Introduction
The 26th annual conference of the North American Serials Interest Group (NASIG) was held in St. Louis, Missouri, from June 2–5, 2011. The theme “Gateway to Collaboration” emphasized the necessity of working together that serialists find in their everyday lives. The stately Gateway Arch welcomed attendees to the downtown conference site, as well as provided provocative views of the accomplishments possible through working together. In fact, as these Proceedings will demonstrate, NASIG's annual conference remains focused on librarians, vendors, and publishers collaborating to provide content and services successfully to library users.
NASIG President Katy Ginanni and UKSG President Tony Kidd set a kind and welcoming tone to begin the gathering before attendees were given an introduction to the history and significant sites of the city by Esley Hamilton, preservation historian for St. Louis County Department of Parks and Recreation. Conference goers were invited to explore the nearby Courthouse, the Basilica of St. Louis (the “Old Cathedral”) and the Cathedral Basilica (the “New Cathedral”), Tower Grove Park, the Missouri Botanical Garden, and of course the Anheuser-Busch Brewery. The City Museum—described as a playground for adults—hosted the opening reception, providing giant slides, a ball pit, an airplane, and other “must-touch” exhibits in addition to a scavenger hunt. The walkable downtown did not steal away all opportunities for interaction though: the 382 conference attendees also took advantage of poster sessions, a vendor expo, and user groups, in addition to regular programs. Attendees were also asked to consider changing the name of the organization and to brainstorm ways to make sure NASIG remains relevant and vital as we move into the future. And, as the conference hotel overlooked Busch Stadium, NASIGers caught Cardinals fever, commandeering a block of seats as the home team won its baseball game against the Cubs.
Three preconference sessions primed attendees for the main program and delivered immediately useful information. Judith A. Kuhagen provided a full-day presentation on “Serials and RDA: An Ongoing Relationship,” in order to familiarize librarians with the new elements in this code, changes from Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules, 2nd edition, and cataloging changes most applicable to serials. Rachel Kirk discussed accounting topics such as reconciliation and cost-benefit analysis in her talk “Accounting Techniques for Acquisition Librarians.” “Who Ya Gonna Call: Troubleshooting Strategies for E-resources Access Problems,” led by a five-person panel representing libraries, publishers, and subscription agents, delved into recommended practices for preventing and resolving access issues related to activation, proxy server access, OpenURL failures, and access restrictions.
NASIG members gathered for two dynamic vision sessions. The first of these was “Science Re-Imagined” by Adam Bly, founder and director of Seed Media Group. Bly encouraged librarians to consider the ways science can change the world in positive ways, and how society can enact those improvements by enhancing science literacy and opening science. Paul Duguid's “Publishing in Chains: Scholarly Serials, Supply Chains, and Certification” encouraged audience members to consider publication and dissemination of the scholarly record as a supply chain, and investigate how branding of this supply chain happens and is changing these days.
Nine 90-minute strategy sessions tackled issues crossing the boundaries of multiple segments of the serials world, including but not limited to publishers, vendors, service providers, and librarians. One of these sessions addressed the operational, technical, and economic feasibility of Resource Description and Access (RDA) as discovered during the U.S. RDA Test, and the ramifications RDA might have for serials. Three programs focused on issues related to serials pricing, including an introduction to how historical pricing informs price projections and trends, a program on how the LOUIS consortium dealt with its massive budget cuts, and a discussion of how two members of the Association of Research Libraries left behind their “Big Deals.” Two programs described developments in the standards arena: one focused specifically on NISO's initiative Improving OpenURLs Through Analytics (IOTA), and the other was a summary to date of the electronic resource management (ERM) Data Standards and Best Practices Review Steering Committee's survey of more than twenty standards and best practices for an inventory, further recommendations, and inclusion in the ERM Data Dictionary. One of the strategy sessions described a recent consortial effort to develop a distributed repository for print journals, and two other sessions described different collaborations: Carol MacAdam and Kate Duff detailed JSTOR and the University of Chicago Press' efforts to create sustainable scholarship, and a three-person panel described a variety of ways that consortia, publishers, and agents are “Shaping, Streamlining, and Solidifying the Information Chain in Turbulent Times” through measures such as continued enhancements to interfaces, adopting current standards, and increasing communication.
Many of the fifteen tactics sessions built on the themes of collaboration and the adoption of new standards, focusing their discussions on the practical, day-to-day issues within serials work. While Jill Grogg, Sara E. Morris, and Beth Ashmore gave an engaging session on good negotiation, Wendy Robertson made a case for serialists' involvement in digitization of serials backfiles. Two of the tactics sessions dealt with serials and collection development; although one detailed the use of assessment and faculty involvement to cut periodicals, the other shared strategies for discovering the journals necessary to support new degree plans. Two other programs dealt with patron-driven acquisitions, one focusing on the experiences of the University of Nevada, Reno, with providing access both to electronic articles and e-books, and the other sharing strategies that the University of Colorado, Boulder and Coutts Information Services worked out to reduce inefficiency and streamline librarian workflows by integrating UC's approval plan in order to manage all book acquisition processes for both automatic shipment and patron-driven titles. Remaining tactics sessions covered a variety of topics, including the continuing collaboration among the Library of Congress's ISSN Center and Serials Solutions to create and share metadata about serials, one publisher's recent experiments with article rental and its ongoing development of mobile applications, practical advice on using Drupal to track licenses and organize information related to electronic resource acquisitions, and insight to the interactions required among systems librarians and vendors to create better reporting on collections. Two other tactics sessions described new standards initiatives, one on how ESPReSSO could ease user authentication, and the other describing PIE-J and ISO 8's efforts to improve journal presentation and identification. Lastly, three sessions were devoted to Web-scale discovery. Two of the programs were case studies on bringing up a discovery system (at Old Dominion University and at the University of Colorado, Boulder), while the third approached Web-scale services from the perspective of a consortium, the Higher Education Library Information Network (HELIN).
As the record of our organization's annual conference, the Proceedings could not exist without the contributions of its members, individuals who give their time as presenters and recorders. For this service, we are grateful. We also hope that readers will join us in acknowledging the Program Planning Committee and the Conference Planning Committee for their hard work in crafting this successful conference. Special thanks go to the Executive Board and NASIG's elected officers for their leadership and the examples they set in working together. We would like to acknowledge the support provided to us by our Executive Board liaison, Allyson Zellner, and the staff at Taylor & Francis.
Wm. Joseph Thomas
Sharon Dyas-Correia
Guest Editors