Call for Articles For the February 2007 issue of Against the Grain, the guest editors invite submissions examining metadata and its impact on the work of collections and technical services librarians. Possible article topics include: - Case studies of large or small digitization initiatives: How was a project carried out? What made it successful? What problems arose? How was the work incorporated into the day-to-day operations? In retrospect, what could have been done differently? - Post-selection decisions: How do metadata specialists, working with collection "owners" and/or subject scholars, determine optimum schemas? How do they collaborate with different units within the library or with communities of practice (museums, archives and libraries) and discipline cultures? - Interoperability: What aspects of shareability of collections are important? How do you assure cross-collection interoperability now and into the future? - Preservation: What needs to be collected from the first scan? Are their ways to extract technical metadata easily? Where do you store the preservation metadata? What standard do you use to store metadata and where? - User perspectives: Have user needs been assessed? What are the reactions of patrons / the public to digitized projects? Are there feedback mechanisms, and what has been reported? Do you use any aspects of "Library 2.0"? Articles on other aspects of metadata are also welcome. Against the Grain is a partially refereed publication, and articles are usually 2000 -- 2500 words in length. Article proposals and / or abstracts of articles should be submitted by Friday, September 23, 2006. The deadline for submission of the articles themselves is Friday, November 11, 2006. If you are interested in submitting an article, please let me know by return email. (pam.rebarcak@wmich.edu or sheila.bair@wmich.edu) Should you desire more information or have questions, please do not hesitate to contact the guest editors listed below. Pam Rebarcak Head Technical Services Department Western Michigan University Libraries Kalamazoo, MI 49009 269.387.5166 Sheila Bair Metadata Cataloger Western Michigan University Libraries Kalamazoo, MI 49009