TSRT

The Technical Services Round Table will award one $150 scholarship to attend the 2012 MPLA/NLA/NEMA Fall Conference.

Requirements:

1)  Must be a TSRT member

2)  Institutional funding is limited or not available for the Fall Conference

3)  Must submit a written report for the TSRT blog no later than Nov. 9, 2012

4)  Funds will be reimbursed when the written report is submitted.

To apply, please complete the scholarship application form and forward it to Casey Kralik, TSRT Chair (casey.kralik@bellevue.edu) before June 15, 2012.

Scholarship Application Form (Word document)

Scholarship Application Form (PDF file)

Presentation proposals are now being accepted for the 2012 NLA/NEMA/MPLA Tri-Conference, which will be held in LaVista on October 17-19. The deadline for submissions is April 30, 2012. All proposals should be submitted electronically via the online submission form. All proposals must have a sponsoring group. If you are interested in having TSRT sponsor your proposal, please contact Angela Kroeger (akroeger@mail.unomaha.edu), TSRT Vice Chair.

More information about the Tri-Conference can be found on the conference web site.

Photos from this year’s NLA/NEMA conference have been posted to the TSRT Photos page. Many thanks to Casey Kralik for providing the photos!

The final session sponsored by TSRT at this year’s NLA/NEMA Conference was an update on the Pioneer Consortium, presented by Steve Fosselman, Greg Mickells, and Pam Soreide. Here are the slides and handouts from their presentation:

Congratulations to Kari Bulgrin of Gretna Public Schools, who was the winner of the chocolate raffle at the TSRT booth at this year’s NLA/NEMA conference. Kari was the recipient of the chocolate flower box expertly crafted by Laura England-Biggs. Kari is pictured here with Casey Kralik, TSRT’s new Chair. Congratulations again to Kari, and thanks to everyone who stopped by the TSRT booth to enter the raffle!

Another TSRT presentation at this year’s NLA/NEMA conference was given by Sally Gibson of Creighton University. Titled “Letting the Patron Drive,” Sally’s presentation covered demand-driven acquisitions.

At this year’s NLA/NEMA conference, Deirdre Routt, Corinne Jacox, and Emily Nimsakont presented “Let’s Talk About RDA.” Here are the presentations and the handout from their presentation:

TSRT sponsored a number of excellent sessions at last week’s NLA/NEMA conference. In one session, Casey Kralik, Laura Johnson, Maggie Tarelli-Falcon, and Patty Birch presented a number of perspectives on weeding. Here are the slides from their presentation:

Angela Kroeger here.

I am honored to have been elected vice-chair of TSRT. Thank you to everyone who voted for me. For that matter, thank you to everyone who voted for Emily Nimsakont, as well. Among all the sections and round tables, TSRT had this year’s highest percentage voter turnout: 64.3%. That’s something we should be proud of. It shows how much this group really cares. We are small but mighty.

I didn’t get to all four of TSRT’s programs at NLA/NEMA Fall Conference this year, but the two that I did attend were excellent.

I attended “Let’s Talk about RDA,” presented by Deirdre Routt, Emily Nimsakont, and Corinne Jacox. In addition to the usual overview of RDA, this session included some specific advice on making sure one’s ILS can properly display and index RDA records, and also raised the question of how RDA records will play with other discovery tools. Emily also stressed that we need to be thinking about non-MARC metadata, and she speculated that MODS would be the metadata standard that emerges as MARC’s replacement.

I also attended Sally Gibson’s session on demand-driven acquisitions, “Letting the Patron Drive.” I honestly didn’t know too much about DDA prior to this session, other than the fact that it existed and that my library was looking into it. After Sally’s explanation of how patron-activity triggers and short-term loan options work, I’m completely sold on DDA. She very clearly explained why the Reinert-Alumni Library made the decisions they did, and it all seems very logical and rational. Now demand-driven acquisition seems not just like a way of dealing with ebook purchases, but the ideal way of dealing with ebook purchases.

Beyond TSRT’s sessions, I thought the conference was very good this year. There were a lot of interesting sessions, and everything seemed to run smoothly.

Next year’s conference is going to be huge–bringing together NLA, NEMA, and MPLA. Because of the size of the conference, the session proposal deadline is likely going to be earlier in 2012 than in recent years. So it’s not too early to start thinking about sessions you’d like to see, or sessions you’d like to present yourself.

Thank you again, and I look forward to working with you all.

Don’t forget to register for the NLA Conference – early bird registration ends on August 31st! While you are at the conference, check out these TSRT sessions:

TSRT Business Meeting – Thursday, October 6, 2:30-3:40 pm

Let’s Talk About RDA – Friday, October 7, 8:00-8:50 am

Letting the Patron Drive – Friday, October 7, 9:00-9:50 am

Weeding Collections – Friday, October 7, 10:00-10:50 am

Pioneers Progress – Friday, October 7, 3:00-3:50 pm

For more detailed descriptions of the programs and to register for the conference, visit the conference website.