ACRL College & Research Libraries News

College & Research Libraries News

Cincinnati: Building on the First Century

ACRL’s Fifth National Conference, April 5-8,1989, marked one hundred years of progress.

Academic and research librarians from all 50 states and eight foreign countries paid court to the Queen City at ACRL’s Fifth National Conference, April 5-8. Attendance was higher than at any other ACRL conference, topping by nearly 300 the previous record set in Boston in 1978 at ACRL’s first. By Friday, 2,128 librarians had registered, along with 551 exhibitors, 191 exhibits-only passes, and 17 guests.

Perhaps it was the baseball, or the chili, or the season, or the riverfront—or a combination of many factors—but the atmosphere matched the mood of our members, who seemed eager to meet with their peers and seek inspiration from the programs and papers, without the burden of committee work.

NeXT’s Michael Hawley entertains at the piano during an ACRL reception.

ACRL president Joe Boissé (University of California, Santa Barbara) pitched the first ball at the Reds/Dodgers baseball game Wednesday night, and Julie Houston (Ohio Wesleyan University), chosen in a nation-wide competition, sang the national anthem. Five hundred conferees braved the chill night air to watch the Reds win and see ACRL conference facts go up in lights on the Reds’ scoreboard.

The programs

Attendance was high at the five program sessions, which looked to the future as well as the past. Although Steven Jobs, co-founder of Apple Computer and president of NeXT, Inc., was unable to give the opening keynote address, Michael Hawley, also of NeXT and developer of the digital books for the NeXT computer, took his place. Hawley opened with a list of “Great Moments in Book Technology” that began with Ts’ai Lun’s invention of paper in 105 A.D. and ended with the digital book.

The first generation of NeXT computers will be loaded with a few of these digital books, among them Webster’s Ninth Collegiate Dictionary and the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations. Hawley demonstrated how these worked by looking up a quote from his digitized version of the complete works of Shakespeare, bringing up the definitions and illustrations of some of the words in the quote, and finding related quotations—all on one NeXT screen! Having a 250-megabyte hard drive and a huge amount of memory helps.

Getting the NeXT computer to interface with the large-screen video projection system that Hawley used for his presentation was tricky, according to conference manager Cathleen Bourdon. “On Tuesday night,” she said, “we learned that the only interface that would make the system work was at NeXT in California. A NeXT technician and the interface immediately hopped a flight from California and, after many hours of set-up, got the place wired flawlessly.”

Hawley also described some of the musical innovations he has been responsible for as a graduate student at MIT, among them a computerized piano that accompanies a violinist and allows for the soloist’s variations in tempo. At a reception in Joe Boissé’s suite that evening, Hawley demonstrated his own pianistic expertise by playing classical music, show tunes, and Scott Joplin rags.

Robert A. Caro, Pulitzer Prize-winning author and biographer of Robert Moses, described his work on a three-volume life of Lyndon B. Johnson. Early on in his research he realized that in order to understand the environment that shaped LBJ’s personality and politics, he would have to experience the Texas hill country at first hand. For three

Multi-window magic with the NeXT computer, at Hawley’s presentation.

Edward G. Holley.

Mary Anne Dolan.

Samuel D. Proctor, professor emeritus of education at Rutgers University, delivered an inspiring oration on the importance of quality education for the future of American society. Proctor charged his audience, as educators, with a mission to “uplift students above the neurological and the instinctive and induct them into the life of the mind and the world of thought.” A classical education, with its emphasis on character building, “is the most profound answer to the travails of modern life.” It shows young people, he said, the margin of freedom they have in their lives by taking them beyond the indicative (“I do”) and imperative (”Do!”) modes to the subjective (“What could I do”).

Mary Anne Dolan, former editor of the Los Angeles Herald Examiner, expanded on her article, “When Feminism Failed,” in the June 26, 1988, New York Times Magazine, which describes her disillusionment with the women on her staff who were unable to resist the “male corporate tendencies of power, money and status.” Dolan warned of the problems facing the next generation of children who are “in double jeopardy by modeling their behavior on mothers who are reinforcing the male models of the past.” She called for a second stage of feminism in which the differences between men and women are reaffirmed.

A panel of four librarians, moderated by Maureen Sullivan (Yale University), reacted to Dolan’s presentation, which was expected to generate some controversy. Susan Brynteson (University of Delaware), Richard Dougherty (University of Michigan) , Debbie Hull (ISI Marketing), and Sarah Pritchard (Library of Congress and chair-elect of ACRL’s Women’s Studies Section) commented on the speaker’s viewpoint. Pritchard’s description of women’s growth of power within librarianship and the American Library Association was very penetrating.

Other program sessions included Ed Holley’s address at the luncheon honoring academic leaders (reprinted in this issue on pp. 464-67); differing viewpoints on education for librarianship debated by Robert Hayes (University of California) and Irene Hoadley (Texas A&M University), and moderated by Pat Swanson (University of Chicago); sneak previews of new automated library systems, collection materials, and related services by 20 different vendors; the changing mission, goals and objectives of college libraries over the past 100 years, analyzed by library directors from various types of institutions; and a two-day post-conference on “Inspiring Enthusiasm for Research,” in which 11 presenters suggested ways in which barriers to library research might be removed, ways to set up an administrative framework for supporting research, and ways for researchers to network both within the institution and outside it.

Papers and poster sessions

Four weeks before the conference when advance registration hit 1,600, the conference planners realized that there would probably be overcrowding in the meeting rooms. Since the rooms couldn’t be enlarged, the ACRL staff prepared signs offering an alternative: “Sorry, session is full. Plenty of room in the exhibitsl” Local arrangements coordinator Ron Frommeyer (University of Cincinnati) and his assistants had the dubious task of telling attendees that sessions were full. Ron said that most of them were understanding.

C‹bRL Newsreporters managed to squeeze into a few sessions. George Eberhart attended one that described the series of Australian dime novels published by Alfred Cecil Rowlandson in the late 19th century. Carol Mills, librarian at the Riverina- Murray Institute of Higher Education in Australia, described the difficulty she had in tracking down this fugitive material, much valued for its artwork.

“Inside the Library Research Process,” presented by Carol Kuhlthau (Rutgers University) and

Robert Hayes and Irene Hoadley.

Mary George (Princeton University), focused on users’ thoughts and feelings as they seek information. Reporter Laura A. Sullivan (Northern Kentucky University) said that Kuhlthau’s Information Search Process model helps the reference librarian determine the real question a user has and what stage they are at in the search process.

Choicemagazine celebrated its own anniversary (its 25th) with a paper session. Editorial staff members Helen M. MacLam and Ronald H. Epp were joined by reviewer Steven Bowman (Department of History, University of Cincinnati) for a discussion of the political and ethical issues in reviewing. Case studies based on actual incidents in Choice’s publishing history were used as illustrations of problems and solutions.

“Back to the Future: Closing the Periodical Stacks“ was attended by Rebecca Sturm Keim (Northern Kentucky University), who reports: ’’Introducing herself as a Dutch woman married to a Polish man and having a name possible only in America, Tjalda Belastock’s was a lively and productive session. The library at Bentley College made the decision to go back to the closed stacks oí the past in an effort to provide better access for all users. Service efforts were being thwarted by mutilation and loss, duplicate subscriptions were costly, and frustration for both users and staff was high. Treating the periodicals area, as a reserve collection proved most successful. Her audience was obviously an interested one, and the question and answer portion of the session was well used.”

Samuel D. Proctor.

Robert A. Caro.

The Conference proceedings will be available at the end of June and will be sent to all full conference registrants. Support for printing the proceedings has been generously provided by the Faxon Company. Those who were not full conference registrants may purchase the proceedings for $22 (ACRL members) or $30 (non-members).

Thirty-eight poster sessions, reviewed and selected by members of the National Conference Program Committee, were presented in the exhibit hall on Thursday and Friday. The sessions offered an opportunity for an informal exchange of practical concepts and methods.

Other events

Each of the program sessions was preceded by the presentation of one or more “distinguished career citations” to librarians whose careers had ended before the establishment of ACRL’s Academic or Research Librarian of the Year Award. Those honored were: Page Ackerman, Gertrude Annan, Jack Dalton, Herman Fussier, Guy Lyle, A.P. Marshall, Lawrence Powell, Joseph Reason, Eileen Thornton, and James O. Wallace.

Many of the exhibitors at conference were pleased with the “humane hours” allotted for the Exhibit Hall, which allowed those who were tied to the booths all day an early escape time of 3:00 p.m. to join librarians and others at receptions, baseball games, and dinner. The white aisle carpeting in the exhibit hall really brightened up the place and garnered many comments. Exhibits manager Sandy Donnelly went to great pains to persuade the decorating company that peach drapes and white carpeting really would work.

Joseph H. Reason (left), ACRL president in 1971-72, is honored by current president Joseph Boissé (right).

Left to right: Joe Boissé, Martha Bowman, and Evan Farber cut the ribbon at the exhibits opening.

Choice celebrates its own anniversary at the exhibits booth.

ACRL program officer Alia Al-Taqi spent most of her time at the membership and exhibitor registration booths. One time, while she was making exhibitor badges, a vendor with an excruciatingly long name stopped by to register. It took Alia three tries to get it right. Only then did she realize that he was really signing up for a Tri-State Industrial Conference going on at the same time. He kept the badge as a souvenir.

The receptions at the Public Library of Cincinnati, the Lloyd Library, and the Contemporary Arts Center (where the “Hope Springs” exhibit was featured) were outstanding. Editor George Eberhart spent many fun-filled minutes taking photographs of ACRL members eating, drinking, and dancing the night away. ACRL executive director JoAn Segal said, “Social time was great as one party outdid the other. So, speaking moderately, I’d say Conference was a smashing success!”

Margaret Myers, director of the ALA Office for Library Personnel Resources, and Beverley Washington, ACRL administrative secretary, never sat down while working in the Conference Placement Center. More than 120 job seekers had their pick of the 219 jobs that were listed at the center.

The National Conference Committee deserves a round of applause for a well-planned, exciting event: Martha Bowman and Evan Farber (cochairs) , Jan Fennell (contributed papers), Mary Ellen Elsbernd (local arrangements), Jordan M. Scepanski (programs), and Anne Kearney (conference assistant).

ACRL meets the press

Program officer Mary Ellen Davis spent most of her time in the ACRL press room, but it wasn’t all fun and games. She reports: “Working in the Press Room was quite different from attending the usual round of committee meetings. Deb Robertson, ALA’s public information officer, and I processed requests for press badges and answered people’s questions about what was happening. One afternoon a man walked in and asked for a press pass. Now that I was experienced in this process, I routinely asked him for his press identification. I was not prepared for his press i.d. to say CBS News.

“I gulped and tried not to look too much in shock as I typed his name and affiliation. (Wow, I thought. CBS News is covering our Cincinnati Conference. We have really made the big time. I had visions of Dan Rather or Charles Kerault doing an interest piece on academic librarians.) Such hopes were soon dashed, however, as I talked with the reporter. He said he had been sent down to cover the Pete Rose story and that nothing was happening today so they had sent him over to find out what the librarians were up to. The reporter was not too excited about the prospect and claimed he had been sent over just to prevent him from being paid for hanging out and drinking coffee.”

Ree DeDonato, New York University, explains the finer points of NYU’s campus network during a poster session.

Alia Al-Taqi says that ACRL’s centennial t-shirts will still be on sale at Dallas.

Never too early to plan

ACRL’s Sixth National Conference will take place in Phoenix, Arizona, April 1-4, 1992. We hope you will join us there when ACRL returns to the West!—GME. ■ ■