ACRL College & Research Libraries News

College & Research Libraries News

News from the Field

New cooperative research library organization formed

Libraries from 13 regional universities and a research library have formed the Greater Midwest Research Library Consortium. The ob- jectives of the consortium are to seek funding and mount projects or studies of interest to two or more members that can serve as prototypes for the membership and to insti- tute programs that can more easily be done cooperatively. The predecessor to the consortium was the Association of Big- Eight University Libraries. The group expanded and now includes the libraries at the universi- ties of Arkansas, Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska-Lincoln, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Wyoming; Colorado State, Iowa State, Kansas State, Oklahoma State, and Southern Illinois uni- versities; and Linda Hall Library in Kansas City. Kent Hendrickson, dean of libraries at the Uni- versity of Nebraska-Lincoln, will chair the con- sortium this year.

International resource library planned by Pikes Peak

The Learning Resources Center at Pikes Peak Community College is working with the Committee for International Education to develop an International Resources Library (IRL) within the college. In addition to serving as a depository for relevant periodicals, academic opportunities, travel, scholarships, exchanges, internships, and material supportive of international education, the IRL will: develop a databank directory of international people who have knowledge in international or multicultural issues; develop a translation service open to the general public and the college which will use the Micro Tac Software Language Assistance Programs; and purchase computer software in other languages, (e.g., WordPerfect in Spanish, French, German, and Russian).

CWIS coming to Harvard

Harvard University’s Library and its Office for Information Technology are jointly making public a Campus-Wide Information System (CWIS) whose acronym is VINE (Veritas Information NEtwork) at the beginning of its second semester.

VINE will make avail- able online such things as academic and events calen- dars, notices of job open- ings at Harvard, the person- nel manual for exempt staff, sports schedules, and prices of equipment sold by Harvard’s Technology Prod- uct Center. According to Amy Lozano, VINE project manager, VINE will be avail- able in the library on some of the HOLLIS terminals. Plans are underway to add to VINE an office phone list for faculty and staff as well as dining services menus.

More Midwinter Notes—STS

ACRL’s Science and Technology Section (STS) will hold the following discussions at the 1993 ALA Midwinter Meeting in Denver:

• “The conservation and preservation of scientific library materials.” Karen Motylewski of the Northeast Document Conservation Center will address this issue during the General Discussion Group, Sunday, January 24, 2-4 p.m.

• “The impact of the Internet on science libraries” during the Heads of Science Libraries Discussion Group on Sunday, January 24, 8-10 p.m.

• “Science databases on the Internet” during the Science Databases Discussion Group on Saturday, January 23, 2-4 p.m.

What needs fixing at ALA?

Share your opinions on how to make ALA work better with ALA’s Self-Study Committee at a hearing it is holding Monday, January 25, from 2-4 p.m. This special committee, appointed by ALA Council, is charged with developing a plan for a comprehensive organizational review, conducting the review, and preparing a final report with recommendations to Council by Annual Conference 1995.

Committee chair F. William Summers indicated that a management firm has been identified to do the self-study and that he hoped to have the firm under contract in time to attend the ALA Midwinter Meeting.

ACRL’s executive director Althea Jenkins serves on this committee along with: Mary E.

Arney, Carolyn L. Cain, Arthur Curley, J. Den- nis Day, Mary Ghikas, Gerald Hodges, Regina Minudri, Paul Mosher, Susan Stroyan, and Karen Whitney.

The newly expanded Mankato State University Memorial Library.

ACRL president Jacquelyn McCoy joins the celebration at Mankato State with Sandra Ready and Mignon Adams.

Mankato State dedicates new library

Mankato State University in Minnesota cel- ebrated its 125th anniversary in November with the dedication of its new $11.3 million addition to and remodeling of Memorial Li- brary. The facility has 80,184 new square feet and renovated an additional 107,282 square feet.

Dean of libraries Thomas Peischl said, “The new facility brings the keys of the collection together— creating an informa- tion kiosk, with everything from online searching to CD-ROMs to government documents to photocopying— making access to infor- mation resources easier and more readily avail- able to our customers.”

The expansion also used compact shelving to increase shelving by 12%; quadrupled reader spaces from 800 to 3,500 (the majority are pinwheel carrels); and enhanced computer ac- cess by strengthening the computer infrastructure.

On hand to cel- ebrate was ACRL president Jacquelyn McCoy who was a featured speaker during the three-day celebration, which also included a meeting of the Minnesota Council of Academic Librarians.

OhioLINK connects 6 libraries

OhioLINK—the Ohio Library and Information Network—is now providing electronic access to the combined catalogs of 6 university libraries through participating library OPACs and from the Internet address cat.ohiolink.edu. “This is the beginning of big growth for OhioLINK: we have succeeded in establishing one of the largest shared library systems in the country,” said Tom Sanville, OhioLINK executive direc- tor. “By 1995, OhioLINK will be providing elec- tronic access to a combined catalog of 18 uni- versity and state libraries and a statewide circulation system of more than 17 million vol- umes.” Currently online are: Bowling Green State University, Case Western Reserve Univer- sity, Central State University, University of Cin- cinnati, Miami University, and Wright State University. OhioLINK is a consortium of 15 state university li- braries, two private university libraries, and the State Library of Ohio, that has linked together to create a single elec- tronic catalog and a statewide library cir- culation system. In the future OhioLINK will expand to include Ohio technical and community colleges and will include services such as user-initiated checkout from the OhioLINK worksta- tions.

Award encourages student use of primary materials

The University of North Dakota’s (UND) Chest- er Fritz Libraiy has es- tablished an annual competition for the most outstanding re- search paper submitted by a UND student us- ing the primary resource material housed in the library’s archives and special collections.

The award, given in the form of a scholarship, is named after Webster Merrifield, UND’s first librarian of record. The goal of the competition is to foster research on North Dakota and increase awareness of the primary-source material housed at the library.

ACRL offers new BI title

ACRL has published Learning to Teach: Workshops on Instruction, a practical guide for bibliographic instruction practitioners and program coordinators. This 86-page training manual offers nine workshops covering the basics of classroom techniques, new technologies, and instruction in a multicultural environment. The publication is a project of the Learning to Teach Task Force of ACRL’s Bibliographic Instruction Section. For $24.99 ($21.99 to ACRL members) the book may be ordered from ALA Publishing Services, 50 E. Huron St., Chicago, IL 60611; phone: (800) 545-2433; fax: (312) 944-2641. ISBN: 0-8389-7627-1.

Correction: Guidelines for extended campus library services

There is one correction to the final “Guidelines for extended campus library services” that was published on pages 353-55 in the April 1990 issue of C&RL News. A phrase of the first sentence of the second paragraph under Introduction was deleted. The sentence should read:

These revised guidelines are designed to outline direction, support a process, stress overall coordination and to support the educational objectives of the extended campus program.

Ethnic Studies Reviewsavailable from Choice

Ethnic Studies Reviews,a new series of bibliographies that identifies books covering a number of ethnic groups, has been launched by ACRL’s Choice magazine. The series is designed to facilitate collection development in several multicultural areas, to provide current bibliographies on particular ethnic groups, and to facilitate research and reference.

Each bibliography addresses a particular American ethnic group and is compiled from reviews published in Choice during the prior three years. The titles cross all disciplines and represent a selected view of the best scholarly titles published on a multicultural topic.

The first titles to be published are: African and American Studies (listing more than 700 titles) and Native American Studies (more than 275 titles). They are available for $22 and $15 respectively, plus $2 postage and handling from Choice, 100 Riverview Center, Middletown, CT 06457. Forthcoming titles are Latino Studies (with more than 500 titles) for $20 and Asian American Studies (.mote than 300 titles) for $15.

Choiceand Booklist on SilverPlatter's CD-ROM

Book reviews from Choice and Booklist magazines, published by ALA, will soon be available on CD-ROM from SilverPlatter Information. SilverPlatter’s CD-ROM application will contain the full databases for both publications; the files will be searchable by personal name, title, keywords, and publication. Separate CD- ROMs for Choice and Booklist are due out this month.

The Choice database contains more than 26,000 concise, evaluative reviews of English- language scholarly books published from 1987- 1992. Each review is approximately 175 to 200 words in length. More than 6,500 new reviews are added to the database each year covering more than 44 academic subject areas.

The Booklist database contains more than 18,000 reviews published from September 1990-1992. The more than 7,000 titles reviewed annually include general interest fiction and nonfiction for adults as well as children’s and young adult books, and audiovisual materials. Reference Books Bulletin, published in Booklist, offers in-depth critical reviews of print and electronic reference tools.

IFLA preconference on CE offered

The Second World Conference on Continuing Education for the Library and Information Science Professions, sponsored by the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) Continuing Professional Education Round Table (CPERT), will be held in Barcelona, Spain, August 19-21, 1993, as an IFLA preconference. Presentations will feature speakers from 20 countries who will explain their continuing education programs. For registration information, write or fax Blanche Woolls, chair, Second World Conference, SLIS, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA 15260; fax: (412) 648-7001.

Choicepublishes Outstanding Academic Books list

The 29th annual list of Outstanding Academic Books will be published in the January 1993 issue of Choice magazine. The 1993 list honors 610 titles selected—representing over 200 publishers—from the more than 6,500 reviews published in the magazine during the past calendar year. It is published as a service to collection development librarians and faculty who look for the best books in an area to add to their libraries’ collections. Reprints of the Outstanding Academic Books list are available for $3 each, prepaid, from Choice, 100 Riverview Center, Middletown, CT 06457. ■