0 Comments Beginning with this issue, which is a combined Winter 2009/ Spring 2010 issue, Nylink Connection (ISSN1525-0741) will no longer be printed. Nylink’s quarterly newsletter will instead be distributed electronically to all Nylink members, and will be available on our website.
Joyce Rambo, Nylink’s Reference and Digital Collections Librarian, has been working hard on a unique set of asynchronous training sessions for participants in the South Central Regional Library Council’s collaborative digitization initiative, Tools of History. Joyce became involved in the project at the suggestion of Matthew Hogan, SCRLC’s Manager of Digital Services & Resource Sharing.
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This ALA Report shows that Americans have turned to their libraries in larger numbers in recent years.
Since the recession took hold in December 2007, the local library, a traditional source of free access to books, magazines, CDs, and DVDs, has become a lifeline, offering technology training and workshops on topics that ranged from résumé-writing to job-interview skills.
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Congratulations to Natalie Sturr and Michelle Parry from the Penfield Library at SUNY Oswego on their upcoming article in the Journal of Interlibrary Loan, Document Delivery & Electronic Reserve. And thanks for your mention of Nylink Professional Solutions True Serials® and EffectiveData! Here’s the abstract of the article, and citation information:
One of the signposts of 21st century librarianship is the shifting paradigm to an increasingly dynamic collection to serve the resource needs of our patrons. Interlibrary loan is an integral library service for this model. This article focuses on key facets of successful practices and administrative issues that maximize efficient resource sharing, particularly regarding nonreturnable materials (articles/book chapters). Issues regarding tools, staffing, accurate and informative serials holding information, deflection policies, embargoes and database licensing are identified.
Citation: Journal of Interlibrary Loan, Document Delivery
& Electronic Reserve, 20:115–125, 2010
Copyright © Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
ISSN: 1072-303X print / 1540-3572 online
DOI: 10.1080/10723031003719168
This spring marked the 10-year anniversary of the Nylink name. When the decision was made to change our name from the SUNY/OCLC network to reflect our diversification of both members and services we provided, we called on our staff, our advisory group, and our members to help us select and define our new name. Many suggestions came in, and of course many acronyms, such as ERIN (Electronic Resources Information Network), LINY (Libraries in New York), TEAL (Technology, Education and Libraries), ELLIS (Electronic Library Information Support) and NY PLUS (NY Partners in Library User Support). Additional suggestions included New York Net, NY Reach, and NY One. It was narrowed down to four finalists: NewLine (New York Library Network), Reliant (Resources in Libraries Information Access Network), NY Plus (New York Partners in Library User Support), and NY LINK or NY LINC (New York Library Network). Nylink was the winner! Then it was on to the logos…
W. David Penniman, Nylink Executive Director
Any organization should know why it exists, what it does, for whom it provides service, and how those services will be provided. Whether the organization is a for-profit or not-for-profit, these characteristics define its mission.
Today we also hear about value propositions, i.e. what it is that makes a particular organization and its services uniquely positioned to offer value to its members, customers, or stakeholders.
We also know that each organization has a culture shaped around a set of principles that define its environment and how it intends to operate.
And finally, we hope that any organization has a longer-term vision or what it aspires to achieve when all is said and done – or even when it is not done but still striving.
For Nylink, in the process of reinventing itself to continue to deliver value within a changing marketplace and economy, all of the above have been rethought, researched, recast, and/or reaffirmed via detailed analysis of exactly where we deliver value for each segment we serve.
Our mission continues to be building the information community through collaboration and innovation.
Our value propositions (detailed for each segment we serve) in general focus on our reputation for trusted partnerships where our professional solutions assist our members in saving time and money as well as embracing new approaches where technology can make service improvement possible.
Our principles are simple and few:
Our vision is to connect the resources, tools, and expertise of libraries and cultural heritage organizations throughout New York State for the economic and educational benefit of these institutions, the state, and its citizens. This is Nylink in brief, just in case you wondered.
In 2008, Nylink entered into some conversations with librarians at SUNY about an open-source electronic resource management system called CUFTS, developed by Simon Fraser University. The system appeared to have tremendous potential and it was agreed that Nylink should develop a service based on the CUFTS platform. Nylink Program Development Team Leader Luke Williams and Senior Product Strategist Lauren Pinsley were assigned to this project, and have worked very hard over the past year to create and launch the service, with the goal of developing a comprehensive solution, for a single price that is the same for every library. After building an instance of the system on our own servers, developing the service and inputting our own electronic serials and database information and coming up with a name, it was determined that the best way to continue to develop and enhance the service was with a live pilot. The test group was five libraries. For the full text of the Q & A interview, please see p.5 of the most recent Nylink Connection (PDF).
Joyce Rambo, Nylink Reference & Digital Preservation Resources Librarian
One of the first things I realized when I was embarking on my month-long, one-day-a week externship at the Albany County Hall of Records this past April is that an old town like Albany sure has a lot of great old stuff. Little did I know as I walked into the Albany County Hall of Records, located in a former warehouse in downtown Albany’s Nipperville, that I would soon be treated to a reading room hung with 19th-century maps
of the City of Albany (”so that’s where the Erie Canal used to be”) or valuable histories about Albany’s many historic homes, parks and buildings, or a hand-drawn, 23-foot- long map from the 1800’s of the Albany Post Road that marks taverns, inns, meeting houses and homesteads from Albany to New York City.
I immediately recalled one of the basic tenets of my archives class in library school: many of the documents we generate today will be tomorrow’s precious clues to how we live today.
Read more about Joyce’s externship in the Spring 2009 issue of Nylink Connection.
Venue: ICPSR, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA, October 11-16, 2009
The Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) will host the October 2009 Digital Preservation Management workshop, originally developed at Cornell University Library by Anne R Kenney and Nancy Y McGovern.
This workshop series, developed with funding from NEH, is aimed at managers at organizations who are or will be responsible for digital preservation. The workshop begins on Sunday evening with an opening session, continues Mon-Thursday 9am – 5pm, and concludes Friday at noon. Additional information about the workshop content and logistics is available at: http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/dpm/workshops/fiveday.html.
Questions? Contact digital-preservation@icpsr.umich.edu
Resident Nylink ILL expert Jon Penn, in reviewing ILL subscription renewal pricing
for Nylink members and affiliates, noticed that something wasn’t adding up. He and
other staff collated last year’s actual ILL use and compared those numbers to renewal
rates. In about fifty cases, renewal pricing, which is automatic, was higher than what
libraries should be paying. Taking the initiative, Jon appealed the renewal pricing for
those members, winning reductions for the majority of them on their 2009-2010 rates.
That’s just one example of Nylink Professional Solutions.
