An Invitation
The Library of Congress invites ALA conference attendees to an Open House
on Friday, June 22, 2-4 p.m.
European Division staff will be on hand to give tours of the European
Reading Room and its resources, and to consult with visitors about the
countries the division covers (all of Europe, including all of Russia in Asia, but excluding the
British Isles and Iberia) and for the functions the staff handles --
collection development, reader services, and special projects (exhibits,
conferences, publications, digital projects, etc.). We can also help put
people in contact with LC staff in cataloging or acquisitions, and
with area studies staff who handle Central Asia, the Caucasus, the Middle
East, Classical and Byzantine studies, etc.
Further information about the Open House and other LC-related activities
at the ALA conference will be available shortly at: www.loc.gov/ala
The European Reading Room is open Monday through Friday, 8.30 am.-5
pm. If you cannot make the Open House on June 22, we'd be glad to see you
any other time your conference schedule permits. Your ALA conference
registration badge permits access to reading rooms without the usual need
to obtain an LC reader card.
Directions to the European Reading Room:
The Library's Jefferson Building is about 2 miles from the Convention
Center and easily reached by taxicab or by metro subway (closest station:
Capitol South, on the Blue or Orange lines). Enter the Jefferson Building
by the First St., SE, ground-level entrance (midway between Independence
Avenue SE and East Capitol St.).
After going through security immediately inside, go up two floors, by
stairs or elevator, and enter the "American Treasures" exhibition. Go to
the end of that exhibit, turn to your left, and enter the center set
of large wooden doors (there's a sign there noting the entrance to
European). The division and reading room are immediately inside.
We look forward to seeing you in June - please let me know if you have any
questions,
Best regards,
Harry
A few weeks ago I had a little difficulty checking in Greek BIP for some titles
I "knew" had been published there, and reported the problem :
<<Unfortunately, www.gbip.gr does not list all the book titles included in our
database. It presents some books written by Greek authors, for which we
have an English translation of the title & some other bilingual data available
(but this is not the case for a lot of the titles).
In order to be able to view all the titles included in the database, I would
strongly recommend that you perform your searches directly at
www.biblionet.gr.>>
I responded with some suggestions that I hoped would clarify the differences
between the two sites, and to make them more intuitive and useful.
My first suggestion was that the English language version of the site should
explain that is is NOT a transliterated mirror of the complete Greek listings,
and that users be instructed to check the Greek language part to ensure
that they had complete information.
The second was to request that searches by publisher name (and by their
ISBN prefixes) in the English version (which mostly came up blank - giving
the impression that they had no publications currently available) be linked
to the complete listings in the Greek site (this is more of a technical
problem in the programming of the site and I hope it can at some point be
implemented)
The third suggestion was that author and title entries for books published
in English in Greece be included in the English interface.
I have just received a response from them :
<<I'm glad to inform you that points 1 & 3 of your suggestions have
been realised
(and all Anagnosis/Lycabettus/Harvey titles have been inserted in the English
language version of the database, too, together with all books by
Greek publishers
originally published in English).>>
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
June Samaras
KALAMOS BOOKS
(For Books about Greece)
2020 Old Station Rd
Streetsville,Ontario
Canada L5M 2V1
Tel : 905-542-1877
E-mail : kalamosbooks(a)gmail.com
www.kalamosbooks.com
