ACRL College & Research Libraries News

College & Research Libraries News

Association of College and Research Libraries: Annual Report of the President 1975-76

The 1975-76 sociopolitical setting has not been a particularly beneficial one for the library profession; the economic and unemployment problems on the national and local scenes have also hit hard in the field of education and libraries. Some public libraries have been virtually closed or have had their services sharply curtailed; some colleges have been closed, merged, or radically transformed. Yet, ALA has managed (for this fiscal year, at least) to get into the black, and ACRL continues to be solvent. Professionally, it has been a year of vitality, creativity, and productivity.

Like any other dynamic organism whose system has experienced a radical, internal change, ALA, as a result of the impact of the new dues structure, is presently in a period where the emphasis is on “homeostasis.” (From my reading of the literature of organizational theory, I offer a working definition of “homeostasis” as: “That tendency of an organization to keep the steady state through a self-regulating system which tends to maintain internal balance.”) As the organization’s components struggle and juggle and shift in order to regain equilibrium, the most important priority in each unit at this time is that vital, balancing effort—the realignment in order to survive.

Fortunately, ACRL’s ∞ncem for survival need not be as sharp as that of some other divisions, because, with a budget that is still in the black and 9,390 members (September 30, 1975, figure), ACRL is still the largest division. Lack of immediate financial concern, however, does not necessarily mean a decrease of homeostatic activity within the division. Realignment is our top concern, too; a more detailed discussion of the impact of the new dues structure on ACRL appeared in the April 1976 issue of the News.

ACRL Activities

One of the division’s major efforts toward realignment is the Ad Hoc Committee on Goals, chaired by LeMoyne Anderson, which has been in existence for several years. This committee’s assignment is to review the division structure and its goals and objectives and to make long- range recommendations regarding the same. The first draft of the committee’s report and recommendations is almost complete and should be made available for review of the membership sometime in the coming year.

ACRL has developed procedures for the operation of Choice and has attempted to clarify the governance of the magazine. In April, Mel George, chairperson of the Choice Editorial Hoard, and I appeared before the ALA Executive Board to discuss the status of Choice and to point out that the magazine is a top ACRL program and that its management and control should be delegated to the ACRL Directors Board in the same manner as any other ACRL program. The ALA Executive Board felt this to be a matter to be investigated extensively and, therefore, ruled that the ALA president appoint an ad hoc committee to do this. The committee is to consist of one representative each from the ALA Executive Board, COPES, the ALA Publishing Committee, the ACRL Board of Directors, the ACRL Publications Committee, and the Choice Editorial Board. Their report and recommendations regarding Choice are due in by 1977 Midwinter.

With the exception of Choice, which has a paid editor and staff, our excellent ACRL publications are the result of volunteer effort. ACRL Publications in Librarianship, the College & Research Libraries, and the College & Research Libraries News are all labors of love. Richard Johnson, editor of College & Research Libraries, is publishing a commendable centennial series of ten landmark articles by ten librarians, which deal with specific topics over the past 100 years.

Who speaks for collective bargaining concerns in ALA? Should it be the Library Administration Division? That is what ALA policy decrees as it is now written. Some people feel that lodging official policy-making authority in LAD for collective bargaining matters could in itself be viewed as a bias of the association. Last year, ACRL asked the ALA Executive Board to grant permission for the division to speak for ALA on collective bargaining matters involving academic libraries. C. James Schmidt, chairperson of the Committee on Academic Status, represented the ACRL president before the ALA Executive Board. The Executive Board recommended the matter to COO for further study; and COO subsequently ruled that divisions could speak for their members on collective bargaining and recommended the matter to Council in order that the policy might be revised and updated.

The ACRL Internship Program, a three-year program funded by a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, has just completed its second year in operation. The program, whose objective is to accelerate the development of management ability of librarians in black colleges and universities by providing them with internship experience in the administration of strong and progressive academic libraries, has been a successful one and one of which the division is proud. See the July-August 1975 issue of the News (p.215) for more on this program.

An ACRL president’s annual report is essentially a report of the hard work of others. Similarly, an ACRL president would be nothing without a good, hard-working administrative staff at the ACRL office. An organization may profess to be run by its membership, but the level of the quality and expertise of elected officers fluctuates from year to year, and the elected officers usually have other full-time jobs to perform—these are a couple among the many reasons that make it mandatory to have a division executive secretary with top-level management expertise, diplomatic skills and leadership ability, and a complete division staff that is diligent, committed, and ethical. I am happy to be able to say that ACRL has such a staff. I consider myself lucky because I could not have functioned as president without the support, encouragement and advice of these good people.

Lynn Dennison was absent from the office for about six months of the year. She spent her leave traveling all over the country studying reference services in community college libraries—a project for which she received a Council on Library Resources Mid-Career Fellowship. Shari Brace, a friend and hard worker, resigned in April to take a job with a law firm.

The Sections

The work of ACRL is largely done through the division’s standing committees, sections and section committees, and its chapters. The range and richness of the division’s program may perhaps best be viewed through the diversity of its thirteen sections. All of the sections have been operating very actively.

The ACRL Committees

Special thanks is given for the support and commitment of the ACRL Directors Board, which has to digest and make decisions on all of the proposals and recommendations from all the sections, committees, and chapters; that’s where “the buck really stops.” The Directors Board has made a number of changes in the committees this year—perhaps due indirectly to the dues structure. Two examples of these changes are the Ad Hoc Committee on Budget and Finance and the Chapter Committee, which were given permanent status. The Membership Committee is a new committee this year that resulted directly from the dues structure. The Planning Committee has been reviewing and recommending on the status and charge of all committees—and this committee itself was revised greatly this year. The Constitution Committee gave out the interpretation that committees do not include editorial boards. The Publications Committee has put much time and deliberation into the evaluation of recommendations for membership, status, operational, and other changes involving editorial boards—the clarification of the status of Choice being only one of this committee’s time-consuming assignments.

Your ACRL president, of course, chaired the division’s Chicago Conference Planning Committee and was grateful for the dedication and assistance provided by Herbert Biblo, Chicago Local Arrangements chairperson. The Chicago Conference is, as you know, our Centennial Conference and Allie Beth Martin selected the theme “Celebrate!” for it. It was she also who decided on the ethnic theme as a backdrop for the centennial celebration. She then requested me to coordinate all of the ethnic programs that were being planned throughout ALA so that they would all be well publicized. Taking a cue from the ALA president, the ACRL main program theme was “Let’s Celebrate Ethnicity!” The ACRL main program on Monday, July 19, features Julian Bond.

During the Centennial Conference, the Johnson Publishing Company kindly plans to host a reception in honor of Clara S. Jones as the first black president of ALA. ACRL and the ALA Black Librarians Caucus are jointly assisting in the implementation of this event.

The Committee on Academic Status compiled Faculty Status for Academic Librarians: A History and Policy Statements, a volume which was published by ALA this year. A subcommittee of the Committee on Standards and Accreditation, headed by Johnnie Givens, completed its work last summer and produced the revised Standards for College Libraries. The Standards Committee now has a new subcommittee, chaired by William Hoffman, which is preparing a revision of the Guidelines for Two- Year College Learning Resources Programs.

The Association of Research Libraries and the ACRL Joint Committee on the Development of a Statement on University Library Standards recently won a $7,300 grant from the J. Morris Jones Award to support their work on standards.

Much appreciation is due to all of the hardworking Directors Board members, section officers and section committee members, division committee members, and chapter members.

The Chapters

For the past several years, ACRL has been encouraging the development of state chapters. Chapters are viewed at the same time as vehicles for more grass-roots involvement in the affairs of the association and as a source of stimulating membership recruitment. The New England chapter has been one of the most vivacious and creative. Some people who have put a lot of extra time and talent and effort into chapter development are Tom Cahalan, George Bailey, and Norman Tanis. Many other people also worked long and hard for chapters.

The Individuals

Countless individuals who are not involved in either committee or chapter work have provided valuable contributions to ACRL. Those of you out there who only stood and waited— who simply made the decision to renew your membership another year and/or to attend the Midwinter or Annual conventions—are valuable to us too: keep on doing that.

An ongoing concern of ACRL presidents has been a recognition of the impossibility of actively involving every willing member in the affairs of the division. One of the prime objectives of my term in office has been to facilitate the involvement in division affairs of minorities, women, and others who have not previously had the opportunity to participate. I am satisfied that, to a modest degree, I succeeded in the implementation of this objective.

The president’s ceremonial duties this year involved attending the inauguration of President James Brickley at Eastern Michigan University in Ypsilanti; the ACE Conference in Washington, D.C.; and speaking engagements to chapters in Madison, Wisconsin, and St. Louis, Missouri. I am grateful that Beverly Lynch, Connie Dunlap, Richard Olsen, A. P. Marshall, and others were able to help out by absorbing some other ceremonial assignments.

Also, I’ve called together a committee to evaluate the ACRL executive secretary. The evaluation report is to be presented to the ACRL Directors Board in July. This committee is chaired by Joanne Harrar and the other members are: Richard Ducote, Mel George, and Avery Williams. I am duly grateful that Dr. Harrar accepted this assignment on top of all her other numerous duties and in spite of the fact that she was just getting used to her new position at the University of Maryland.

Lastly, I hope that I have been able to set the tone for a healthy and meaningful organizational dialogue to start taking place concerning the role and relationship of the division office and the executive secretary with the ACRL Directors Board, the ALA Headquarters, and the ALA Executive Board.

Thank you for electing me your ACRL president. It has been a pleasure and an honor to serve you. And it has been a year of growth and development for me. The year was saddened by the illness and death of Allie Beth Martin. Since it was she who selected the theme “Celebrate!” for our Centennial Conference, it is my hope that the implementation of all of our program plans will be successful enough to serve as a fitting celebration to her spirit.

Louise Giles President, ACRL