Technical Services Committee Fall Forum

Elgin Community College
E Building, E121
1700 Spartan Drive
Elgin, IL 60123-7193
Campus Map

Please join the Technical Services Committee for an in-person forum held at Elgin Community College.  
9:30-10:00    Registration - E121 (Dining Room)
10:00-10:15    Welcome and Logistics - E121 (Dining Room)
10:15-10:35    Beyond the Barcode: Our Approach to a Complete Library Inventory Elizabeth Outler – DePaul University E121 (Dining Room)

The Vincent J. Rinn Law Library at DePaul University holds approximately 215,000 volumes. However, after a number of disruptions in 2020-2023 caused by (1) the pandemic, (2) migrating to Alma, (3) a major shifting, weeding, and collection relocation project to create more study spaces, and (4) multiple significant retirements, we started to question whether the volume and title counts that we were reporting were completely accurate. Given the upheaval of recent years and forecasting that the next five to ten years would continue to present significant changes in budget, space, and staffing, we decided the time was ripe for conducting an inventory and working to make sure the catalog contains as clear and correct a description of our collection as possible. We also learned that CARLI provides customized, hosted access to an interactive inventory tool that allows scanning items on the shelf and using the Alma API to make read-only calls to our catalog. Knowing that this tool was available, we began testing it and designing workflows that we hoped would enable us to launch a full inventory project and complete it within one year. We are now four months in, and we'd be glad to describe our process and lessons learned so far, for anyone who is thinking about embarking on an inventory project.

10:35-11:00    Serials Holdings for the Perplexed E121 (Dining Room)
Jill Walker – Northern Illinois University
Rebekkah LaRue – Dominican University

Serials Holdings Cheatsheet
Serials Holdings Examples
Serials Hodings Practice

Are you unsure of the ins and outs of creating holdings for serials? Do you feel lost when you add or edit holdings for serials? Is your method looking at existing holdings for guidance? Then this session is for you! We will demystify the process of creating serials holdings in accordance with ANSI/NISO Z39.71 so you can have new confidence when creating or editing your institution’s holdings. We will cover:

• An overview of the different holdings levels allowed under ANSI/NISO Z39.71
• How to create Level 3 and Level 4 holdings with 866 summary statements (fields 853-855 and 863-865 will not be covered)
• Provide many practice examples and practice exercises, time permitting

11:00-11:15    Break
11:15-12:15    Three Times the Audits: Performing Collection Audits in Multiple Ways E121 (Dining Room)
Bryan Clark – Illinois Central College

In 2025, Illinois Central College performed an audit on various aspects of their collection.  First, to see what the ICC library had compared to other institutions, a subject audit was performed in Choreo Insights to determine how the collection compared to their peer institutions.  Second, looking at a specific LC range, librarians performed an author audit to determine if the area in question had a full range of voices.  Third, looking at the same LC range, librarians performed a classification audit.  They discussed whether items needed to be moved to different classification areas based on the main themes of the books.  Come see what we did and what we learned in order to move forward with your own audits.

12:15-1:15    Lunch – Provided by CARLI - E121 (Dining Room)

1:15-2:00    Breakout Sessions

• Tour the Elgin Community College Library (Meet in Atrium to walk to Library)
• OCLC-Alma Data Workflows Discussion (E106) -- Share questions with CARLI and your colleagues about how you're using OCLC in your cataloging workflows. Ted Schwitzner (CARLI) will provide a brief overview of the methods for getting WorldCat data into Alma and for sending data from Alma back to WorldCat. Discuss what works for you and what you'd like to know more.
  OCLC-Alma Data Workflows PowerPoint slides
• Book First Aid: Processing and Repair Library Books (E121 - Dining Room) - Join CARLI Technical Services Committee members Victoria Turner and Susan Howell to discuss how thoughtful processing and mending can help extend the life of your library’s collection! This interactive session combines a brief presentation about these two important Technical Services functions, along with hands-on demonstrations to explore book processing and mending techniques. 
• Serials Holdings Presentation - Continuing the Conversation (E100.1) - If you are continuing to feel perplexed, join us to continue the discussion about serials holdings with more time for Q&A and conversation.

2:00-2:15    Break

2:15-3:00  Breakouts Repeated

• Tour the Elgin Community College Library (Meet in Atrium to walk to Library)
• OCLC-Alma Data Workflows Discussion (E106)
• Book First Aid: Processing and Repair Library Books (E121 - Dining Room)
• Serials Holdings Presentation - Continuing the Conversation (E100.1)