Cataloging & Metadata Services has just sent our first batch of Latvian and Lithuanian books to Michigan to be cataloged as part of a new cataloging partnership formed by the Big Ten Academic Alliance.

Following a highly successful pilot between CIC institutions in 2014 during which language and format expertise was shared across the consortium, libraries within the (formerly CIC, newly renamed) Big Ten Academic Alliance have now pledged to assist each other for 10 hours a month in an exchange of cataloging language materials not easily dealt with in-house. In turn for getting help with our Lithuanian materials, we are awaiting Arabic books from Michigan State to be cataloged by Susan Lane, Special Collections Cataloging team member.

Thanks go to the Library Directors and Heads of Technical Services in the Alliance for supporting our program.

A huge round of thanks locally are due to Jill Shockey, who designed our lavender ILL book bands based on input from the Big Ten Academic Alliance ILL Directors, and to Barbara Coopey, who brought our questions and concerns to that group.

If you have been holding on to language materials in your offices, please let us know – someone in the Alliance can probably help!

– submitted by Anne Copeland, Cataloging and Metadata Services