Editorial

Farewell, Friends

Mary Beth Weber

This is my last LRTS editorial. Things have certainly changed in the nine years that I have held this appointment. When my predecessor presided over her last meeting with the board, it was in person at the ALA Annual Conference. It was an emotional, and also celebratory, meeting. In contrast, my final meeting with the editorial board will be via Zoom and as Core members. Never would I have imagined how ALCTS would change, including the departures of former Executive Directors Charles Wilt and Keri Cascio. When I won the ALCTS slogan contest in 2017, I did not anticipate the merger of LITA, ALCTS, and LLAMA to become Core. I later participated in the planning of the Core Exchange in 2020, including serving as the Exchange’s blog coordinator. Working with participants from the three divisions, and under the leadership of Kristin Martin, was an amazing experience and demonstrated our ability to collaborate to make Core strong and sustainable.

Technical services has also evolved, partly due to quarantine. No one could have anticipated that we would live and work in isolation for more than a year. Many areas of technical services continue to handle physical materials, including acquisitions, cataloging, collection development, and preservation. However, there has been a gradual shift to electronic and digital that was accelerated by COVID and library closures. Once this type of change has taken place, it is not practical and often not possible to return to the former way of doing things. Drastic circumstances frequently drive change.

What has not changed is the need to educate, innovate, and share. This is what we do as an association and profession. One way that this is done is by attending conferences and giving presentations, and through publishing research to benefit others. Consider submitting a paper to LRTS. Share your ideas and experiences. Contact me if you have an idea. If you are conducting a survey or study, the results and analysis may form the basis of a thought-provoking research paper.

I thank ALCTS for giving me so many opportunities to participate and contribute to the profession. I was fortunate to have served as the editor of the ALCTS Newsletter Online for six years, followed by my two terms as LRTS editor. Both roles brought me into contact with many people, both within ALA and outside our organization. Serving as LRTS editor has been an honor and privilege. My term as editor ends in December 2021, and the plan is to have a new editor in place by October 2021. Please consider applying for this position or nominating a colleague.

I would now like to turn your attention to this issue of LRTS.

• In “Name and Subject Heading Reconciliation to Linked Open Data Authorities using Virtual International Authority File and Library of Congress Linked Data Service APIs: A Case Study featuring Emblematica Online,” Tang (Cindy) Tian, Timothy W. Cole, and Karen Yu discuss Emblematica Online to facilitate discovery of digitized emblem books. Emblematica Online incorporates linked open data in its design. The Virtual International Authority File and Library of Congress Linked Data Service APIs were used to reconcile name and subject strings from legacy catalog records with global authoritative links from LOD resources. Their case study reports on the automated reconciliation process used and examines the efficacy of the APIs to reconcile name and subject heading entities.
• “Dispersed Collections in Exile: Thai Collections in Libraries outside of Thailand,” by Hollie White and Songphan Choemprayong, investigate how libraries outside Thailand manage Thai collections, particularly acquisitions and cataloging. The authors adopted Merton’s Insiders/Outsiders doctrine and applied an exploratory mixed-method approach that used observation and interview methods.
• “Exploration of Subject Representation and Support of Linked Data in Recently Created Library Metadata: Examination of Most Widely Held WorldCat Bibliographic Records” presents the results of an examination of subject representation in the most recently created library metadata records. The study examined the level and patterns of application of subject controlled vocabularies. Vyacheslav Zavalin, Oksana L. Zavalina, and Shawne D. Miksa describe co-occurrences between various subject representation data elements and between subject controlled vocabularies within the records were explored.
• Book reviews courtesy of LRTS Book Review Editor Elyssa Gould.

In closing, I would like to recognize the following people and express my gratitude to them: Charles Wilt, Kerry Cascio, Brooke Morris-Chott, Tim Clifford, Elyssa Gould, Chelcie Rowell, Peggy Johnson, Miriam Palm, Norm Medeiros, Pamela Bluh, Dina Giambi, Susan Davis, Christopher Cronin, Jennifer Bazely, Ginger Williams, Oksana Zavalina, Karen Kiorpes, Hayley Moreno, and Kalan Knudson Davis. I also worked with many amazing authors during my term as LRTS editor and wonderful people in ALCTS, and now Core. And I am now contemplating the next phase of my career.