ACRL College & Researc Libraries News

College & Research Libraries News

News from the Field

Mary Ellen Davis

Jenkins to step down from ACRL

Althea H. Jenkins will be stepping down as executive director of ACRL at the end of July 2001. Originally se- lected for the position by the ACRL Board of Directors and ap- pointed by the ALA executive director in 1991, Jenkins led the association through its transition to be a fi- nancially stable, pro- active advocate for academic librarians, as well as an efficient delivery operation for services, products, and programs to members.

Althea H. Jenkins

Helen Spalding, currently ACRL’s councilor and the newly elected ACRL viœ-presi- dent/president-elect, said, “Althea Jenkins has been an impressive, articulate, and credible advocate and has extended partnerships of mutual benefit to the higher education and academic library communities.”

During her ten-year tenure with ACRL, Jenkins compiled a list of impressive accomplishments, including increasing the financial resources of the association; expanding its publication program, including electronic resources; strengthening the continuing education offerings; developing collaborations and partnerships with higher education and other information-related organizations; and promoting information literacy as a concept for student learning.

Jenkins said, “As executive director of ACRL, I have had an unparalleled opportunity to view the work of academic libraries within their institutions nationwide and observe the contributions they make. Our libraries, as the cornerstones of a democratic society, have the capacity for changing lives. Their achievement of this mission is very evident on college and university campuses across the country.

“It has been a great privilege to serve the academic library community in this rewarding way. Helping academic librarians gain the knowledge and skills needed to serve their constituents is one of the highest priorities of the ACRL Board of Directors. I am • pleased to have contributed to ACRL’s success in this area.”

Jenkins will join the Florida State University (FSU) staff as director of University Libraries. In addition to providing leadership and managing two main libraries (Strozier and Dirac) on the FSU campus, Jenkins will be responsible for the information resources and services of nine other departmental, regional, and international university libraries.

FSU is a research university serving nearly 26,000 students enrolled in undergraduate and graduate programs. The libraries have holdings of more than 2.3 million volumes and an annual budget of $12.5 million.

Jenkins previously served as library director at the University of South Florida at Sarasota/ New College and Miami-Dade Community College. She is currently a member of the American Association for Higher Education; the Teaching, Learning, and Technology Group; the Eckerd College Board of Trustees; the University of Pittsburgh Library Visiting Committee; and the North Central Accrediting Association Institutional Action Council.

In 2000, she received the FSU School of Information Studies Distinguished Alumni award. Jenkins holds a B.S. from Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University, an MLS from Florida State University, and an Ed.D from Nova Southeastern University.

The ACRL Board will work with ALA to initiate a search process to immediately hire a new executive director.

Harvard Library theft

French historical materials dating from the late 18th century have been reported stolen from Harvard’s Widener Library. Harvard College Library officials suspected theft when a number of empty book covers were discovered in the Widener stacks on April 19. A subsequent inventory conducted by library staff confirmed that a total of 46 items—ineluding pamphlets, journals, and books from the French Revolution and Napoleonic periods, valued at approximately $10,000—were missing.

The Harvard University Police Department is investigating the case and is working with library officials to gather information for the involvement of other law enforcement agencies. Book dealers, research libraries, and dealers specializing in French antiquities are being notified. Anyone with information pertaining to the whereabouts of these materials is asked to contact Detective Sgt. Richard Mederos, Criminal Investigation Division, Harvard University Police Department, (617) 495-1796, e- mail: LHCL@fas.harvard.edu.

ACRL selects 23 libraries for info literacy assessment project

Twenty-three libraries have been selected to participate in the ACRL project “Assessing Student Learning Outcomes in Information Literacy Programs: Training Academic Librarians.” The purpose of this project, funded by a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), is to train academic librarians who will work with faculty to design, implement, and evaluate tools for assessing student learning resulting from information literacy instruction taught by librarians and faculty. Close campus partnerships will help define student learning outcomes based on the new “Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education.”

Participants include representatives from throughout the United States and include four- year public and private colleges as well as comprehensive universities, community col- leges, and research universities. The institu- tions are Western State College, Dakota State University, Indiana Purdue University-Colum- bus, Lewis and Clark College, Oberlin College, Illinois Wesleyan University, St. Olaf College, Lexington Community College, Diablo Valley College, Tompkins Courtland Community Col- lege, Spokane Falls Community College, Highline Community College, Midlands Tech- nical College, University of the Pacific, Califor- nia State University-Northridge, Millersville Uni- versity, Appalachian State University, Austin Peay State University, Hunter College, Univer- sity of Cincinnati, Regent University, Univer- sity of Northern Colorado, and Montana State University-Bozeman.

Wisconsin libraries debut new loan program

As a part of their Cooperative Access Program (CAP), the libraries of Marquette University, the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UWM), and the Medical College of Wisconsin (MCW) have implemented a unique cooperative loan program that makes temporary transfers of ar- chival and manuscript resources possible among the three institutions within two busi- ness days.

Descriptions of each institution’s collections may be found on the Web: UWM at http://www. uwm.edu/Library/arch/invenah.htm; MCW Archives at http://www.lib.mcw.edu; and Marquette’s holdings at http://www.marquette. edu/library/collections/archives.

Due to donor restrictions, institutional poli- cies, and preservation concerns, some collections at each repository will not be available for transfer, but those that are can generally be loaned for up to 20 days. For more information about the SHSW’s Area Research Center network, visit the Web at http://www.shsw.wisc.edu/ archives/arcnet.

Pitt develops e-print server

The University of Pittsburgh Library System, in collaboration with the Department of History and Philoso- phy of Science and Center for Phi- losophy of Science have developed and implemented a new electronic archive for preprints in the philosophy of science. The preprint service, called the PhilSci Archive (http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/) provides a forum for authors who wish to present their ideas to the scholarly community quickly, and receive critical response in a timely fashion.

The archive uses electronic preprint server software from ePrint.org, an organization that is part of the Open Citation Project, a DLI2 International Digital Libraries Project funded by the Joint Information Systems Committee of the Higher Education Funding Councils, in collaboration with the National Science Foundation. The PhilSci Archive preprint server supports the Open Archives Initiative, which develops and promotes interoperability standards that aim to facilitate the efficient dissemination of content.

Call for popular culture papers

The Popular Culture Association is seeking proposals for its annual joint meeting with the American Culture Association in Toronto, Canada, on March 13-16, 2002.

The Libraries, Archives, and Popular Culture Research Area is soliciting papers dealing with any aspect of popular culture as it pertains to libraries, archives, museums, or research.

Prospective presenters should send a one- page abstract by September 15, 2001, to Allen Ellis, W. Frank Steely Library, Northern Kentucky University, Highland Heights, KY 41099- 6101, e-mail: ellisa@nku.edu.

ACRL's characteristics of best practices in information literacy available

The characteristics of best practices in information literacy programming are now available as a checklist on the Web at http://www.ala.org/acrl/infolit.html. Select “Information Literacy Best Practices.”

A team of six librarians, a classroom faculty member, and an information technologist, working under the auspices of ACRL’s Institute for Information Literacy, developed the list over the last year.

The Web site includes the ability to add comments that will be considered during future revisions.

Updating knowledge, networking and sharing ideas, and learning about new products are key reasons librarians attend the ACRL National Conference. If you missed the conference, you can still keep up with the sessions by purchasing audiotapes (see page 588), a conference proceedings, or viewing a Webcast of selected programs. Details on the Webcast will be posted to the Web at http://www.ala.org/acrl/denver.html.

This statement of best practices is intended to serve as a benchmark for assessing an information literacy program. These characteristics of best practice along with outcomes assessment based on the ACRL “Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education” (http://www.ala.org/acrl/ ilcomstan.html) provide a robust multidimensional approach to program assessment.

The list of characteristics of best practices remains a working draft until it is tested against real programs. This testing will be done in the process of selecting eight-to-ten institutions for a national invitational conference on best practices in information literacy programming in Atlanta in 2002. It will be held prior to the ALA’s Annual Conference.

During this conference, the characteristics will be reviewed and revised based on the discussions. A revised edition is expect to be released sometime in late 2002 with documentation of the programs that were part of the invitational conference.

More information on the best practices project is available at http://www.ala.org/acrl/ nili/bestprac.html. Inquiries about the characteristics and about the invitational conference should be directed to Tom Kirk, Earlham College, phone: (765) 983-1360, e-mail: kirkto@earlham.edu.