WESTinfo
April 2020 Newsletter
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The last several weeks have been full of change and uncertainty for most if not all of us. Some activities are on pause and others have been
canceled due to health concerns, but others are still able to take place as we settle into full time remote work. WEST continues to monitor the situation closely and is aware that there is a need for all of us to recalibrate our expectations for our new normal.
Several of the news stories in this month’s WEST newsletter respond to the COVID-19 crisis and the many ways it is affecting our lives and work, but we also have more uplifting news to share about successes in validation and Archive Building.
Please follow the links below to check out the full posts on the WESTinfo blog.
·
COVID-19, WEST archiving, and useful resources: The COVID-19
crisis has caused a considerable amount of upheaval in a short period of time, and WEST is no exception. Physical archiving activities, like gap-fill or answering a call for holdings from an Archive Builder should be paused until the end of the crisis, if
they have not been already. Read
on for more information and a list of useful resources for responding to access and collection maintenance needs during this time.
·
ALA Annual Meeting 2020 canceled: The ALA Executive Board announced
the cancelation of the 2020 Annual Meeting, originally scheduled to take place in Chicago in June 2020.
Read
on for information regarding rescheduling the WEST Members Meeting, as well as a link to the full ALA announcement.
·
Validation at ASU: Validation is a necessary component of building
trusted archives of print-only journals. It can also offer glimpses of print culture and scraps of ephemera that shed light on the history of use of these collections. Our colleagues at Arizona State University have generously shared some of their findings,
as well as an essay written by one of their student employees after coming across an advertisement in a journal from the 1940s.
Read on
for examples of findings during validation and a link to the essay.
·
CRL metadata validation reports: In consultation with WEST,
CRL has instituted new metadata validation reporting procedures. These reports provide an overview of the metadata provided to PAPR for each institution and flag any validation or loading issues, and have been shared directly with technical contacts at institutions
that had records submitted to PAPR in 2019. CRL also provided a glossary of categories that they reviewed for, which can act as a guide for metadata cleanup projects for Technical Services staff during this period of extended library closures.
Read
on for more details and a glossary of categories CRL reviewed.
·
An update on WEST Archive Builders: In keeping with the ongoing
evolution and flexibility of the WEST program, Rice University has announced that Cycle 9 (wrapping up this spring) will be their last as an Archive Builder. Rice will continue as an active and valued WEST member, and the WEST Executive Committee expresses
its sincere appreciation for Rice’s long service in the area of archive building. Per the 2019 assessment and strategic recommendations, the WEST project team is currently engaging in an exploratory analysis of four current Archive Holders’ collections to
evaluate their potential capacity for building. Read
on for more details.
All the best,
The WEST Project Team
Do you have a topic you would like to read about in WEST blog posts and the newsletter? Are you interested in writing a guest blog post on
your work with WEST or shared print in general? Please let us know! Email Anna Striker at
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Anna Striker
Shared Print Operations and Collections Analyst
WEST and UC Libraries
California Digital Library
(510) 287-3819
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