Description: This article discusses metadata analysis. Abstract: Over the past few years the University of North Texas Libraries' Digital Projects Unit (DPU) has developed a set of metadata analysis tools, processes, and methodologies aimed at helping to focus limited quality control resources on the areas of the collection where they might have the most benefit. The key to this work lies in its simplicity: records harvested from OAI-PMH-enabled digital repositories are transformed into a format that makes them easily parsable using traditional Unix/Linux-based command-line tools. This article describes the overall methodology, introduces two simple open-source tools developed to help with the aforementioned harvesting and breaking, and provides example commands to demonstrate some common metadata analysis requests. All software tools described in the article are available with an open-source license via the author's GitHub account.

Description: This article discusses a bellwether regarding a nation's electronic information infrastructure, the legal regulations that govern the infrastructure, the resulting citizen-trust in its government and its e-readiness in Nigeria, the DPRK, China, Japan, South Korea, the Netherlands and the United States. Information technology infrastructures should be designed with cutting-edge equipment that offers citizens consistent and dependable access to necessary and pertinent information. The infrastructures should be held accountable and regulated by a well-established legal system. Additionally, the infrastructures should create a body politic that trusts its government, is aware of its nation's laws, regulations, and policies, and is motivated to contribute and participate positively in the national economy and political process. In modern societies, the most efficacious means in which a nation-state can create an information infrastructure is via electronic technology ("e-technology"). Some nation-states are currently better prepared than others to provide information to their citizens via e-technologies, and some are more willing to provide a free exchange of electronic information. An assessment of how well a nation can disseminate freely accessible, valid, and reliable information, and how willing nations are to provide complete, accurate, and open information via e-technologies is defined as "e-readiness." Scholars have posited numerous models to ...

Description: This article discusses cataloguing in 2012. Abstract: The major looming changes in music cataloguing today-the cataloguing code 'Resource Description and Access' (RDA); a system of genre/form and medium terms, to be used as "subjects;" and a not-yet-determined replacement for the encoding system MARC-result from a concern for the needs of the user. The first thorough, systematic analysis of user needs was 'Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records (FRBR).' RDA is designed around the conceptual framework presented in that document. Similarly concerned with user needs is the new system of genre/form and medium terms that will soon replace the current workaround of using "subject headings" for what an item 'is', instead of only for what an item is 'about.' Because catalogue data created according to RDA cannot be adequately expressed in the current MARC format, another initiative is underway to develop a new encoding framework to replace MARC.

Description: This articles discusses why ones work as a librarian begins long before their graduate program. The field of librarianship has undergone dramatic changes in the past 5 years; perhaps most notably in the number and type of open positions, as well as the job application process itself. Numbers point to a bleak market, and countless blogs lament the situation while offering never ending "to do lists" for the aspiring librarian. The author offers her own suggestions from personal experience; tools that she not only developed to secure a promising position at a prestigious university library in her chosen area, but also continue to use in her present position in anticipation of advancement. This piece is directed to those aspiring librarians seeking advice on the perilous journey ahead, as well as to the author's peers; the colleagues, supervisors, and mentors of aspiring librarians who seek to offer the same assistance we have all benefited from in the past.

Description: This article discusses new directions for academic video game collections. The work of collection development in academic video game collections is at a crucial point of transformation - gaming librarians are ready to expand beyond console games collected in disc and cartridge format to the world of Internet games. At the same time, forms and genres of video games such as serious and independent games are increasingly important to university instruction and curricula, and the move to online gaming allows university and college libraries to give campus communities access to them. This article reviews the most significant LIS literature on academic gaming collections and identifies new directions in gaming collection development. The authors then present specific resources and strategies they relied upon in their recent initiative to transform gaming collection development policies at the University of North Texas, a large, public, research university. Establishing a five-year plan to create a cutting-edge video game collection, the authors concentrated especially on adding new types of games to the collection, working through the logistics of providing online access, and providing opportunities for research and student learning within the university library through the creation of a gaming lab. The essay outlines in concrete terms ...