ACRL College & Research Libraries News

Association of College & Research Libraries

News from the Field

Mary Ellen Davis

ALA under attack

“What lurks in the library?” screams the September 18 headline of an article in Citizen, the publication of Focus on the Family, a Christian organization. The article goes on to say that the ALA “believes children should have access to all material, no matter how violent or obscene.”

This article seems to be part of a well-planned attack on ALA and its freedom of information policies in connection with Banned Books Week—Celebrating the Freedom to Read, which began September 23.

The attack was launched at a press conference held on September 18 by Focus on the Family, which charged ALA with falsifying reports of banned books and being antifamily. At the same time, the Family Research Council released results of a survey that claims to show libraries are failing to collect and preserve classic materials.

Judith Krug, director of ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom (OIF), described the group’s claims as false and misleading. “Contrary to what Focus on the Family would have the public believe, ALA strongly encourages parents to monitor and guide their children’s reading. We do not believe that responsibility extends to censoring what other people’s children read.”

ALA issued an intellectual freedom alert, urging all who care about libraries and intellectual freedom to help defend against this attack. Copies of the materials distributed by Focus on the Family are available from OIF by calling (800) 545-2433 ext. 4226 or 4220, or by e-mail: donna.reidy.pistolis@ala.org.

Active learning materials available via ftp

The Continuing Education Committee of the ACRL Instruction Section (formerly the Bibliographic Instruction Section) has made the materials from its June 1994 preconference available via ftp. Electronic text-only copies of all the materials used at the preconference, “Integrating Active Learning into Library Instruction: Practical Information for Immediate Use,” can be retrieved via ftp from: ftp://library.uncc.edu/ dist/alaa.94/active.txt. The file is fairly large (approximately 80 pages). Note. Two of the articles were omitted due to copyright restrictions.

ACRL launches author mentoring program

Need help improving your writing skills? ACRL president Patricia Breivik plans to create an electronic mentoring program to help members improve writing skills for both practice and research publications. This program will offer librarians who are without a peer writing group the opportunity to receive advice about their writing. Electronic mentoring is intended to strengthen a writer’s style with regard to content, grammar, interest, and readability. Where to submit articles may also be discussed. The program supports goal one of ACRL’s new strategic plan “to contribute to the total professional development of academic and research librarians.”

To make the program work, ACRL is looking for volunteers to act as mentors. Volunteers should be published writers with a strong commitment to writing and a sincere willingness to teach others. If you are interested, contact Gloriana St. Clair, editor of College & Research Libraries‚ at gss@psulias.psu.edu.

Trαnsborder ILL guidelines available from ARL

“Transborder Interlibrary Loan: Shipping Interlibrary Loan Materials from the U.S. to Canada” has been developed by the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) to guide U.S. libraries on the most effective methods of shipping and returning materials to Canadian libraries. U.S. libraries have been known to pay customs clearance and postal handling fees of over $100 to borrow 21 reels of microfilm. The ARL document may be located on the ARL gopher (gopher to arl.cni.org) under the following menus: Access to Research Resources/Interlibrary Loan and Document Delivery/Shipping Interlibrary Loan Materials from the U.S. to Canada. Print copies will be sent only to those without gopher access. Contact Mary Jackson at mary@ cni.org or (202) 296-2296.

ALA holds information literacy hearing at Midwinter

ALA’s User Instruction for Information Literacy Committee invites interested members to a hearing to determine the need for the committee on Monday, January 22, 2:00–4:00 p.m., at the ALA Midwinter Meeting in San Antonio. The committee stated it had difficulty carrying out its charge to “review and coordinate ... activities within ALA regarding instruction for users in acquiring, or organizing, information … to encourage association-wide programming.... Cited reasons for the difficulty include lack of formal representation from other ALA groups involved in information literacy and the fact that those other ALA units are carrying out the programmatic activities.

Harvard and MIT sign reciprocal access agreements

Representatives of the Harvard College Library and MIT Libraries signed an agreement on July 24 establishing reciprocal library privileges for many members of the MIT and Harvard communities. The agreement, which went into effect on September 1, establishes closer relations between two schools that historically have had strong connections. It also follows the trend of academic libraries creating alliances' with peer institutions to expand their resources in a costeffective way.

Richard De Gennaro, Roy E. Larsen librarian of Harvard College, said, “I think this agreement will be advantageous to both schools, and I expect it will lead to other forms of library cooperation in the future.”

“Rettig on Reference” debuts on the Internet

“Rettig on Reference,” a free service sponsored by the H. W. Wilson Co., provides reviews of new reference books and Internet-based reference sources. As was the case when Jim Rettig was the reference book reviewer for the now defunct Wilson Library Bulletin, he writes all of the reviews. According to Rettig, “I have written these reviews to help fellow librarians select new reference books for their collections and decide whether or not to make local links to Internet sources.” For readers’ convenience, review headers provide hotlinks to publishers’ Web sites (when such exist) and to the URLs of Internet resources reviewed.

To read the first of the planned monthly installments, point your Web browser to: http: //www.hwwilson.com and click on “Rettig on Reference.” Rettig welcomes comments about the new service which may be sent to jrrett@mail.swem.wm.edu.

Among the more than dozen titles reviewed are The Fiction Dictionary, Directory of Business Periodical Issues, The Encyclopedia of the Motorcycle‚ and Scholars’ Guide to Washington, D.C.

Who uses the Internet?

Based on a recent market research study, “Defining the Internet Opportunity 1994-1995,” conducted for clients such as IBM, Lotus Development, and Turner Broadcasting Systems/ CNN, O’Reilly & Associates, a publisher of print and electronic products, and Trish Information Services, a market research service, project that 5.8 million U.S. adults have direct Internet access and use the Net at their place of work, home, or place of study. A further 3.9 million use commercial online services only.

Key demographic information about the Internet users found that: 67% of individuals with Internet access are male, and over half are between the ages of 18 and 34; a further 25% are in the 35–44 age bracket. Median annual household income of Internet users in 1994 was between $50,000 and $75,000. Close to half work in organizations with more than 1,000 employees. Of noneducational Internet users, the most frequent occupations are sales (19%) and engineering (15%).

The study used random digit dialing techniques to locate 1,000 individual Internet users and 500 other online service subscribers throughout the U.S., and completed telephone surveys with them.

Details of the study are posted on O’Reilly’s Web site at http://www.ora.com/survey/.

"The Life of a Book"

“The Life of a Book: It’s in Your Hands” is the theme of the Indiana University-Bloomington (IUB) Libraries’ Preservation Awareness Week celebrated November 6–10, 1995. Selected to emphasize the responsibility every library user has to care for the library materials he or she handles, the theme will be reinforced through exhibits and live demonstrations of preservation activities.

“Dr. Book,” who offers a consulting clinic for sick books and makes recommendations for treatment, will make an appearance. Free posters, acid-free bookmarks, and plastic book bags will be distributed.

The IUB Libraries lose thousands of dollars a year in library materials through careless handling, according to Lorraine Olley, head of the IUB Libraries’ Preservation Department. “Preservation Awareness Week will help focus attention on keeping our research resources intact for current use and future scholarship, and for making our very limited collection funds go farther.”

To order the materials or request a sample packet, contact Lorraine Olley, Preservation Dept., Main Library E050, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN 47405; e-mail: olley@indiana. edu; phone: (812) 855-6281.

Ed. note:See “Building preservation awareness” on page 707 for more ideas on publicizing the importance of preservation.

Listserv on collective bargaining started

COLLBARG—Collective Bargaining and Librarians—is a listserv created to initiate and encourage discussion about collective bargaining activities and strategies. Recent topics have included librarians’ economic status, institutional governance, and union vs. nonunion benefits comparisons.

William P. Kane of the University of Detroit Mercy Libraries founded the listserv after conducting a national survey entitled “Who Represents the Interests of Academic Librarians?” which indicated that tenure for librarians is eroding and that most librarians are not members of the union, nor are they interested in becoming members. Kane feels that the listserv— which now has over 300 subscribers from at least 10 countries—“is an electronic ‘safe house’ where librarians can freely participate in discussions about collective bargaining in a boisterous or nearly anonymous fashion.” To subscribe to the list send the message “subscribe collbarg Firstname Lastname” to listserv@cms. cc.wayne.edu. To submit messages or questions to be broadcast to the list, address e-mail to collbarg@cms.cc.wayne.edu.

USCD library renamed to honor Dr. Seuss

Audrey S. Geisel has given a substantial gift to the University of California, San Diego, Libraries. Although the donor does not wish the full amount of the gift to be disclosed, the San Francisco Chronicle claimed the gift was reported to be $20 million.

In recognition of the gift, UCSD’s architecturally unique University Library will be named Geisel Library in honor of Audrey and her late husband, Theodor Seuss Geisel, the world-renowned children’s book author known as Dr. Seuss.

Apparently the library, which opened in 1970, intrigued Geisel. “The first time Ted saw that form of the building he said to me, ‘If I had turned my thoughts toward designing a building, it might have looked strangely similar to this,’” explained his wife.

UCSD librarian Gerald R. Lowell said, “This magnificent gift will be used to increase access to scholarly information—through both print and electronic resources. It will also enhance our information literacy program, through which students acquire the skills to access and use information successfully, while at UCSD and throughout a lifetime of learning.”

Three years ago Audrey named UCSD the beneficiary of a $2.3 million collection of original material from the estate of her late husband. That donation contained books, drawings, sketches, notebooks, tapes, records, and memorabilia generally dating from the early 1970s through the early 1990s.

The University Library building at the University of California, San Diego, caught the fancy of Theodor Geisel, a.k.a. Dr. Seuss.