ACRL College & Researc Libraries News

Association of College & Research Libraries

News From the Field

ACQUISITIONS

• The Whitman College (Walla Walla, Washington) Penrose Memorial Library rare book collection, which is housed in the library’s Morgan Room, is the recent recipient of a valuable book collection totaling 130 volumes. Included in the collection are The Nuremberg Chronicle, published 1493; the three-volume Sanson Atlas, 1696; Montanus’ America, 1671; De Bry’s Florida, 1591; and one-volume Field Bible, 1659-60. The collection is a gift to Whitman College from Dr. Vernon H. McFarlane of Walla Walla, a 1927 graduate who spent forty-five years collecting the books.

• A copy of the first Bible printed in the New World is the five millionth volume added to the collections of the library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. “The Holy Bible, Containing the Old Testament and the New, Translated into the Indian Language” was printed by Samuel Green and Marmaduke Johnson in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1663. Only 30 copies of the original edition of 1,500 are known to exist.

The Bible was translated into an Algonquin dialect, the language of the Narragansett Indians of eastern Massachusetts. The first verse, first chapter of Genesis, “In the beginning, God created heaven and earth,” reads “Weike kutchissik a-ayum God kesuk kah Ohke.” The translation was made by the Rev. John Eliot, who came to the New World in 1631 and was one of the three compilers of the first book published in the American colonies, the Bay Psalm Book of 1640.

Eliot’s Bible has been called a key to the American conscience and the most important production of the early press in the U.S. The purchase of the Bible was made through funds from the University of Illinois Library Friends, the University of Illinois Research Board, and other donors. The Bible will be kept in the Rare Book Room of the library.

• A collection of rare books on the history of medicine, some dating back to the fifteenth century, represents the jewel of the University of Iowa’s modernistic new Health Sciences Library. Virtually the entire collection of 800 rare medical books has been donated to the new library by Dr. John Martin of Clarinda. The collection is concentrated on medical and surgical history, with special emphasis on anatomy.

Among the books Dr. Martin has given are the first four folio editions of Vesalius’ De humani corporis †abrica, published between 1543 and 1604; Fallopius’ Observationes anatomicae, Paris, 1562; and the Paduan physician Abano’s Conciliator philosophorum et medicorum, published in 1476.

In his collection Dr. Martin has attempted to include as much as possible of the history of medicine. Among the volumes he has donated are rare editions of such ancient classics as Hippocrates, Galen, and Avicenna; medieval texts; Harvey’s De motu cordis; and landmark works by Laennec, Florence Nightingale, Leeuwenhoek, Pasteur, and Freud. Two recent acquisitions are the first Italian edition of Dürer’s work on the symmetry of the human body and the first edition of Swammerdam’s classic dissertation on respiration, published in 1667. This collection in the history of medicine will be housed in the John Martin Rare Book Room, located on the fourth floor of the new Health Sciences Library.

GRANTS

• The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) has offered to support the National Union Catalog Project of the American Library Association (ALA) by matching up to $900,000 in gifts made to NEH on behalf of the undertaking, for a potential total of $1,800,000.

The National Union Catalog is a record of holdings reported by more than 800 libraries throughout North America over the past seventy years. In order to improve resources for study and research in all fields, and especially in the humanities, the American Library Association has undertaken to make the catalog widely available by publishing it in book form. The NEH grant will support the editing for publication of the final 240 volumes of the 600-volume catalog. The editorial work required to eliminate errors, duplications, and other irregularities inevitable to such a list will be done by a special editorial staff at the Library of Congress under the direction of the ALA’s National Union Catalog Committee, which is chaired by Gordon Williams, director of the Center for Research Libraries in Chicago.

The endowment’s grant therefore will assist in the production of the catalog at a time when inflation and other economic factors have made it increasingly difficult for libraries to support its completion without other assistance. NEH’s offer to match gifts will, it is hoped, serve as a challenge to other foundations and sources of support to join with the endowment in ensuring the successful completion of the National Union Catalog, which is a major national resource vital to educational and research purposes. The first 314 volumes of the projected 600-volume catalog have already been printed and distributed, and the remaining volumes are being published at a rate of five per month.

• Drexel University’s Graduate School of Library Science has been awarded a $37,000 grant to study the information needs of blue collar adults. Principal investigator for the project will be Dr. Thomas A. Childers, associate professor, library science. The granting agency is the Division of Library Programs, United States Office of Education.

The project will review and synthesize existing studies relating to the blue collar adult’s information needs, information-seeking behavior, and information use. The final product will be a review essay which will consolidate present knowledge on these topics and suggest directions for future research and development. A comprehensive bibliography will be included in the final report, which is scheduled for completion by October 1975.

Associated with Childers in the project will be Dr. Arthur Shostak, associate professor, sociology, and a leading authority on the blue collar worker, and Ms. Joyce Post, bibliographic associate, both of Drexel University.

Childers was principal investigator in 1972- 73 for a project related to the one in which he will now be engaged. That was on knowledge and information needs of the disadvantaged adult, also sponsored by the United States Office of Education. A monograph reporting his findings, The Information Poor in America, will be published this winter by Scarecrow Press.

MEETINGS

April 27-30: Computers and Reference. The twelfth annual Clinic on Library Applications of Data Processing will be conducted by the Graduate School of Library Science, University of Illinois. The theme of this clinic will be “The Use of Computers in Literature Searching and Related Reference Activities in Libraries.”

Over the last decade we have witnessed a very rapid growth in the availability of machine-readable data bases and of information retrieval systems for the exploitation of such data bases. The rapid developments in this area have put machine literature searching capabilities within the reach of many libraries. Many data bases can already be accessed online by individual libraries. Service from other data bases can be obtained from the producer of the data base or from one of the scientific information dissemination centers.

We are now beginning to see the development of regional information centers, designed to make a wide range of machine-readable files accessible to all the libraries in a designated geographic region. In addition, the minicomputer has put data processing capabilities within the reach of even quite small libraries, allowing such libraries to develop their own special data bases and to exploit these on behalf of a particular user group. One result of these activities has been the emergence of the “information services librarian,” a professional librarian who specializes in the exploitation of machine-readable files. It is these activities, and their impact on the reference functions of libraries of all types, that will be discussed at the 1975 clinic.

F. W. Lancaster, professor of library science, is chairman of the clinic. Further information may be obtained from Mr. Brandt Pryor, Office of Continuing Education and Public Service, University of Illinois, 116 Illini Hall, Champaign, IL 61820.

May 18-30: Administrators. The College of Library and Information Services, University of Maryland, is planning the ninth annual Library Administrators Development Program. Dr. John Rizzo, professor of management, Western Michigan University, will serve as the director. As in the past eight summers, participants will include senior administrative personnel of large library systems—public, research, academic, special, governmental, and school— from the United States and Canada. The faculty is made up of well-known scholars, educattors, management consultants, and lecturers drawn from universities, government, and consulting fields.

Seminar sessions will concentrate on the principal administrative issues which senior managers encounter. Leadership, motivation, communication, personnel policy, decision making, problem solving, financial planning and control, performance appraisal, the impact of technology, and the planning of change are among the issues considered in lecture, case analysis, group discussion, and seminar.

Those interested in further information are invited to address inquiries to Mrs. Effie T. Knight, Administrative Assistant, Library Administrators Development Program, College of Library and Information Services, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742.

June 15-20: XX SALALM. The XX Seminar on the Acquisition of Latin American Library Materials will convene in Bogota, Colombia, at the invitation of Dr. Jorge Rojas, director of the Instituto Colombiano de Cultura.

Mr. Luis Eduardo Acosta Hoyos, Jefe de la Biblioteca, Universidad Pedagogica Nacional, Bogota, and Mr. J. Noe Herrera, manager, Libros de Colombia, Bogota, are assisting the SALALM planning committee with local arrangements for the meeting.

The program, being planned by Mrs. Emma C. Simonson, president of SALALM, will be concerned with the new writers of Latin America. Among the topics to be discussed will be the publications of new writers, bibliography of new writers, and criticism of new writers. Full details of the program and information concerning other arrangements for the seminar will be distributed in the fall of 1974.

Address inquiries concerning the program to Mrs. Emma C. Simonson, Latin American Librarian, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN 47401. Other questions may be directed to Mrs. Pauline P. Collins, Executive Secretary of SALALM, Secretariat, University of Massachusetts Library, Amherst, MA 01002. Membership in SALALM is $10.00 for personal members ($7.00 for members from Latin America and the Caribbean) and $25.00 for institutions. Dues may be forwarded to the Secretariat.

June 22-25: Law Librarians. The American Association of Law Libraries will meet in the Century Plaza Hotel, Los Angeles, California. More information from AALL, 53 W. Jackson Blvd., Chicago, IL 60604.

June 26-28: Collective Bargaining. “Collective Bargaining in Higher Education: Its Implications for Governance and Faculty Status for Librarians” will be the topic of a preconference meeting in San Francisco. Sponsored by the ACRL Academic Status Committee, the program is part of the continuing effort of the committee to provide information which will help librarians in understanding and evaluating status and governance issues.

Program participants will include persons who have studied and practiced collective bargaining in higher education and who can address the following subtopics: nature of collective bargaining and its influence on governance in higher education; objectives of various collective bargaining agents; and academic library experiences with collective bargaining.

Further information and registration forms will be available after March 15, 1975, from: Beverly P. Lynch, Executive Secretary, Association of College and Research Libraries, 50 E. Huron St., Chicago, IL 60611.

MISCELLANY

• A reminder: the American Library Association is introducing a new dues schedule for personal members beginning with the 1975 membership (calendar) year. The dues schedule features a simple flat rate $35.00 ALA membership for librarians, trustees, and friends of libraries. Division memberships are an additional $15.00 each. Students and nonsalaried or retired librarians pay $10.00 basic dues plus $15.00 for each division selected. Foreign librarians (not employed in the U.S.) pay $20.00 basic dues plus $15.00 per division.

Along with a brand new personal dues schedule, ALA is also offering two special introductory rates for persons joining ALA for the first time in 1975. With payment of the basic dues of $35.00 new members will receive their choice of one division membership at no additional charge.

During the New York Annual Conference, the ALA Executive Board also approved a special introductory offer for the American Library Trustee Association. New members of ALA and ALTA will be eligible for a dues rate of $25.00 which includes both basic ALA dues and ALTA division dues.

For applications and/or further information please contact the ALA Public Information Office, 50 E. Huron St., Chicago, IL 60611.

• Xerox University Microfilms is in the process of placing dissertation information centers in several libraries in the Midwest area. These centers will consist of a display exhibiting brochures depicting the many and various functions of the firm in connection with the microfilming and publication program.

The display will include an overall brochure describing all parts of the dissertation program, including manuscript publishing. Information concerning Dissertation Abstracts International (monthly), Comprehensive Dissertation Index (thirty-seven volumes in 1973 with succeeding annual supplements), American Doctoral Dissertations (annual), Masters Abstracts (quarterly), and Monograph Abstracts (irregular) will always be available.

Dissertation bibliographies on special subjects will be on display consistently, with new material added as it is prepared. Currently, these special bibliographies consist of (1) United States Foreign Relations, (2) Africa, (3) Sex in Contemporary Society, (4) Israel and Palestine in Modern Times, (5) Latin America, (6) Urban Problems, and (7) Civil War and Reconstruction.

DATRIX II brochures for those who wish to use computerized information retrieval service will also be on hand.

This display center should serve as a reference aid for students interested in dissertation research, and it should prove to be of some assistance to librarians with too little time to handle the multitudinous reference questions concerning dissertations that arise in a typical work day.

Requests for any of the brochures mentioned above and inquiries concerning the dissertation information center displays should be addressed to Mr. William Sannwald, Senior Product Manager, Xerox University Microfilms, 300 N. Zeeb Rd., Ann Arbor, MI 48106.

• The New Hampshire Historical Society is currently sponsoring a project to edit the papers of Josiah Bartlett (1729-1795), with Frank C. Mevers as editor. Supported by the New Hampshire American Revolution Bicentennial Commission and the National Historical Publications Commission, the project will result in a comprehensive microfilm edition followed by a letterpress edition of selected documents. Josiah Bartlett, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, was a prominent physician in New England and the founder of the New Hampshire Medical Society. In addition, Bartlett served as a justice of the peace, a delegate to the Continental Congress, a militia colonel during the Revolution, a justice on the state superior court, and the last president and first governor of New Hampshire. Persons having knowledge of the existence of correspondence to or from Bartlett or of other papers written or signed by him are requested to contact the Historical Society at 30 Park St., Concord, NH 03301.

• The Ohio College Library Center’s (OCLC) data base of bibliographic records hit the one million mark on September 6, 1974. Northeastern University Library, Boston, Massachusetts, cataloged the millionth record via CRT terminal. The millionth record is Collier s World Atlas and Book of Facts.

OCLC’s on-line shared cataloging system became operational in August 1971. At that time Ohio University in Athens, Ohio, became the first of 50 academic libraries in Ohio to use the system. Presently over 300 libraries in twenty-two states and the District of Columbia use the on-line system to catalog books. MARC tapes from the Library of Congress accounted for the majority of the records in the data base during the first two years of operation of the on-line system. Librarians at OCLC now estimate that more than 50 percent of the records in the system were input by participating libraries. OCLC’s computer system is designed to increase the availability of library resources while at the same time lowering the rate of increase of per-unit costs in libraries.

A nonprofit corporation, OCLC uses a Xerox Sigma 5 computer as the central processing unit. Via leased telephone lines the computer is in direct communication with over 300 specially designed CRT terminals located in libraries across the country. Hospitals and government agencies as well as public and university libraries use the system to catalog books and maintain an inventory of library holdings and locations. Currently, more than 7,000 books are cataloged on the system daily. Computer-printed library catalog cards are turned out at the rate of approximately a half-million a week.

• Dickinson College (Carlisle, Pennsylvania) librarians have been granted full faculty status, “giving us all the responsibilities, benefits and privileges of our colleagues,” according to Yates M. Forbis, head librarian.

“Our unique position as teachers has been recognized and identified,” Forbis declared after recent administrative action bestowing long-sought recognition on the eight members of the college library staff.

Forbis noted that Dickinson librarians are involved in teaching and research as well as their regular duties.

“The academic community benefits when librarians participate in the development of the instructional program,” Forbis said. “The library in reality is an extension of the classroom.”

Dickinson College librarians gained faculty rank in 1946. Additional benefits just granted include equal salary and academic calendar. The staff already was able to take advantage of sabbatical research and study programs, promotions, and tenure.

• The University of Illinois Graduate School of Library Science at Urbana-Champaign is seeking applicants for its master’s degree program for members of any disadvantaged minority group.

Up to ten will be selected to begin graduate work next June. They will be offered half-time assistantships requiring twenty hours of work each week and paying $4,000 a year plus exemption from tuition.

This will be the sixth year for the program which has been supported in part by grants from the U.S. Office of Education and the Carnegie Corporation.

Members of minority groups who expect to receive a bachelor’s degree next June are eligible, as well as those who already have completed their undergraduate education.

Students are allowed up to two years to earn the MS degree in a course of study planned individually with a faculty adviser.

Further information is available from the Scholarship Program, Graduate School of Library Science, University of Illinois, Urbana, IL 61801.

• Persons living in Canada and Canadians working outside the country who have experience in library and information science service outside Canada and the United States are being sought for inclusion in a new index. The work is being sponsored by the International

Development Research Centre in Ottawa to develop a basic information file of those whose expertise might be useful to Canada. First publication, on microfiche, is scheduled for 1975 and the deadline for inclusion in the first index is April 1975. The compilation of this index is being undertaken by Dr. Fred Matthews and Miss Doreen Fraser of the School of Library Service, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada B3H 4H8, from whom entry forms can be obtained.

• Bethlehem University is a new school, located in the West Bank area, administered by the Christian Brothers. The undergraduate college needs English, French, and Spanish books and journals, college textbooks, general college reading and research materials, literature, and current affairs materials. For further information, contact Brother Brendan Fitzgerald, FSC, Acting President, Bethlehem University, P.O.B. 9, Bethlehem, Israel.

PUBLICATIONS

• The second comprehensive survey of health sciences libraries has been completed by the American Medical Association in cooperation with the Medical Library Association Committee on Surveys and Statistics. Findings have been published in the Directory of Health Sciences Libraries, 1973, the result of a massive survey of around 10,000 health-related institutions. Identification, address, telephone number, type of sponsoring organization, size of collection and staff are given for around 3,000 medical school, hospital, medical society, and other libraries.

The 1973 survey provides a longitudinal perspective on health sciences libraries. There are now hard data which, like the national census data, provide a baseline against which a multitude of internal and external variables can be compared. There are comparable data, at least for two surveys in two different formats— published and machine-readable. The Directory reviews sources of statistics and compares selected data over a five-year period.

The Directory is available from the American Medical Association, 535 N. Dearborn St., Chicago, IL 60610, for $15.00 prepaid.

• Education Periodicals, A Union List contains the educational journal holdings of thirty-five Boston area libraries, including the Monroe Gutman Library of the Harvard Graduate School of Education. The union list, edited by Malcolm Hamilton, was a joint effort of librarians belonging to LEARN, Librarians in Education and Research in the Northeast, an organization of professional librarians from college, university, and special libraries with sizeable collections in the field of education.

Copies may be purchased by prepayment of $5.00 to Malcolm Hamilton, Monroe Gutman Library, Harvard Graduate School of Education, Cambridge, MA 02138. Please enclose a shipping label. Make checks payable to Harvard University.

• Now available is a twenty-six-page revised edition of Anne Woodsworth’s Women: A Guide to Bibliographic Sources (rev. by Jane Clark). This popular bibliographic guide, first compiled in 1972, has been updated and expanded to triple its original size. The new edition includes approximately 100 annotated entries and an author and title index. Although the guide is aimed primarily at users of the University of Toronto, it should be useful for students, teachers, and researchers at other institutions in any field of women’s studies. Copies can be ordered for $1.00 from the Reference Department, John P. Robarts Research Library, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5S 1A5.

• A comprehensive report on the Mankato State College Media System is being published as volume 1, issue 5 of the LARC series on computerized serials systems.

The first periodicals holdings list and the first accounting system were done in 1969/70, using unit record equipment which was located in the library. These went on the computer in 1971/72 when the college acquired a UNIVAC 1106 computer and the library got a UNIVAC DCT remote-job-entry terminal. This was later upgraded to a UNIVAC 1104. During 1972/73, attempts were made to record more information about periodicals and to add serials, especially standing orders. The system was card based until January of 1974 when it went to tape. It remains a batch processing system, however, and there are no plans to change that. The saga of development from 1969 to present is presented in detail in this issue.

A subscription to the complete six-issue volume of Computerized Serials Systems may be purchased for the sum of $55.00 (LARC members, $44.00). The complete volume includes reports on automated serials activities at Clarion State College, University of San Diego, University of Louisville, and Purdue University. Individual issues are available in paperback at $9.20 per issue. Order from The LARC Association, P.O. Box 27235, Tempe, AZ 85282.

• The University of Southern California has a limited number of its Union List of Serials available for distribution. The list, which includes 18,000 titles and 2,000 see references, covers the current subscriptions in the university library system as well as the holdings of the Norris Medical Library, the Call Law Library, and the Hancock Library of Biology and Oceanography. Selected ceased publications are also included. The 518-page volume is available for $15.00. Please send inquiries or orders to Linda Crismond, University of Southern California, Doheny Library, University Park, Los Angeles, CA 90007.

• The Social Sciences Group of the Washington D.C. Chapter of the Special Libraries Association announces a new publication, Union List of Selected Microforms in Washington D.C. Area Libraries. This list, which aims to identify microform holdings in the social sciences and humanities, includes the following information on the microform holdings of thirty-seven cooperating libraries in the metropolitan Washington, D.C., area: listings of over 600 periodical and newspaper titles with data on microformat and span of holdings; listings of privately produced, “one of a kind” microform collections of such materials as speeches, internal memoranda, clippings, and maps; microform lending policies of participating libraries; and facilities for viewing and reproducing microforms in participating libraries. The list is available at a cost of $3.50 per copy, prepaid, from Social Sciences Group, Washington D.C. Chapter SLA, c/o E. S. KnaufF, 2326 19th St. NW, Washington, DC 20009.

• Delivery of new and more sophisticated health services to an ever-expanding population has put the nation’s health professions under considerable pressure to remodel and update their educational processes and institutions. The July 1974 issue of Library Trends looks at how the libraries serving these professions are dealing with the increased demand for services put upon them.

Mildred C. Langner gives a historical review of “User and User Services in Health Science Libraries: 1945-1965”; Louise Darling presents an overview of changes in information delivery since 1960, including a discussion of the Medical Library Assistance Act. Estelle Brodman describes users of health sciences libraries by profession, geographic location, and need. Frank B. Rogers describes the impact on users of “Computerized Bibliographic Retrieval Services”; and Vern M. Pings indicates the impact of improved document delivery services, including regional medical library programs. Nancy M. Lorenzi and K. Penny Young discuss “New Information Transfer Therapies”; and William K. Beatty and Virginia L. Beatty present “Improvements in Recordkeeping and Use,” including new programs and nonprint collections. Scott Adams describes the impact of U.S. bibliographic data bases on users in foreign countries; and Harold M. Schoolman looks at future user services in health sciences libraries.

This issue of Library Trends, volume 23, number 1, may be ordered from: University of Illinois Press, Urbana, IL 61801, for $3.00. Annual subscriptions to Library Trends may be placed at the same address for $10.00.

• The New York Chapter of the Special Libraries Association has published a new edition of its union list, Serials—Advertising, Business, Finance, Marketing, Social Science—in the New York Area. Access to the serials holdings of 153 cooperating libraries—2,000 titles—is presented, along with complete address and telephone number for each library and a concise statement of their interlibrary loan and photoduplication policy. All the information needed to locate serials and expedite interlibrary loans is included. The price is $35.00 ($25.00 for contributing libraries). Mail to: Mrs. Muriel Regan, Rockefeller Foundation Library, 111 W. 50th St., New York, NY 10020.

• The Municipal Reference and Research Center Notes, a unique source of information about the city of New York and its communities, will resume publication after a three-year absence.

The Notes, published by the Municipal Reference and Research Center of the Municipal Service Administration, was established in 1914 to record the center’s acquisition of city documents and scholarly or journalistic studies about municipal affairs. Fifty-seven years of continuous publication were interrupted in 1971, when production of the Notes and other city periodicals was suspended as an economy measure.

As in the past, the Notes will list key city documents deposited with the center as required by law, as well as private studies and relevant documents from other levels of government. Other returning features provide information about the city’s history and geography and answer commonly asked questions about New York City. Past issues of Notes, for example, provided a listing—complete with histories —of the dozens of islands within the city limits.

The reappearance of the Notes is being accomplished within the bounds of the center’s current budget. The estimated $6,000 cost for the next six bimonthly issues will be covered by reallocating funds already budgeted for supplies and other materials.

Subscriptions to the Notes are available for $5.00 annually from the Municipal Reference and Research Center, Room 2230, Municipal Building, New York, NY 10007. It is distributed free of charge to all interested New York City officials and employees.