ACRL College & Research Libraries News

Association of College & Research Libraries

ACRL President’s report, 1984-85

By Sharon Rogers ACRL’s 46th President

Every once in a while, organizations, like people, need to take “time-out” for reassessment and re- newal. 1984-85 has been ACRL’s year to focus on internal goals, so that the mission of the association and the needs of its members may be achieved with enhanced efficiency and effectiveness.

Sharon Rogers

This keynote emphasis began with the design of the ACRL President’s Program for 1985. “Priorities for Academic Librarianship” was announced as the theme of a year-long activity. ACRL members were asked to invest in the association by providing their advice on the desirability and feasibility of moving forward with the many projects and activities recommended in the 1982 Activity Model for 1990. Six hundred ACRL members received a survey for their responses. They were also asked to provide demographic information about themselves. Responses to the survey were presented as background information for the final priority-setting activity during the annual program meeting in Chicago in July. The goals of the President’s Program were to:

1) establish priorities for association activities;

2) collect demographic and attitude information from a random sample of members and from participants at an annual meeting to compare similarities and/or differences between the general membership and the activists within the association;

3) provide basic information needed for the first stage of ACRL’s strategic planning activity; and

4) experiment with a prototype ACRL membership survey, to be considered for implementation on a scheduled basis.

The President’s Program is not the only example of the ACRL emphasis on investment in the association itself. Other illustrations, hardly exhaustive, include the following:

•At the June 1984 annual meeting the ACRL Board created a Strategic Planning Task Force to draft a five-year plan to cover 1986-1990.

•The Planning Committee is continuing its review of ACRL committees and sections to ensure the vitality of the existing units of the Association.

•ACRL members have just voted on a constitutional change which, if approved, will allow for greater Board representation by activity sections and chapter nominees.

•The now fully-implemented program of officer and executive director travel to chapter meetings has enriched the perspectives of the leaders of the Association.

•An orientation program for ACRL Board members intends to provide increased assistance for Board members in making informed and timely decisions for the Association.

•The references throughout this report to news about ACBL which appeared in C&RL News underscores the increased visibility of the News as a communications tool for the Association, a role that will be shared with association-supported section newsletters.

This emphasis on review and renewal within the association has not detracted from the usual substantial list of achievements of ACBL’s mission. Fortunately, the ALA Yearbook provides a comprehensive statement of ACRL’s long list of activities that need not be repeated here. I will only highlight some of the initiatives that promise increased support for ACBL and ACBL members as they increase the visibility of their respective roles in the higher education community:

•The Professional Association Liaison Committee was created by the Board at the June 1984 meeting to bring ACBL’s many interests before other professional associations.

•Initiatives to support the research activities of ACBL members ranged from the creation of an Ad Hoc Committee on Research Development which has recommended and implemented the Research Clinics described in the April 1985 C&RL News to the creation of a standing committee on Research Development and the creation of a new Research Forum column in C&RL News.

•Outreach to other higher education associations and relevant news media by the Executive Director and the President (see details in the April 1985 issue of C&RL News).

•The Board has reaffirmed ACRL’s commitment to Choice as an ACRL publication and selected Choice to prepare the third edition of Books for College Libraries.

The Association’s investment in itself and interpretation of itself to the community of which it is a part coalesces in its recognition of outstanding members. The Association and the Baker and Taylor Company present the ACRL Academic or Research Librarian of the Year award for 1985 to Jessie Carney Smith, university librarian at Fisk University. Smith is cited for her attention to the improvement of academic library services, resources and opportunities for Blacks, as well as her work as university librarian at Fisk and her contributions to the professional literature in librarian- ship.

One of the pleasures that each President of the Association experiences is the personal enrichment gained through the expansion of professional friendships in ACRL. I thank all of you who have contributed imagination, time, and commitment to ACRL’s work during this year. All of us are warmly and strongly supported by the effective staff at ACRL headquarters, where it has been my privilege to observe the skillful leadership of Dr. Jo An Segal.

ACRL’s year of investment in ACRL will, I trust, ensure the future vitality of the Association and create an even more powerful tool representing the concerns of academic librarianship and enhancing the resources available to individual members.

Oberly Award announced

James E. Simon, Alena F. Chadwick, and Lyle E. Craker have been selected to receive the 1985 Eunice Rockwell Oberly Award for Bibliography in the Agricultural Sciences. The award recognizes their jointly written monograph, Herbs, an Indexed Bibliography, 1971-1980: The Scientific Literature on Selected Herbs, and Aromatic and Medicinal Plants of the Temperate Zone, published in 1984 by Archon Books.

Simon is a professor in the Department of Horticulture at Purdue University; Chadwick is branch reference librarian at the Science Libraries, University of Massachusetts, Amherst; and Craker is professor in the Department of Plant and Soil Sciences at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

The Oberly Memorial Award, instituted in 1925, is presented in odd-numbered years to American citizens who compile the best bibliographies in agriculture or related sciences in the preceding two-year period. The award is administered by ACRL’s Science and Technology Section, and is made possible by a fund established by colleagues in memory of Eunice Rockwood Oberly. The authors were presented with the award at the Program Meeting of the ACRL Science and Technology Section in Chicago on July 9.

Herbs, an Indexed Bibliographyis available from the publisher for $69.50.

This year, because of the large number of entries submitted, the Awards Committee has given an honorable mention to two other publications:

N.L. Evenhuis. An Indexed Bibliography of Bombyliidae (Insecta, Diptera). Theses Zoologi- cae, vol. 4. Braunschweig, W.Ger.: J. Cramer, 1983.

Stephen T. Hopkins and Douglas E. Jones. Research Guide to the Arid Lands of the World. Phoenix: Oryx, 1983.