José Vila

The presentation explored how artists’ books transform poetry into a material and sensory experience, rather than simply preserving it as text. Focusing on poems by Cuban writers Dulce María Loynaz and Carilda Oliver Labra, it examined how the Cuban publishers Ediciones Vigía and El Fortín reinterpreted their poetry through artists’ books, giving the literary works a new visual, tactile, and material presence.

It also considered what happens when an artists’ book enters a library, particularly from the perspective of the cataloging librarian. Because these works blur the boundaries between books, artworks, and objects, cataloging them requires describing both their intellectual content and their distinctive physical and artistic characteristics, making the cataloger an important mediator between the work and its future readers.

This poster, presented at the American Library Association (ALA) Annual Conference, highlighted a collaborative model for collection development, cataloging, and access across international and institutional boundaries. It showcased the partnership between the University of Miami Libraries, the School of Architecture, and the University of Miami’s Rome Program, demonstrating how coordinated workflows and shared expertise can support the acquisition, description, and discovery of materials for an international academic program. The poster emphasized collaboration among librarians, faculty, and academic programs as a strategy for improving access to collections and supporting teaching and research across geographically dispersed locations.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is reshaping the landscape of technical services in libraries, offering innovative ways to streamline cataloging and metadata management. This poster will showcase how the University of Miami Libraries (UML) is exploring AI technologies to empower cataloging workflows, with a focus on both metadata creation and data remediation activities. The poster will highlight current initiatives and present forward-looking case studies illustrating how AI can be applied to offer subject analysis and classification, metadata creation and enrichment, database enhancement projects, and normalization of bibliographic data.
Current exploration of AI in cataloging efforts is aimed at reducing time manually cataloging while increasing the accessibility of materials through AI improved bibliographic records. Experiments have been carried out about using various AI chatbots and, more recently, Library Information Systems (LIS) have been introducing AI metadata assistants to create new records and update existing records. The University of Miami‘s technical services department has been experimenting with using AI in different ways: using Optical Character Recognition to extract text from images of materials to add content and summaries statements to bibliographic records, using different chat AIs to analyze text for subject heading and LCCN suggestions, using Neural Machine Translation and Generative AIs for translating or transliterating materials, and using AI to clean up and normalize metadata.
While AI presents many challenges, it also presents many possibilities, and our poster will encourage attendees to imagine how AI can be leveraged in their own cataloging environments.

While Wikipedia defines artists’ books as “works of art realized in the form of a book,” it is difficult to find a universally agreed-upon definition of the genre. Scholar and art historian Johanna Drucker calls this type of book “the quintessential 20th century art form,” but admits that a catch-all description is elusive. Artists’ books are, in many ways, works of art…but are they books? Many don’t have words, some have no covers, others cannot be read in a traditional “linear” fashion. But book artists, collectors, librarians, and lovers of these lovely, hard-to-pinpoint art works all agree: artists’ books belong in libraries, and the UM Libraries have been collecting artists’ books for over 15 years. Our collections encompass some of the finest examples of the form, including the work of local artists and University of Miami Students.

This poster will try to explain what an artist book is, how the University of Miami Special Collections identifies, acquires, curates, describes, and uses them and will highlight new workflows that were recently implemented in our ILS and catalog to increase their accessibility and discovery.

In the Fall of 2021, the University of Miami Libraries initiated a feasibility study to investigate the prospects of replacing Aeon with the Reading Room functionality in Alma. Our Distinctive Collections reading rooms have been using Aeon to facilitate patron requests for materials and manage the in-house lending process. While Aeon is suitable to fulfill this requirement, it lacks the inventory control and management aspect. The project intended to use Alma to oversee the inventory and improve the tracking of materials, as well as the circulation of it, while Primo would act as the patron interface replacing Aeon.  

During this presentation we will highlight the problem, implementation of the reading room functionality in Alma, material reservation process in Primo, cross-walking & import of materials from the Finding Aids (AtoM), and linking of records from AtoM. 

Las bibliotecas de la Universidad de Miami, al igual que la mayoría de bibliotecas universitarias de los EE.UU., asignan sus materias a partir de la lista de encabezamientos de materia de la Biblioteca del Congreso (Library of Congress Subject Headings). “Illegal aliens”, es uno de los términos autorizados pertenecientes a esta lista y se podría traducir al castellano como “extranjeros ilegales”. Utilizar términos de esta naturaleza, de carácter tan deshumanizador y con tanta carga racial, conlleva que las bibliotecas, a través de sus catálogos, perpetúen el uso de un vocabulario ofensivo, discriminatorio y tendencioso.
A raíz de que, en el año 2014, una estudiante de Dartmouth College hiciese una propuesta formal para reemplazar el término “Illegal Aliens”, la Biblioteca del Congreso decidió llevar a cabo la revisión del encabezamiento de materia en 2016 y, tras dicha revisión, propuso dos términos alternativos. Sin embargo, la Cámara de Representantes se opuso a este cambio y obligó a la Biblioteca del Congreso a que continuara usando el término “Illegal aliens”. Esta fue la primera vez que una Cámara del Congreso intervino en una decisión de la Biblioteca del Congreso con respecto al uso de los encabezamientos de materias.
A pesar de esa controvertida decisión, diferentes bibliotecas universitarias en los EE.UU. han decidido abordar este problema de manera local hasta que la Biblioteca del Congreso decida, o le permitan, reemplazar el término con otro de carácter menos ofensivo. En septiembre del 2019, el Association for Library Collections and Technical Services (ALCTS) Subject Analysis Committee Working Group on Alternatives to LCSH Illegal aliens realizó un sondeo en el cual se preguntó a diferentes bibliotecas y consorcios cuales fueron las medidas tomadas, los cambios efectuados, o las iniciativas en marcha para reemplazar este término y los resultados, que fueron compartidos en la ALA 2020 Midwinter Conference, revelaron la existencia de diferentes estrategias para mitigar este problema.
La biblioteca de la Universidad de Miami, tras el cierre temporal de sus instalaciones en marzo de 2020 y el comienzo de la modalidad de trabajo remoto debido a la pandemia del COVID-19,vio la oportunidad de unirse a este primer grupo de bibliotecas universitarias pioneras en reemplazar el controvertido término. Fue entonces cuando se abordó el problema de manera local, a través de la creación e incorporación de encabezamientos de materias locales alternativos en miles de registros bibliográficos que incluían el término “Illegal aliens” o alguna de sus variantes. En esta ponencia se expondrá cómo se llevó a cabo este proyecto de forma remota, el cual combinó la configuración de reglas de normalización y de rutinas tanto en Alma como en Primo (la plataforma de gestión y servicios bibliotecarios y la plataforma de descubrimiento que utiliza la universidad). También se explicarán cuáles fueron los desafíos y dificultades que nos encontramos, tanto a nivel técnico como a nivel organizativo, para poder completar este cambio terminológico. Se concluirá examinando cuales están siendo las medidas que la biblioteca está tomando para lograr un catálogo menos ofensivo y más inclusivo.

En 2018 la Universidad de Miami llegó a un acuerdo de colaboración con ExLibris para formar parte de un reducido grupo de universidades que se encargaría de ayudar en el desarrollo de la nueva plataforma de servicios de investigación Esploro.
En esta ponencia, se explicará cómo ha sido el proceso de implementación de Esploro en nuestra universidad, así como las decisiones tomadas sobre aspectos técnicos en la migración del repositorio institucional, los datos de nuestros investigadores, y la incorporación de las TDE a través del sistema SWORD.

The University of Miami Libraries (UML) has taken a proactive approach to embracing new technologies and features introduced by Ex Libris throughout the year, enhancing our workflows and improving service delivery. This presentation will explore how UML has implemented or explored new tools like the Ex Libris Research Assistant, Rialto, Metadata AI functionalities, and BIBFRAME/Linked Data to transform our metadata management, collection development, and discovery services. Attendees will gain insights into the practical applications of these tools and learn about the opportunities and challenges we encountered along the way.

This poster, created by the Poster Session Committee of the Internationals Relations Round Table (IRRT), was presented at ALA Annual conference 2024 in San Diego, California, celebrating the 75th anniversary of the IRRT. The Poster Session Committee, in collaboration with the ALA Poster Session Review Panel and the ALA International Relations Office, organizes the international poster session at the ALA Annual Conferences. The committee's key responsibilities include reviewing submissions to ensure they align with the conference theme and standards, helping presenters with the setup and takedown of posters, and facilitating meaningful engagement and dialogue during the session. With attention to detail, the committee aims to create a dynamic and informative experience that enhances the conference.

The committee's role is to publicize, solicit, review, and oversee the presentation of all international poster submissions. Librarians from around the world are invited to submit posters on topics relevant to librarianship, and U.S. librarians can submit posters related to international populations, projects, or collaborations. Submissions can cover project development, research studies, or practical problem-solving initiatives. This effort enriches the ALA conference by highlighting global and international perspectives within the field of librarianship.

In 2023, the University of Miami Libraries (UML) migrated from Primo Back Office (BO) to Primo VE, with the aim of streamlining Primo and Alma’s administration maintenance and configurations while also trying to avoid the potential obsolescence of Primo BO. This presentation will examine how UML managed the migration and the subsequent configurations and implementations.



Background information will be shared about where UML was with Primo BO including staffing changes and administration issues that we encountered, which led to our increasing interest of migrating to VE. We will detail our migration planning strategy, including how we handled the configuration components within the Go VE checklist and the go-live process. Lastly, we will discuss post-migration issues that we have encountered and the integration of Syndetics Unbound.