The following message is being cross-posted, please excuse the duplication.

The ALCTS Creative Ideas in Technical Services Discussion Group will meet
at ALA Mid-Winter 2001 on Sunday, January 14th from 4:30 - 5:30 pm.  The
location as you will find in the online conference guide is the Hotel
Washington, Parkview Room.  For those who wish to enjoy what are always
informative and lively discussions, please join us on Sunday!

Topics will include:

1.  Metadata (e.g. CORC, DUBLIN Core, Encoded Archival Description)

--What are the benefits/challenges?
--Training issues (internal, external)?
--Who participates in the process (cataloging staff only? reference staff and
 cataloging staff, systems staff?)
--What levels of staff participate in the process? (paraprofessionals,
professionals?)
--Workflow issues (time, productivity, value-added?)

2.  Competencies for professionals

--What should they be?
--How have job descriptions changed?
--What roles are professionals now playing that they didn't have five years
ago (or two years ago?)
--What are the challenges that professionals face, what are the tools they
need to assist them?
--What is it that librarians feel they need to acquire to keep up? How do
librarians keep up?  What is the level of support?

3.  Electronic Resources (e-books, aggregator databases, e-journals, websites,
etc.)

--Licensing issues? (Who negotiates, who signs, what makes or breaks the
signing of a license?)
--Collection development/Acquisition issues? (Overlapping responsibilities?
How are decisions made on the resources, who makes the decisions? What happens
when there are problems, who deals?
--Archival issues?
--Cataloging issues?
--Budgetary effects?

4.  Cross training opportunities for technical services

--What has been the impetus for cross training?
-- Cross-training best practices (In which technical services areas has
cross-training worked best?)
--Best areas to train public services into technical services? (What are the
benefits? Has it been tried? Has it worked?)
--Cross-training into public services . (What are the benefits? Has it been
tried? Has it worked?)
--When has cross training not worked?

5.  Serials and Microform Resources

--Retention, who decides to retain what, for how long, and in which format?
--Whose responsibility is it to manage the storage issue?
--What are the alternatives?
--How have new technologies affected the use of resources (e.g. networked
print/scanning stations)
--How have the electronic resources changed the way serials service staffs
are trained?  Has training changed?

6.  The acquisitions/collection development workflow

--Is there overlap between the two areas?
--How do faculty become involved and stay involved in the process?
--How have electronic resources affected the process?
--What processes/workflows are departments doing now that have not been
done before
--Assessment, when is it done, how often, by whom?  What are some good
assessment tools and rules?
--Has training of staff changed?

Edward Bergin
Southwest Texas State University
San Marcos, TX
 eb13@swt.edu

and

Elizabeth G. McClenney
Associate Librarian for Technical Services
Johnston Memorial Library
Virginia State University
Petersburg, VA
(804)524-5580