by Sara Ring
Quick Summary
Over 75 library staff attended the inaugural Technical Services Symposium that was held on December 6, 2017 at Metropolitan State University, Saint Paul campus. Some of the speaker handouts are now available on the Minitex website. After hearing good feedback from attendees, we hope to offer more Technical Services Symposiums in the future. If you're interested in helping plan future events like this, please contact Lizzy Baus (eebaus@umn.edu) or Sara Ring (ring0089@umn.edu).
Over 75 library staff attended the inaugural Technical Services Symposium that was held on December 6, 2017 at Metropolitan State University, Saint Paul campus. Some of the speaker handouts are now available on the Minitex website.
The day featured a keynote presentation by Jean Godby (OCLC Research) "Breaking Out of the Walled Garden: Lessons Learned in Moving Library Linked Data from Research to Production." She summarized that linked data is more than a format conversion or data-management solution. As a community we have a long way to go towards adoption to reach a critical mass, but linked data does have the potential to deliver something richer than what our data can do now. We need to capitalize more on the opportunity, be more strategic in our efforts, and address difficult problems. We can only do this by realizing the true promise of linked data, and break out of the library's walled gardens to integrate our data with resources on the broader web.
Later that morning we hosted a panel of local speakers who discussed various topics. Stacie Traill from the University of Minnesota Libraries shared how they automated the evaluation of ebook metadata from various vendors. Bobby Bothmann (Minnesota State University, Mankato) discussed the road ahead and technical services in the early 21st century, and Hannah Buckland (Leech Lake Tribal College) presented "Everything is Connected: Digital Objects and Equitable Access."
We wrapped up the morning with a networking lunch so that attendees could continue the conversation and connect with colleagues. That afternoon, Terry Reese led a "MarcEdit 7 Advanced Tools" workshop. With a second MarcEdit workshop added and held the day before, we had over 40 staff attend the workshop portion of the event.
After hearing good feedback from attendees, we hope to offer more Technical Services Symposiums in the future. If you're interested in helping plan future events like this, please contact Lizzy Baus (eebaus@umn.edu) or Sara Ring (ring0089@umn.edu).
