Join James G. Neal, the vice president for Information Services and University Librarian at Columbia University, and a panel of guests, to discuss the future relevance of libraries as we know them. The digital age has been around long enough to make some practical predictions of how traditional roles of libraries are changing in information selection, acquisition, synthesis, navigation, dissemination, interpretation and archiving. This session will explore new responsibilities in information aggregation, publishing education, research and development and policy advocacy.

Register for the FREE teleconference on BCR's Web site as soon as possible. An e-mail with instructions on how to access the broadcast will be sent to you approximately one week prior to the teleconference. Questions? Contact Brandie Baumann (bbaumann@bcr.org) at BCR.

• "Flickr 101" from 10:45 to 11:45 a.m. — Learn all about Flickr, the best way to "store, sort, search and share your photos online." The session will give you plenty of ideas on how you can use Flickr to promote your library as well as introduce you to two of the hottest topics in librarianship today: social software and folksonomies.
  
• "An Introduction to Social Software" from 1:15 to 2:15 p.m. — Can't make the Flickr presentation? Attend this session which will introduce you to the components making up social software and provide you with examples of many of the most popular Web sites in this area. Learn about Flickr, del.icio.us and YouTube, just to name a few.

Drumm will also be available at the BCR exhibit booth during the morning and afternoon breaks. Come by the BCR table, learn what we have to offer our members and how you can provide the services your library needs at discounted rates. Don't forget to pick up your BCR water bottle while they last!

Developed with support from an Institute of Museum and Library (IMLS) grant in response to calls for improved training opportunities, Western Council identified a set of competencies that define the skills and knowledge needed for success as a library practitioner. The certification program is based on these competencies. Library practitioners completing 240 contact hours in competency areas and having 1,080 hours of library experiences will be awarded Western Council certification.

"Developing a certification program for this level of library worker represents an important step in Western Council's efforts to advance the improvement of library services in communities not yet able to support a professional librarian," said Sara Jones, president of Western Council and administrator of the Nevada State Library and Archives. "By offering a standard skills-and-experience-based certification to library practitioners, Western Council provides employers with a benchmark for selecting highly qualified individuals, while offering individuals a recognized, portable credential that enables them to demonstrate their skills and knowledge. Western Council hopes that applicants look at this certification as the first step in their training in library science."

To ensure the quality of courses for applicants, Western Council will require that applicants select from courses offered by Western Council Approved Providers. Institutions and individuals can become Approved Providers by completing an application and submitting a fee based on the type of institution. Upon certification, Approved Providers will be entitled to use an official certification logo as an indication of their status and will be listed for reference in the directory maintained by Western Council.

For complete information about the program, including how to be certified and how to become an approved education provider, go to certificate.westernco.org/.

One of the many services offered by Cassidy is Publishers Cataloging-in-Publication (PCIP). Under this program, a publisher ineligible to participate in the LC CIP program may contract with Cassidy for creation of PCIP. Cassidy Cataloguing provides PCIP for print and nonprint formats. For more information please see www.cassidycataloguing.com/PublisherCIP.htm.

Cassidy now contributes these PCIP records to WorldCat. When a Cassidy record is added to WorldCat, a 938 field is added to the MARC record with the vendor code CASS. This code is indexed; vendor records are searchable in Connexion using the vendor index (vn:) in the dropdown menu. Examples of the PCIP records contributed by Cassidy to WorldCat are OCLC record numbers #105058162, #105055433, #105058322 and #105055198.

A list of all partners contributing records through the Vendor Record Contribution Program is available at www.oclc.org/partnerships/material/contribution/technical.

As part of the update, and with the aim of improving functionality, OCLC increased the number of languages for analyses limits from 30 to 54. The 24 new languages are:

Note: The number of languages by which an analysis can be limited on the Limit Analysis screen is determined by the number of languages represented in the collection being analyzed. If the collection you are analyzing does not contain any records of a particular language, you will not have the option of limiting your analysis to that language on the Limit Analysis screen. This will avoid searches that return 0 results.

Direct questions to Heather Clark (hclark@bcr.org).

Now Available to All Users
Article records link to fulfillment options appropriate to a user based on IP address. IP information determines what nearby WorldCat libraries offer access to the article and which options are displayed to the user via the record. Options may include:

• Links to full text in subscription-based online databases
• Links to library-maintained resolvers for access to available articles
• Links to an article delivery service

As with other local-system functionality also reachable via WorldCat.org, article fulfillment links may require a user to authenticate access with a library account.

Full-featured FirstSearch Access to Articles Still Available
GPO, ArticleFirst, Medline and ERIC continue to be available for full-featured searching by individual database in the OCLC FirstSearch service. In FirstSearch, researchers may search these databases individually or combine them with up to two additional databases for cross-database searching. The FirstSearch interface also supports flexible options such as searching indexes specific to each database.

Try a Search Now
Visit WorldCat.org to try a search to locate articles on a favorite subject. Hint: Limit your search results to just articles by using the Refine Your Search feature — just click the Article link under the Format heading.

Contact Heather Clark (hclark@bcr.org) with further questions.

Idaho Region 2 Conference
The Idaho Region 2 conference is being held in Clarkston, Washington, May 4. BCR's Emergent Technology trainer, Shelly Drumm, is scheduled to give two presentations during the day: "Flickr 101" from 10:45 to 11:45 a.m. and "An Introduction to Social Software" from 1:15 to 2:15 p.m. Both are being held in Conference Room A. Drumm will also be available at the BCR exhibit booth during the morning and afternoon breaks.

Utah Library Association Annual Conference
The annual Utah Library Association conference is set for May 16-18, at the Marriott Hotel & Conference Center, in Provo. Gillian Harrison, BCR's manger for Marketing & Support, is looking forward to her first trip to this popular annual conference. She also is presenting a special program, "Remember the User: Evaluating Technology Products and Services," on Friday, May 18, from 9-9:50 a.m. Join her to discover how you can make informed and intelligent decisions about where to spend your library's valuable resources. Harrison also will be staffing the BCR exhibit booth (#26), and she invites librarians to stop by to learn more about new products and services being offered by BCR.

Drumm and Harrison are looking forward to meeting and talking with library staff and encourage all to visit the BCR booth for a few minutes. Don't forget to grab a BCR water bottle, too.

Iberbook Sánchez-Cuesta, S.A., provides complete service for library materials from Spain and Portugal and monographic services for selected books from Latin America. Located in Madrid, Spain, Iberbook Sánchez-Cuesta offers new title announcements and approval plans in all subject areas. For more information, visit IberBook Sánchez-Cuesta on the Web.

Please visit OCLC WorldCat Selection for a complete listing of all WorldCat Selection partners.

In this first phase, OCLC processed a total of 50.4 million records and added 7.8 million new master records.

The Status: RLG Union Catalog Integration into WorldCat page has been updated with the complete set of statistics from Phase 1.

Extended Play Videos — Access more than 200 new videos, running 15 to 45 minutes in length, through Britannica's Online versions (Public Library, School including Compton's and Elementary, and Academic editions). Subjects include Asia, Lewis & Clark, Ancient Cultures, Economics, Native Americans, the Chaos Theory and more. Select the Video Collection box on the home pages of these online editions. The videos are downloadable into PowerPoint presentations as well. Be astounded and excited - try them out!

Reflections on the Holocaust — An in-depth compilation covering everything from the origins of the Holocaust in the mind of Adolf Hitler, to the legacy of the horror in art and memory. Includes discussions on the controversies surrounding the Allies' action during the war related to bombing the death camps, to the Roman Catholic Church's actions during those same years. This feature is divided into five parts and includes photographs and videos (some considered very graphic), along with discussion questions tied to the five parts written especially for teachers to use in the classroom. Available in Britannia's School (K-12), Academic and Public Library editions.

For information on these and other Britannica products, please contact BCR's Chris Cook (ccook@bcr.org).

Many of the databases will be exclusive to FirstSearch, with coverage of:

• Anthropology and archaeology
• 19th century art periodicals
• Auction catalogs
• Early modern printing in Europe
• Latino reference
• Science, medicine and technology

Additional databases cover architecture, urban planning and preservation, art history, humanities and social sciences and Russian social science.

You can offer access immediately through the RLG Eureka interface or wait for access on FirstSearch, planned for September 2007. Either way, your first-year price will be substantially less than a normal 12-month subscription.

Hurry — You must subscribe by Monday, June 25, 2007, to receive this special pricing. Package pricing for subscriptions to multiple databases is also available. This offer is open to new customers and current Eureka and FirstSearch customers, but is not valid on renewals.

Coutts Information Services provides book supply, collection management and shelf-ready services to libraries throughout the world, including approval and new title notification plans based on customized library profiles, as well as firm and standing orders. Coutts is a global partner able to help libraries with the transition from print to electronic content, offering the MyiLibrary aggregated eBook platform and integrated workflow processes. Visit Coutts to learn more.

Other WorldCat Selection vendors, Aux Amateurs de Livres International, Casalini Libri, Harrassowitz and Jean Touzot Librairie Internationale, are currently active.

Learn more about WorldCat Selection.

Clicking the Cite this Item link in the External Resources section of the Detailed Record will invoke a new Web page with a list of citations for a selected record in the reference standard for five common styles, including APA, Chicago, Harvard, MLA and Turabian.

(View sample Cite this Item page.)

(View sample citation list.)

Users may copy and paste the needed format directly in a bibliography, noting, however, that formatting rules within a style can vary widely between applications and fields of interest or study, and they should apply the specific requirements of a reviewing body.

Log on to FirstSearch with your library's account to try this new citation formatting option in the WorldCat. Questions? Contact BCR's Heather Clark (hclark@bcr.org).

Quality Control:

• Corrected 2,012,675 bibliographic records.
• Performed 22,853 merges resulting in the deletion of 25,625 bibliographic records.
• Added 224 new authority records.
• Updated 4,111 authority records.
• Referred 254 authority records (name and subject) to the Library of Congress for resolution.

Many of these activities resulted from the processing of 129,931 change requests from OCLC member libraries, an increase of 121 percent over the same period of the previous fiscal year.

So keep those bibliographic and authority record change requests coming!

Information about quality assurance in WorldCat, including ways to report errors and links to any necessary forms, may be found in Chapter 5 of OCLC Bibliographic Formats and Standards.

Statistics courtesy of Glenn Patton, Director, WorldCat Quality Management OCLC.

When searching requests in the Request Manager, users automatically default to searching active requests. Users may choose to search their completed requests by selecting the radio button that reads Search Closed Requests and entering a Request ID number for a request that has been completed.

(View sample Request Manager.)

The request archive goes back to May 2005 (migration to WorldCat Resource Sharing) and will be maintained for five years. Future enhancements include the ability to search by other parameters such as borrowing or lending library, title or author.

Paul Metz, director of Collection Management at Virginia Tech University Libraries, will lead off this series by discussing his use of WCA to study and improve his libraries’ collections from both macro and micro perspectives. By comparing Tech’s holdings to the holdings of fellow Southeastern Research libraries, whose data were available in the ASERL group subscription, Metz has been able to determine whether Tech's collections differed from peers in desirable or undesirable ways in terms of subject, age and language. Though overall the analysis results were encouraging, he will discuss some specific kinds of collection deficiencies that can be detected using the tool. He will then show how Tech used the same data to identify widely held recent books that were good candidates for purchase.

A question-and-answer session will be held following the session.

Register at www3.oclc.org/app/request/bin/request.asp?specialCode=WCA-May1 or by visiting the WCA home page at www.oclc.org/collectionanalysis/.

This draft, updated in response to comments received during the previous review, may be found on the IFLA Web site at http://www.ifla.org/VII/d4/wg-franar.htm. Comments should be sent by July 15 to:

BCR 2007 Shared A
The BCR 2007 Shared A Collection includes a variety of titles in several subject areas with focuses in social sciences, computers and technology, literature, education and medicine. In this collection you'll find titles such as "Firewall Policies and VPN Configuration" from Elsevier, "RNotes: Nurse's Clinical Pocket Guide" from F.A. Davis, "Chinese: An Essential Grammar" from Taylor & Francis Routledge and "McGraw-Hill's Spanish for Educators" as well as titles from Oxford University Press, Syngress, Cambridge University Press and many more.

The collection contains only titles from 2005 to the present so it is current and up-to-date. This collection may be of most interest to community colleges, however other academic institutions, public libraries, schools and special libraries are welcome to participate.

BCR 2007 Shared B
Librarians at several public libraries helped to select the title selections for the BCR 2007 Shared B Collection. This collection includes titles such as "Annual Reports 101" from AMACOM, "100 Fastest-growing Careers" from Jist Publishing, "Divorce Without Court" from Nolo and "The Breast Cancer Survivor's Fitness Plan" from McGraw-Hill, as well as titles from Penguin, ipicturebooks and Sphinx Publishing. Subject areas include business and management, literature, health and wellness, career, consumer law and travel, as well as some children's titles and titles in Spanish.

This collection may be of most interest to public libraries, however other academic institutions, community colleges, schools and special libraries are welcome to participate.

New subscribers also are invited to sign up for these databases during BCR's annual enrollment periods.

AccessScience is based upon the McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of Science & Technology,its corresponding annual yearbooks and the Dictionary of Scientific and Technical Terms. AccessScience contains more than 8,500 articles written by the leading figures in their fields — including 35 Nobel Prize winners — science biographies, a Student Center, tutorials, 13,000 high-quality illustrations, “Headline News” from Science News, videos, animation, podcasts, and McGraw-Hill science editors’ selected Web sites for further research. In addition, AccessScience is updated daily with new articles, research updates and current events. A description of AccessScience is available at www.accessscience.com/AboutUs/.

To order or renew your library's subscription, complete the online form at www.bcr.org/reference/accesssci/accesssciform.html.

Karen Graham is the primary contact at BCR for the AccessScience product: kgraham@bcr.org or (303) 751-6277, Ext. 122.

BCR, Denver Public Library, AIRS Committee, Colorado Alliance of Research Libraries, Cherry Creek Schools, CSL and CLiC request your presence at this upcoming event.

Cost — $25, includes continental breakfast, lunch and Thursday reception
Location — Denver Public Library, Central Branch
Time — 8 a.m.-4 p.m. each day (Vendor Reception, Thursday 4-6 p.m.)

Consult LEO for more information: leo.clicweb.org/

• Limit the analysis by eight types of microform on the Limit Analysis menu screen.
• Export additional data from ILL Analyses, including Article Date, Volume and Issue.
• Analyze ILL activity by Request Date with Request Frequency. Users can add Request Date as a row expansion or limit Request Frequency by Request Date when analyzing ILL activity.
• Export additional bibliographic data, such as Genre, Price, and Series Statement.

Please contact Heather Clark (hclark@bcr.org) with any questions.

• Academic (available to academic institutions only) — Company Dossier and Country Analysis are now included in the Academic product
• Congressional, with available add-on modules — Statutes at Large and Congressional Indexes 1789-1969
• State Capital
• Access to African American History
• Access to American Women's History
• Access to U.S. Presidential History
• Environmental
• Government Periodicals Index
• Statistical, with available add-on modules — American Statistics Index (ASI), State & Private Service (SRI), Index to International Statistics (IIS) and Research Tables
• Scholastic (available to K-12 institutions only)

Descriptions of these databases and the online renewal form are found on BCR's Web site at www.bcr.org/reference/CIS/.

For details, and links to documentation on the new standard record, please see the announcement from the Library of Congress Cataloging and Support Office at www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/conser.html.

Keep in mind that in certain areas of the MARC bibliographic record, a cataloger is actually to transcribe typos as they appear in an item, but these typos must be corrected in some fashion. The Anglo American Cataloging Rules, 2nd ed. (AACR2) may be consulted for details. (See rule 1.1B1 for examples of how to handle typos in the title proper.)

Recent posts include:

• Classification of blood-related subjects (spurred by recent research on "universal blood")
• International Edible Book Festival
• Oldest known perfume factory in the Mediterranean
• Lie algebras and groups
• Stock price indices, and
• March Madness

New subject headings on the list include:

• Alice R. Brusich Post Office Building (Ward Cove, Alaska)
• Animal carcasses in art
• Armories--Montana
• Captain William Wylie Galt Great Falls Armed Forces Readiness Center (Great Falls, Mont.)
• Dignity in literature
• Effects-based operations (Military science)
• Lala (Dog)
• Local foods
• Minority families
• Needlework--Andes Region
• Novara (Italy)--History--Siege, 1495
• Picture dictionaries, Mongolian
• Speech-to-text systems
• Stream restoration--Law and legislation
• Thou (The English word)
• Wireless metropolitan area networks
• Youth--Nazi persecution
• Z Canyon (Wash.)

OCLC released client 1.70 in December 2006. Connexion client version 1.72, released in March 2007, includes several enhancements along with changes to resolve problems associated with Microsoft Windows update KB918118. You can upgrade directly to version 1.72 without installing version 1.70.

Both versions 1.70 and 1.72 will be supported by OCLC after April 15. However, if you utilize 1.70 you must also install the associated patch to correct the problems associated with Windows update KB918118.

For more information about Connexion client 1.70, 1.72 and to download the software, see OCLC's Recent Enhancements to Connexion Client Web page.

It is strongly recommended that you review the Update the Connexion client section of the Getting Started with OCLC Connexion Client document, prior to upgrading to client 1.70/1.72 to best prepare to upgrade the client software.

Please contact Linda Gonzalez (lgonzale@bcr.org), Regan Harper (rharper@bcr.org), or Heather Clark (hclark@bcr.org) at BCR with any questions or problems.

OCLC is organizing a Connexion User Group meeting during the American Library Association conference in Washington, D.C. The meeting is tentatively scheduled for Sunday, June 24, 2007, 10:30 a.m.-12 noon.

If you'd like to share with the group, contact either Chris Grabenstatter (grabenst@oclc.org) or David Whitehair (david_whitehair@oclc.org). Please provide Grabenstatter or Whitehair with a brief overview of what you'd like to present.

Additional information about the meeting, including the meeting agenda and a link to the registration form, will be distributed closer to June.

OCLC has increased their prices for Cataloging and Resource Sharing by 4 percent. BCR will pass on this increase — but will not increase charges more than that. Charges for telecommunications (access) will not increase this year, remaining the same as what was charged for FY 2006/07.

If you have any questions about these subscription charges, please feel free to contact Regan Harper at (303) 751-6277 or (800) 397-1552 or by e-mail to rharper@bcr.org. In the meantime, keep your eyes open for email from BCR containing your new subscription pricing quotes. All notifications should be sent out by April 25th. If your library does not receive notification of the price increases by that date, please contact Regan Harper.

Holmberg, is scheduled to present "Understanding How Google Works," on Friday, April 13, from 10:45 to 11:45 a.m. Join her to discover the inner workings of Google and how it can help libraries and their staff become better information providers. Ford will be staffing the BCR exhibit booth — Booth #233 — and handing out BCR water bottles along with information about BCR and our products and services that can help libraries save time and money. See you there!

• Executive Director Brenda Bailey-Hainer introduces readers to the CDP@BCR and discusses what the merger with the Collaborative Digitization Program will mean to our member libraries.
• Gillian Harrison, manager of BCR’s Marketing ∓ Support division, explores the many products and services at BCR that school libraries and media centers may find helpful to students.
• BCR is bringing in guest trainers to present a number of special workshops this spring — a series of Book Repair workshops, an intellectual property and copyright course and a special workshop on public library advocacy.
• BCR’s Heather Clark examines ILL management software that’s available and what types of libraries can best benefit from each one.

Also get updates on upcoming state library conferences, new staff members at BCR, election news and more.

The newest Britannica database product is the Global Reference Center, which houses Encyclopædia Britannica’s foreign language content — currently in Spanish, Japanese, traditional Chinese and simplified Chinese. This collection focuses on the art, geography, history, politics, science, sports and technology.

Two new print resources are available for the 2007 renewal year: The Britannica Enciclopedia Universal, a 20-volume Spanish-language set for middle school and high school students, covers the arts, geography, philosophy, science, sports and more, with topics that will appeal to both Spanish speakers and students of Spanish.

The Britannica Student Encyclopedia was developed for grades 3-6 and is the perfect resource for homework help, assignments and satisfying the curiosity of young learners, with in 2,700 photos, charts and tables along with 1,200 maps and flags from across the globe.

New features have been added to two existing databases:

• Britannica Online School Edition now includes a learning site for prekindergarten to second grade students.
• A Spanish Elementary Encyclopedia has been added to Enciclopedia Universal en Español, and has two separate home pages for adults and younger students.

And of special note — Britannica Online School Edition is the proud winner of the 2007 Teachers' Choice Award. The resource provides dictionaries, thesauri, a world atlas, magazine and journal articles and recommendations of student-friendly Web sites.