ACRL College & Research Libraries News

College & Research Libraries News

News from the Field

Pittsburgh: Attend, present, participate!

Keep informed about what’s happening with the seventh ACRL National Conference in Pittsburgh, March 29-April 1, 1995, and at the same time improve your chances to win free conference and preconference registrations. Here’s how it’ll work. ACRL will mail three postcards to you (scenes from Pittsburgh) over the next 18 months: one in November 1993, one in September 1994, and one in December 1994. Each postcard will carry a different message pertaining to the Seventh ACRL National Conference, and the three postcards matted together present a full picture of the exciting city of Pittsburgh.

What do you need to do? Collect all three postcards, staple them together, and bring them to the ACRL booth at the 1994 Midwinter meeting in Cincinnati to be included in the drawings. Six winners will be selected. All postcards must be addressed to the same person.

Note:If you are not attending the 1994 Midwinter meeting in Cincinnati, you can staple your postcards together and mail them to the ACRL office by January 10, 1995, to be included in the drawings.

Virginia’s academic libraries cooperate

The libraries of Virginia’s doctoral-granting institutions are using a statewide fax network to deliver articles in 24 hours and are using UPS to deliver books in 48 hours. Libraries of the College of William and Mary, George Mason University, Old Dominion University, University of Virginia, Virginia Commonwealth University, and Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University are also lending materials such as microforms, audio- and videotapes, and bound journals that previously have been restricted to on-campus use only. This initiative builds on a successful, one-year pilot project in which the libraries of James Madison University, the University of Virginia, and Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University showed that rapid, consistent delivery was the key to successful library resource sharing. This effort removes the barrier of distance in using information resources and provides the foundation for statewide cooperative efforts to minimize duplication of book and serial purchases.

To further advance access to information the six doctoral libraries have joined with the rest of the state-supported academic libraries in Virginia—nine from four-year institutions and 23 from community colleges—to form the Virginia Academic Library Consortium (VALC).

VALC members will enter into cooperative projects that maximize access to information through such means as cooperative collection development and document delivery.

Millsaps College endows library directorship

Millsaps College in Jackson, Mississippi, has received a $1 million anonymous challenge grant for the establishment of the endowed librarian directorship. The endowment will also provide planning funds to design a new state-of-the-art library once initial funds are committed for that project. During the 1993–94 academic year, this grant’s funds will match gifts to a maximum total of $200,000. Subsequent challenges will be made in succeeding years. Jim Parks, director of the library, said, “I am honored to be in the library directorship at the time it is given. The gift is a credit to the hard work of the library staff and the support of the faculty, administration, and Board of Trustees. Like all libraries, ours is in a time of significant … changes and this endowment demonstrates a commitment to seeing that the Millsaps library meets those challenges and adjusts to the changes.”

Logo design needed for library school

The Library School Association, the Alumni Organization of the Graduate School of Library and Information Science (GSLIS) at the University of Illinois at Urbana, is sponsoring a contest for the best design logo to be used on the association’s brochures and other publicity needs. The logo should be suitable for reproduction in one or two colors. Any GSLIS alum or future alum can enter the contest. The design should be submitted before December 31‚ 1993, to: Sally Duchow, Logo Contest Chair, 201 Castle Lane, St. Joseph, IL 61873. The name of the winner will be announced in the association’s newsletter in February. For more information about its various activities, contact: Christine H. Guyonneau, president, at (317) 788-3431; fax: (317) 788-3275.

Explore the Internet via teleconference

Exploring Internet, a national teleconference, will be broadcast on Thursday, December 2, 1993, from noon-2:00 p.m. EST. Speakers include nationally known experts Rick Gates, writer for Electronic Library and creator of “Internet Hunt,” Jean Amour Polly, manager of network development and user training for NYSERNet, and Richard J. Smith, coauthor of Navigating the Internet. ACRL President Tom Kirk will address the participants on the topic of networking. The teleconference will be interactive; viewer questions relating to Internet will be answered during the broadcast. Cost to receive the telecast is $250 and includes downlink access, informational literature, and full rights to tape the teleconference. If you do not have a satellite dish contact your local university, community college, local satellite service provider, or cable company to downlink the conference. To register or for further information contact Eileen Dubin, D & F Associates, (815) 758-7499.

Class gifts bolster Penn’s renovations

The University of Pennsylvania’s main social sciences and humanities library, the Van Pelt-Dietrich Library Center, will undergo major interior renovations with funds raised in the early stages of a capital campaign. So far, seven classes have pledged to support key components of the plan, giving more than $3.1 million toward the effort. The class of 1937 led the way with $150,000 for a recently completed microcomputer laboratory whose design treatments—Shaker-style furniture with a contemporary concern for ergonomics—will be used in the larger renovations being planned. Among the class gifts pledged are: $500,000 for circulation by the class of 1943, $700,000 for reference by the class of 1968, and $350,000 pledged by the class of 1964 for an Electronic Lookup Center that will provide network access to information bases, the online catalog, RLIN, and the Internet. With the substantial amount secured in pledges, a feasibility study has been commissioned.

ALA sticks with Miami 1994

ALA announced that it is sticking with Miami, Florida, as the site of its 1994 Annual Conference despite the recent rash of violent acts against tourists in that area. ALA gave cost, lack of availability of facilities in other cities, timing, and reputation as reasons for not switching the site. Plans for the 1994 conference are already well underway and the current value of the cancellation clauses in contracts ALA has signed is almost $500,000. Problems experienced by the American Booksellers Association during its recent conference in Miami have been addressed by ALA and conference organizers are confident that Miami will provide an excellent location for the conference.

Standardizing form and genre terms

A Working Group on Form and Genre Vocabularies has been formed to reconcile terminology used to provide access to library materials through genre, form, and physical characteristics, (i.e., USMARC fields 655—Index Term— Genre/Form; and 755—Added Entry—Physical Characteristics). The group is examining the following vocabularies: Art and Architecture Thesaurus; Genre Terms; Guidelines on Subject Access to Individual Works of Fiction, Drama, Etc.-, Library of Congress Subject Headings, Medical Subject Headings-, Moving Image Materials, and Terms for Graphic Materials I. With representatives from LC, special collections, and NLM the group will meet annually until existing conflicts are resolved. The group is funded by the Council on Library Resources and the Art and Architecture Thesaurus (AAT). The group would like to hear from anyone planning a new list of form and genre terms intended for use in MARC fields 655 and 755. For more information contact Laura Stalker, Associate Director for Technical Services, Huntington Library, 1151 Oxford Rd,, San Marino, CA 91108.

Utah universities share collections

Utah State University, Brigham Young University, and the University of Utah each purchased NOTIS Systems’ PACLink and PACLoan to make their collections accessible to one another and to any other Z39.50-compatible library in the state of Utah. Driving their decision to choose PACLink and PACLoan was a desire to experiment in statewide cooperation and resource sharing to give any library in Utah access to information databases without having to individually purchase them. The universities are part of an 11-library consortium called the Utah College Library Council comprised of all higher education institutions in the state that have libraries. These three universities are the largest in the consortium and each has the NOTIS library management system. The other eight sites have the Dynix system. Dynix and NOTIS are working together to guarantee interoperability of both systems. ■