ACRL College & Research Libraries News

College & Research Libraries News

News From the Field

ACQUISITIONS

• A small collection of rare scholarly books has been given to Wheaton College by an anonymous donor, according to Paul Snezek, collection development librarian at the college. The sixteen volumes were purchased from the working library of James Lea Cate, emeritus professor of medieval history at the University of Chicago. They represent books to be found in a religiously oriented college library of the sixteenth to early eighteenth century.

The collection includes a rare edition of the Bible and volumes on church history of an early period, later church and secular history, biographies of Christian secular monarchs, canon law, church calendars, lives of the saints, a book of sermons, and a work on cosmogony. One manuscript in book form represents the Islamic religion, but is quite similar to Christian works. It contains long prayers by two wellknown Islamic sufi, similar to a Catholic monk. The Turkish copyist of the Arabic text has made comments in the margin and at the end in his own tongue. Snezek calls the volume “A museum piece.” The rarest of the western books, according to Snezek, is the Biblia Sacra, published in Lyon, France, in 1541. It is important historically because it was printed during the period Lyon was supplanting Paris as the chief city for publication of Bibles. The book is a later edition of the volume reported to be the First Latin Bible of Modern Times.

• The Brandeis University library has recently acquired a significant collection of scarce books, pamphlets, newspapers, and photographs pertaining to the famous Dreyfus trial. The collection formerly belonged to Leon Lipschütz of Paris, France. Included in the collection are many association copies as well as letters by Emile Zola, Georges Clemenceau, Fernand Labori, and other personages connected with the case. This acquisition was made possible through the beneficence of Mrs. Helen S. Slosberg in memory of her late uncle, Max Sagoff.

AWARDS AND GIFTS

• Geroid T. Robinson, founder of the Russian Institute at Columbia University who died March 31, 1971, has willed his $240,000 estate to the Columbia University libraries to maintain and expand the libraries’ Russian holdings. The bequest also includes Dr. Robinson’s personal library of Russian language volumes and books on Russian history, culture, and politics.

A leading scholar on the Soviet Union, Professor Robinson was a pioneer in advocating Russian studies in the United States. The Russian Institute at Columbia, which he founded in 1945, was the first undertaking of its kind in this country on a graduate level. In the last quarter century, the institute has trained scores of specialists in Russian affairs, many of whom have become prominent in diplomacy, education, journalism, and international trade and finance.

• With the aid of grants totaling $100,000 from the National Endowment for the Humanities, Council on Library Resources, and College Entrance Examination Board, the Dallas Public Library is beginning implementation this month of a two-year program designed to offer residents of the area the opportunity to gain up to two years of college credit without attending a formal classroom lecture.

The Dallas Public Library’s “Independent Study Project” involves the College-Level Examination Program (CLEP) developed by the College Entrance Examination Board. The Board and the Council on Library Resources have each allocated $25,000 in support of the program while the National Endowment for the Humanities has allocated $50,000. Southern Methodist University is actively supporting the project.

Five Dallas Public Library branches are participating in the investigation of the effectiveness of the public library as a center for independent study toward achieving a college education. The five branch libraries will provide information about the program, distribute reading lists and study guides, and upon request schedule meetings with tutors and workshops devoted to such subjects as effective reading and how to study independently. Thus employed persons, housewives, and others, studying on their own time and at their own speed in a place of their own choosing, can work toward a two-year college education.

Southern Methodist will conduct an ongoing evaluation of the project. It has been instrumental in helping develop the program, and will supply study guides, reading lists, and tutors to a great extent.

A number of other area colleges or universities have agreed to recognize scores made by CLEP students on the examinations. They include: Christian College of the Southwest and the University of Texas (Southwestern) Medical School, both in Dallas; Texas Christian University and Texas Wesleyan College, both in Fort Worth; and North Texas State University, Denton.

• The National Home Library Foundation, Washington, D.C., has awarded the George Washington University library a grant of $40,000 to install a set of the Encyclopaedia Britannica’s ultra-microfiche “Library of American Civilization” with all available associated equipment and bibliographic support. The library is to make the resource known to a wide, local audience, and to permit its use both on and off-site during the year 1972. From its evaluation of the one-year demonstration, due to begin January 1, 1972, the library hopes to develop information of help to other libraries in gaming maximum utilization of book resources in ultra-microfiche form.

• Professor Roy M. Mersky, director of research and law librarian at the University of Texas at Austin, has announced that the Texas Criminal Justice Council has approved the Criminal Justice Reference Library’s application for continued support with a grant of $87,120 for the twelve-month period beginning with September 1971. This grant assures the continuation of the collection, housed within the Tarlton Law Library of the University of Texas Law School.

The reference function of the Criminal Justice Reference Library will also be expanded, as a result of the new grant, by the introduction of a selective dissemination of information system which will provide periodic notification of acquisitions to users on the basis of a previously established profile of the individual user’s interests. The bibliographic data, as well as abstracts and indexing terms, will be computerized. The individual user interest profiles will also be stored in machine-readable form, so that a match of users’ interests with new acquisitions can be instantly achieved and the user can be so notified. This system, presently in the final stages of development, will facilitate not only the user-notification function but also the production of special bibliographies and subjectoriented acquisitions lists.

Also as a result of the new grant, the staff of the Criminal Justice Reference Library has been expanded to a total of three professional librarians, one programmer-analyst, and additional clerical assistants. Four special bibliographies have been published by the staff during the last year, and the quarterly publication of CJRL Newsletter was initiated. The Newsletter will continue, and several additional special bibliographies are in various stages of planning and preparation.

Further information can be obtained by writing Professor Roy M. Merskey, Director, Criminal Justice Reference Library, School of Law, University of Texas, Austin, TX 78705.

• The Fisk University library has been awarded a grant of $86,377 by the National Endowment for the Humanities to strengthen and support its Black Oral History program. The program is under the direction of Mrs. Ann Allen Shockley, associate librarian, and head of special collections, associate professor, Library Science.

The project is designed to bridge gaps in black history and culture through taped interviews with persons from all walks of life who can give fresh and different information germane to the black experience in America. It is a cooperative undertaking with other academic departments of the university as well as with the local community.

Fisk University is the first major black university to become actively involved in this most recent technique in historical research. The collection of unwritten history will be made available for scholarly research, to support black studies programs of other colleges and universities, and to suppelement existing primary and secondary sources.

MEETINGS

Dec. 12-15, 1971: The Ninth IASLIC (Indian Association of Special Libraries and Information Centres) Conference will be held at the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, India. Topics will be “Indian Reference Material” and “Technical and Scientific Information-Users’ Needs and Services.” Dr. A. Bose, Indian Institute of Technology Central Library, IIT Post Office Kanpur-16, India should be contacted for further information.

March 22-25, 1972: The Alaska Library Association annual meeting will be held at the YWCA Building, Whitehorse, Yukon Territory, Canada. The general theme will be “Redesign.” Program chairman is Miss Nancy Lesh, 1802 11th Ave., Anchorage, AK 99501.

April 13-15, 1972: The Oklahoma Library Association will meet at Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, Oklahoma. Mrs. Neysa Eberhard, Curriculum Materials Laboratory, University Library, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, OK 74074, is the convention publicity chairman.

May 18-20, 1972: The Midwest Academic Librarians Conference will meet May 18, 19, 20, 1972, at Northwestern University and the University of Chicago. Convention chairman is Donald E. Thompson, Wabash College Library, Crawfordsville, IN 47933.

MISCELLANY

• The Esther J. Piercy Award is an annual citation presented in recognition of a contribution to librarianship in the field-of technical services by younger members of the profession. The recipient must be a librarian with not more than ten years of professional experience who has shown outstanding promise for continuing contributions and leadership in any of the fields comprising technical services by such means as: (1) leadership in professional associations at local, state, regional, or national levels; (2) contributions to the development, application, or utilization of new or improved methods, techniques, and routines; (3) a significant contribution to professional literature; (4) conduct of studies or research in the technical services. The award is donated and administered by the Resources and Technical Services Division.

Deadline for nominations, January 1, 1972. Send nominations to Mrs. Roma S. Gregory, Head, Acquisitions Department, University of Rochester Library, Rochester, NY 14627.

• The Archives of American Art, Washington, D.C., is now engaged in three major film projects. Through the cooperation of the North Carolina Department of Archives and History, the archives has recently finished filming those records of Black Mountain College which document its art program. Now being filmed by the archives are the records of the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., dating from its 1859 founding by William W. Corcoran. The third and last part of the records of the MacBeth Gallery, founded in 1892 by a Scottish immigrant, William MacBeth, are being readied for filming. The MacBeth Gallery was the first New York gallery to deal exclusively in American art, and its records are rich in information on the growth of the American art market, particularly in the first third of the century. Sections of the records through the late 1920s are already on film; those now being prepared will complete the gallery’s history to its close in 1954.

• The John Pendleton Kennedy Papers of the Peabody Branch of the Enoch Pratt Free Library, Baltimore, have been temporarily transferred to the Maryland Historical Society to be microfilmed for the National Historical Publications Commission. The papers will not be available to scholars until August 1972. Under the sponsorship of the NHPC, the Maryland Historical Society is also microfilming its Calvert Papers (MS. 174) and Lloyd Papers (MS. 2001). These two collections will be closed to researchers from May 1972 to May 1973.

• Presented to the University of Nebraska Libraries—Lincoln on the occasion of the acquisition of their one millionth volume was a copy of The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer, second collected edition, 1542. The volume was a gift of Mr. Johnney Johnsen, president of the Nebraska Book Company. The ceremony was held July 13, 1971.

• In November 1970, a questionnaire was sent to the chief librarians of the thirteen units of the City University of New York to make some preliminary soundings as to what the onset of open enrollment had meant to them in terms of resources and programs and what, if any, approaches were being attempted to meet the particular library needs of basic-skills students, i.e., those students singled out by the colleges as needing remedial instruction. Ten out of the thirteen librarians contacted responded.

The following was among the information obtained through the questionnaire or was concluded from the information supplied.

1. Roughly speaking the number of entering freshmen in these institutions tended to double from the fall of 1969 to the fall of 1970. In spite of this, three libraries received no additional funds over the previous year, and one had its funds for supplies and binding decreased. (Three libraries did not answer this question.) In no case did a library receive any significant raise in the number of new professional or nonprofessional lines assigned them over the past year, so that it could not be seen from additional provisions—where there were any additional provisions—that the parent institutions had acknowledged any increased needs for the libraries even with the increase in student enrollment.

2. Formal library instruction currently received by freshmen consists of orientation tours, group lectures in the library, and classroom teaching, without any particular approach seeming to have the edge over the others. However, only one library provides some formal library instruction to every freshman while one other gave a “hopefully” yes.

3. Three libraries did not conduct any studies or make any plans to prepare for open enrollment prior to its onset; two libraries set up department committees to make such studies and/or to make recommendations, but in both cases little in the way of concrete results seems to have come directly from these committees. The most far-reaching endeavor established a working relationship between the library and the Basic Educational Skills department in order to prepare lectures for all students taking basic-skills courses and to prepare lists of suitable readings.

4. In most cases the responsibility for the libraries’ planning and carrying out of services to basic-skills students was not specifically assigned but was kept as a general responsibility of the chief librarian. At three of the four senior colleges, librarians were hired by SEEK or similar basic-skills departments to work with their students.

• Authors, publishers, and members of the Theatre Library Association are invited to submit nominations for the 1971 George Freedley Award which will be presented by the association next spring. Established in 1968, in memory of the late theatre historian, critic, author, and first curator of The New York Public Library Theatre Collection, the award honors a work in the field of theatre published in the United States. A plaque is presented to the author on the basis of scholarship, readability, and general contribution to the broadening of knowledge.

Only books on theatre per se will be considered: biography, history, criticism, and related fields. Excluded from the category of theatre are vaudeville, puppetry, pantomime, motion picture, television, radio, opera, circus, dance and ballet, plays, and similar dramatic forms. Other works considered ineligible are textbooks, bibliographies, dictionaries and encyclopedias, anthologies, collections of articles and essays published previously and in other sources, and reprints of publications.

Nominations are to be submitted in writing to the president of the Theatre Library Association, Louis A. Rachow, The Walter Hampden Memorial Library, 16 Gramercy Park, New York, NY 10003. Publishers will be asked to submit two published copies of all books nominated to the president at the same address. No galley sheets or proofs will be accepted. Books nominated for the 1971 award must have been published in the 1971 calendar year. If no date of publication appears on the title page or its verso, the date must be indicated in the written nomination. All nominations must be in the hands of the jury by January 15, 1972. The selection of the award winner will be determined by a five-member jury appointed by the president of the Theatre Library Association.

• Beginning July 1, membership in the New England Library Information Network (NELINET) was expanded to include fifteen new libraries. The new members are: Boston University, Brown University, Colby College, Connecticut College, Curry College, Dartmouth College, Hampshire College, M.I.T., Naval War College, Northeastern University, Rhode Island College, Rhode Island Junior College, Tufts University, Wesleyan University, and Worcester Polytechnic Institute.

Prior to this time the membership was comprised of the five New England State University Libraries: the University of Connecticut, University of Maine, University of New Hampshire, University of Rhode Island, and the University of Vermont. Membership expansion is viewed as the first step in phase 2 of the project’s development.

Phase 2, according to Ron Miller, director of NELINET, will see NELINET’s transition from being almost solely a research project to an “on-line” operational support system, with all member libraries connected through CRT (cathode ray tube) terminals to a central computer system. The planned system will support every functional operation within member libraries as well as interlibrary communications and file searches by users.

• The Rutgers Graduate School of Library Service will present the first lecture of the annual Richard H. Shoemaker Memorial Lectures on Bibliography on November 3, 1971, at 8:00 p.m. at Hickman Hall (New Brunswick, Douglass Campus). The lecturer will be Sir Frank Francis, former director and principal librarian of the British Museum and currently consultant to the Council on Library Resources. This lecture is open to the public. It will be published at a later date.

For further information, write to Peggy Koye, Rutgers Graduate School of Library Service, 189 College Ave., New Brunswick, NJ 08903 or phone 201-247-1766, ext. 6500.

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• Members from six Southwestern states met Tuesday, July 27, at the Capitol Building in Oklahoma City to design a policy for projects of the Southwestern Library Interstate Collaborative Effort Council, commonly known as SLICE. It was the first time in the history of U.S. library development that six state librarians and presidents of six state library associations have come together to begin building and developing interstate library cooperation between states. The membership, comprised from states of the Southwestern Library Association region (Arizona, Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas) embarked on the task of resource evaluation for the purpose of sharing resources with others. During the meeting, members discussed the necessity to search out the needs of the region and decide what library services could be better performed by two or more states. In addition, SLICE recognized the importance of identifying the special strengths of the region that were feasible to share with each other.

To initiate its operation, SLICE has been awarded a $25,000 grant from the Council on Library Resources Incorporated (Washington, D.C.). An office is being established to carry out the interstate library cooperation program to: (1) investigate and help implement interstate service to meet library needs which cannot be provided by a single state; (2) serve as a regional clearinghouse and communications agent for interstate projects and programs; (3) develop a long-range plan for regional library development; determine and pursue the feasibility for funding the same; and (4) implement a regional educational program directed to the present and potential application of the Library of Congress MARC tapes and the SDI (Selective Dissemination of Information) services administered by the Oklahoma Department of Libraries.

One of the office’s specific responsibilities is to plan, promote, and coordinate a regional program based on LC MARC tapes and related SDI services utilizing the present MARC programs developed by the Department of Libraries by: (1) educating regional librarians concerning MARC and its potential, (2) informing regional librarians about the present automated MARC and SDI services available through the Department of Libraries, and (3) investigating and developing additional MARC, SDI, and related services at the regional level.

Mr. Kenneth Bierman, data processing coordinator for the Department of Libraries, explained MARC Oklahoma to the SLICE Council composed of Mrs. Marguerite Cooley and Mrs. Betty Thomas, Arizona; Mrs. Frances Neal and Mrs. Mary Gale Ownbey, Arkansas; Miss Sallie Farrell, Louisiana; Miss Calla Ann Crepin, New Mexico; Mrs. Ralph Funk and Dr. Roscoe Rouse, Oklahoma; Miss Katherine Ard and Mrs. Phyllis Burson, Texas; while Mr. Lee Brawner, President of the Southwestern Library Association presided. The special consultants to the council, Mrs. Allie Beth Martin, past president of SWLA, Mr. Pearce Grove, President-elect of SWLA, and Miss S. Janice Kee, Library Services Program Officer, USOE, Region VI, Dallas, also participated.

• At the September 25 business meeting of the WLA Academic Libraries Division, four resolutions were passed. They are as follows:

1. This Division of the Wisconsin Library Association endorses and supports the efforts of the Council of Wisconsin Librarians in establishing a central academic inter-library loan and reference office for Wisconsin. In exploring avenues of funding for this program, the Council of Wisconsin Librarians is requested to make every effort to provide service for the undergraduate student.

2. The Academic Libraries Division of the Wisconsin Library Association rejects the November, 1970, working draft of the ACRL Guidelines for College Libraries as an inadequate revision of the 1959 minimum standards, and this Division does establish a Standing Committee on standards for academic libraries which is charged among other things with communicating specific recommendations for standards to the ACRL Committee on Standards.

3. Recognizing its leadership responsibility in providing academic administration with such guidelines as will assist in eliminating the present inconsistencies and inequities in the appointment and status of professional academic librarians in Wisconsin, this division endorses and adopts the official ACRL interim standards for faculty status, as adopted at the annual ALA conference on June 24, 1971, until such time as permanent joint standards are agreed upon by AAUP, The Association of American Colleges, ACRL, and perhaps other educational associations.

4. As the representative body for the academic librarians of Wisconsin, this Division strongly objects to the ALA Committee on Program Evaluation and Support reduction of funds for CHOICE and CRL News. Because of the importance of the ACRL publications program to academic librarians in particular, we urge the restoration of these funds.

PUBLICATIONS

• The following papers are available from the Aspen Institute for Humanistic Studies, P.O. Box 219, Aspen, CO 81611. July 1971. $2.50.

“Statement by Jean Monnet.” Speech delivered upon acceptance of 1971 Aspen Humanistic Award by the French statesman, economist, and president of the “Action Committee for United States of Europe,” an organization of leading political, business, and labor leaders of six nations of the Common Market and the U.K. The speech briefly describes the rationale behind the formation of the United States of Europe and the goals which it feels are essential to the future of Western Europe.

“A View from the White House,” lecture delivered by Max Frankel, chief of the Washington Bureau of the New York Times, at the Aspen Institute, 1970. It presents a reflective view of the U.S. presidency, defining the terms by which our society must choose a president and the power which it is willing to have the president exercise.

“The Future of American Labor,” lecture delivered by Gus Tyler, assistant president of the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union, at the Aspen Institute, August 1970. Tyler gives an incisive account of the rise of trade unionism in the U.S. and an analysis of the crucial problems which it now faces.

• A new publication, Journal Holdings of Maine Libraries, has just been printed. The seven hundred and seven-page edition lists the journal holdings of thirty-one academic, public, and special libraries in the state of Maine. This computer-based list contains over 30,000 entries of the major libraries in the state. The book is available at $5.00 each from Mr. William C. Ahrens, Assistant University Librarian, University of Maine, Orono, ME. Checks should be made out to the University of Maine.

• The August 1971 issue of the list of “Graduate Library School Programs Accredited by the American Library Association” is available upon request from the Committee on Accreditation, American Library Association, 50 E. Huron St., Chicago, IL 60611. Issued semiannually by the ALA Committee on Accreditation, the official list gives the name and address of each library school offering an accredited program, the name of the dean or director, and the name of the degree to which the accredited program leads. Library schools offering doctoral and postmaster’s specialist or certificate programs are so designated on the list.