ACRL College & Research Libraries News

College & Research Libraries News

News from the Field

Mary Ellen Davis

UConn partners with African National Congress

The University of Connecticut (UConn) and the African National Congress (ANC) signed an agreement on March 1 that forms a partnership to archive and share with scholars materials from the ANC’s struggle for human rights in South Africa, to chronicle the struggle through an oral history, and to link UConn and the University of Fort Hare (UFH) on the Eastern Cape of South Africa to focus on comparative human rights. The agreement means that UConn will be the official repository for ANC materials in North America, and that UConn and the UFH will exchange faculty, staff and students, conduct an annual conference on comparative human rights to take place in alternate years in South Africa and the U.S., and produce a journal twice a year on comparative human rights, the first of its type.

UConn was selected in a competition that included several top American universities for partnership with the South Africans chiefly because of its first-rate archival facilities at the Dodd Research Center, the publicity surrounding the human rights events at the university during Dodd Year, and the linkage between UConn and Narissa Ramdhani, director of the ANC historical archives project. Ramdhani received a master’s degree in history with a concentration in archival management from UConn in 1990.

Frankel steps down from IMLS

Diane Frankel stepped down as the director of the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) at the end of March. Originally appointed by President Bill Clinton to be the director of IMLS, Frankel led the agency through its transition to include federal library as well as museum programs. Upon learning of her resignation, Clinton said “Diane Frankel’s outstanding leadership skills have expertly guided the Institute of Museum and Library Services through a period of growth and change.”

During her five-and-one-half years of service, Frankel made great strides in working with both the museum and library communities. She convened the first joint meetings of the National Commission on Libraries and Information Science and the National Museum Board to provide policy advice. She worked with the library community to ensure a smooth transition to a new set of programs, freer of regulations, resulting in more flexibility to use funds to address high priority library needs and allowing federal library staff to improve customer service.

She worked with librarians to develop guidelines for a new federal library competitive grant program known as National Leadership Grants. Frankel said, “Through our joint efforts, I believe that this program will support projects of national significance to enhance the quality of services nationwide and provide an important opportunity for collaboration between museums and libraries.”

Missouri brings up online union catalog

A new union catalog came online in January through Mobius, a cooperative effort among academic libraries in Missouri. Materials from Washington University, St. Louis University, and the four University of Missouri campuses are now available.

“Washington University has 3.3 million volumes in its catalog; the five other universities’ holdings bring the union catalog total to seven million,” said Shirley Baker, Washington University vice chancellor for information technology and dean of university libraries. “Within four years, 50 colleges and universities in Missouri will be on board raising the number of volumes available to 13 million.”

Baker, a member of the Mobius Executive Committee, added that increased access to materials is not the only benefit of the catalog.

“The speed of delivery is much better than traditional library loans, which can take three weeks, and it’s less expensive to obtain the items, because the software does the work instead of staff,” Baker said. “The cost of borrowing through Mobius is one-tenth of the cost of interlibrary loans.”

Georgia introduces Web-based catalog

The Libraries of Georgia State University (GSU) have introduced GIL, a new, integrated online catalog system at http://gil.gsu.edu. GIL (GALILEO Interconnected Libraries) is a Web-based system with a Windows interface available at the Pullen, Law, and Instructional Technology Center at GSU. It replaces OLLI, the system in use at GSU since 1987. GIL is an Endeavor Voyager product scheduled for phase-in throughout the State University Sys- tem of Georgia, finally linking all 34 state universities in a statewide system. GIL is a continuation of the popular GALILEO project and GSU Libraries are the first large-scale implementation within the state. GSU is also one of three server sites for GIL, hosting the online library catalogs of 13 other state insti- tutions. The network is expected to be com- pleted within two years and will enable si- multaneous searching across multiple databases as well as universal borrowing throughout all 34 participating institutions. GIL is a user-friendly system with graphical inter- face, hotlinks from catalog records to relevant Web sites on the Internet, and enhanced ac- cess for off-campus users. It also offers pa- trons information on the status of specific journal issues, records for titles on-order, and options for printing, downloading, and e- mailing results.

University of Virginia's Library Cafe ranks #5

Results of a recent customer survey rank the University of Virginia’s Alderman Cafe among the top five college and university dining facilities serviced by ARAmark, Inc., a national contract food service provider. The coffee house, located inside Alderman Library’s Memorial Hall, has become a popular meeting place for students, faculty, and staff since its opening on September 1, 1998.

Cafe supervisor, Diane McLellan attributes the shop’s success to the relaxed attitude of its patrons. “It doesn’t matter whether someone’s an undergraduate, a tenured professor, or the dean of students. In here, they’re a tall latte, an iced chai, or a grande mocha,” she said. “The laid back atmosphere really breaks down barriers.”

The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Rare Books and Special Collections Library has a number of bookplates featuring various funds. Here are three submitted by Barbara Jones, RBSC librarian. Send in your favorite bookplates to Bookplates, C&RL News, 50 E. Huron St., Chicago, IL 60611.

Six Texas colleges select SIRSI

Six Texas colleges have selected Sirsi Corporation’s Unicorn Library Management System to automate their libraries, joining an increasing number of Texas libraries that have SIRSI. The libraries of Alvin Community College, Angelina College in Lufkin, North Central Texas College in Gainesville, Northeast Texas Community College in Mt. Pleasant, Panola College in Carthage, and South Texas Community College in McAllen will use SIRSI’s WebCat to provide an online public access catalog for students and WorkFlows to provide library staff with an easy-to-use staff client. Rice University, St. Edward’s University in Austin, Our Lady of the Lake University in San Antonio, and Texas Medical Center Libraries in Houston are among other academic libraries in Texas using SIRSI’s Unicorn system.

New books on Friends, reference, and service published by ACRL

Friends of College Libraries,2^nd Edition CLIP Note #27, compiled by Ronelle K. H. Thompson and Ann M. Smith examines the roles of library friends groups from assisting in strengthening the resources and services a library is able to provide its constituents to advocating on behalf of a library’s interests. This volume discusses establishing library friends groups and includes a survey of library practices as well as sample documents such as constitution and bylaws, membership brochures, program ideas, newsletters, and publications. Friends is available for $25.00 to ACRL members; $28.00 list price. (ISBN:0- 8389-8002-3)

The Reference Encounter: Interpersonal Communication in the Academic Library,ACRL’s Publications in Librarianship no. 52, by Marie L. Radford challenges the traditional view of reference goals: the belief that users seek only satisfactory answers to their questions. The research presented shows that users and librarians differ in their descriptions of goals for reference, and that of critical importance is the goal of building positive relationships with library users.

Both content and rela- tional dimensions are present in every instance of interpersonal communication. Like other types of in- teractions, the information exchange between librarian and user is not, and cannot be, free of relational messages.

This book adds to our current understanding of this complex process by exploring interpersonal issues in the academic reference encounter through in-depth interviews following reference interactions at academic libraries.

Illustrated with the eloquent voice of both library users and librarians, the results help explain the complex nature of the communication process inherent in reference transactions. The Reference Encounter is available for $27.00 to ACRL members; $30.00 list price. (ISBN:0-8389-7951-3) ■