Are User Tasks Outdated asks NGC4LIB

The whole question of the relevance of the user tasks set out in FRBR and adopted by RDA came up in several threads on the listserv NGC4Lib. The actually thread is rather short on the topic itself, which can be found on the NGC4Lib archives for the month of October.

This thread originated in another discussion, namely that on the Cooperative Cataloging begun by Jim Weinheimer. If you are not familiar with Jim, then go to his newly created website and project called the Cooperative Cataloging Rules. In a post to the NGC4Lib listerv, Jim explained that the user tasks from FRBR were outdated and do not reflect what his users want or do in his library. Remember that these user tasks are: Find, Identify, Select, Obtain.

As a separate thread, Shawne Miksa asked why these user tasks were outdated. This began a short but informative take on user tasks and how individuals search and use documents as well as information.

Here are some highlights:

• Do users look for documents or information?
  • In rereading the section of FRBR on user tasks, there is a definite focus on documents that users find in a library catalog. To cite FRBR: “For the purposes of this study the functional requirements for bibliographic records are defined in relation to the following generic tasks that are performed by users when searching and making use of national bibliographies and library catalogues”. Is it really the case that users look for documents and in particular documents found in library catalogs? There is information out there that suggests that users search for information and documents. Those who work in libraries understand that this is true. That is why most libraries have a reference desk, which is sometimes called an Information desk. However, users also like to discover information. This discovery is a process that does not require a library catalog. In many case for users, the library catalog is the last place to go. In this sense, how are we to understand the user tasks? Are they truly outdated or just plain wrong? Jim brought up the idea that FRBR hasn’t been tested and there should be more studies on how users search information or documents. Then, thanks to this research, user tasks should be formalized.
• What do users do after finding a document or information?
  • Karen Coyle highlighted that it is not so much of interest how users find information but what they do with it afterward. How do users use information? If we have an idea how users use information or documents to gather information, then it will be easier to develop technologies that help them during this process. In response to this, the fact that libraries never worried about how users used information was brought forward. Yet, libraries say that they are in the information business. So, users do not want to only find a book on a subject. This is just the beginning. Determining how this book came about and how this subject relates to others is important. This is a process of making connections -links to other related sources of information. Of course, the discovery process cannot be done entirely by a third party. With the Semantic Web, there are ways to create links and transform the way we use information into new and exciting ways.
• Why put so much effort into cataloging items if this data isn’t or can’t be used?
  • Library catalogs tend to have an enormous wealth of information. This data is stored in a format that is not web friendly. In many cases, much of the data is not even displayed to the user since this is a separate step to get to more details or more information. Though not all the information appeals to everyone, I think the effort put into cataloging should not go into systems that are not web friendly. We should be able to get our library data out there on the web where it can be used and re-used by others in ways librarians never thought of.
• Do libraries have information or documents with information?
  • Libraries are much more than places with documents or even information. They have become community centers vibrant with events, support systems, documents, information, and opportunities. What I think libraries have not done well is to transform that vibrant community that is live and in person to the online world of the web. For a long time, many libraries have created a web presence based on their library catalog. Does the OPAC convey the richness of the services provided by the library? In this sense, users are seeking much more than just information and documents with information at libraries. Libraries need a web presence that responds to this need as well.

NGC4Lib : More on Cooperative Cataloging

Not that long ago Jim Weinheimer announced a new project called the Cooperative Cataloging Rules. This is a website created along with a blog by Jim Weinheimer to be an alternative to RDA, scheduled for release in some near future.

From the website:

This is a cooperative site originally created by James Weinheimer [profile] as an alternative to accepting RDA. The basic idea is to have a site where the current rules can continue to be updated. There are also the related Google Groups site, and the Blog. For more information, see the Official Announcement on the Blog.

To better understand why this website was created, whether you believe in RDA or not, the recent thread called, Cooperative Cataloging on NGC4Lib is excellent. If you go to the NGC4Lib archives for October 20, you will see the discussions on this topic.

I found 2 things of interest in this discussion:

• Jim Weinheimer goes into his reasons why he believes RDA to be the wrong direction.
  • In short, Jim sees RDA as too expensive, untested, based on wrong user tasks as well as an outdated conceptual model. Jim highlights the fears of many that the old rules will not be maintained thus forcing RDA’s hand. The purpose of the Cooperative Cataloging rules is to be a serious alternative to RDA. These rules are based on the years of experience and build on the richness of the LCRI’s or the Library of Congress Rule Interpretations.
• The responses to Jim’s Cooperative Cataloging Rules
  • One of the most interesting comments I found was that RDA is not a clean slate but has inherited a lot of legacy instructions from AACR2. In this way, RDA does not do away with AACR2, years of cataloging experience, or even the richness of the LCRI’s. It is a different presentation with a different orientation which also happens to include a broader perspective than just AACR2. Another interesting point was how to interpret user tasks. Because the user tasks are a list: Find, Identify, Select, Obtain, does that mean that users must perform tasks in a linear fashion? This is an excellent question. Already, FRAD has more than these 4 user tasks adding Clarify and Understand to the list.

If time permits and you find yourself questioning RDA, this is a good thread to read through. It is not that long and is not filled with some of the technical jargon that appeared in other threads recently on NGC4Lib.

LCSH video recording headings

This announcement recently came through the OLAC listserv. For those interested in LC’s genre and form headings, definitely go and take a look at this document. The Policy and Standards Division is looking for your comments!

As part of its ongoing moving image genre/form headings project, early
this year the Policy and Standards Division (PSD) of the Library of
Congress developed a plan to cancel the existing subject headings that
denote genres and forms of video recordings.  On May 11, 2009, PSD
posted a discussion paper on its web site and requested public comment.
(The discussion paper is available at
<http://www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/videorecheadings.pdf>.)

After reviewing all of the input it received, PSD will follow through
on most of the proposals presented in the discussion paper.  In summary,
the decisions are:

·       Topical headings (MARC tag 150) denoting a genre
or form of video recording will be cancelled in favor of the correlated
film headings;
·       The heading Video mini-series will be revised to
Film mini-series and the heading Television mini-series will be
retained;
·       The existing topical heading Interactive video will be made
plural and a genre/form heading will be created; and,
·       Genre/form headings for Internet videos, podcasts, and webisodes
will be created.

A full explanation of the decisions and the rationales behind them is
available at <http://www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/videorecheadings2.pdf>.

PSD sincerely thanks all those who provided their thoughts on the
plan.

Janis L. Young
Policy and Standards Division
Library of Congress
jayo@loc.gov

Rick J. Block and RDA

Rick J. Block has been speaking on RDA for some time now. I recently came across his website via William Denton’s FRBR Blog. The page is entitled, RDA: Victors or Victims. This is actually a presentation that Rick did for the New York Technical Services group. Last year, he presented, RDA: Boondoggle or Boon? at the New England Technical Services group.

At both links provided above, you will find not only Rick’s Powerpoint (in PPT or PDF format) but also a list of information on RDA ranging from articles to blogs and discussion lists. This is another great source to get information on RDA, FRBR, and FRAD.

NGC4LIB on Tim Berners-Lee and the Semantic Web

The listserv, the Next Generation Catalog for Libraries has been extremely busy this last month. Three discussions really stand out: FRBR’s Group 1 entities and what type of identifiers are associated with them, in particular works, expressions and manifestations ; Tim Berners Lee and the Semantic Web ; FRBR’s user tasks and their continued relevance.

Unlike some listservs, these threads can be read in their entirety online. William Denton’s FRBR blog as well as some others have already advertised this to the community. I would like to re-advertise these discussions because of their importance in understanding FRBR and RDA among other things. In doing so, I would like to highlight some points from these threads. I will do this in a series of 3 blogs one on identifiers, a second on user tasks, and then end with the thread on Tim Berners Lee, which is still very active on NGC4LIB. I posted last week on FRBR and identifiers. This post will be about the thread on Tim Berners-Lee and the Semantic web.

Don’t let the title of the thread fool you. This discussion went everywhere! There are still some replies to the listserv over the past week that continue the discussion. Remember to look at the archives for October and November. Basically, the thread began with the posting of a recent talk by Sir Tim Berners-Lee at: http://fora.tv/2009/10/08/Next_Decade_Technologies_Changing_the_World-Tim-Berners-Lee. This 38 minute interview was the beginning to a very rich discussion about data, how to identify data, and how to get data out on the web to be used and re-used.

Here are some points that I found of particular interest:

• How do we get data out on the web? Will RDA help get the data out on the web?
  • This is an excellent question that comes up several times in this thread. This is also a question that came up in the recent OCLC webinar on what they are doing about RDA. For the most part, library data is stored away in catalogs that are really not being minded or search by search engines. The wealth of information is there but it is not in a web friendly format. As Jim Weinheimer and others pointed out, it is essential to get that information out there. However, there was mention that the Library of Congress library data is out there and the Internet Archives’ data is out on the web as well. So why aren’t people looking at it? Isn’t RDA and its relation to the semantic web supposed to help not only get library data out there but also get people looking at it? These questions really didn’t get formalized in terms of answers. Yet, it was interesting to follow the trail of people’s thoughts. Yes we need to get library data out there. RDA theoretically will help us do this because of its relationship to the semantic web. However, will this incite users to come and look at this data?
• RDA and user taks
  • The discussion about RDA and the web led to the question of the relevance of the user tasks that RDA brought over from FRBR. These user tasks are: find, identify, select, obtain. FRBR was published in 1998, more than a decade ago. Do these tasks represent what users do when searching for information? Remember that FRAD, FRBR’s sibling for authority work, has slightly different user tasks. What does this say about users tasks?
• The idea of a domain model (RDFS, OWL ontology, RDF)
  • One of the reasons that RDA will be useful for the semantic web according to some on the thread is that it is based on a domain model which can be expressed as an RDFS/OWL ontology. From the thread, this domain model is important since it provides a framework with which to work from. Even if this framework contains flaws, it is still a helpful framework that can evolve as the web evolves since it is tied to the language used on the web. This is useful since it also means that RDA will evolve with the web.
• Multiple meanings of FRBR and RDA: FRBR, RDA, RDAonline
  • This was a very interesting post by Karen Coyle. I think she highlighted a huge problem. With all the discussions about RDA, FRBR, and the product of RDA that is going to be pubished sometime in the future, a multitude of interpretations surrounding these concepts have arisen. Karen was right to point out that we will have 3 things: FRBR, RDA, and RDAonline. These are 3 different things that serve 3 different purposes. In addition, we have to remember that RDA has inherited many legacy issues from AACR2. This is one of the reasons why RDA is criticised by some as not going far enough. To make matters more confusing, there is also the Metadata Registry, which is related to RDA, RDAonline, and FRBR but is its own enterprise with its own mission.
• OLAC and WEMI
  • It has been known the audio-visual community has had trouble with the notions of work, expression, manifestation, and item for quite some time know. Until this thread, I really hadn’t found a good explanation as to the reasons why as well as what OLAC planned to do about it. Kelly C. McGrath wrote about OLAC’s position on Wed. 21, 2009. She was responding to the importance of the WEMI (work, expression, manifestation, and item) model as a good starting point. Kelly writes: “We are trying to take a practical approach. At a theoretical level, the four levels as defined by FRBR make a lot of sense (although if you , for example, include expressions of expression, it would seem you could have even more levels).However, when we came to recording things on different records, it quickly became apparent that the split between Work and Expression (e.g., things like color, aspect ratio, and costume designer only at the Expression level) was not very workable for us. We therefore settled on a model that uses primarily a Work/Primary Expression (usually the original public release if applicable) record and a Manifestation record. Information like color and aspect ratio of a DVD in hand are meaningless unless you know the original, intended values. So a 1:33 (full screen) DVD Manifestation of a TV program that was originally broadcast in 1:33 and of a film that was in 2.66:1 don’t mean the same thing to the purist. The purist would be happy with the former and not with the latter modified version. So we want to record the original, intended value at the Work level so that it can be compared with particular Expressions. We thought it was most practical to have the information that we intended to re-use for all instances in a single record. It is also in line with the way film reference sources and online databases like IMDB display information.We also think, from a practical perspective, that most Expression information can be coded in machine-interpretable form in the Manifestation record and a display of Expressions could be generated automatically. Every time a cataloger gets a new Manifestation, this information has to be reevaluated again. Moving image expressions tend to be multi-faceted so looking for an Expression record for the exact combination in hand could be time-consuming and finding expression records for each individual aspect is no better than just encoding the characteristics in the manifestation record.

    We don’t think a colorized version of a film is a new Work. Rather we would call it a new Expression and record it in the Manifestation record in such a way that it will be obvious to the user that the color of this version has been modified.

    It is also not clear to me that the hierarchical approach of choosing a work, then an expression, then a manifestation is always the order that users need. For moving images, for example, users might want to limit to those works available on DVD or usable in English up front.

    One way this might be displayed to users can be seen in Figure 8 (near the bottom) at http://kmcgrath.iweb.bsu.edu/MIWgrant.htm. The top facets are the WPE facets and the left facets come primarily from Manifestation records. So the original color or aspect ratio might be at the top and the ones for the available manifestations on the left. These comparison might be more useful in the WPE record view in Figure 9 (very bottom) where the original aspect ratio is given in the body of the WPE record and the available aspect ratios are given on the left. It might also be useful to label the non-original aspect ratio(s) as “modified.”

    FWIW, CEN (European Committee for Standardization) has also come to the conclusion that it is meaningless to talk of a Cinematographic Work outside of its realization. “The concept of cinematographic work comprises both the intellectual or artistic content and the process of realisation in a cinematographic medium.” (http://www.filmstandards.org/dokuwiki/lib/exe/fetch.php?id=start&cache=cache&media=cen-tc372_n0167_4th_wd_csh00102-r3_2008-12-03.pdf.)”

• How do we share information and metadata?
• FRBR, does it work best with an already large database of bibliographic data? Does it require that catalogers search for information they might not know or have access to? — Linking data, sharing data, …
• Identity management
• Are libraries outdated? Why aren’t people going to libraries?

I could list so many more topics from this discussion. Even though this thread is long and can be found in the archives for both October and November 2009, the discussions are well worth the detour.

Full ISBD Examples

IFLA has just published to their website full ISBD examples.

ISBD Review Group

Full ISBD Examples, a collection of full bibliographic descriptions demonstrating ISBD guidelines in a variety of language, was published in October 2009.

OCLC and RDA: Webinar

I was able to attend the recent OCLC webinar. There were four presenters: Karen Calhoun, Jean Godby, Ted Fons, and Glenn Patton. Lasting just a little bit over an hour, there was enough time for presenters and questions. The topics covered were a general overview of our diverse universe and the role of RDA in that universe. How OCLC wants to go beyond MARC21 and in particular its current projects on crosswalking metadata schemas. Then there was more information about how OCLC plans to set aside a working space for the libraries testing RDA.

In general, I found the presentations good but mostly a rehash of information already available on OCLC and RDA. The webinar seemed a good opportunity for OCLC to get the pulse of the community in regards to RDA and OCLC’s role with RDA. This was achieved through the use of user polling.

The first poll was about RDA’s objective. The leading response was that: “RDA will be more responsive to users’ finding, identifying, selecting, and obtaining wanted information from library catalogs and similar tools”.

The second poll was about how people are preparing for RDA or not. The leading response was that people were using a combination of methods to prepare for RDA including revamping cataloging policies, taking webinars, reading about new developments, or attending workshops.

If you were not able to sign up for the webinar, OCLC has a recording the information. You can also view the PPT slides.

New Version of Cataloger’s Desktop

Cataloger’s Desktop 3.0 is now available. It is a major modernization of the popular web-based subscription service. Desktop is the Library of Congress’s integrated, online documentation service with the most important cataloging and metadata resources. The re-systemization of the service features a significantly enhanced bibliographic web-based toolbox.

 

Desktop 3.0 now operates with FAST Search & Transfer’s ESP platform, greatly expanding the search and information discovery techniques available. InfoSolutions, the Crestview Hills, Kentucky web product developer that has supported Cataloger’s Desktop for the past 6 years, worked with LC staff on the re-systemization.

 

Updated quarterly by the Policy and Standards Division and available to users 24-7 through the Cataloging Distribution Service, Desktop provides access to more than 280 electronic manuals, cataloging and classification standards, procedures, and metadata resources. Desktop 3.0 now adds more new operational enhancements to the service than ever before.

 

Major Enhancements

Desktop 3.0 incorporates the most up-to-date searching and navigation,

including: fuzzy matching, finding/excluding similar resources, dynamic drill-downs, contextual analysis, search relevancy, remembering search histories, query federation, facetted search drill-downs, and a search engine that adapts to a user’s search behavior. “Desktop 3.0 takes advantage of state-of-the-art search and navigation techniques which help users find exactly what they need faster and easier than ever before,” said Bruce Johnson, Cataloger’s Desktop product manager.

 

New work environment and interface enhancements include a subscriber-customizable interface, intuitive resource organization, visual clues and icons to help users conceptualize the nature of a resource and see how it interrelates with other resources, RSS feeds from the Library of Congress and other sources, drag-and-drop shortcuts, pages built on-the-fly based on result sets, and automatic alerts to changes in Desktop’s resources.

 

“Cataloger’s Desktop 3.0,” said Beecher Wiggins, director of the Library of Congress’s Acquisitions and Bibliographic Access Directorate, “is a good example of the Library’s continuing commitment to catalogers everywhere.” To that end, catalogers will soon have ample opportunity to see Desktop 3.0 for themselves.

“Cataloger’s Desktop 3.0 will be demonstrated continually in the Library of Congress exhibit booth at the ALA midwinter meeting in Boston in January 2010,” announced Dr. Barbara Tillett, chief of the Library of Congress’s Policy and Standards Division. “To help users make the most of the new product enhancements,” she added, “Library of Congress staff have been busy creating an array of helpful documentation.”

 

To help users optimize their use of Cataloger’s Desktop 3.0, a battery of learning aids and practical tips are now being developed and will be accessible online shortly. These include a series in webinars in both English and Spanish, free online training files, PowerPoint presentations, and “at-a-glance” how-to handouts.

 

For more technical details visit www.loc.gov/cds/notices/desktop09.pdf

.

Visit the Cataloger’s Desktop website at www.loc.gov/cds/desktop .

 

NGC4lib on WEMI and Identifiers

The listserv, the Next Generation Catalog for Libraries has been extremely busy this last month. Three discussions really stand out: FRBR’s Group 1 entities and what type of identifiers are associated with them, in particular works, expressions and manifestations ; Tim Berners Lee and the Semantic Web ; FRBR’s user tasks and their continued relevance.

Unlike some listservs, these threads can be read in their entirety online. William Denton’s FRBR blog as well as some others have already advertised this to the community. I would like to re-advertise these discussions because of their importance in understanding FRBR and RDA among other things. In doing so, I would like to highlight some points from these threads. I will do this in a series of 3 blogs one on identifiers, a second on user tasks, and then end with the thread on Tim Berners Lee, which is still very active on NGC4LIB.

FRBR has 3 entity groups. Group 1 is comprised of the WEMI or work, expression, manifestation, and item. Barbara Tillett has some excellent presentations out on the web on FRBR and RDA. She recently presented at the NISO webinar, Bibliographic Control Alphabet Soup. Under “agenda”, there is the possibility to download the slides from this event. Also, Barbara mentioned on the NGC4LIB listserv that she will be publishing another article on RDA.

In general, Group 1 are things either physical and concrete (manifestation and item) or abstract (work and expression). In RDA, attributes are used to describe and characterize these Group 1 entities. And relationships play a huge role in RDA to link works to other works, expressions or manifestations and so forth.

In the thread from NGC4LIB, it was asked whether any in the group 1 had any inherent identifiers. The example of authority records and their identifier or ISBNs for books was given. This question prompted a discussion on not only the differences between work, expression, and manifestation but how it was possible to conceive of them with a unique identifier.

Here are some highlighted points:

• Can an OCLC numbers be considered an identifier for manifestations?
  • One of the problems raised about using OCLC numbers as identifiers was that not all resources have an OCLC number. Consider as an example many records sold by vendors that state specifically that they cannot be entered into OCLC but only be accessed under the terms of agreement reached by the institution and vendor.
  • Another issue was that in many OCLC records, one OCLC number refers to different ISBNs -perhaps the hardcover and the paperback editiions. In this sense, one OCLC number is used for 2 distinct manifestations.
• Can the International Standard Text Code be used as an identifier for works? Or can the ISTC be used as an identifier for expressions?
  • The issue is clear with these two questions. Is the ISTC number about “Moby Dick” and not the version, edition of a particular Moby Dick as Karen Coyle pointed out? In this way, the ISTC would not be an identifier for manifestations. Then, the ISTC identifier is perhaps used for expressions; some supported this suggestion in the thread. Yet, Karen Coyle highlighted that if several expressions could be linked together, this would create a work that could have a ISTC number for that grouping. Another similar example was that the text could receive a ISTC number and then there would be versions of it, such as the 3rd ed. with an introduction from a well-known scholar and a new completed timeline with different identifiers -perhaps a ISBN. The question is whether a ISTC number could be used for expressions or works.

What I found fascinating about this thread was of course the discussion between well versed and very knowledgeable people on FRBR. More than that, I was intrigued in how people were trying to use what is currently available, in this case ISTC identifiers, in order to help the library world sort out how to identify works, expressions, and manifestations. The reason this is so important is that RDA forces catalogers to think about and rethink how all the Group 1, 2, and 3 entities relate to one another as well as to the larger context of scholarly knowledge. In particular on the Internet, the way to create these relationships is by linking data. For this to happen, it is necessary to have a unique and permanent identifier so that one thing can point to another. This is the type of work currently being done by the Metadata Registry and their vocabularies as well as the SKOS project at the Library of Congress for their authorities and vocabularies.

If you have time, definitely take a detour to read this thread. It is short but very informative.

ARL Workshop on METS

ARL has just announced a new workshop on METS, called METS Beyond the Basics. You can see the Library of Congress’ website to get more information on this transmission standard typically used in Digital Libraries at: http://www.loc.gov/standards/mets/.

Here is the information on the workshop:

January 18–22, 2010
Boston, Massachusetts
ALA Hotel TBD and 90 Mt. Auburn, Harvard University

Register here

The Metadata Encoding and Transmission Standard (METS) is a data encoding and transmission specification, expressed in XML, that provides a means for conveying the structural, descriptive, and administrative metadata necessary for both the management of digital objects within a repository and the exchange of such objects between repositories (or between repositories and their users). This common digital object format was designed to facilitate both the exchange of digital materials among institutions and vendors, and the shared development of supporting tools. METS is currently used by libraries and cultural heritage institutions worldwide including the Library of Congress, the British Library, the German National Library, the Ministry of Culture Spain, the National Diet Library Japan, the National Library of Finland, the National Library of Portugal, the National Library of Wales and numerous research libraries across the globe.

Although continuous, this hands-on workshop consists of three modules, any of which may be taken independently.

* Module 1: An Overview of METS – offers a thorough introduction to METS including an overview of all of its high level features. (Duration: one day).
* Module 2: Strategies for encoding various content types – delves deeply into the heart of METS: the flexible mechanisms it provides for encoding, organizing and representing digital content of various kinds and for different purposes. (Duration: two days).
* Module 3: Strategies for implementing METS in a production environment – explores strategies for implementing METS in a production environment, and reviews existing tools that can facilitate implementation. (Duration: two days).

For further details on the modules including outcome goals, intended audience, and hardware and software suggestions, please see this PDF document.
Academy Instructors
Nancy J. Hoebelheinrich

Nancy J. Hoebelheinrich, Metadata Specialist / Digital Library Consultant. Nancy J. Hoebelheinrich is a digital library consultant specializing in Metadata and Content Management. She has worked as metadata coordinator for Stanford University Libraries / Academic Information Resources for 10 years, focusing upon digitization, preservation and retrieval of cultural heritage resources, government documents, geospatial, and teaching and learning resources. Nancy has been active in a number of information and educational technology specification efforts including that of PREMIS (for preservation metadata), IMS Global specifications related to packaging, repository and resource list interoperability, digital rights expression and management, and the IEEE Learning Technology Standards Committee’s RAMLET project. She has been a member of the METS Editorial Board since 2002 and has served as its administrative co-chair since 2005. In this capacity she co-authored the METS Primer and Reference Manual.
Rick Beaubien

Rick Beaubien, Software Engineer/Digital Library Consultant. Rick Beaubien has been involved in library automation at the University of California, Berkeley since 1979. In 1997, he became a technical lead and principal programmer in the U.C. Berkeley Library’s standards based digital library initiatives. In this capacity, he participated continuously in the development of METS from its origins in the Making of America II project, for which the U.C. Berkeley General Library was the lead institution. Rick has been a member of the METS Editorial Board since its inception and currently is the technical chair of the board. In his METS Board capacity, he co-authored the METS Primer and Reference Manual, has participated in the implementation of new digital library standards such as the VRA core and has assisted other institutions such as the Yale University Library with their implementations of METS.
Who Should Attend

The first module assumes some familiarity with XML, but no prior experience with METS. The second module and third modules build on and deepen a basic understanding of METS.
Date/Location

On Monday, January 18, 2010, Module 1 will be held at an ALA hotel to be determined. Tuesday through Thursday, Jan. 19-22, Modules 2 & 3 will be held at 90 Mt. Auburn, Harvard University in Boston, Massachusetts.
Fee

The participation fee depends on how many of the modules you wish to attend. There are six different options: you may register for any one of the three modules or any one of three combinations of the modules. Please choose only one:

* Option A: Module 1- $300 (January 18th) “An Overview of METS” – Location: ALA hotel
* Option B: Module 2 – $600 (January 19-20th) “Strategies for encoding various content types” – Location: 90 Mt. Auburn, Harvard University, Room 021
* Option C: Module 3 – $600 (January 21-2nd) “Strategies for implementing METS in a production environment” – Location: 90 Mt. Auburn, Harvard University, Room 007 (Thursday) & Room 021 (Friday)
* Option D: Module 1 & 2 – $750
* Option E: Module 2 & 3 – $1,050
* Option F: All Modules – $1,275

Beverages, coffee, and snacks provided for morning and afternoon breaks. Lunches will be on your own.
More Information

For further details, including expanded module descriptions, instructor bios, and information on lodging, please see this PDF document.
Register

Click here to register
Contact Information

David Green
Library Relations Coordinator
Association of Research Libraries
Statistics and Assessment Program
21 Dupont Circle, NW, Suite 800
Washington, DC 20036-1543
202-296-2296 x136
david@arl.org

Cancellation Policy
ARL reserves the right to cancel any event up to (and including) December 18, 2009. An e-mail announcement will be sent to registrants in the event of a cancellation. Registrants will receive a full refund.

Participant Cancellations
Written requests for cancellation will be honored until (and including) December 18, 2009, with a $150 cancellation fee. After that date, no refund will be given. Registration and payment may be transferred to another individual at your institution. If you wish to cancel or transfer, please send an e-mail with your request to Yolanda Glass at yolanda@arl.org.