From: William Z Schenck <wsch_at_loc.gov>
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
June, 1998
Report on collection development activities at the Library of
Congress prepared for the Collection Development Officers of Large Research
Libraries Discussion Group.
Budget: As I stated in my report in January for the Mid-Winter
meeting, Congress gave the Library an increase of 13.7% in the GENPAC and
Law materials budget. This covers the inflationary increases incurred since
the previous budgetary increase in FY95. The increased budget permits us to
increase our spending for approval plans, initiate new serial
subscriptions, and use a portion of the materials budget for retrospective
acquisitions. While we do not yet know what the FY99 materials budget will
be, we are optimistic that
Congress will continue its strong support of the Library and provide us
with the inflationary increase we
requested.
Acquisitions Travel: Acquisitions trips taken since the first of
the year include two trips to Hong Kong (one to arrange for a new dealer;
one to collect ephemera relating to the recent election); Puerto Rico,
Israel
(to attend the International Judaica Book Fair) and Switzerland. Trips
planned before the end of the fiscal year (Sept. 30) include Guatemala,
Portugal, Ecuador, and a trip to four western European countries to acquire
publications of Jewish emigre groups.
Carolyn Brown, the Acting Director for Area Studies, is
coordinating acquisitions travel requests for FY99. As we have done for
the past several years, representatives of interested divisions
(Congressional Research
Service, Area Studies, Acquisitions) meet to determine priority needs;
these travel requests are then put forward to the Collections Policy
Committee for consideration and prioritization.
Policies: A joint collections policy statement on Human Nutrition,
defining collecting responsibilities of the National Library of Medicine,
National Agricultural Library, and LC, was approved. This joins other joint
policies on Veterinary Medicine, Biotechnology, and a policy on AIDS with
just NLM.
Acquisitions: The Field Directors from the Library's six overseas
offices met in Washington earlier this month for their biennial conference.
Will Tuchrello, director of the Library's office in Indonesia, was ordered
by the State Department to leave that country on May 15 due to political
unrest. After a brief stay in Washington, he will relocate to the office
of the Library's representative in Bangkok, Thailand, where he will oversee
the Library's Jakarta operation until he can return to Indonesia. (The
Foreign Acquisitions Program
Meeting is on Sunday, June 28, 7:00-9:00 pm in Room 7 of the Washington
Convention Center.)
The Library, working with the Sabre Foundation (Cambridge, Ma.),
completed the pilot phase of a large retrospective exchange project with
Russian regional libraries. Sabre and the Library shipped 10,000 surplus
English-language books to Russia. In return the Library is receiving
monographs and serials from seven regional libraries in the southern Urals
region.
The Collections Policy Committee plans to allocate $25,000 in the
next fiscal year to support projects submitted by recommending officers
which will improve the quality of the collection. This builds on a project
recently completed, initiated by Thomas Mann, the recommending officer for
philosophy, to complete holdings for one-hundred major philosophy journals.
Evaluation: Following a recommendation from the China Case Study,
the Library established a China Working Group--a Library-wide committee
charged with implementing the recommendations of this Case Study. This
includes an evaluation of Chinese-language materials from the People's
Republic of China, including current Chinese scientific and technological
works.
The Collections Policy Committee established a "Millennium Task
Force." Among other tasks, this group will insure that the Library
collects materials that document the millennium, including a search of the
CONSER
database to identify millennium-related serials not held by the library
which should be acquired.
Electronic Resources: The Library is addressing the issue of
electronic resources on several fronts. CORDS--the Copyright Office
Electronic Registration, Recordation and Deposit System) will permit
deposit of
electronic material. An agreement with UMI is about to be signed providing
for registration of 20,000 dissertations through this system. The
Library's "Best Edition" statement, which currently favors the copyright
deposit of print material, is being revised. An internal study team has
planned a strategy for fully integrating electronic resources in the LC
collection. Library services plans to hire a coordinator of electronic
resources in the next fiscal year.
Informational Programs: The Collections Policy Committee sponsored
three programs for LC staff: Geoff Smith (British library) on the new
British Library; Jeff Rothenberg (RAND) on the preservation of digital
materials; Francis Buckley (Superintendent of Documents) on access to
Federal government information.
Integrated Library System: In May the Library awarded a contract
to Endeavor Information Systems to provide a comprehensive integrated
library system (ILS). The Voyager system from Endeavor will replace many
of the Library's present systems. Once operational, the ILS should be
invaluable for both collection evaluations and providing more management
data about the development of the Library's collections.
Miscellaneous: Much more information about activities at the
Library. many of which have implications for collection development, can be
found on the ALA Briefing Update which is accessible from the library's
World Wide Web home page (www.loc.gov). Information on the many programs at
the Library of Congress of interest to collection development librarians is
also available through this home page. And all are invited to the
Conference Reception on Saturday night, 8:00-10:00, in the beautiful
Jefferson Building.
Bill Schenck
wsch_at_loc.gov
Received on Mon Jun 22 1998 - 10:43:59 EDT