Libraries are experiencing major changes concerning the role of technical services. Technical services librarians also are being challenged about their relevance and role, sometimes revealed by a lack of understanding of the contribution technical services librarians make to building and curating library and archival collections. The threats are real: relocation from central facilities, the dramatic shift to electronic resources, budgetary constraints, and outsourced processing. As a result, technical services departments are reinventing themselves to respond to these and similar challenges while embracing innovative methods and opportunities to advance librarianship in the twenty-first century. Library Technical Services provides case studies that highlight difficult realities, yet embrace exciting opportunities, such as space reclamation, evolving vendor partnerships, metadata, retraining and managing personnel, special collections, and distance education. Written for catalog and metadata librarians and managers of technical services units, this book will inspire and provide practical advice and examples for solving issues many libraries are facing today.

Of key findings. Description of university, library, and staffing -- Cataloging productivity -- New technologies, enhancement of online catalogs -- Transition to metadata standards -- Cataloging of web sites and digital, special collections -- Library catalog/ metadata training and presentation -- Database maintenance, holdings, and physical processing -- Relationship with acquisitions departments -- Staff education -- Other issues facing library cataloging staff -- Curry College -- The University of North Dakota -- Haverford College -- University of Washington -- Yale University -- Brigham Young University -- Illinois State University -- Louisiana State University -- Pennsylvania State University.

This collection of critical and scholarly essays addresses the state of cataloging in the world of librarianship. The contributors, including Sanford Berman, Thomas Mann, and numerous front-line library workers, address topics ranging from criticisms of the state of the profession and traditional Library of Congress cataloging to methods of making cataloging more inclusive and helpful to library users. Other essay topics include historical overviews of cataloging practices and the literature they generate, first-person discussions of library workers' experiences with cataloging or metadata work, and the implications behind what materials get cataloged, who catalogs them, and how. Several essays provide a critical overview of innovative cataloging practices and the ways that such practices have been successfully integrated in many of the nation's leading libraries. Instructors considering this book for use in a course may request an examination copy here.

Used in library schools worldwide, this standard text provides students with a thorough understanding of technical services. Updated and expanded, the eighth edition further emphasizes the rapidly changing environment in which technical services are conducted. The book covers all aspects of the field—from acquisitions to managing the cataloging department—with five new chapters. "Technical Services Issues" includes material related to physical space needs; "E-resources Issues" examines how the growth of e-materials impact technical services work; "Copy Cataloging" reflects the ever increasing need to be more efficient and also to save limited funds for technical services activities; "Overview and Decisions" addresses the issue of why and how the local OPAC has become a gateway to the universe of knowledge; and "Processing Materials" covers the activities involved in making sure items that go into a library's collection are properly identified as belonging to the library and where the item is physically located in the collection. All other chapters have been extensively rewritten and updated to reflect 2010 technical service functions and activities. Complete with helpful illustrations, statistics, and study guide questions, this text is a must for library and information science students!

Survey of academic libraries, chiefly in the United States and Canada, on their use of classroom response systems (clickers); whiteboards, tablets, and other presentation aids; internet technologies such as instant messaging, blogs, wikis, podcasting, photo sharing, online simulations/tutorials, virtual classroom/reality software, virtual reference software, and course management systems; instructional budgets; instructional computer labs; and instructional furniture.

The Survey of Library Cafes (ISBN# 1-57440-089-4)presents data from more than forty academic and public libraries about their cafes and other food service operations. The report gives extensive data on library cafe sales volume, best selling products, impact on library maintenance costs, reasons for starting a cafe, effect on library traffic, and many other issues regarding the decision to start and manage a library cafe. The 60 page report presents data useful in managing a library cafe; it is not returnable.

It has long been apparent to academic library administrators that the current technical services operations within libraries need to be redirected and refocused in terms of both format priorities and human resources. A number of developments and directions have made this reorganization imperative, many of which have been accelerated by the current economic crisis. All of the chapters detail some aspect of technical services reorganization due to downsizing and/or reallocation of human resources, retooling professional and support staff in higher level duties and/or non-MARC metadata, "value-added" metadata opportunities, outsourcing redundant activities, and shifting resources from analog to digital object organization and description. This book will assist both catalogers and library administrators with concrete examples of moving technical services operations and personnel from the analog to the digital environment. This book was published as a special double issue of Cataloging & Classification Quarterly.