Rethinking Library Technical Services : Redefining Our Profession for the Future

by Mary Beth Weber (Editor)

Will library technical services exist thirty years from now? If so, what do leading experts see as the direction of the field?

In this visionary look at the future of technical services, Mary Beth Weber, Head of Central Technical Services at Rutgers and editor of Library Resources and Technical Services (LRTS), the official journal of ALA’s Association for Library Collections and Technical Services and one of the top peer-reviewed scholarly technical services journals has compiled a veritable who’s who of the field to answer just these questions.

Experts including Amy K. Weiss, Sylvia Hall-Ellis, and Sherri L. Vellucci answer vital questions

Genres: Nonfiction

187 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2015

Reviews

[Judith · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rethinking Library Technical Services: Redefining Our Profession for the Future edited by Mary Beth Weber is a collection of essays on the trends and projects that are shaping the future of technical services in libraries. Whether splintered into various departments or maintained in a single acquisitions, cataloging, and processing unit, the work of describing, preserving, and providing access to resources is not going away, but it is changing. Weber opens with an introduction to define, or at least describe “technical services,” and closes with interviews with a number of librarians with different perspectives. In between are several chapters written by librarians on types of work or change factors. I found the chapter “Research Data and Linked Data: a New Future for Technical Services?” by Sherry Vellucci to be particularly interesting, and I would recommend the chapter on skills to younger colleagues.

[Trevor · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first few chapters trot out the standard tropes that drive me up the wall (adding URLs to the 856 was brilliant - no, no it isn't. It is simply the only option we have in the horribleness that is MARC). But the second half of the book is well-reasoned and peppered with excellent resources. Definitely worth a read for anyone in a Technical Services department.