Library of Congress (jump to p2)
http://www.loc.gov

The Library of Congress is the nation's oldest federal cultural institution and serves as the research arm of Congress. It is also the largest library in the world, with more than 130 million items on approximately 530 miles of bookshelves. The collections include more than 29 million books and other printed materials, 2.7 million recordings, 12 million photographs, 4.8 million maps, and 58 million manuscripts.

The Library's mission is to make its resources available and useful to the Congress and the American people and to sustain and preserve a universal collection of knowledge and creativity for future generations. The Office of the Librarian is tasked to set policy and to direct and support programs and activities to accomplish the Library's mission.

Projects:

Jeremiah Mason worked in the Prints and Photographs Division helping to organize the Stereograph [3-D photos] Collection. He arranged and physically processed groups of historic stereographs, captured descriptive data, and created group level catalog records in a Voyager environment using the MARC format. Jeremiah also assigned subject headings to the records using LCTGM. Additionally, he was able to attend a lecture, and spent a lot of time learning about the Library of Congress, their collections, facilities, and the staff and what they do.

Sara Doan worked with LOC's Humanities and Social Sciences Division. Her main task was to add hyperlinks to bibliographic records for digitized texts. This involved identifying a bibliographic record that corresponds to the digitized text and then using TrackER to submit a request for a record update. Sara gained increased ability to interpret MARC records and helped to expand service to the Humanities and Social Sciences Division's readers by providing access to online versions of documents. Sara also had the opportunity to meet with the software designers/administrators of the program she used. They discussed how the system works and why it's useful, and Sara got to make usability suggestions. In addition to her project work, Sara was given a couple tours of the LOC. She also went to seminars/talks; I got to see rare books and do research in the stacks; shadowed at two reference desks; and was shown how Question Point (their 'ask a librarian' service) works.

Emily Mazure worked with LOC's Science, Technology & Business Division. Her goal was to work with a science reference librarian and automation coordinator to create new Q&As for the Division's "Everyday Mysteries" website. Emily's foray into science mystery writing included researching collections, online databases, and the web; creating a bibliographies for further reading; creating an annotated list of related Web sites; collecting images to illustrate Q&As; and scanning material to add to the Web page. The final questions Emily finished were: "What is the difference between a sweet potato and a yam?" and "What is a stem cell?"

Andy Peterson worked with LOC's Digital Conversion Team. He assisted with initial Development of the National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP-http://www.loc.gov/ndnp/). NDNP is a new 20-year initiative set to launch in late 2006. Andy worked with digital images, OCR output, and XML metadata created by vendors, ensuring conformance to state-of-the-art digital archival specifications. He also analyzed the workflow, suggested improvements to the process, performed user-testing on the interface being developed and provided feedback on its design and usability.

Megan Bresnahan worked with the staff of LOC's American Folklife Center. She assisted with the processing of the Alan Lomax Collection: Alan Lomax was one of the most important collectors of folksong and folk music, both within the United States and internationally, and this collection represents 60 years of research. Megan created part of assisted the collection’s curator with database work to describe the collection, the preservation reformatting of manuscript materials in the collection, and other processing activities.

Linda Choo worked in LOC's Asian Division. She helped develop catalog records for Indian Manuscripts. Linda created simple MARC records for Indian manuscripts in Sanskrit and other South Asian languages from the descriptive cataloging information in a card index in English.

Erin Matas worked with LOC's Federal Research Division. Her role was to enhance LOC's Antarctica Portals Web Site. The existing Antarctic Portal is the third most popular “country” portal on the Library’s Portals to the World site. Erin learned to work with and perform searches on a variety of international scientific and social science online resources. Her searches, and the material she developed was used to update the Antarcica Portal.

Woo Yong Lee worked in the Federal Research Division. He assisted with a Fee-Based Research Service run by the division. Woo Yong's work included reviewing existing information programs, researching appropriate formats, and make recommendations on how to publicize fee-for-service research and analysis services to U.S. Government agencies. This work also contributed to the division's goal of developing a newsletter for the service.

Emily Smith worked in LOC's Humanities and Social Sciences Division. Her primary job was to update catalog records in LOC's OPAC. The Library of Congress used to use old numbering called Jefferson numbers. Some of the newer LC classification numbers have not been transcribed onto all of the OPAC records. Additionally, there is an old catalog of B classified books (religion) that needs to be used to update the OPAC records. Emily worked with staff to assist with both of these areas of need.

JiYeon Yang worked in LOC's Serial & Government Publications Division. She reviewed the Serial and Government Publications Division Home Page, assisting with the updating of more than 1,300 external links. JiYeon also suggested adding new links appropriate to the mission of the division. In addition, she reviewed the site’s organization and make recommendations for improvements.

Jeni Spamer worked in LOC's Prints and Photographs Division. Her role was to assist with database development for the National Child Labor Committee Collection. Jeni reviewed scans of photographs originally created by Lewis Hine in 1908–1924. She then used LCTGM to select subject headings for the topics depicted and entered the index terms in LOC's Minaret software to enrich access to this online collection.

Mike Swanson worked in LOC's Serial and Government Publications Division. He Researched African-American newspapers published in DC for a pilot program with the National Digital Newspaper Project. As part of this work, Mike used reference sources to write a succinct description of each title’s importance. These newspapers represent the Library’s contribution to the NDNP in its first phase, covering the years 1900‑1910.

Zhengfei Liu worked for LOC's Preservation Research & Testing Division. She helped design and program a Microsoft (TM) Access (TM) research database for the division. The goal of the database is for users to be able to access it for the purpose of submitting electronic research requests and proposals. The database will also allow users to link to experimental data files, and access on-line reports and research publications.

Farah Faisal worked with the Federal Library and Information Center Committee (FLICC) and Federal Library and Information Network (FEDLINK). FLICC/FEDLINK is in the process of collecting input on four surveys that will be used as the basis for an "evidence-based" business plan for FY 2007 - 2011 that FLICC/FEDLINK is required by law to work under.  Farah assisted FLICC/FEDLINK staff in summarizing and analyzing the results of the four surveys, which had been distributed to approximately 800 stakeholders. She also assisted with the survey report.

See the second page on ASB 2006 at the Library of Congress for more images, student's words on their experiences and the original project descriptions for LOC.