ACRL College & Research Libraries News

College & Research Libraries News

WASHINGTON HOTLINE

by Carol C. Henderson Deputy Director ALA Washington Office

Library program funding. Before going home to campaign, Congress passed and the President signed a continuing resolution funding almost the entire federal government through December 17. The stopgap measure continues funding at fiscal 1982 levels for most programs affecting academic libraries, including Higher Education Act college library, training and research, and research library programs, college work-study, the Library Services and Construction Act, the Medical Library Assistance Act, postal subsidies, and the National Commission on Libraries and Information Science. Congress will return on November 29 for a brief lame duck session to consider regular funding bills.

Tax deduction for manuscript donations. The Senate Finance Committee on September 24 approved S.2225, Sen. Max Baucus' (D-MT) bill to restore a fair market value tax deduction for donations of literary, musical or artistic compositions by their creators to libraries and museums. The Committee made some minor changes to the measure‚ and tacked it onto an unrelated tax bill passed by the House, HR 1524. This is a major step forward in restoring the deduction, lost to authors and artists since 1969 with a consequent decline in donations of contemporary manuscripts to libraries. HR 1524 came up on the Senate floor briefly October 1, but was passed over because the committee report (S. Rept. 97-643) was not then available. With enough constituent support, it could come up in the lame duck session; otherwise the process must begin anew in the next Congress.

Naval Academy Library to be contracted out?The Public Affairs Office at the U.S. Naval Academy has confirmed that a 12-18 month study has begun to determine whether a number of administrative support service personnel, including 35 positions (2/3 of the staff) in the Academy's library, should be contracted out to the private sector. This is the latest and most extreme example of the trend toward contracting out federal libraries, and the first, to our knowledge, involving an academic library.

The Navy's action seems to be part of the Reagan Administration's much more active implementation of Office of Management and Budget Circular A-76, "Policies for Acquiring Commercial or Industrial Products and Services Needed by the Government." The policy has been in effect for some time, but lately there has been a real push to turn over more areas of government activity to the private sector. A revised version of A-76 is expected before the end of the year. The Assistant Secretary of the Navy has transmitted to Congress, specifically to the House and Senate Armed Services Committees‚ notice of the decision to study the contracting out of various functions, including the library.

HEA II-C Grants. Thirty-five grants involving forty institutions were awarded for FY 1982 under the Higher Education Act Title II-C Strengthening Research Library Resources programs, according to the Education Department's Office of Libraries and Learning Technologies.

AUTOMATED STAFF TRAINING

The Indiana University Libraries received the H.W. Wilson Library Staff Development Grant for 1981-82 to create a series of computer-assisted lessons for student employees. Student employees are a vital part of any college or university library staff. The need for more efficient and effectivetraining of student employees is a common problem shared by most academic libraries.

Two areas were selected as most appropriate for computerized individual instruction: Library of Congress call numbers and the basic elements of the card catalog. These two areas were selected because most student workers require such instruction, yet the instruction is often tedious and time consuming for both employee and supervisors. Training modules for these lessons were designed and scripted under the guidance of Frances Wilhoit, journalism librarian, who is director of the grant project. Many librarians and staff members assisted with the creation of the lessons. The modules were programmed for use on the PLATO system of computer-assisted instruction, so that the lessons are readily available to the IU Libraries’ student employees and to other academic libraries which have access to PLATO.

The Library of Congress call number lesson is designed to be universally applicable to all libraries using LC classification and includes these elements: recognition of the call number, instruction in the sequential order of call numbers, a sample of library tasks using call numbers, and practice sets for these tasks.

The second lesson, using the card catalog, is designed specifically for the card catalog in the Main Library on the Bloomington campus. This module simulates interactions between the library employee and a patron, utilizing questions which are commonly asked to teach appropriate responses.

The modules have been successful training tools during pretesting, and the students have responded favorably to computer-assisted instruction. These innovative programs will fill a major need in the Indiana University Libraries and for academic libraries in general. ■ ■

NEW ACRL PUBLICATIONS

The latest volume in the ACRL Publications in Librarianship has just been published by ALA Publishing. The Spirit of Inquiry: The Graduate Library School at Chicago, 1921-51, by John Richardson, Jr. (238 pages, 1982), is Number 42 in this ongoing series, now edited by Arthur Young. The volume focuses on the first thirty years of education for librarianship at the University of Chicago and contains a Foreword by Jesse H. Shera. Six chapters examine GLS history: the state of education for librarianship, 1876-1926; the formative Chicago period, 1919-27; the Works Era, 1927-29; the interregnum, 1929-32; the Wilson Era, 1932-42; and conclusions which evaluate the school’s accomplishments. Copies may be ordered for $35 from the Order Department, American Library Association, 50 E. Huron Street, Chicago, IL 60611. Those with standing orders to the series should have automatically received a copy.

Now available from ACRL Headquarters is Management and Staff Development, the proceedings of a workshop sponsored by ACRL’s California Chapter. The workshop dealt with the role of line managers in staff development. Compiled by Jo Bell Whitlach, Celia Bakke, and Judy Reynolds, these proceedings contain papers by Kaye Schoonhoven on organizational design; Tina Kass on management, automation, and staff development; and Ruth Hafter on staff development and governance. An annotated bibliography is also included. The 37-page monograph is available prepaid from ACRL, 50 E. Huron Street, Chicago, IL 60611, at a cost of $8 for ACRL members and $10 for non-members. ■■

The most comprehensive biographical directory in the humanities

Compiled with the expert assistance of the leading professional societies in ten subject disciplines, this prestigious four-volume set is the only directory of its kind to bring together such extensive and comprehensive biographical information on humanities scholars in one place.

DIRECTORY OF AMERICAN SCHOLARS profiles the biographies of more than 38,000 U.S. and Canadian men and women active in ten major subject areas including: history, English, speech, drama, foreign languages, linguistics, philology, philosophy religion, and law. Included are outstanding teachers on the college and university levels, consultants, recognized authors, editors, researchers—with more than 3,500 new entrants added to this 8th Edition.

Each entry includes;

• full name

• birthplace and date

• citizenship

• marriage date and number of children

• discipline

• education

• honorary degrees

• past and present professional experience

• concurrent appointments

• honors and awards

• current memberships in professional societies

• chief fields of research

• major publications

• mailing address

A geographical index lists all entrants by city and state, or province, with a reference to the full biographical listing in the appropriate subject volume.

ISBN 0-8352-1476-1. November 1982.

Approx. 2,900 pp.

$295.00 the 4-volume set; $90.00 per volume

Volume I: History.ISBN 0-8352-1478-8 Volume II: English, Speech & Drama. ISBN 0-8352-1479-6 Volume III: Foreign Languages, Linguistics, & Philology. ISBN 0-8352-1481-8 Volume IV: Philosophy, Religion and Law. ISBN 0-8352-1482-6

R.R. BOWKER COMPANY Order Dept., P.O. Box 1807, Ann Arbor, Ml 48106

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“23 Years of Service To College and University Libraries”