This year's OVGTSL Conference Keynote Speaker is Dr. Michael Kaplan, Head of Database Management and Coordinator for OCLC/RLIN Operations in the Harvard College Library. Dr. Kaplan is a frequent speaker on topics related to Technical Services Workstations and Technical Services in an online world. In his keynote address he promises to offer a wider perspective on our digitized bibliographic world, one where Tradition and Innovation meet as collaborators to advance our shared mission, and also to show examples of the newly emerging suite of tools that are reshaping our environment.

Dr. Kaplan writes, "We find ourselves in a Platonic age: our bibliographic world has been reincarnated as a "virtual" entity. Yet those of us in the trenches of Technical Services are the true creators of the bibliographic "virtual gold": coherent collections thoughtfully assembled and coherently cataloged. These records and the organizing principles that govern them make them true nuggets. With the Internet as our "virtual rainbow" we are now postitioned to move rapidly to take full advantage of our networked communities. Like no other segment of the library profession, Technical Services has reached out in true entrepreneurial fashion to embrace and take full advantage of powerful workstation technology and the promises of true international cooperation. With the development of a host of electronic tools and technologies built on these twin foundations, Technical Services is poised to leap forward and confound the skeptics."

A. Joint NASIG/OVGTSL Sponsored Session: "The Library/Vendor/Publisher Partnership" - Julie Gammon, University of Akron; Alison Roth, Blackwell's Periodicals; Edward Hueckel, Elsevier Science

This program addresses some of the important issues surrounding the management of serials. Each speaker will talk about their specific role in the serials chain.

B. "Cataloging Standards for Special Libraries" - Anne Abate, Cincinnati Special Library

This program will review the status of technical services operations and library automation in special libraries as presented in the literature, and propose some simplified methods to comply with standards at a minimum level, while not coming into conflict with them.

A. Joint NASIG/OVGTSL Sponsored Session: "Using Focus Groups to Match User Expectations With Library Constraints" - Sheryl Williams, University of Nebraska Medical Center

Focus groups provide a forum for in-depth, directed discussions of perceptions, beliefs, and attitudes. This program explains the mechanics of obtaining customer feedback through selection of participants, identification of their concerns, analysis of results and the role of the professional facilitator.

B. "Collaborative Partnerships: The Cataloging and Mark-up of the American Verse Collection at the University of Michigan" - Kevin Butterfield, University of Michigan

The presentation will focus on two aspects of the evolving process at the University of Michigan for the cataloging and mark-up of electronic texts for the Humanities Text Initiative and, more specifically, the American Verse Project.

With the burgeoning of information on the World Wide Web, and with the rapidly-increasing demand for quick access to those resources by library users, comes the urgent need in libraries for methods to locate, evaluate, select, and organize World Wide Web sites that are of interest to the library community. Adding to the urgency is the rapid growth of the World Wide Web, which makes locating valuable sites even more difficult. This presentation will explore methods of organizing Web resources which have been evaluated and selected for a library's collection, and ways of providing access to them.

A. "The Acquisitions Business Cycle and EDI" - Bob Schatz, Academic Book Center and Chris Patterson, Blackwell's

EDI is defined as the exchange of routine business information in a machine readable format. What are the basic components of an EDI application and how do the library, the ILS vendor and book vendor work together to implement an EDI interface? Understanding these basics, EDI presents one possible avenue of exchange of data for purchasing transactions between booksellers and libraries. It may not be either necessary or most appropriate. This presentation will address the questions posed above, provide some background on how EDI came into being, explore some of the technical issues the players must face when considering EDI implementation, and consider how these standards do and don't apply to interactions related to book supply to libraries.

B. "What Do You Do When the Classification Numbers Change?" - Susan Banoun and Sharon Bressert, University of Cincinnati Medical Center Libraries

Classification schemes are not static. Minor changes that improve access or clarify relationships of materials are often handled quite simply with little done to the existing materials in the collection. But there are also major shifts of subjects to entirely different sections that require significant efforts to achieve. Using the 1994 National Library of Medicine Classification (5th edition) as the basis of the examples, this program will discuss how the Medical Center Libraries at the University of Cincinnati approached the major changes to the call number sequences.

A. "Comparing Serials Collections and Allocations on a Shoestring Budget" - Laurie Wilson, University of Southern Mississippi

Physics journal holdings from the USM were compared to the allocation policies of other universities. The poster session will show how information was gathered via the Internet and through standard print sources, and how others could adapt this procedure for comparisons of their own collections. Samples of developed spreadsheets and a summary of different allocation policies will be available as handouts.

B. "DDC21 -- Are we adaptable? Is it adoptable?" - Mary Ann Moran and Laurel Cochrane, St. Joseph County Public Library, South Bend, IN

Confronted with still more schedule changes, what's a cataloger to do? Join us to discuss the results of a survey concerning the implementation of DDC21. This will be an opportunity to share your own experiences with the rest of us as well.

A. "Preservation: History and Future Direction" - Sonja Jordan, University of Notre Dame

Preservation has come to play an increasingly important role in library programs. No longer limited to the repair of paper-based collections, a preservation program must address a greater variety of formats. Changes in technology have also contributed to redefining preservation programs, making invisible the distinction between preservation and access. This has resulted in a greater demand for libraries leadership in providing principles and procedures which articulate and establish more intrinsic links with other library units, such as collection management, acquisitions, and cataloging. This program will provide a historical overview of the Notre Dame Libraries' preservation program with specific focus on technical services issues, such as: how a disciplinary approach to selection yields greater benefit to the scholarly community; the necessity and utility in maintaining national standards in preservation cataloging; how acquisitions contributes and fulfills its preservation directorates; and how electionic technologies will impact preservation and access.

B. "The Virtual Presence of Technical Services: Home Pages on the World Wide Web" - Nancy Down, Bowling Green State University

During the past few years, more and more technical services departments have created home pages on the World Wide Web. These home pages vary in design and content, including everything from traditional print based tools, tools now available only electronically, electronic serials, local policies, staff rosters, links to other OPACs, etc. This program analyzes the content of such pages and attempts to answer such questions as: What are we using home pages for and how are they changing the way we do our jobs? Are we just using the same traditional tools in a new medium or have we created new electronic tools? What sort of virtual presence are we creating on the Web?