ACRL College & Research Libraries News

College & Research Libraries News

News from the Field

Mary Ellen Davis

ACRL offers new "Excellence in Academic Libraries" award

ACRL’s new “Excellence in Academic Libraries Award,” will honor librarians and other library staff who work as a team to provide exemplary library support and to identify outstanding programs and best practices. Three annual awards of $3,000 each by type of academic library (community college, college, and university) will be given.

The awards are made possible by Blackwell’s Books and Blackwell’s Information Services. “We are pleased to have another opportunity to put something back into libraries,” said Donald Satisky, senior vice president of sales and marketing for Blackwell’s Book Services. Blackwell’s will also support travel for an ACRL representative to make the award presentation at each institution.

Larry Hardesty, ACRL vice-president/president elect and college librarian at Austin College in Texas, who proposed the award, said, “I am pleased that a family owned enterprise of Blackwell’s quality has chosen to sponsor an award to recognize and promote excellence among academic libraries.”

A task force on the Excellence in Academic Libraries Award will develop policies and procedures for the selection and award process. Gloriana St. Clair, university librarian at Carnegie Mellon University, will serve as chair.

Tentative plans call for award nominations in the fall of 1999, judging at the ALA Midwinter Meeting in January 2000, and the first awards presented in spring 2000.

Delaware Valley chapter works the hill

Sparked by an experience at the ACRL Legislative Advocacy preconference last summer, the Delaware Valley Chapter (DVC) vowed to increase its academic legislative activity. On May 3, 24 librarians from 11 colleges and universities boarded a bus for ALA Legislative Day in Washington, D.C.

According to chapter president, Pat Weaver, “We had three goals: to increase the participation from the academic library world; to lobby for issues that increasingly impact academic institutions; and to insure that each legislative delegation had a mix of public and academic library supporters, speaking in a united voice.”

Evelyn Minick, DVC Chapter councilor, organized the trip and worked with coordinators in three states to plan visits to 13 legislators—4 senators and 9 representatives. Each visit included supporters from all types of libraries. The chapter hopes to make Legislative Day an annual event.

English and Reichel will vie for ACRL office

Ray English, director of libraries at Oberlin College, and Mary Reichel, university librarian and professor at Appalachian State University, are candidates for ACRL vice-president/president-elect. The elections will be held in the spring of 2000.

ACRL Delaware Valley Chapter members take on Capital Hill. Pictured front row: Binh Le, Linda Kubala, Carol Brigham, Evelyn Minick. Back row: Tim Laborie, Bernetta Doane, Rebecca Reilly, Lisa Stillwell, Marjorie Rathbone, Erin Stalberg, Glenn McGuigan, and Charles Kratz

UMI changes name to Bell & Howell

After 61 years as UMI, the company has changed its name to Bell & Howell Information and Learning. The change was made to align their business more closely with the parent company. The newly named company will continue to use the brand names UMI and ProQuest.

3M/NMRT Professional Development Grant helps ACRL member

For 25 years, 3M has encouraged professional development in librarianship by sponsoring the 3M/NMRT (New Members Roundtable) Professional Development Grant. ACRL member Paula Murphy, research services librarian for Chicago Historian Society, is one professional who has developed her career since receiving the award in 1977.

Paula Murphy

Murphy said, “Receiving the 3M Grant helped keep me involved in ALA and reinforced my administrative librarianship goals.” Murphy has been active with ALA and ACRL since 1975. She attends every conference and has served on a number of ALA and ACRL committees.

Leab Exhibition Catalogs Awards announced

The recipients of the ACRL Rare Books & Manuscripts Section’s (RBMS) 1999 Katharine Kyes Leab and Daniel J. Leab American Book Prices Current Exhibition Catalogue Awards have been recognized in three categories: category one (expensive), category two (moderate), and category three (inexpensive).

Category one recognizes dual 1999 winners: The Practice of Letters: The Hofer Collection of Writing Manuals 1514-1800 bγ David P. Becker and Anne Anninger of the Houghton Library, Harvard University; and The Dutch in the Americas: 1600-1800 by Wim Klooster and

Norman Fiering of the John Carter Brown Library, the Equitable Gallery, Providence, Rhode Island.

Category one honorable mentions include The Grand Tour by John Marciari and Stephen Parks of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University; and Toronto in Print: A Celebration of 200 Years of the Printing Press in Toronto, 1798-1998 by Sandra Alston, Patricia Fleming, and Richard Landon of the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, University of Toronto.

The award recipient in category two is Radicals and Revolutionaries: The History of Canadian Communism from the Robert S. Kenny Collection by Sean Purdy and Richard Landon of the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, University of Toronto.

Honorable mentions in category two are the National Museum of American Jewish History for Encounters with the Holy Land: Present, Past and Future in American Jewish History edited by Jeffrey Shandler and Beth S. Wenger of the Center for Judaic Studies, University of Pennsylvania; and Experiencing India: European Descriptions and Impressions, 1498-1898 by Willard G. Oxtoby and Richard Landon of the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, University of Toronto.

The award for category three has been given to The Great War 1914-1918: An Exhibition Drawn from the Joseph M. Bruccoli Collection at The University of Virginia Library and Other Collections by Patrick Scott of the Thomas Cooper Library, the University of South Carolina.

The award recipients will be presented with a printed citation on behalf of the Rare Books and Manuscripts Section of ACRL during the ALA Annual Conference in New Orleans on Sunday, June 27,

2:00-4:00 p.m. at the RBMS Business Meeting.

ACRL/AAHE forum report available

A report of the discussion forum sponsored by ACRL for College and University provosts at the American Association for Higher Education’s national conference is available on ACRL’s Web site at http://www.ala.org/acrl/higheredhp.html.

Southern Illinois University's library staff honored their student assistants during National Student Employment Week (April 410) through special buttons, displays, and a reception. Pictured here are Rey Rosales (front), Vern Cornell, Keiko Kawamura, Eric Hinkle, La Tray Jeffers, and Roberta Reeves.

The topic, “In a Learning Society, the Library Matters,” focused on four areas of discussion: electronic and print—the shifting balance, increasing costs, copyright and licensing, and organization structure.

RBMS seeks papers for 2000 preconference

ACRL’s Rare Books and Manuscripts Section (RBMS) seeks proposals for short papers to be delivered at its July 5-7, 2000, preconference in Chicago on the theme of visual information.

During the 20th century, film, television, and videotape technology accelerated an explosion of visual art and communication that photography set in motion during the 19th century. The Web has compounded the growth.

While theorists interpret the present and prognosticate the future, historians mine the artifactual evidence of the past for visual information—the bindings of 19th-century books offer clues to the intellectual reception accorded their texts; sheet music covers yield evidence of racial bias; pulp fiction cover art from the 1960s points up gender stereotyping.

Proposals are sought that will focus attention on the challenges of collecting, preserving, and providing adequate intellectual access to visual information. Scholarly use of visual information, discussions of collection development (particularly with reference to the Web), development of tools to provide intellectual access, preservation issues, and copyright and other legal issues are of particular interest. Presentations will be 20 minutes long followed by ten minutes of audience response and discussion. Presentations may include research reports (including research in progress), surveys, studied opinion pieces, and case studies.

The deadline for proposals is September 30, 1999. Proposals should not exceed 250 words and must be submitted double spaced on a single sheet of paper. Include a separate sheet with the title of the proposal and your name, institutional affiliation, mailing and email addresses, and telephone and fax numbers. Also indicate if you are a current member of RBMS, and if the proposal has been accepted for publication or presentation elsewhere.

Send proposals to Elaine B. Smyth, chair, RBMS Preconference Program, 9065 Redbud, Baton Rouge, LA 70815-4044; fax (225) 3341695; e-mail: esmyth@lsu.edu. Final papers should not exceed 3,000 words or ten doublespaced pages.

Papers will be ranked based on relevance to the preconference theme, quality of research and writing, and potential interest to RBMS members. Speakers will be notified by December 1, 1999 regarding the status of their proposals. ■

What happens WHEN

INFORMATION HAS NO INTEGRITY?

Have you ever considered that information could have integrity in the first place? Before you answer, consider this. There are those in the information industry who believe that the best way to gain a competitive advantage is to add more content. The industry has even come up with a name for this: data dumping. The result? A giant, slippery blob of information that sucks the life out of all who dare to cross its path. It overwhelms. It consumes. In the end, it is no longer information at all. Devoid of shape or form, it is absolutely meaningless. Dare we say spineless?

ALEXICON FOR VERTEBRATES. We publish information, too, but information alone is not nearly enough. Think about this for a moment. What does integrity mean? (Go ahead. Look it up. We know you will.) Now, hold that thought. With apologies to Webster’s, we offer a revised definition, a code of ethics, as it applies to the term “information.” We did not stumble upon this notion serendipitously; it is distilled from years of experience, not to mention thousands of conversations with librarians all over the world. Information integrity is information that is intelligently organized, relevant, pure, accurate, current, balanced and fair. It does not flinch. It nourishes. It clarifies. It tells the truth. And, it definitely has a backbone.

QUESTION EVERYTHING BUT THE INFORMATION.

As a librarian, you are charged with great power. The information you provide will open minds just as surely as it will close them. It will erect barriers and it will break them down. It will reassure just as it will alarm. It will satisfy some and it will leave others hungering for more. It will teach. Inspire. Challenge. It will even make the world a better place. You do not take this power lightly. Nor do we.

INFORMATION INTEGRITY

Intelligently organized relevant pure accurate current balanced fair www.galegroup.com

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