ACRL College & Research Libraries News

Association of College & Research Libraries

Executive Director’s report

By Julie Carroll Virgo ACRL Executive Director

Once more I am pleased to report that this past year has been an excellent one for the Association of College and Research Libraries. The membership and committees have carried out a wide range of activities, which are detailed in the Association’s annual report handed out at the ACRL program meeting in Dallas. (Members unable to attend the meeting may obtain copies of the report by writing the ACRL Office.) President Joyce Ball in her report on pages 342-43 describes highlights of the Association year. This

report focuses on the operational aspects of the Association.

Julie Carroll Virgo

Membership

ACRL finished the 1983 membership with 8,580 members. This was a slight decline from the previous year and was caused mostly by a drop in the organizational membership category. In 1984 we have achieved a much higher renewal rate of personal members than is usual, although organizational members continue to fall off. This latter experience was anticipated with the change in the ALA dues structure. ACRL has experienced less fall off than any other division and has moved this year from being the 5th largest organizational membership division to being the largest. Overall, ACRL membership is running 4.4% (348 members) ahead of where we were at this time last year.

Budget

Both ACRL and Choice finished 1983 in a strong fiscal position. ACRL had revenues of $440,766 and expenses of $403,716 for a net income of $37,050. Choice attained revenues of $944,697 and expenses of $854,384. Subtracting the adjustment for changes in deferrals and accruals ($57,400) left a balance for Choice of $32,913.

The 1984 fiscal year, with projections based on the first eight months, looks as though revenues will be ahead of budget and expenses as they were budgeted. A budget impact statement has been developed for the ALA Committee on Program Evaluation and Support. A program budget and narrative has been prepared for the Board for the 1984/85 budget year.

Staffing

Two major staffing changes are taking place this year. Rebecca Dixon is leaving Choice at the end of July to move to Philadelphia and Patricia Sabosik will be taking her place. The Dallas conference is my last conference as ACRL staff. JoAn Segal will join ACRL as the executive director on September 1, 1984.

Choice

1984 marks the 20th birthday of Choice magazine. In recent years we have seen the addition of non-print materials to its scope, this year’s change from unsigned to signed reviews, and the beginning of a move from a manually produced operation to a more automated environment.

Publications

New ACRL publications appearing in the past year have included:

•Evaluating Bibliographic Instruction: A Handbook.

• Genre Terms: A Thesaurus for Use in Rare Book and Special Collections Cataloguing.

•CLIP Note #4-83: Online Bibliographic Database Searching in College Libraries.

•Library Statistics of Colleges and Universities, 1982 Institutional Data.

• The Bibliographic Instruction Clearinghouse: A Guide.

•Curriculum Materials Center Collection Development Policy.

•PIL Series, number 43: Paul Metz, The Landscape of Literatures.

•PIL Series, number 44: Neil Radford, The Carnegie Corporation and the Development of American College Libraries, 1928-1941.

The publications program has increased approximately 50% in the 1983/84 year, under the direction of Sandy Whiteley.

Books for College Libraries, 3d Edition

An ad hoc committee has been working on plans for a new edition of Books for College Libraries. A Request for Proposals has been issued and a draft proposal for soliciting funds to carry out the project has been written.

Section newsletters

Two new section newsletters were issued for the first time this year, published by the Bibliographic Instruction Section and the Rare Books and Manuscripts Section.

C&RL News

For the first time in ACRL history, the income brought in from classified and display advertising exceeded the expenses of the News. This is a result of consistent hard work by George Eberhart and Gloria Grev for classified advertising, and by Connie Barone and Art Beck from Choice who handled the display advertising for the first time this year. Some typographic re-styling in the News has resulted in a more crisp and pleasing format. Beginning with the May 1984 issue, C&RL News began to receive preferential 2d Class treatment from the U.S. Postal Service, allowing for home delivery 5-6 days earlier than in the past.

New award

One new award program was begun this year. Tom Kirk was the first person to be awarded the BIS-sponsored “Bibliographic Instruction Librarian of the Year Award” funded by the Mountainside Press. This brings to five the number of awards being administered by ACRL.

Seattle National Conference

Under the chairmanship of Gary Menges, the Third ACRL National Conference was held in Seattle in April 1984. Staff handled housing and meeting space contracts, exhibits, registration, placement, fund raising, and the continuing education program. The conference was a great success. There were 1,754 registrants; 184 participated in the eight continuing education courses; in the exhibit area there were 159 (including 5 complimentary) booths and 10 exhibit tables; 162 jobs were listed in the placement service and 55 resumes were received from people seeking new positions; and twice as many donations were received than planned. The conference proceedings will be published by ACRL in the fall.

RBMS Preconference

The Rare Books and Manuscripts Section conducted its 25th preconference in Austin, Texas, in June. The program theme was “Collecting in the Twentieth Century.”

Continuing education

The continuing education program has expanded this past year in both the number of courses being offered and the number of participants. Fifty people registered for 4 courses at the Midwinter meeting, 184 participants attended 8 courses in Seattle, and 7 courses were offered in Dallas. Seven new courses were developed this past year. The continuing education course syllabi sales are strong—with three months left in the fiscal year sales are already twice the amount budgeted for the whole year. A standing order program for the purchase of these publications has been established.

All ACRL participants in the continuing education program, including local presentations, all ALA meetings, and ACRL national conferences, have now been recorded on word processing disc for easy access.

NEH Grant

A follow-up survey was made to all participants in the first NEH grant workshops and the final report submitted to NEH. In October 1983 ACRL was awarded a new grant for $210,000 to conduct six workshops in cooperation with the Public Library Association. These six workshops will be given at geographically dispersed locations from October 1984 to November 1985.

J. Morris Jones Leadership Grant

ACRL was awarded the J. Morris Jones Award for $5,000 to implement an ALA Leadership Enhancement Project. Barbara Macikas was named the project director. The first stage of the project was successfully completed with a one-and-a-half day preconference at the ALA Midwinter meeting. Approximately 100 board members from ALA’s eleven divisions and the ALA Executive Board came together to examine ways of strengthening divisional leadership and to identify areas of mutual concern. The project continues as planning for another preconference and the development of training packets for divisional board members is underway.

Chapters

Two new chapters, Colorado and North Dakota, were formed this year, bringing the total number of chapters to 33. Nine chapters received ACRL funding for ACRL officers to attend their meetings (Oklahoma, Colorado, Texas, Indiana, Missouri, Wisconsin, Iowa, PNLA, and Eastern New York). Four issues of Chapter Topics were published.

Speakers Bureau

A new edition of the ACRL Speakers Bureau was compiled. The publication lists the credentials and topics about which they will speak, for the President-Elect, President, Past President, Executive Director, Deputy Executive Director, ACRL Representative to Council, and the Editor of College & Research Libraries.

Discussion groups

One new discussion group was formed in ACRL this past year—the Microcomputers in Academic Libraries Discussion Group.

Librarians’ Exchange Program

As a result of requests received from the profession, the ACRL office operates a modest exchange program. This year an unsuccessful mailing was done to 40 Slavic library collections seeking U.S. librarians to participate in an exchange with a Slavic collections librarian in France. A French person will nevertheless be placed at the University of Illinois. An exchange that will take place will be between librarians from France and the Smithsonian Institution.

ALANET

In January 1984, ACRL switched its electronic mail system from CLASS to ALANET. A Texas Instruments terminal was purchased to transmit and receive text. After a survey of Board interest, only the Executive Committee, the Budget and Finance Committee, and certain ACRL committee chairs were signed up on the system.

On a personal note, I want to thank you for the opportunity to spend seven exciting, growing years as your executive director. The personal satisfactions have been rich and many. I wish each and every one of you a good future and thank you for contributing to what I am, and for touching me in so many ways.

A Choice update

Librarians concerned with allocating acquisitions funds might find a useful tool on the price index based on the reviews published in Choice in calendar year 1983. The ALA Resources and Technical Services Division’s Library Materials Price Index Committee has prepared an index using the Choice reviews as its base. The index has been published in the July/August 1984 issue of Choice. The data on prices was compiled by Kathryn A. Soupiset, head of acquisitions at Trinity University, San Antonio.

Choicehas frequently received questions from libraries on the subject distribution of its reviews and the cumulative costs in these subject categories. Although Choice does not currently tabulate the costs, it does tabulate the number of reviews in each category. The breakdown by subject for volume 20 was published in Choice in the November 1983 issue. The volume 21 breakdown has been published in the July/August 1984 issue.

The September 1984 issue will inaugurate two changes of potential interest to librarians. After twenty years of publishing unsigned reviews, Choice will publish its first signed reviews in September, in accordance with the Choice Editorial Board’s recommendation in June 1983. Implementation of the new policy has gone smoothly so far with response from users and reviewers informed of the change responding favorably in general. The Choice editorial staff awaits the response from regular readers of the reviews.

Reviews of nonprint materials, including an inceasing number of computer software packages, will be gathered in a separate section following the print reviews beginning with the September issue. Since the scope of Choice was broadened to include nonprint, the reviews have been integrated into the subject sections of the magazine. The decision to create a separate section of nonprint reviews came as a result of input from media librarians whose work will be facilitated by the change.

These and future changes will be described in the “In the Balance” section of Choice. —Rebecca Dixon, Editor, Choice.

Patricia Sabosik appointed Choice editor

The ACRL Board of Directors has approved the selection of Patricia E. Sabosik as the next editor of Choice, AGRL’s review journal for college libraries published in Middletown, Connecticut. Sabosik was most recently director of marketing services at the H.W. Wilson Company in the Bronx, New York, a major publisher of book and periodical indexes and reference works. Her appointment at Choice will be effective July 30.

Patricia Sabosik

Sabosik has been active in ALA’s American Association of School Librarians and is now completing a term as a member of that division’s Secondary School Materials Selection Committee. She is currently vice-chair of the Serials Industry Systems Advisory Committee, a unit of the Book Industry Study Group, a nonprofit research arm of the publishing industry.

For the past six months she has been doing freelance consulting for the publishing industry in the areas of market-share analysis and international book distribution.

Sabosik presented a paper on “Marketing Serials to Libraries” at the Third Annual Serials Conference organized by Meckler Publications in November 1983. She also contributed a paper to the Seventh Annual Conference of the U.K. Serials Group in England last March entitled, “Serials Industry Systems Advisory Committee: Industry Group Develops Voluntary Standardized Formats for the Processing of Serial Information.”

From 1977 to 1982 she held the position of manager of the Publications Department and editor at the Baker & Taylor Company, Somerville, New Jersey, where she edited two periodicals, Directions and Forecast, sent to academic and public libraries respectively. Directions includes subjectarranged bibliographic selections from the company’s academic approval program. Sabosik developed and managed databases of Directions and Forecast information which provided ondemand subject bibliographies to support collection building for academic libraries.

Directing a committee of school librarians in 1981-1982, Sabosik was also editor-in-chief of the School Libraries Guide, an annual, national bibliography of selected books for school libraries.

This July she will receive an MBA in marketing (with a concentration on international marketing and management) from Seton Hall University, South Orange, New Jersey. She also holds a bachelor’s degree in English from Kean College of New Jersey.

ACRL Women’s Studies Group

Although barely a year old, the ACRL Women’s Studies Discussion Group has made substantial progress in identifying and tackling issues of concern to librarians with assignments or interests in Women’s Studies. Members now number over 60, many of whom contributed to lively meetings at the past three ALA conferences. At the Los Angeles Conference issues for future discussion and action were identified, ranging from the development of needed reference materials in Women’s Studies and liaison with potential publishers to outreach to faculty on campus and within the National Women’s Studies Association.

At Midwinter, participants addressed concerns and shared information on collection development and bibliographic instruction in Women’s Studies. The challenges presented by an academic discipline which is itself so interdisciplinary, and which is informed by an active social movement, prompted the initiation of a project to compile a collection development checklist for Women’s Studies. Sources will include feminist review media, feminist and other small presses, antiquarian and used book dealers who specialize in works by and about women, and audio-visual sources among others. A task force is currently working on this project with completion expected this summer.

The group co-sponsored with the RASD Discussion Group on Women’s Materials and Women Library Users a program at the Dallas conference entitled “Women Online,” a panel discussion on the strengths and weaknesses of currently available databases for research on women and the need for developing a Women’s Studies database.

The Discussion Group encourages new members or inquiries about our activities. For more information, please contact Joan Ariel, Chair, Women’s Studies Librarian, Main Library, University of California, Irvine, CA 92713.