MAPS Revisited: The Scenes That Have Guided Preservation Since The 80’s
In 1992, president C. Lee Jones of the Micrographic Preservation Service spoke to the future of preservation and access. “We have a vision that may or may not come true, but we believe it possible within the next five years, and that would be a workstation either in a library or microfilm room, or at […]
Backstage Opens Third Office for Expanded Cataloging, Archiving, & Digitization Operations
October 22, 2024 – Months of work have led us, with great excitement, to announce the opening of our third Backstage office location, this one in Bethlehem, PA. Located just a few blocks away from our Preservation Service Center on Commerce Way, this new East Coast center of Collection Management operations on Courtney Street boasts […]
Doxie AI Bringing Distinctive Machine Learning Solutions to Library Collections
Over the last year, the media has tended to lump the term “AI” – that is, artificial intelligence – to mean ‘anything where a computer is going to make me a finished product.’ The news is filled with discussions surrounding programs like ChatGPT and Midjourney: about their efficacy, potential scenarios for application, and the ethics […]
Pennsylvania Office Wraps Up Successful 15-Month Showcase of Employee Art
Last month marked the end of an ongoing internal exhibition of employee art and writing. What began as a team-building exercise in our Digitization department back in January of 2022 grew into a 60 submission, year and a half long showcase of talent among our staff. “Originally, I expected it to last maybe a month […]
Sit Down With Gerald Varner in Microfilm
Jerry Varner is a microfilm technician in our Microfilm department in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. In between sessions at camera and coffee breaks, we communicated over e-mail to talk about his thoughts on Microfilming and experiences at Backstage and, formerly, OCLC. J: I’ve been at Backstage for 21 years; I started on March 26th, 2001. A: That […]
Making Service Partners Worth Your While
“What is the value of working with a vendor?” We have been asked this before, and it’s a great question to take a step back and understand how service partners like Backstage fit into technical service processing at a college, university, public, or corporate library. To answer the question, I think it’s important to first […]
Sit Down With Lisa Hardy in Collection Management Services
Lisa Hardy is a cataloger, trainer, and team lead in our cataloging department in Provo, Utah, and I was able to grab a few moments of her time to talk to her about her experiences at Backstage – which goes back to before Backstage was even called Backstage. L: I started in 1993. Back then, […]
Backstage Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow
Some may know that our story began in 1986 as Retro Link Associates (RLA), which soon became a division of Dynix Corp, specializing in retrospective conversion and, later, generalized metadata services. With the push towards digital ILS and bibliographic records, libraries needed a quick and reliable solution for uploading their card catalog. A very effective […]
Sit Down With Jeannise Rodriguez in Digitization
I spoke with Jeannise, one of our Digitization Technicians, who works in our camera studio and is regarded as one of our leading camera and material experts. She’s been with Backstage for seventeen years having started in 2005. A: Where did you work before coming to Backstage and to Digitization? J: I worked at Binney […]
Sit Down With Karen Anderson in Automation
I spoke with Karen, our Authority Control Librarian, who works with our metadata and automation departments primarily on authority record editing and creation. She’s been with Backstage for 15 years, previously coming from Brigham Young University’s Lee Library cataloging department. A: What led you to become a librarian, and what eventually led you to take […]
