ACRL College & Research Libraries News

College & Research Libraries News

PEOPLE

Profiles

George S. Bobinski, dean of the School of Information and Library Studies at the State University of New York at Buffalo, has been appointed by Governor Mario Cuomo to serve on a newly established New York State Governor’s Commission on Libraries. Bobinski said the 30-member commission will plan and establish policy for a Governor’s Conference on Libraries to take place in late November in Albany. The conference theme will be “Library and Information Services for Literacy, Productivity and Democracy.” Bobinski, dean of UB’s School of Information and Library Studies since 1970, has been actively engaged for several years in researching the status of Carnegie libraries throughout the United States. Funded by Andrew Carnegie, more than 1,600 such libraries were built in the U.S. from 1889 to the mid-1920s. In 1977, he traveled to Poland where he served as a Fulbright scholar/lecturer at the University of Warsaw. After earning a bachelor’s degree in history and a master’s degree in library science at Case Western Reserve University, Bobinski attained an additional master’s degree in history and his Ph.D. in library science from the University of Michigan.

Richard De Gennaro, director of the New York Public Library, has been named Roy E. Larsen Librarian of Harvard College. The Harvard Librarian oversees and manages a collection of more than 7.5 million volumes, 67 individual libraries, and a staff of 400. The College Library is the largest component in Harvard University’s library system. From 1958 to 1970, De Gennaro held several senior positions within the University Library including reference librarian, assistant director, associate university librarian for systems development, and senior associate university librarian. He spent the next 16 years as director of libraries and adjunct professor of English at the university of Pennsylvania before assuming his present position at the New York Public Library in 1987.

De Gennaro holds an MLS from Columbia University as well as a master of liberal studies degree from Wesleyan University, where he also earned his BA. He completed the Advanced Management Program at Harvard Business School and has also studied abroad at the Universities of Paris (the Sorbonne), Poitiers, Barcelona, Madrid, and Perugia. His professional activities include management consulting for a variety of institutions including Bell Laboratories, MITRE Corporation, the Getty Center for the History of Art, and numerous colleges and universities.

He has served as president of the Association of Research Libraries, chairman of the board of the Research Libraries Group, and chairman of the American Society for Information Science Special Interest Group on Library Automation and Networks. De Gennaro has published extensively on library automation, library service in academic institutions, library management, computer-based library networks, and the changing role of libraries in the information marketplace.

De Gennaro succeeds Y.T. Feng, who is retiring after 10 years of distinguished service as Harvard College librarian.

Linda S. Dobb

Linda S. Dobb has been appointed assistant library director for administrative services at the San Francisco State University’s J. Paul Leonard

Library. In this position she will oversee and coordinate library personnel administration, business operations, strategic planning and reporting, facilities utilization and planning, grantwriting and development, and public information programs. Dobb comes to San Francisco State from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, where she was head of the Cataloging Department. Before that she was chief of bibliographic control for the U.S. Government Printing Office, processing librarian for rare books at the Library of Congress, a technical services librarian for the U.S. Customs Service, and a cataloging librarian at the City College of San Francisco. She is active in a variety of American Library Association divisions and committees, and is the author of “The Retreat as a Response to Change” in Library Trends, Spring 1989, and “Recent Developments in Copyright for New Technologies,” in CD ROM Librarian, November/ December 1989, and in CD ROM Licensing Agreements (Meckler, 1990). Dobb holds a JD from the Hastings College of Law and an MLS from Simmons College, Boston. Her BA is from UC- Berkeley in dramatic art.

Ellen Hahn, who has served since October 1, 1989, as acting director for public service and collection management II at the Library of Congress, assumed that position on a permanent basis effective March 26. During the Library’s reorganization over the last two years, Hahn has served in a variety of positions, including acting director for research services, and acting special projects officer. She was also coordinator of the Special Projects Transition Team and the Constituent Services Transition Team. She has been chief of the General Reading Rooms Division since 1978 and was, in 1988, on detail to the Office of the Librarian as chair of the Management and Planning (MAP) Committee which was responsible for developing the recent reorganization of the Library and planning for the future as the Library approaches its 200th anniversary in the year 2000. Hahn came to the Library from the Chicago Public Library in 1975 as assistant chief for network development for the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped. As chief of the General Reading Rooms Division, she administered the Library’s reference and bibliographical services in the social sciences and humanities in the Main, Local History and Genealogy, Microform, and Social Science Reading Rooms. She headed the team that designed the print Optical Disk Pilot project in 1983 as well as the team in 1987 that investigated and made recommendations for future applications of optical disk technology. She has chaired several committees of the American Library Association, and is the author of several articles in professional publications. Hahn is a graduate of Washburn University (BA, magna cum laude, French) and holds a master’s degree in library science from Kansas State Teachers College (now Emporia State University.) As director for public service and collection management II, Hahn is one of two officials responsible for all aspects of service and custody of the Library’s collections, including reader services, reference and specialized research, control and maintenance of the collections, acquisitions, circulation, and related public programs. Hahn will report to the associate librarian for constituent services. The divisions reporting directly to her are Children’s Literature, Collections Management, European, General Reading Rooms, Hispanic, Loan, National Referral Center, Science and Technology, Serial and Government Publications and Visitor Services.

Kenneth E. Harris has been appointed director for preservation effective April 9. He succeeds Peter Sparks, who left this position last fall. Donald Wisdom, chief of the Serial and Government Publications Division, has served as acting director since Sparks’s departure. Harris’s previous professional career has been with the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), where he served since 1986 as director of the Preservation Policy and Services Division. From 1983 to 1986 he was acting chief, and subsequently, chief of the Document Conservation Branch. In 1986 he was also concurrently the acting deputy assistant archivist for the National Archives. He first came to NARA in 1968 as an archivist in the Diplomatic, Legal, and Fiscal Records Division, and served in a variety of positions since that time. Harris received both a bachelor’s and a master’s degree from Oklahoma State University, where his major fields of study were history and historiography. He has taken additional graduate courses at George Washington University, as well as other courses in archives administration and general management. He is the current chair of the Committee on Conservation and Restoration of the International Council on Archives and a member of the American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works and the Society of American Archivists. He received a Presidential Commendation for service in 1977-1978 on the President’s Task Force on Reorganization of the Federal Government. As director for preservation, Harris will also serve as the National Preservation Program Officer. He will be responsible for library-wide activities relating to the preservation, conservation, restoration, protection, and maintenance of the Library’s collections. He will also develop and direct the National Preservation Program Office located at the Library of Congress. Additional offices under his jurisdiction include the Binding Office, Conservation Office, Preservation Research and Testing Office, and the Preservation Milcrofilming Office. Harris will also direct the Library’s book deacidification project which is being scaled-up to deacidify up to one million books per year.

Susan Jurow

Susan Jurow has been appointed director of the Association of Research Libraries Office of Management Services (OMS) effective February 1, 1990. Jurow served as program officer for training from 1984 to 1988 and associate director from 1988 to 1990. In her new role, she will be responsible for the overall management and direction of operations which include three core programs: training, consulting, and publications. A graduate of Stanford University, Jurow received her MLS from Rutgers. Prior to joining OMS, she held a variety of public service positions in academic libraries including acting head of the reference department, business reference librarian and coordinator of Computerized information retrieval services at the M.D. Anderson Library of the University of Houston and head of Current Journals and Microtexts at Stanford University’s Green Library. Over the past five years, Jurow has designed training programs tailored to meet the needs of academic and research library managers. They include workshops on resource management, analytical skills, creativity, and training skills. An active member of ACRL’s Personnel and Staff Development Officers Discussion Group, she has written several articles that will appear this year on leadership, strategic planning, and staff development and is a frequent speaker on the topic of fostering and developing creativity and risk taking in academic libraries.

Charles Meadow has been named associate dean of the Faculty of Library and Information Science at the University of Toronto with responsibility for development and technology. Meadow came to FLIS in 1984 with an extensive background in information systems. His previous positions have included project manager for technology applications for DIALOG Information Services, professor of information science at Drexel University, assistant director of the Division of Management Information and Telecommunications Systems of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, chief of the Systems Development Division of the U.S. National Bureau of Standards, and senior systems analyst with IBM. He received his BA from the University of Rochester and his MS from Rutgers University, both in mathematics. At FLIS Meadow has been involved in the implementation of the Faculty’s new Master of Information Science program. He is currently chair of the annual Toronto Conference on Database Users and an elected member of the University’s Academic Board serving on its Committee on Academic Policy and Programs. His professional activities have included editing both the Journal of the American Society for Information Science and the Canadian Journal of Information Science. He has published several books, most recently (with A.R. Tedesco) Telecommunications for Management and (with P. Cochrane) Basics of Online Searching. He is the author of numerous articles on the online industry.

Winston Tabb, who has served as acting Deputy Librarian of Congress since June 1989, became director for public service and collection management I, effective March 26. He will continue concurrently as acting Deputy Librarian until June 1. Tabb has been with the Library of Congress since 1972, when he was a participant in the Library’s Intern Program for outstanding library school graduates. After completing the internship, he formally joined the staff of the Congressional Research Service (CRS), working initially as a reference specialist in the Congressional Reference Division. From 1974-1975, he was a congressional research administrator in the Office of the Director of CRS. He was subsequently appointed team leader of the Congressional Reading Room and in 1977 he became administrator of the Inquiry Unit. In 1978, Tabb was appointed Assistant Chief of the General Reading Rooms Division. In March 1984, he became chief of the Information and Reference Division of the Copyright Office. In March 1988 he was appointed chief of the Library’s Loan Division. He was selected in October of that same year to fill a one-year appointment as director for Research Services. During 1988, Tabb also served as vice chair of the Management and Planning (MAP) Committee and later as coordinator of the Collections Services Transition Team. As director of public service and collection management I. Tabb reports to the associate librarian for collections services. The divisions under Public Service and Collection Management I are African and Middle Eastern; Asian; Geography and Map; Manuscript; Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound; Music; Prints and Photographs; and Rare Book and Special Collections.

C. Brigid Welch

C. Brigid Welchhas joined the staff at the Association of Research Libraries Office of Management Services as Program Officer for Information Services, effective 1 January. She will have primary responsibility for the OMS Publications Program. In addition to direction of the Systems and Procedures Exchange Center Publications (SPEC) and the OMS Occasional Papers Series, Welch will be developing a new publications series featuring innovations in management and service trends in academic and research libraries. She will also participate in the OMS consulting and training programs. Welch comes to OMS from the University of California, San Diego, Libraries where she was head of the Reference and Research Services Department at the Central University Library. Her previous professional positions include head of instructional and access services and user education coordinator at the University of Houston Libraries, program officer for continuing education and bibliographic instruction at ALA’s Association of College and Research Libraries, and assistant editor for social sciences and reference at Choice magazine. Welch received a bachelor’s degree in English Literature from Arizona State University in 1977 and an MLS from the University of Texas at Austin in 1979. Welch’s professional activities include service on ACRL’s Legislation and Publications Committees as well as the ACRL Task Force on Faculty Advisory Committee Orientation Materials. She most recently served as chair of the Search Committee for the editor of College and Research Libraries.

People in the news

Priscilla Geahigan has been named recipient of Purdue University’s 1990 John H. Moriarty Award for Excellence in Library Service. Geahigan, associate professor of library science, has been Purdue’s assistant management and economics librarian since 1979. She received the award based on the research and development of bibliographic tools to access the Purdue collections. As a result of her use of new technology in information gathering, the Krannert Library in the Krannert School of Management has been invited to serve as a test site for several new products and systems prior to their general release. Geahigan received a bachelor’s degree from Hong Kong Baptist College in 1967, a master’s degree from Central Michigan University in 1968 and a master’s degree in library science from Wayne State University in 1970. The Moriarty award was established in 1982 to recognize outstanding librarianship in fulfilling the information needs of the Purdue community. Moriarty was director of Purdue Libraries from 1944 to 1969. He died in 1970.

David Hunter, music librarian, University of Texas at Austin, became the fifth recipient of the Walter Gerboth Award at the Music Library Association’s annual convention in Tucson, Arizona in February. The award, which is intended to support research by a member of the Association in the first five years of his or her career as a librarian, was given to Hunter in support of his Project, Opera and Song Books Published in England, 1703-1726, a bibliographic description of 180 opera and song books and their accompanying indexes.

Lester J. Pourciau, associate vice president for academic affairs and director of libraries, Memphis State University, was presented the Tennessee Library Association’s Honor Award in recognition of his significant contribution to the improvement of library service in Tennessee.

Muriel Regan was honored by the Columbia University School of Library Service Alumni Association. She was among three nationally known alumni given the School of Library Service’s Distinguished Alumni Award. The award acknowledged the leadership she has shown and her commitment and dedication to the profession. Regan is a co-founder of Gossage Regan Associates, Inc., which serves libraries, information centers, and records management departments nationwide with a variety of sophisticated and practical consulting services; executive search/screening; permanent staff placements, professional and support staff; and temporary library and information personnel.

Jessie Carney Smith, university librarian of Fisk University, Nashville, Tennessee, has been selected to receive the 1990 Distinguished Alumna Award from the University of Illinois Library School Association. The award recognizes alumni of the Graduate School of Library and Information Science who have made an outstanding contribution to the field, to the University of Illinois Library School Association or to the School. Smith was chosen for her wide-ranging achievements for the profession. In 1987, Smith completed an ambitious five-year effort with the Zambia Agricultural and Research Extension (ZAMARE) project which assisted the south central African nation in establishing self-sufficiency. Smith designed a plan to launch a national agricultural library system. She linked nine library substations with computers to become branches of the Mt. Makulu Research Station, which she established at the country’s central agricultural research library. Smith received her Ph.D. from the University of Illinois in 1964 and has been university librarian at Fisk since 1965. She has served on the Council of the American Library Association and as a visiting team member for the ALA Committee on Accreditation. Smith received the ACRL Academic/Research Librarian of the Year Award in 1985.

Appointments

Susan Miriam Alon is now rare books librarian of special collections at the Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, Missouri.

Christine Anderson has been appointed reference librarian at St. Michael’s College, Colchester, Vermont.

Nancy Bianchi has been appointed reference librarian at St. Michael’s College, Colchester, Vermont.

Bartley A. Burk is now social sciences and Latin American studies cataloger at the University of Notre Dame, Indiana.

Irene Ursula Burnham is the new interpretive programs officer at the Library of Congress.

Bert Chapman is the new reference and documents librarian at Lamar University, Beaumont, Texas.

Kathleen Eisenreis has been appointed assistant professor in the area of information policy and research methods at the Wayne State University Library Science Program, Detroit.

Maria Fredericks has been appointed associate conservator for library collections at the Winterthur Library, Delaware.

Janet Fullerton has been appointed acquisitions coordinator at Ferris State University, Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Jeffrey B. Garrett has been appointed foreign literature bibliographer and reference librarian at Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana.

Isaac Gewirtz has been named rare book and manuscript librarian at the Bridwell Library, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas.

Edwin Harris is the new head of library systems and operations at Ferris State University, Big Rapids, Michigan.

Fred J. Hay has been appointed reference and acquisitions librarian at the Tozzer Library, Harvard University.

Paul Hensley has been named assistant director of the Winterthur Library, Delaware.

Dennis K. Lambert has been appointed head of collection management at Villanova University Library, Pennsylvania.

Scott Lanning is the new reference librarian at Loop Campus, DePaul University, Chicago.

Kathleen Lazar has been named library director at the Strong Museum, Rochester, New York.

Kristin McDonough has been named chief librarian of Baruch College, New York.

Trisha Morris has been appointed head librarian at Pennsylvania State University, DuBois Campus.

Alan Pochi is the new coordinator of bibliographic control at Ferris State University, Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Michael Reagan has been appointed unit coordinator of the Circulation Unit at California State University, Northridge.

Beverly A. Shattuck has been named director of the University of South Florida Health Sciences Library, Tampa.

Monica Simpson is now curatorial cataloger at the Strong Museum, Rochester, New York.

Marsha Stevenson has been appointed head of reference at the University of Notre Dame, Indiana.

Felix Eme Unaeze has been appointed head of reference and instructional services at Ferris State University, Big Rapids, Michigan.

Clarence Walters has been named director of member library relations at OCLC, Inc., Dublin, Ohio.

M. Jane Williamshas been named research associate at the National Commission on Libraries and Information Science, Washington, D.C.

Retirements

Sally A. Davis, director of the library of the School of Library and Information Studies (SLIS) since 1978, will retire this month (June). Before joining the SLIS, Davis achieved distinction as a school librarian. Throughout her career she has held important offices and committee appointments in library organizations at the local, state, and national levels and has won several awards for distinguished service.

Harold Smith will retire after 26 years as librarian at Park College, but will continue doing collection development work and organize the College’s archives. Prior to coming to Park College he had done public service work at the University of Denver, the University of Nebraska, the University of Northern Colorado, and Southern Illinois University-Carbondale. He had earned his AB at Park College in 1944, followed by an MA in history at the University of Kansas in 1946, and an MLS at the University of Denver in 1950. He received his Ph.D. from Southern Illinois University in 1963 prior to becoming librarian at Park College in 1964. During his years at Park he was Library Project Director for the Kansas City Regional Council for High er Education and later operated Mid-America Inter Library Services at the College.

He was instrumental in initiating the Northwest Missouri Library Network, and was first President of the Kansas City Metropolitan Library Network. He has been active in the Missouri Library Association, the Mountain/Plains Library Association, ACRL, ALA, and SLA, serving on various committees. He initiated automation on his campus so that the Library could serve the College’s many military and corporate sites. He also initiated, planned and developed a completely underground Library facility on the home campus in suburban Kansas City. Smith has published a number of articles on librarianship and history, and is the author of American Travellers Abroad, an annotated bibliography of accounts published before 1900.

Deaths

Dorothy Foster McComrs, a reference librarian and history bibliographer who retired from Virginia Tech’s Newman Library in 1989, died April 8 in Montgomery Hospital. She was 66. McCombs joined the faculty in 1972 as an instructor and was promoted to assistant humanities librarian in 1976. She was named reference librarian and history bibliographer in 1985, a job she held until her retirement in 1989. She wrote a guide to library materials on the Appalachian region of Virginia and continued after her retirement as a member of the board of advisors for the library’s Appalachian Collection. She also served on the archive project committee of the Appalachian Consortium and the planning committee of the Southern Highlands Institute for Educators.

In 1988, she coordinated and convened a session on crafts for the Appalachian Studies Conference in Radford. McCombs was a docent of the historical plantation house Smithfield, served two years on the board of the Montgomery Branch of the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities, and was president for two years of the Poverty Creek Weavers Guild. Her first experience in library work came in 1943 when she spent a year as a library assistant at the Glen Rock Public Library in Glen Rock Public Library in Glen Rock, N.J. Later, she worked part-time at the Westerville Public Library in Westerville, Ohio.

McCombs studied at Ohio State University and later earned a degree in library science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1967. She remained with the Meredith College Library until 1971. She began working on a master’s degree in history at Virginia Tech the same year she joined Tech’s library faculty, receiving the degree in 1976. Active in the Virginia Library Association, she served on a number of committees and assisted with two regional conferences. She also held memberships in the Appalachian Studies association, the Association for Bibliography of History, New River valley Historical Society, New River Valley Preservation League, and the American Library Association. Honorary organizations into which she was inducted included Beta Phi Mu for library science, Phi Alpha Theta for history and Delta Kappa Gamma for women in education.

David Arthur McDaniel, cataloger at the University of California, Berkeley Library, died in March at Alta Bates Hospital. McDaniel enrolled in the Library School in 1983, got his MLS in 1984, and the Certificate in Bibliography in 1985. He worked with Robert D. Harlan on early San Francisco imprints and entered the doctoral program in spring 1986. McDaniel’s first library position was in the Acquisitions Division, where he worked from 1984 to 1986. During a one-year sabbatical from his graduate studies, David signed on full-time as a charter member of the Bancroft Retrospective Conversion Project, where his active intelligence and eye for detail helped make some order out of the chaos of the disassembled catalog. With his return to school in the fall of 1987, he assumed a new role in the Bancroft Copy Cataloging Unit as a part-time copy cataloger. He soon became an avid rare books cataloger. He had a passion for the book as a physical and intellectual quantity, and an encyclopedic knowledge of its history and production. Friends will remember his amazing quick wit, which often enabled him to see many sides to a question in less time than it took to pose it. Donations sent to the Pacific Center for Human Growth (2712 Telegraph Ave., Berkeley, CA 94705) in memory of David McDaniel will be earmarked for AIDS counselling.

Lola Leontin Szladits, curator of the New York Public Library’s Henry W. and Albert Berg Collection of English and American Literature, died in March at home in new York after a brief illness. She was 67 years old. As curator of the Berg Collection, Szladits was responsible for one of America’s most celebrated collections of first editions, rare books and manuscripts, spanning literature from a transcript of John Donne’s poems dating from 1619 to Joseph Conrad’s novels, T.S. Eliot’s manuscript of The Wasteland, Virginia Woolfs manuscript diaries, and many others. Szadits was appointed curator of the Berg Collection in May 1969. In adding new works to the collection, she focused on purchases that served the needs of the writing community, and indeed, in one year alone, material from the Berg Collection appeared in published volumes on Randall Jarrell, the Peabody sisters, Dylan Thomas, and W.B. Yeats. Among the most significant acquisitions made by Szladits were the manuscripts and handwritten notebooks dating to 1929 of the poet W.H. Auden purchased in 1975. She established major author files on Conrad Aiken, H.G. Wells, Muriel Rukeyser, Evelyn Waugh, May Sarton, Samuel Beckett, William Faulkner, and the James Joyce circle of writers in France. In addition she added notably to the Berg’s existing materials on Joseph Conrad, Alexander Pope, Max Beerbohm, Washington Irving, Walt Whitman, and Oliver Wendell Holmes.

Szladits’ career was distinguished by her commitment to broadening the understanding and appreciation of the literature in her charge. During her 20 years as curator, Szladits conceived, assembled, and mounted some 35 exhibitions viewed by over half a million people, and prepared accompanying catalogs, all to convey the appeal and richness of literature to the general public. Her most recent exhibition, is entitled Words Like Freedom, a display which focuses on the Berg’s collection of abolitionist literature. Szladits is viewed by the literary and scholarly communities as a literary lion in her own rite, and was the subject in 1984 of the only New Yorker profile ever written about a librarian. She was featured in articles in The New York Times and other newspapers. She frequently lectured to the literary and library communities, appeared on radio and television, and belonged to a number of organization, including the Board of the Keats-Shelley Association of America; the Library Council of the Rosenbach Foundation; the Council of the Dictionary of Literary Biography; the Friends of the Columbia Libraries; and the Friends of the National Libraries (England), and the Hroswitha Club.

Prior to her positions in the Berg Collection, Szladits was a library assistant in the Art Division of the New York Public Library in 1955, a Librarian in the Rare Book Room of the New York Academy of Medicine from 1951-1955, a librarian in the Oriental section of London’s Courtauld Institute of Art from 1948-50, and a medical secretary for the Allied Control Commission, U.S. Forces in Hungary, from 1945-46. She received her Ph.D. from Peter Pazmany University on Budapest in 1946, and did post-graduate work at Columbia University from 1946-47; at the Sorbonne, University of Paris in spring 1948; and at New York University’s Institute of Fine Arts, from 1950-1955. She received her diploma of librarianship from University College London University in 1950, and was named a fellow of the Library Association (England) in 1981.