May 2009

CONTENTS

Events
Resource Sharing News
OCLC for ILL
Reference Service News

Past Issues

Reference and Loan's Spring ILL Meeting will take place Tuesday, May 26, 2009. For further information, contact Martha Berninger at martha.berninger@dpi.wi.gov.

The Resource Sharing Roundtable, a unit of WLA, has two openings — secretary and chair-elect — for its officers for the 2010 year. Resource Sharing Roundtable has over 100 members working in a diverse array of libraries. Feel free to nominate yourself or recommend a colleague for nomination. Questions and/or nominations should be addressed to Bob Shaw at reshaw@wils.wisc.edu.

On Wednesday June 3, the ILLiad/ILL roundtable will meet for a discussion at the Pyle Center in Madison during the spring CUWL meeting. Leigh Dorsey (UW-Milwaukee) and Eric Robinson (WiLS) will lead an open discuss for interlibrary loan staff and others involved with the mechanics of ILLiad.

Some ILLiad topics to be discussed include planning and preparing for upgrades (7.4 and 8.0), issues surrounding purging of records, and training questions. The discussion will also focus on the communication and coordination among ILL staff at the UW campuses and other ILL related issues. Please contact either Leigh (ladorsey@uwm.edu) or Eric (erobinson@wils.wisc.edu) ahead of time to inform them of other topics you wish to discuss.

The Rethinking Resource Sharing Initiative is an ad hoc group that advocates for a revolution in the way libraries conduct resource sharing. The group has written a Manifesto for Resource Sharing, which outlines a set of principles that support more open resource sharing. Three 2009 Innovation Awards have been announced:

• Orlando Memory project, a digital archive and social networking community where the users select and contribute content
• RapidILL, a collaborative article requesting and delivery system
• Kentucky Libraries Unbound, a digital collection of local history materials made available via OverDrive.

Each of the three award winners received $1,000 and will be recognized for their resource sharing efforts at the Rethinking Resource Sharing Forum 2009 in Dublin, Ohio, on May 13, 2009.

At last week's WAPL convention in Wisconsin Dells, WLA's Resource Sharing Roundtable (RSRT) sponsored a program entitled Tracking Down Problem Requests — You can find it even if Sherlock Holmes couldn't!   The presenters were Bob Shaw from WiLS, Michelle Rosenberg of the Winnefox Library System, and Martha Berninger from the Wisconsin Reference & Loan Library.

Bob's presentation focused on finding material from the Wisconsin Historical Society including material from the Archives collection, their strong genealogical collection, and the Wisconsin newspaper collection.

Michelle provided useful tips in using everybody's first choice in finding problem citations — Google and she showed how custom holdings can be used in getting material in the most timely and cost effective manner.

Martha emphasized the unique resources available from Reference and Loan's collection including service manuals and schematics for small electronics and computers, SAMS Photofacts, and the songbook database.

See their presentation powerpoint slides in PDF format:
Martha Berringer's | Michelle Rosenberg's | Bob Shaw's

OCLC is developing the "Resource Sharing Community Portal", a new means for resource sharing librarians to communicate with one another. The Portal uses WebJunction, a Web-based community helping libraries meet their technology and training needs.

The portal will also be replacing ILLiad-L, Illiad's email listserv.

According to OCLC: The primary goal of the Resource Sharing community is to bring together the expertise, experiences and knowledge generated by you, your staff and your fellow ILL practitioners throughout the interlibrary loan landscape and to offer advice and suggestions in order for you to provide better service to your end-users and make your daily activities more efficient.

Within this community, you will be able to ...

• Communicate directly with users with similar interests
• Gather together in groups to discuss specific topics or activities
• Make use of other libraries' best practice guides or upload yours for comments
• Help define how the community should grow or provide suggestions on how to better organize it

A Quick Look at the Site (i.e., mini-site map)

• Home — this is your landing page to discover what is new within the Resource Sharing community. It will also be a place to access quick links to various parts of the site
• My WebJunction — here you can look for friends, see what they are working on, follow discussions you are participating in and access your own bookmarks for your favorite parts of the portal
• Introduction — you are here now . This is where you can learn about the Resource Sharing Community Portal
• Getting Started — here you can find getting started guides, resources, and discussions for sites new to resource sharing and and using software and services like ILLiad and WorldCat Resource Sharing
• Communitites — here you can gather together in specific subsets of the Resource Sharing Community (e.g. library type)
• Training — here you can discover where to learn more about taking courses to further your knowledge about ILL software and specific technical topics
• Best Practices — here you can look to see how others have defined their specific work instructions or where you can share the documents, powerpoints or videos you have created at your institution to help others to improve their procedures
• Technology — here you can learn about and discuss the technologies behind the software and services that are used by ILL librarians
• Support — here you can find content generated by OCLC's customer support staff based upon service requests including troubleshooting tips, frequently asked questions, known issues and system alerts
• News — here you can discuss newsworthy topics and talk about the future of resource sharing

How do you get started?
Here are the basic steps you need to do to start participating in this new community:

1. Go to ResourceSharing.WebJunction.org
2. Create an Account (If you are not already a WebJunction user or if you already have a username or password for WorldCat Registry, WorldCat.org, FirstSearch or Online Service Center, you can use the same one to get into WebJunction.)
3. Sign in
4. Go to My Account / Edit Account
5. Update Profile, My Affiliations and Profile Viewing Options
6. Choose the Resource Sharing Affiliation at the bottom of the list possible affiliations (Note: You need to be affiliated with the Resource Sharing Community to contribute content or start discussions.)
7. Save and start with the Home and Introduction tabs or choose MyWebJunction and start looking for your friends

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NEW COLLECTION:
GAY PEOPLES UNION COLLECTION
Gay Peoples Union (GPU) was the most important gay and lesbian rights organization in Milwaukee during the 1970s. Taking distance from the radical politics of the New Left, its members adopted a politically moderate approach to social change, emphasizing education and legal reform. The archival materials included in this phase of the project include annual reports, articles of incorporation and by-laws, fliers, newsletters, and the manifesto of the Gay Liberation Organization, a predecessor organization of GPU. Future additions will include the complete run of GPU's monthly news magazine, GPU News (1971-1981); and audio recordings of Gay Perspective, a radio program produced by GPU and aired on local Milwaukee stations from July 1971 to May 1972.

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NEW RESOURCES WITHIN EXISTING COLLECTIONS:

Archival Resources in Wisconsin: Descriptive Finding Aids
The Archival Resources in Wisconsin: Descriptive Finding Aids presents archival finding aids prepared and contributed by the institutions across the state. The finding aids serve as a searchable access point to the archival holdings described. Archival holdings can include a variety of materials such as correspondence, diaries, maps, government records, film, photographs, and audio recordings. The most recent additions include contributions from the Wisconsin Historical Society and University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

The Aldo Leopold Archives
Funded by the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC), the Aldo Leopold Archive houses the raw materials that document not only Leopold's rise to prominence but the history of conservation and the emergence of the field of ecology from the early 1900s until his death in 1948. These additions represent Series: 9/25/10-6, which is Mr. Leopold's writings (published and unpublished), related correspondence, and working papers and is unusually complete.

DIGITAL LIBRARY FOR THE DECORATIVE ARTS AND MATERIAL CULTURE
Rural Architecture in the Gothic Taste
The Country Gentleman's Pocket Companion
William and John Halfpenny's Rural Architecture in the Gothick Taste (1752) and The Country Gentleman’s Pocket Companion (1756) are bound together in a single volume in our local holdings copy. The two titles provide similar content: designs for ornamental garden architecture, such as summerhouses and lodges, enclosed seats and water floats. While the first book emphasizes decorative spires, pinnacles and pointed arches of the Gothic style, the second expands the ornamental repertory to include Chinese and Indian motifs. The illustration plates commonly provide both plan and elevation views. Each design has brief associated text giving building hints such as dimensions, estimated cost, or site suggestions.

The Analysis of Beauty: Written With a View of Fixing the Fluctuating Ideas of Taste
William Hogarth (1697-1764), English painter and engraver, authored the book that provided theoretical justification for the serpentine line so popular in Rococo ornament. In The Analysis of Beauty (1753), he elaborated on the scrolling S-curve "Line of Beauty" as the basis for grace in nature and art. Originally published in London, the text also appeared in two German editions and an Italian edition within a decade. The volume digitized here is a copy of the 1753 English edition, held at UW-Madison, Memorial Library Special Collections. A 1754 German edition is available for perusal there as well.

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NEW RESOURCES ADDED TO THE LIBRARY WEBSITE:
Felix Posen Bibliographic Project on Antisemitism
The Felix Posen Bibliographic Project on Antisemitism comprises online databases containing about 40,000 items. New material is added on a regular basis:The Database on Antisemitism: The Annotated Bibliography Entries are grouped in three sections or chapter divisions: Bibliographies and Reference Works Antisemitism throughout the Ages Antisemitism in Literature and in the Arts and The Jewish Question in German-Speaking Countries, 1848-1914, is a separate, unique bibliography/database. It is currently being expanded to include material of and about the period between 1914 and 1933.

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NEW IN THE REFERENCE COLLECTION:
LB2386 D63 2007
Doctorate recipients from United States universities : selected tables 2007

GR470 E63 2009
Encyclopedia of women's folklore and folklife (2 volumes; only vol.1 is on the cart)

P92 I4 D57 2008
Directory of press & media, 2008 (New Delhi : Delhi Information Bureau)

 

—Fran Metcalf, fmetcalf at wils.wisc.edu
Phone: 608.263.4981
Fax: 608.263.3684
Submit a reference request