ACRL College & Research Libraries News

College & Research Libraries News

News from the Field

Subscription rate reduction plan

Gordon and Breach Publish- ers are implementing an award program for academic institutions and their librar- ies based on the number of research papers accepted to its more than 200 journals in the sciences and arts.

Called Negative Page Charges (as opposed to the fee that some journal publishers charge their authors), this program gives authors a credit for their article.

Upon a paper’s acceptance for publication in any Gordon and Breach or Harwood Academic journal, the publisher will send the author a credit valued at either $20 U.S., 3,000 Yen, or 15 ECU (European Currency Unit). These credits may be used as currency for any Gordon and Breach Publishing Group titles and services. The author can forward these vouchers to his or her library and the library can use them to reduce the purchase price of Gordon and Breach titles.

EDUCOM wants input on use of technology for teaching and learning

EDUCOM wants help identifying programmatic applications of specific information technologies already succeeding in delivering quality instruction at reduced costs per student. They are looking for cost-effective implementations that reflect new paradigms and new approaches to teaching and learning in higher education.

Bob Zeterick, EDUCOM’s new president, has made the use of information technology for teaching and learning a high priority. Steven W. Gilbert, vice-president of EDUCOM, has been assigned full-time responsibility for programmatic activity in this area.

Send this information electronically to Gilbert at: GILBERT@bitnic.educom.edu or call (202) 872-4200 for more information.

Columbia develops virtual library

Columbia University Law Library has begun creating a “virtual library” that can find and display on one computer screen the full text of any document among millions stored digitally as optical images. Named Project Janus, the system uses a supercomputer and advanced search software provided by Thinking Ma- chines Corp, of Cambridge, Massachusetts, which is working with Columbia to test the system.

James Hoover, Colum- bia’s law librarian, expects limited access for Columbia researchers this spring: “Early on we’ll have avail- able extensive documentation in certain key areas of legal research. For example, researchers will have full-text access to the Congressional documents surrounding the adop- tion of the 14th Amendment." The system allows full-text searches.

By 1996 the library expects to convert 10,000-12,000 volumes annually to computer storage, about the same number it now adds to its holdings each year.

Librarians at mid-sized libraries share interests

An ad hoc committee on Medium-sized Libraries formed by ACRL’s College Libraries and University Libraries Sections is considering establishing an ACRL Discussion Group for Librarians in Medium-sized Colleges. The committee will meet with interested librarians during ALA’s Annual Conference on Monday, June 28, from 8:00-9:00 a.m.

For this purpose, mid-sized libraries are at those institutions that do not grant doctorates and have student enrollments between 5,000 and 14,000. Topics for discussion include feasibility of forming a discussion group, as well as budget, personnel, acquisitions, operational matters, statistical analyses, and SPEC- and CLIP Note-like publications for medium-sized academic libraries.

For additional information contact members of the ad hoc committee: David B. Walch, chair (California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo), Patricia Butcher (Trenton [N.J.] State College Library), E. Dale Cluff (Texas Tech University), Marvin Leavy (Western Kentucky University), Billy Pennington (Birmingham [Ala.]- Southern College), and Ralph Russell (Georgia State University).

Women’s History Month is March. Celebrate with this poster by Kiki ($25) and a Women's History Kit ($23.80) available from ALA. Call (800) 545-2433, press 8, for details.

ALA opts out of Denver

In response to the passage of Colorado’s Amendment 2, ALA’s Executive Board voted at its January 23 meeting in Denver not to hold ALA’s 1998 Midwinter Meeting in Denver and not to consider any site in Colorado as a future conference site for ALA or any of its units until such time as Amendment 2 is either overturned by the courts or repealed by the voters.

Amendment 2 prohibits the state or any of its subdivisions from adopting or enforcing any law or policy that provides anti-discrimination protection based on sexual orientation.

The majority of board members felt that this amendment permits discrimination which conflicts with ALA policies 54.17 and 54.3 supporting equal employment opportunities for gay librarians and all workers regardless of race, color, creed, sex, age, physical or mental handicap, individual lifestyle, or national origin.

Stanford completes RECON

Stanford University Libraries has completed a ten-year retrospective conversion (RECON) project to convert virtually all of its main library card catalog records to machine-read- able form. At the beginning of the project nearly 900,000 items were not accessible online.