This fall's Minitex Technical Services Symposium will include a screening of Change the Subject. This documentary fits perfectly with our theme of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Technical Services, and the screening will be followed by a Q&A with film interviewee Tina Gross.
Professional Development News
On July 17, Lizzy Baus met with CLIC cataloging staff at the O'Shaughnessy-Frey Library at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul. The morning consisted of a presentation on current and future developments of RDA and related standards. In the afternoon we put our new knowledge into practice and worked together to create a description of a book using the RDA Toolkit.
Jolie Graybill, Sara Ring, and Greta Bahnemann traveled to Indianapolis, Indiana to attend the 2019 CONTENTdm User Group Meeting, where they had the opportunity to attend numerous sessions and updates regarding CONTENTdm. Craig MacDonald (School of Information at Pratt Institute) kicked things off with a keynote address on User Experience (UX), in which he introduced the concept of capacity-building and the steps needed to intitiate and susatain effective UX practices.
OCLC Research published the report Creating Library Linked Data with WIkibase: Lessons Learned from Project Passage. The Wikibase prototype dubbed Project Passage provided a sandbox in which librarians from 16 U.S. institutions (including the University of Minnesota Libraries) could experiment with creating linked data to describe resources without having to necessarily know the technical underpinnings of linked data.
Propose a session for the 2019 Minitex Technical Services Symposium! The 2019 Minitex Technical Services Symposium: Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Technical Services will be held at the Brookdale Library in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota on Thursday, November 14, 2019. Share your experiences and best practices supporting and promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion in Technical Services! Have you found ordinary or extraordinary ways of reflecting and championing your diverse community and colleagues in your work? Do you understand the importance of equity and inclusion but are unsure how to be an advocate and ally through your Technical Services work?
We are pleased to announce that Amber Billey will be the keynote speaker at the Minitex Technical Services Symposium: Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Technical Services on November 14, 2019.
We've pulled together a list of some of the cataloging and metadata sessions offered at ALA Annual 2019. You will also find links to the full list at the bottom of this article.
The Minitex Technical Services Symposium will return this fall, on November 14, 2019. This year's theme is Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Technical Services.
I attended DPLAfest for the first time, which took place at Chicago Public Library. Read selected highlights from sessions about digital preservation assessment, creating community history web archives, and controlled digital lending. DPLA has also posted recordings from all the plenary speaker presentations here.
Linked Data for Production (LD4P) is a multi-year, Mellon-funded collaborative project to create infrastructure and best practices for the creation, migration, and discovery of library metadata in an RDF-based format. For phase 2 of the project, the LD4P partners issued an open call for libraries to join a cohort that will begin to produce linked data in a sandbox developed in cooperation with the PCC (Program for Cooperative Cataloging). The overarching goal of this phase of the project is to move closer to actual cataloging production workflows, and to begin in earnest the long-discussed transition from the MARC record. The University of Minnesota Libraries’ successful proposal focuses on the cataloging of artists’ books and fine press materials.

Strengthening the knowledge, skills, and efficiency of staff in libraries throughout the Minitex region