ACRL College & Researc Libraries News

College & Research Libraries News

In the News

History in the making. Not many of us get the opportunity to witness such a dramatic moment in history as did our colleagues attending the IFLA conference in Moscow, August 19-24, 1991. Bob Holley and his wife M artha Spear share with us their reactions to living through the attempted Russian coup. (A special thanks to ALA staffers Linda Crismond, Karen Muller, and Leonard Kniffel for sharing their photos of Moscow.)

In this issue we learn that the editors of the Journal of the American Medical Association and the British Medical Journal both predict that workers in the allied health fields will continue to rely on print as the primary means of communication in the future thanks to a report of the Medical Library Association's Conference prepared by Kathryn Hoffman. In a report prepared by Jean Callaghan, we learn that speakers at the North American Serials Interest Group conference seemed to agree with this favoring of print as they predicted that electronic journals will not fully replace paper formats in scientific and scholarly publishing in the next decade. Computers are certainly vital to information transfer and communication (this editor cannot imagine publishing C&RL News without her trusty computer) but the paperless society prediction keeps getting pushed farther ahead into the future. It seems that readers will continue to favor the convenience of print—even if it means that they download the information and print it out at their own workstations.

Many of the other articles in this issue provide practical information. Barbara WittkopfandPatricia Cruse describe their experience using ACRL’s new Measuring Academic Library Performance: APrac- tical Approach to obtain reliable data about their public services at Louisiana State University. Mary Nagel and Jeanne Molloy offer some tips to increase the effectiveness of student assistants, and tips for preparing orientation materials for your faculty advisory committee are presented by ACRL’s Task Force on Facuity Advisory Committee Orientation Materials.

Mary Jo Lynch and Anne Beaubien outline the results of a survey of academic libraries to determine what other funding sources libraries rely upon. This is accompanied by a list of budget- cutting/revenue-generating ideas under consideration by the libraiy staff at the U niversity of California, Irvine. William Jones continues the discussion on what type of degrees and credentials are needed by academic librarians.

Be sure to review the committee volunteer form in this issue. ACRL needs active, committed members to make the activities proposed by the members a reality.

—Mary Ellen K. Davis

Editor & Publisher