ACRL College & Research Libraries News

College & Research Libraries News

News from the Field

Mary Ellen Davis

Fun Run raises money for Univ. of Tennessee libraries

The Graduate Student Association organized its seventh annual “Love Your Libraries Fun Run” and raised money for the University of Tennessee Knoxville (UTK) Libraries. The sporting competition attracted 165 participants.

The UTK Athletic Department matched dollar-for-dollar money raised in the run through fees and donations, bringing the total raised by the Fun Run to $4,510.

OCLC converting 2 million records for Yale

The OCLC RetroCon service is converting approximately 2 million catalog records into machine-readable form for the Sterling Memorial Library, the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library, and ten other Yale University Libraries.

Yale has been creating machine-readable catalog records for currently received library materials since the mid1970s. In 1989, about 900,000 of those records became the foundation of its online bibliographic information system.

Since then, Yale has relied on a series of retrospective conversions to increase the number of older holdings available online.

In contrast to past efforts, this new project is comprehensive in scope, involving a variety of materials from several collections.

“The Yale Library regards the creation of a complete, reliable and robust online catalog as the single most important way we can improve services to readers,” said Scott Bennett, Yale’s university librarian. “Yale celebrates its tercentenary in 2001, and having our online catalog nearly complete in that year will make the celebration all the more meaningful.”

ATLA to digitize 50 journals in religious and theological studies

The American Theological Library Association (ATLA), publisher of the ATLA Religion Database, is launching its first digital full-text journal: ATLAS (ATLA Serials: Fifty Years of Fifty Journals).

Funded primarily by the Lilly Endowment with a three-year grant totaling $3,987,000, ATLAS will digitize 50 essential journals in all theological disciplines. In addition, the journals will be linked to the comprehensive index of more than 1 million records in the ATLA Religion Database and made accessible for classroom teaching and scholarly research through the Web and on CD/DVD-ROM.

Eastern Tennessee State University, Johnson City, recently held a formal dedication and naming ceremony for the new Charles C. Sherrod Library. With 151,400 net square feet, the $28 million facility features two instruction rooms equipped to support multimedia, 800 potential computer data connections, 16 group and 80 assigned individual study rooms, and a combined book storage capacity for 800,000 volumes on four floors. In addition to honoring the second president of the university, the ceremony included naming the front library plaza for the retiring dean of libraries, Fred R. Borchuck.

Working with a variety of publishing partners (including Scholars Press and Sheffield Academic Press), scholarly societies (notably the American Academy of Religion and the Society of Biblical Literature), and an independent advisory board of scholars in theology and religion organized by the Wabash Center for Teaching and Learning in Theology and Religion, ATLAS will: provide electronic text of entire runs of journals; establish a link between an academic discipline’s comprehensive index and full-text electronic copies of its journals; enhance the value of membership in scholarly societies of the discipline by providing essential research tools for their members; develop a cost model for the discipline that is innovative and creative and provides assurance that essential journal literature of the discipline will be available to future scholars; and enlist leading scholars in the field to offer advice and counsel on the selection and evaluation of journals to include in the program.

Visit the ATLAS homepage (http:// purl.org/CETR/ATLAS) or contact James Adair at (jadair@shemesh.scholar.emory.edu) for more information.

Texas Governor George W. Bush and First Lady Laura Welch Bush at far right, recently attended Southern Methodist University’s Fondren Library Center’s dedication of the Laura Bush Promenade. The garden walkway was a gift to Mrs. Bush’s college alma mater from her husband in celebration of her contributions to libraries and literacy. The Laura Bush Promenade includes limestone benches, raised planters with seasonal plantings, and cypress, oak, and elm saplings.

Richard McBride, Soo Hyoung Kim, Jina Choi Wakimoto, Dean Susan Curzon, Consul Kyu Hak Choi, Juliann Wolfgram, Ah-Jeong Kim, and Dae Sung Choi attended the opening of the California State University Northridge Library’s ”Mi: Beauty in Korean Art and Culture” exhibition and program. The festive reception that opened the exhibition included Korean dance performances and drumming, calligraphy demonstrations, and people dressed in traditional costumes. The exhibit highlights the art of Korean calligraphy, pottery, ornamental pendants, daggers, embroidery, and Korea’s printing history. Moveable type was first developed in Korea as early as 1234, some 200 years before the Gutenberg Bible was first printed in Germany.

ACRL Instruction Section tries out virtual committees

The Learning to Teach Virtual Task Force of ACRL’s Instruction Section pioneered the use of course design software for virtual conferencing, including online monthly discussions, group editing, scheduling, decision-making, and conference planning. The Task Force charged with evaluating the feasibility of working electronically selected WebCT for its committee work. Committee members made extensive use of the chatroom for scheduled meetings and the bulletin board for extended discussion and comment on detailed topics. A full report of the committee’s work is available on the C&RL News Web site at http://www.ala.org/ acrl/c&rlnew2.html.

Call for papers on popular culture

The Popular Culture Association will be holding its annual joint meeting with the American Culture Association April 19-22, 2000, in New Orleans, Louisiana. Scholars from various disciplines will meet to share their Popular Culture interests and research. The Libraries and Popular Culture Area is soliciting papers dealing with any aspect of Popular Culture as it pertains to libraries or museums. In the past this has included descriptions of research collections, studies of popular images of libraries or librarians, or reports on developments in technical services for collecting popular culture materials. Prospective presenters should send a one-page abstract by October 4, 1999, to: Allen Ellis, W. Frank Steely Library, Northern Kentucky University, Highland Heights, KY 41099-6101; phone: (606) 572-5527; fax: (606) 572-5390; e-mail: ellisa@nku.edu.

ANSS bylaw change passes in special election

In a special ballot mailed in May 1999, the Anthropology and Sociology Section (ANSS) of ACRL unanimously passed a change to Article V. Section 3 of the ANSS bylaws. The change is part of a collection of changes outlining how the section fills vacancies in the officer positions. Article V. Section 3 of the ANSS bylaws now reads:

ChairIn the event of a vacancy in the office of chair, the chair-elect shall succeed to the office of chair and shall continue in that office until the expiration of the term for which he/she was originally elected to serve as chair.

Vice-Chair/Chair-Elect:If a vacancy occurs in the office of vice-chair/chair-elect, the Executive Committee shall elect as vice-chair/ chair-elect, for the remainder of the term, one of the members of the Executive Committee. The office of chair, which the vice-chair/chairelect would normally assume the succeeding year or in the event of a vacancy, will, in the case where a vice-chair has been elected by the Executive Committee, be filled as follows. At the next regular election, two candidates shall be elected, one to take the office of chair immediately, and the other to serve as vice-chair/chairelect. In the event of a vacancy, the Executive Committee shall elect as chair, for the remainder of the term, one of its members.

Past-chair:If the chair is not able to carry out the duties of past chair after completing his/her term as chair, the Executive Committee shall elect one of its members to carry out the duties of past chair.

Secretary:A vacancy in the position of secretary shall be filled by an ANSS member appointed by the chair.

Member-at-Large:A vacancy in a Member-at-Large term shall be filled by an ANSS member appointed by the Chair.

Librarians and publishers host festival

Academic and public librarians joined booksellers at the Southern Kentucky Festival of Books, held at the Bowling Green, Kentucky Convention Center April 17-18, 1999. Three hundred volunteers including conference organizers from Western Kentucky University Libraries, Bowling Green Public Libraries, and Barnes & Noble Booksellers played host to 83 authors and thousands of book fans. Featured children’s authors included R. L. Stine, who spoke at a local elementary school and hosted a sold out luncheon, Marcia Jones (of Bailey School Kids Fame), and Roberta Brown, known by fellow storytellers as the “Queen of the Cold-Blooded Tales.”

Adult headliners included Jim Haskings, Linda Bruckheimer, and a host of mystery writers who participated in a “Sisters of Sleuth” panel. Other events included a coloring contest and poetry readings. Conference organizers plan to do it again, March 24-26, 2000. ■

A publicity poster for the Southern Kentucky Festival of Books that was organized by Western Kentucky University Libraries, Bowling Green Public Libraries, and Barnes & Noble Booksellers.

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