government to then restrict some documents. A move that was overturned following a nearly three-year legal battle
Book Review: Transforming Technical Services through Training and Development
No full textThe new ALA Editions title, Transforming Technical Services through Training and Development, collects chapters by practitioners in technical services departments (academic, public, and consortia) discussing their approaches to training. Three themes recur through many of the thirteen chapters of this volume and help to tie them together: documentation; cross-training and engagement; and COVID-19. Documentation plays a crucial role in developing a learning culture, with the editors noting in the introduction that “successful training is impossible without a strong emphasis on current, up-to-date, and complete documentation” (xi). Cross-training staff and ensuring that they are engaged in all aspects of the training and development processes is crucial for a successful program. The final (and perhaps inevitable) theme that recurs through many of the chapters is the COVID-19 pandemic and its role in changing the way that library technical services departments have operated since 2020
Not Just in English Anymore
No full textMoney, dinero, 钱, denaro, novac: In any language our users deserve accurate information.Sixty-eight million people in the United States speak a language other than English. Spanish speakers make up 13.2% of the US population. The number of other language speakers in the United States tripled from 23.1 million in 1980 to 67.8 million in 2019. The five most spoken languages other than English are Spanish, Chinese, Tagalog, Vietnamese and Arabic. (https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2022/12/languages-we-speak-in-united-states.html
Documents Without Borders: Show Me the (International) Data!
No full textSome research is done in carefully controlled environments—where researchers painstakingly alter variables to determine how their change affects certain outcomes. These experiments, designed to test various theories and hypotheses, are dependent on the ability of researchers to control potential variables. Yet other methodologies focus on situations where the change in variables were dictated by policy, business, or social shifts. When these shifts happen on a large scale, international data is an invaluable tool for determining actual effects. In this column I will explore several international government data sources and their use in academic research
Speech-Giving and the Woman Suffrage Movement: Exploring Government Databases for Women’s Voices
No full textThis article addresses the Woman Suffrage Movement of the 19th century and its continued significance through the exploration of primary source government documents that largely focus on speeches delivered by women, such as Isabella Beecher Hooker, to Congress and current documents that inform these speeches through relevant historical contexts, such as the Equal Rights Amendment. The goal of engaging with these government documents in this way is to encourage increased accessibility of government information relevant to the Woman Suffrage Movement in teaching and learning within libraries and the US K-12 education system.The Woman Suffrage Movement in the United States was a major milestone in women’s fight for political, social, and economic equality.1 The movement can be traced back to the mid-19th century when a small group of women began advocating for women’s rights. In 1848, a group of women, including Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott, organized the first women’s rights convention in Seneca Falls, New York. At the convention, they issued a “Declaration of Sentiments,” modeled after the Declaration of Independence, that demanded women’s right to vote and women’s equality with men.2 The document asserted that women had the same rights as men and called for the end of woman’s oppression
Documents without Borders: Beneath the Rubble
No full textIn my first few columns exploring the intricacies of international governmental information, I focused primarily on information provided by nations with strong institutions and long established international governmental organizations (IGOs). While I briefly mentioned potential flaws in information and data related to cultural preferences and willful misleading—I stayed away from discussing finding and evaluating information from nations with weak institutions. Government information specialists are well aware of the complexity of navigating a labyrinth of bureaucratic information that varies in how accessible it is, but what happens without even the assurance of that imperfect system? Nations that are mired in ongoing conflict, corruption, or whose institutions have been threatened by financial or climate crises face unique challenges in sharing or even preserving information. This column will look at examples of these situations, and strategies for accessing information that feels as though it is buried beneath the rubble
Automating FDLP eXchange Withdrawal Lists
No full textThe Penn State University Libraries (University Libraries) is a large academic research library comprising twenty-four locations and thirty campus libraries across the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. The University Park campus is the main campus and has five libraries with many different departments that often act independently. As an example, in the main Pattee-Paterno Library, there are four libraries: George and Sherry Middlemas Arts and Humanities/Social Sciences/Education, Life Sciences (part of STEM libraries), William and Joan Schreyer Business, the Donald W. Hamer Center for Maps and Geospatial Information (Maps and GIS). As a large institution, the scope of projects can be substantial and create opportunities for departments to share their technical skills. These partnerships often manifest as technological innovations that can improve workflow across the organization and be shared with the greater library community
Book Review: Metadata for Digital Collections, Second Edition
No full textThe ability to create digital collections has become more accessible to libraries and cultural heritage institutions of all sizes over the last few years, making it a good time to release the second edition of Steven Jack Miller’s Metadata for Digital Collections. Miller is successful in his goal to write a textbook that is “accessible to beginners and library and information studies students as well as experienced professionals with little formal metadata training” (xxl). Throughout the book he introduces fundamental concepts that everyone developing a digital collection will need in order to be successful. Complex concepts—such as interoperability, linked data, and controlled vocabulary—are introduced early in the book in a manner that is appropriate for someone who is unfamiliar with the topics. Later chapters examine each of these topics in-depth providing a solid grounding and understanding of these concepts. In addition to writing plainly, Miller includes many examples that clearly illustrate the concepts being introduced. He also created a number of useful sidebars; I particularly found the “Typology of Metadata Standards” (15) and “Five Ways to Improve Metadata Quality and Interoperability: Summary Overview” (316) sidebars helpful in how they summarize the information in their respective sections which will make it easy for me to reference in the future
Public Awareness and Advocacy Committee: Advocating in a Time of Book Challenges
No full textIn a time where challenges and new bills restricting access to books are sweeping the country, it is easy to feel helpless. For library professionals who are not personally facing book bans and challenges there are still tangible ways to prepare yourself as an ally for helping library professionals and educators
The Kids Are Not All Right: Why LGBTQIA+ Representation in Literature Matters
No full textLet’s start off with a question. How old were you when you read your first book with a lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer/questioning, intersex, or asexual character in it?Now another question—how did that story end? Probably not well, and that’s not uncommon.Throughout much of history, in literature featuring LGBTQIA+ themes, the character, or characters, does not have a good outcome. These books feature common themes, which often revolve around being assaulted, contemplating or completing suicide, being murdered, dying alone—often of an incurable disease—a woven death shroud of dark conclusions for characters who stray from the straight and cisgender