ACRL College & Research Libraries News

Association of College & Research Libraries

News from the Field

Mary Ellen Davis

Journal of Electronic Publishingcreated

Papers, documents, and your ideas about dealing with elec- tronic publishing are sought for the Journal of Electronic Publishing (JEP), a World Wide Web resource created by the University of Michigan.

JEPis designed to bring the literature on electronic pub- lishing into one place to make finding information in this fast-moving area easier. JEP does not seek exclusivity to its papers and welcomes papers that will also be published elsewhere.

In developing JEP, recent pertinent papers have been collected and loaded or “pointed to.” This archiving phase continues and JEP welcomes additional information.

Planning is underway to enhance the resource to permit discussions centered around the ideas put forward by contributors and for guiding readers to the most significant papers. The URL of the journal is: http://www. press.umich.edu/jep. Send comments, ideas, and papers to Colin Day (colinday@umich.edu) or Lorrie Lejeune (lorrie@umich.edu).

Register for ACRL by Feb. 28 and save

Save money by advance registering for ACRL’s

7th National Conference to be held in Pittsburgh, March 29-April 1, 1995. February 28 is the deadline for advance registrations. Academic librar- ians find themselves in the vanguard of the movement to build a new information in- frastructure. Attend this con- ference to stay on the cutting edge. Find out how your peers across the country are incorporating new and estab- lished technologies to en- hance the teaching, learning, and research processes. Ex- plore the many challenges facing academic librarians in the 1990s and into the 21st century. Advance registrations are $185 for ACRL personal members; $225 for ALA per- sonal members; $305 for nonmembers; and $105 for full-time library school stu- dents. The preliminary pro- gram was mailed to ACRL members and other aca- demic librarians in Novem- ber. The preliminary pro- gram with registration information was also pub- lished in the January 1995 issue of C&RL News and is available on ALA’s gopher. To access it point your gopher client to gopher.uic.edu port 70; select library, then select ALA, then Divisions, then ACRL to find the information about the National Conference. To request registration information contact Cynthia Taylor at the ACRL office at (800) 545-2433 ext. 2521 or e-mail: cynthia.taylor @ala.org.

Kent State builds new math library

The top floor of Kent State University’s new $7 million mathematics building is a 4,000-square- foot research library. Its roof is expressed as a sine wave which is repeated in the interior linear metal ceiling. The facility, designed by the architectural firm van Dijk, Paca, Westlake & Partners, includes group study rooms, an office work room, and circulation desk.

A view of study carrels in the new research library at Kent State University.

Russian state archives will be added to RUN

The Research Libraries Group, Inc. (RLG), in partner- ship with the Hoover Institu- tion, has developed an elec- tronic link with the Russian State Archival Service (Rosarkhiv). Over the next two years Russian archivists will catalog Rosarkhiv mate- rials online in RLIN (RLG's Re- search Libraries Information Network). Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, scholars have sought access to the long-closed records of 20th-century Soviet history. Now these records will be available electronically through RLIN.

February is Black History Month and this 3-color poster celebrates black women’s history by honoring nine prominent African American women: Marian Anderson, Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, Madam C. J. Walker, Mary McLeod- Bethune, Rosa Parks, Lena Horne, Lorraine Hans- berry, and Wilma Rudolph. The poster is available for $6.00 (plus $3.50 for shipping & handling) from the National Women’s History Project, 7738 Bell Road, Windsor, CA 95492.

In exchange for Russia’s contribution to RLIN, the 67 million records already in the RLIN data- base will be available to scholars in Russia. The cataloging and access project, supported by a grant to the Hoover Institution from the Na- tional Endowment for the Humanities, will de- velop a system for cataloging archival materi- als located in four Russian repositories that includes standards and a methodology for shar- ing information on RLIN.

Africana file available on Internet

The machine-readable version of the data used to produce the Joint Acquisitions List of Africαnα (JALA) has been mounted on Michigan’s MIRLYN system and is available to all users via the Internet. “Northwestern University’s African Library began the file in the 1960s and contin- ues to be a repository for these records,” re- ports David Easterbrook, curator of the Melville J. Herskovits Library of African Studies at North- western. ‘JALA in its paper format is published bimonthly and received by libraries worldwide that have an interest in African studies. For the library community with access to the Internet, this file provides a major improvement for lo- cating Africana materials across the country.”

“AFRI, the name of the African file, is acces- sible under the ‘Indexes’ section on MIRLYN’s first menu,” states William Gosling, as- sistant director for technical services and library systems at the University of Michi- gan. With more than 111,400 records available, researchers can find informa- tion about Africana materials and where they are located. Each citation contains a minimum of one holding location.

The file contains the Africana collec- tions of 19 research libraries including Indiana University, the University of California-Los Angeles, Yale University, and the Library of Congress.

New book banishes stereotypes

Discovering Librarians: Profiles of a Pro- fession,edited by Mary Jane Scherdin and published by ACRL, will help correct the misconceptions of those who may hold negative stereotypes of librarians. It pre- sents national study results on vocational interests of library and information pro- fessionals to develop a more accurate pic- ture of the interests, skills, and personal- ity of the typical librarian. Twelve chapters examine updated profiles of librarians that have been developed according to widely used interest tests, such as the ACT Interest Inventory ‚ the Campbell Interest and Skill Survey, and the SIGI PLUS computer-aided career guidance tool. An analysis of demographic data is also included. Discovering Librarians (ISBN 0-8389-7753-7) is available for $35.95 ($31.95 ACRL members) from the American Library Association, Order Fulfillment, 520 N. Dearborn, Chicago, TL 60610. For faster service, orders may be phoned in to (800) 545- 2433 or faxed to (312) 836-9958.

University of Oregon expands library

The University of Oregon’s Knight Library has completed a three-year building and renovation project that melded the original 1937 structure (listed on the National Register of Historic Places) with 1950 and 1966 additions and the 1994 expansion. The $27.4 million project added more than 135,000 square feet to the 237,000- square-foot library; tripled student seating capacity; increased shelving space by about 27%; added 22 new group-study and seminar rooms; updated facilities for computerized instruction and guided research; expanded the Instructional Media Center to include state-of-the-art distance learning classrooms; modernized the heating, cooling, lighting, and ventilation systems for increased user comfort and to protect library materials; provided handicapped access to the building; and allowed for future expansion. TBG Architects and Planners in Eugene were the lead architects. One-third of the cost of the project was funded by private gifts and grants.

The Solari South Stair Gallery at the University of Oregon’s newly expanded Knight Library.

Photo credit: C. Gray Tarleton

New ACRL book offers employee management assistance

A new publication in ACRL’s CLIP (College Library Information Packet) Note series provides useful guidance for managing student employees, who represent an average of over 25% of staff in college libraries. Managing Student Employees in College Libraries, CLIP Note 20 surveys employee management practices of 150 college libraries and includes excerpts from policies and procedures manuals covering a wide range of employee management issues. Examples include job description and application forms, interviews and reference checking, employee agreements, and dismissal procedures. Managing workers on the job is also covered in sections dealing with orientation, training, supervision, evaluation, and performance review.

Managing Student Employees(ISBN 0-8389- 7752-9) was compiled by Michael D. Kathman and Jane McGurn Kathman under the auspices of the ACRL College Libraries Sections’ CLIP Notes Committee. It sells for $29.95 ($25.95 to ACRL members) and is available from the American Library Association, Order Fulfillment, 520 N. Dearborn, Chicago, IL 606l0. For faster service, orders may be phoned in to (800) 545- 2433 or faxed to (312) 836-9958.

Update on information literacy data

The January “News from the Field” column reported on ACRL entering into a cooperative research project for the purpose of collecting data on existing information literacy programs in higher education institutions across the U.S.

“It is important for the library profession to involve key organizations and individuals outside the profession in a discussion about the value of an information-literate society,” said ACRL vice-president Patricia Senn Breivik.

Survey forms were mailed to college and university campuses requesting information on current programs dealing with information literacy. More than 200 responses have been received so far. The results from the data collection will be shared in a series of articles in a wide range of journals, and in a series of regional “best-practice” workshops, and eventually in a major book-length publication combining the knowledge gained through the surveys and the workshops. This project has the endorsement of the American Association of Higher Education (AAHE), which is committed to disseminating the results to its membership.