ACRL College & Research Libraries News

Association of College & Research Libraries

The ACRL publications program

By Richard Hume Werking Richard Hume Werking is chair of the ACRL Publications Committee and librarian and associate dean, U.S. Naval Academy, Annapolis; e-mail: rwerking@nimitz.nadn.navy.mil

The ACRL publications program is extensive and varied. Until my tenure on the Publications Committee I had been unaware of the program’s richness, even though I have been a member of ACRL for almost twenty years and served a stint on one of its editorial boards. Consequently, I thought it might be useful to provide the membership with a brief overview of their association’s considerable publishing activity. (Descriptions of the several publications or series are drawn chiefly from the ACRL Business Plan for Publications, 1994.)

A second purpose of this piece is to invite all interested ACRL members to discuss these publications with editors and editorial board chairs at the ACRL booth during the ALA Annual Conference in Chicago in June (see sidebar).

Last June’s issue of C&RL News carried an article, by ACRL executive director Althea H. Jenkins, about the 1993 membership survey. According to the members, ACRL’s two most valuable activities and programs are two publications which virtually tied for first place: College & Research Libraries and College & Research Libraries News. The next three most valuable activities are different types of information made available through ACRL publications: standards and guidelines, job opportunities information, and library statistics.

ACRL periodicals

ACRL publishes four periodicals and assists the sections with the publication of fifteen section newsletters. Of the four periodicals, two are edited by full-time ACRL staff (C&RL News and Choice') and the other two by volunteer editors appointed for fixed terms.

College & Research Librariesis a bimonthly scholarly journal, published since 1939 and provided as a perquisite of membership in ACRL. C&RL enjoys a favorable reputation in librarianship, and it has been found repeatedly to be ranked among the top journals in library and information science. Its purpose is to provide a research forum for academic librarians and to enhance the knowledge base of the profession. The editor is Gloriana St. Clair, associate dean for information access services at the Pennsylvania State University Library, e-mail: gss@psulias.psu.edu.

College & Research Libraries News,which appears eleven months a year, is ACRL’s news magazine and official journal of record. Like C&RL‚ it is provided as a perquisite of membership. Until 1966 it was published as a section in C&RL. It disseminates information about events and people in academic librarianship and elsewhere in higher education, including job postings, appointments, and news stories about grants, federal legislation, acquisitions, and new publications. The short articles on successful innovations provide valuable information to practicing librarians. In addition to publishing in the traditional print-on-paper format, ACRL is publishing C&RL NewsNet on the Internet, providing news and job ads through a gopher server. The editor of C&RL News is Mary Ellen K.

Davis, senior associate executive director of ACRL; e-mail: mary.eilen. davis@ala.org.

Choice,a book review magazine, also appears eleven times a year. It began publication in 1964 as part of a larger project to update Books for

College Libraries,and it reviews more than 6,000 books a year. The magazine also operates a “reviews-on-cards” subscription program and publishes Choice bibliographies in the Bibliographic Essay Series and the Ethnic Studies Series. The acting editor of Choice is Francine Graf; e-mail: frangraf@delphi.com.

Rare Books and Manuscripts Librarianship,begun in 1986, is a scholarly journal which publishes articles on rare books, special collections, and archives. The editor is Sidney Berger, head of special collections and university archivist at the University of California, Riverside, Library; e-mail: spcolseb@ucracl.ucr.edu.

ACRL books

In addition to periodicals, ACRL publishes books in three different series. Since 1952 ACRL Publications in Librarianship, formerly the ACRL Monographs Series, has produced research monographs and edited volumes of scholarly essays in academic librarianship. The most recent titles are Abstracting, Information Retrieval, and the Humanities, by Helen R. Tibbo, and Academic Libraries: Research Perspectives, edited by Mary Jo Lynch and Arthur P. Young. ACRL edits this series, which is published by ALA Editions. The editor of the series is Stephen Wiberley, bibliographer for the social sciences at the University of Illinois at Chicago Library; e-mail: u30959@uicvm.uic.edu.

The CLIP Notes series (College Library Information Packet) resembles ARL’s SPEC Kits, with each publication containing information resulting from a survey of libraries on a particular topic, as well as a few exemplary documents provided by responding libraries. Some recent titles are Library Services for Nonaffiliated Patrons, CLIP Note #21, by Eugene S. Mitchell, and Managing Student Workers in College Libraries, CLIP Note #20, by Michael Kathman and Jane McGurn Kathman. This series is produced by the CLIP Notes Committee of ACRL’s College Libraries Section, whose chair is Patricia Butcher; e-mail: butcher@tscvm.trenton.edu. Other nonresearch monographs reach publication through the New Publications Advisory Board, which reviews manuscripts on a variety of topics. Many of the manuscripts, though by no means all, originate with one of the sections or other units of ACRL. Among recent titles are Discovering Librarians: Profiles of a Profession, by Mary Jane Scherdin; Vocational and Technical Resources for Community College Libraries, by Mary Ann Laun; and Science and Engineering Conference Proceedings, by Barbara DeFelice. Editing this series is ACRL program officer Hugh Thompson; e-mail: hugh.thompson@ala.org.

ACRL surveys

In addition to periodicals and books, ACRL also publishes statistical surveys. These, too, are guided through to publication by Hugh Thompson. The most recent title is ACRL University Library Statistics, 1992–93.