ISSUES, NEWS, & GOINGS ON

Rumors – p. 1

From Your Editor – p. 6

Letters to the Editor – p. 6

Deadlines – p. 6

FEATURES

Inside Outsourcing Technical Services: Upsides and Downsides
Guest Editors:  Stacey Marien and Alayne Mundt

Inside Outsourcing Technical Services: Upsides and Downsides p. 1 by Stacey Marien and Alayne Mundt — Outsourcing is a popular and longstanding solution for technical services departments aiming to improve efficiencies or reallocate staff time into different or more expert areas.

Outsourcing: A Librarian Vendor Perspective p. 10 by Charles F. Hillen — This is a look at outsourcing from the vendor perspective.

Gig Cataloger: Working as an Independent Contractor on an Outsourced Reclassification Project p. 13 by Catherine Eilers — Gig work consists of short term, temporary, or contract work, rather than the regularly-staffed work that is performed inside libraries.

OhioLINK and Vendor Records Quality Control p. 15 by Emily Flynn — Emily details reporting errors to vendors and working with them to improve record quality

Outsourcing Cataloging at the University of Maryland, College Park: Problems and Opportunities p. 17 by Benjamin Bradley and Beth Guay — The authors outline the multitude of issues librarians face when the library catalog itself is outsourced, requiring the need to work with third parties for troubleshooting.

Outsourced Cataloging of Materials in Languages for Which There Is No In-House Capability p. 21 by Joshua Hutchinson — This is how the University of California, Irvine Libraries increased the breadth of their collections while dealing with reduced cataloging capabilities

Homegrown Outsourcing: A Cooperative Cataloging Pilot Between Duke University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill p. 24 by Denise Soufi, Nanako Thomas and Natalie Sommerville — The authors outline how they collaborated to exchange Japanese and Arabic books for cataloging, a cost analysis of such a project, and the ultimate benefit of the exchange over outsourcing to an external vendor.

Outsourcing Technical Services in a Health Sciences Library p. 26 by Demetria Patrick and Melanie McGurr — This article is about outsourcing technical services with no technical services staff.  They also document strategies to help library administration understand the importance of technical services in ensuring a library’s success.

Jumping Into and Then Climbing Partially Back Out of the Pond p. 30 by Kay G. Johnson and Elizabeth McCormick — Radford University’s Experience with Outsourcing Bibliographic Records and Processing – weigh the cost of the service versus the personnel cost. 

Streamlining Workflows: Combining In-House Cataloging and Outsourcing to Achieve Institutional Success p. 33 by Cecilia Williams, Nikita Mohammed and Amber Seely — This article documents the process of bringing most of the outsourcing cataloging and processing back in-house.  This has enabled their library to speed up time to shelf and provide a more customized collection for library patrons.  It has also helped morale.

A Peek Inside Vendor/Library Partnership to Establish a Firm Order Workflow Through a Consortial Migration p. 38 by Moon Kim and Moriah Guy — As different vendors offer different degrees of support and feedback mechanisms to understand a library’s individual structure, having a regionally appointed representative with the understanding of multiple libraries can lead to better understanding of library technical service trends, best practices, and needs.

Op Ed — Blurring Lines- The End of the Open Ed Conference: Who Wins? Who Loses? p. 42 by David Parker — It is too simplistic a characterization to label publishers as a source of a problem in higher education.

Back Talk -The Real Crisis in Higher Education p. 86 by Jim O’Donnell — The idea of free higher education is a beautiful one, but it’s obviously tough to achieve.  What if states just stopped cutting and even restored some of what’s been cut …

ATG INTERVIEWS & PROFILES

Profiles Encouraged p. 76 In this issue we have profiles from ATG Media’s 2019 Up and Comers award winners, and from our authors there are 16 people profiles, 7 library profiles, and 1 company profile.

REVIEWS

Reader’s Roundup — Monographic Musings & Reference Reviews p 43 by Corey Seeman — Two types of reviews in one column – monograph and reference reviews.  Corey says we are hitting our stride and has provided nine new reviews for this issue.

Booklover — Better Late Than Never Summer Reading p. 48 by Donna Jacobs — A work of fiction, Jenny, a novel by Sigrid Undset is on Donna’s radar!

Collecting to the Core — Classics of Sociology p. 49 by Cindy L. Craig — The ISA asked its members to list five books published in the 20th century that were most influential to their work as sociologists.  This essay will examine a selection of these titles.

LEGAL ISSUES

Edited by Bruce Strauch and Jack Montgomery

Legally Speaking –European Commission’s Copyright Reform Raises Issues p.51 by Anthony Paganelli — The impact of this copyright reform should be studied for use in the U.S.

Questions and Answers- Copyright Column p. 53 by Laura N. Gasaway — As always, Lolly features many relevant questions and answers – included are several about the use of charts and tables by authors.

PUBLISHING

And They Were There–Reports of Meetings p. 54 — In this issue you’ll find a report of the 2019 ALPSP Conference provided by Anthony Watkinson.

The Scholarly Publishing Scene- The Innovators p. 56 by Myer Kutz — All of Darrell Gunter’s innovation sessions at PSP annual conferences were not only informative, but also entertaining.

Bet You Missed It p. 69 by Bruce Strauch — What do Philip Roth and Harold Bloom have in common?  Read about it here!

Don’s Conference Notes p. 70 by Donald T. Hawkins and Leah Hinds — A discussion of the 41st Society for Scholarly Publishing annual meeting in May 2019.  The theme was Shopping the New Status Quo.

BOOKSELLING AND VENDING

Collection Management Matters–BFF: Collaborative Partnerships of Collection Management and Systems Librarians p. 57 by Xuemei Ge — Collection Management Librarians and Systems Librarians work together to provide much of the technological functionality required for innovation and enhancement.

Biz of Digital –Transitioning to a New IR Platform p. 58 by Pam Pierce — In August 2017, Elsevier purchased Digital Commons-bepress, motivating numerous institutions to explore and commit to options for leaving the popular IR platform.

Both Sides Now:  Vendors and Librarians-It’s the Relationship p. 60 by Michael Gruenberg — Mike is concerned to see that many information industry companies today seem to turn over their sales staffs with great frequency.

Marketing Touchpoints–Segmenting User Groups for Greater Inclusivity p. 61 by Jill Stover Heinze — Segmentation is a widely-used marketing approach that involves analyzing and breaking up the group of all potential users an organization might serve into smaller groups based on how likely those users are to respond to particular offerings.

Optimizing Library Services “…To Talk of Many Things!” p. 63 by Ms. Brittany Haynes and featuring Ms. Elyssa M. Gould — Ms. Elyssa M. Gould was the winner of IGI Global’s annual Librarian Sponsorship Program, which provided a travel stipend for the 2019 Charleston Conference.

Little Red Herrings–A Modest Proposal p. 85 by Mark Y. Herring — Mark suggests that IR collaboration might be the solution to the growth of the big deal.

TECHNOLOGY AND STANDARDS

Wandering the Web–STEM and STEAM: Selected Ideas for Children’s & Young Adult Programming p. 22 by Roxanne Spencer — If your batteries are running a bit low on makerspace ideas, get your engines revved up again by following some of the examples, lesson plans, and templates here.

Considering Games in Libraries and Such–The Ultimate Library Instruction p. 65 by Jared Alexander Seay — Student skeptics  encounter a real game with a real analog article.  And they want to do it again!

Epistemology–Building Relationships p. 66 by T. Scott Plutchak — Despite the ease and efficiency of online meetings, it turns out there is something irreplaceable about getting people together in person.

Emerging Tech: To Be or Not to Be? — Content Technologies p. 67 by Deni Auclair and John Corkery — NEW column!  This is the first in a series of articles about emerging trends in content technologies, with special focus on the scholarly publishing community and the companies that serve it.