ACRL College & Researc Libraries News

College & Research Libraries News

ACRL NATIONAL CONFERENCE: Crossing the divide: Coverage from ACRL’s 10th National Conference, Part 2

This is the second half of the report from the ACRE National Confer- ence in Denver. Part one appeared in the May is- sue. C&RL News thanks the many volunteers who provided reports on the sessions.

What—do you get a brain with that?

At the paper session “What—do you get a brain with that? Jour- nal Access Paradigm Change at a Liberal Arts University,” James Harper and John Payne (Furman University) presented a creative response to the challenge of soar- ing science journal subscription costs. At Furman, the journal budget was continu- ally increased to pre- vent cuts, and the monograph budget was suffering.

Harper and Payne explained that the strategy was to target a group of science faculty, educate them about the serials crisis, provide them with an on-demand document delivery/SDI service trial as a potential replacement for individual subscriptions, and to do this in an atmosphere of trust—no cuts would be made unless the faculty preferred the document delivery solution.

Teri Switzer, John Culshaw, and Jennifer Kutzik were three of the ever-present, always-helpful Local Arrangements Committee who wore cowboy hats so that attendees could easily seek them out.

The initial service used for the trial was Carl Uncover, and then CISTI was added. The combination of two services seemed to work best. Faculty had unlimited search access, individual SDI profiles, and the option to request document delivery for an unlimited number of articles.

Harper and Payne reported that at the trial’s end, the faculty test group overwhelm- ingly preferred Fax/Ariel access to individual articles from thousands of titles rather than print access to only the titles in the library.

They also found that this solution was much less costly than either print or online full-text sub- scriptions. As a re- sult, the Furman fac- ulty opted to drop several print sub- scriptions to fund the document delivery system for all faculty, and the library was able to use some of the funds released by these cuts to in- crease monograph budgets.—Sharon Clayton, Knox College, sclayton@knox.edu

Digital collections and ToCs vs. full text

Leslie Manning moderated “Online Journals: Utility of ToCs vs. Full Text,” a rich and informative presentation of particular interest to science librarians.

Conference planners W. Lee Hisle (chair), Camila Alire (local arrangements), Nancy Allen (volunteers), and Jim Williams (local arrangements) relax at the All-Conference Reception at the Denver Art Museum.

Julie Hurd (University of Illinois at Chicago [UIC]) reported on her research concerning the acceptance and use of digital collections by scientists. This study employed the use of structured interviews with selected faculty in the basic and health sciences at UIC. The electronic resource most heavily used depended substantially upon the discipline involved. Users in the basic sciences reported a need for advance prints on publishers’ Web sites, but in the health sciences, interactive text products (such as MD Consult) were found to be more valuable, as were Web sites devoted to evidence-based medicine.

Specialized data repositories such as the Genome project represent another type of electronic product increasingly used by scientists.

“Path” plays a significant part in usage of electronic journals. While the library’s prepared listing of e-journals was heavily consulted, OPAC links were rarely used. Some of the unanticipated consequences of conducting the research included sharing information with faculty about new resources available through the library, garnering feedback on effective ways to communicate with faculty, and validating the importance of faculty input.

George Porter (California Institute of Technology) reported on an intriguing study, recently completed with CalTech IT colleague Ed Sponsler, in which the usefulness of non- full-text resources was examined. The study relied heavily on click-through technology to accumulate data on e-jour- nal use. Print journal use was also considered with data col- lected using reshelving counts.

Porter’s research revealed that non-full-text resources like table of contents (ToC) and ab- stracts may be profitably used to determine whether proper choices were made for journal cancellation, to gauge campus demand for a title, and to as- sist with licensing decisions.

Porter acknowledges that the user population at CalTech is somewhat rarefied, but the techniques he devised to mea- sure journal usage and the value of ToCs will be useful to science librarians in a variety of settings. As he put it, “Your mileage may vary, but the techniques will transfer.” It is interesting to note that, like Hurd, Porter reported that the meticulously maintained electronic journal list on the library system’s Web page, not OPAC, is the primary tool used by students and faculty seeking specific e-journals.

Additional information about this presentation may be found at http://library. caltech.edu/publications/acrldenver/.—Bìyna Coonin, East Carolina University, cooninb® mail.ecu.edu

Recruiting undergraduates to the profession

In “Academic Librarians: The Next Generation,” the panel challenged academic librarians to become active recruiters for the profession by treating student library workers as potential future librarians. The panelists—Ray English (Oberlin College), Nancy Magnuson (Goucher College), Carolyn Sheehy (North Central College), LeRoy Stohl (Mary Washington College)—described ways they had successfully encouraged some students to enter library school, which included developing student contracts that take into consideration the student’s skills and interests.

In addition to the typical tasks, they explored using students for developing and maintaining Web pages or turning to them for help in preservation and collection development. Regardless of their talents and skills, students can provide valuable input in evaluating new products or services. One panelist suggested offering awards to student assistants to recognize their contributions.

More generally, they suggested librarians look for mentoring opportunities, especially for students from different ethnic and racial backgrounds. The panelists offered the following advice. Have students attend conferences; visit other libraries or library schools. Participate in career day events or recruit alumni who have become librarians to speak at career-related events. If possible, offer financial incentives for students to attend library school.

As academic librarians, we have the opportunity to show students the benefits and the challenges of being a librarian. We are facing a shortage of librarians. At other conference sessions and round table discussions, there were reasons given for this shortage. This session presented creative ways to attract more undergraduates to the profession.—Joseph Fennewald, Pennsylvania State-Hazleton, jaf23@psuliaspsu.edu

"Shifting sands"—Our changing profession

This invited paper by Michael Ray, who joined the University of Arizona library in 1997 as a loaned executive and remains as their Team Systems director, is aimed at academic librarians who are alarmed about the sta- tus and future of their profes- sion. It is a case study of the university library, which by 1997 had undergone a team-based reorganization and assumed three strategic, administratively-supported projects: 1) digitally publishing special collections and journal articles on the Web, 2) developing partnerships with faculty to train students in Internet use, and 3) introducing information literacy to undergraduates in a new Integrated Learning Center.

Placed within the framework of professionalization theory, Ray’s study explains how librarianship competes within a larger, interdependent sphere of professions (which includes professors, publishers, and computer technicians) for legal, social, and technical control over occupational tasks. To maintain such jurisdictional control, professionals will simultaneously exclude others, delegate low-status tasks to paraprofessionals, usurp others’ functions, and try to gain entrance into denied areas.

Librarians in his case study adopted two new roles: instruction professional or information systems professional. The first group teams with professors to teach students Internet skills. The second view themselves as managers of knowledge, designers of databases, and experts in curricula, metadata, and copyright, thereby usurping other’s competencies. Librarians view the second role as providing greater prestige and future promise; it is more technical and closer to the market.

Ray recommends: 1) emphasizing continuing education (although he feels librarians should acquire Ph.D.s to be better accepted by faculty colleagues; many graduate library schools are now training undergraduates as information systems professionals for the corporate world), 2) changing the metaphor “information literacy” to “information navigation” to avoid negative connotations, such as “information illiterates,” and 3) constructing a customized model of online search requirements to reflect what faculty and students really need, rather than what vendors want to sell. Ray’s complete paper is available at http://www.ala.org/acrl/denver/ ray.html.—Margaret Holleman, Pima Community College, pholletnan@pimacc.pima.edu

ACRL Colleagues Chair Bill Miller and ACRL Executive Director Althea Jenkins chat with ACRL member Agnes Balash.

Making your library more ADA- compliant

In “Serving Users Who Need Help Reading the Fine Print—It’s All Fine Print to Them” Christina Woo (University of California, Irvine) described the integration of adaptive technology into the reference area.

Motivated by increasing numbers of students needing and accustomed to accessible technology, the University of California Library’s obsolete and remotely located equipment was replaced. The campus Office for Disability Services provided not only furniture, hardware (closed-circuit video magnification, PCs, scanners) and software (ZoomText, Kurzweil 1000/3000, JAWS), but also training for students and staff. One adaptive workstation was placed in the reference service area of the two campus libraries. Each workstation is available to all users; signage indicates that priority is for users with disabilities. Photographs illustrated the convenience and multiple purposes of the specialized furniture.

ACRL's new "Product Update Theater," where exhibitors could provide in-depth coverage of their services, proved popular with attendees and exhibitors alike.

Woo offered a variety of low-cost solutions to improve overall library accessibility. Kickstools allow users to view labels and materials on upper shelves; stools painted in high-contrast colors are more visible. Flashlights available at service points improve access in inadequately lit stacks. White text on black background is recommended for end- panel range signage. Wall-mounted signs placed at levels easily reached with a handheld magnifying glass improve independent navigation. Wooden blocks inexpensively transform tables for wheelchair access. Online availability of maps and other print handouts allow use with voice-output and magnification software.—Brenda L. Hazard, University at Albany, SUNY, bbl81@albany.edu

Science and information literacy on the Internet

Laura Bartolo and Aimee German (Kent State University) described collaboration between universities, K-12 schools, and industry in creating remote experiments and establish- ing criteria for evaluating Web resources in their presentation “Science and Information Literacy on the Internet: Using the ACRL and Project 2061 Standards to Create a Science Web Page Evaluation Tool.” Goals of the collabora- tion were to develop novel scientific re- sources, to encourage students’ interest in sci- ence, to promote inno- vative uses of technol- ogy, and to unify science literacy and in- formation literacy stan- dards.

Bartolo and German discussed how the col- laborative efforts began when the National Science Foundation’s Science and Technology Center for Advanced Liquid Crystalline Optical Materials—based at Kent State University, Case Western University, and the University of Akron—approached librarians at Kent State about outreach programs for K-12 schools. K-12 students and teachers in Cleveland city and Portage County schools designed experiments on topics such as wind tunnels and posted them on the Web (http:// olbers.kent.edu/alcomed/Remote/), so that anyone could use them. They also linked to information resources on their topics. Keithley Instruments and Beta-Micron provided equipment for running experiments.

Bartolo and German said selecting high- quality Web sites for linkage to these experiments, as well as creating high-quality sites for experiments, required infor- mation literacy skills and neces- sitated creation of criteria for evaluating Web sites. No exist- ing evaluative criteria had suf- ficiently unambiguous lan- guage. Proposed criteria fo- cused on sites’ text and creators and their appearance and navi- gability.

Students using the tool should have found, for ex- ample, Becky’s Guiding Re- source Centre (http://www. geocities.com/Heartland/Acres/ 6690/index.htm) “bad” and the Genetics Science Learning Center (http:// gslc.genetics.utah.edu) “good” because of authority, scientific language, citing sources, and experimental methods and findings. Reliability testing of the tool on 80 to 100 students yielded statistically significant results.—Kate Manuel, California State University, Hayward, kmanuel@csuhayward.edu

The persistence of print in a digital world

With the onslaught of electronic publications, there are many library professionals who fear the end of the print journal. However, the three speakers at the presentation “The Persistence of Print in a Digital World”—-James Burgett (University of Kentucky), John Haar (Vanderbilt University), and Linda Phillips (University of Tennessee)—suggested that print will persist, with libraries sustaining a hybrid collection that is part print and part digital.

Even so, with the proliferation of print journals still a reality, and in the face of budget cuts and increasing space shortages, the panelists’ ARL libraries, decided to form a unique partnership to “confront this enduring issue.” They agreed to maintain a joint print-based collection using a separate central catalog, IRIS, which would be accessible to all three libraries. The project is developing “through expedited document delivery, a joint serials archive, and collaborative collection building.”

Special attention is focused on the joint serials archive, with each member “assuming responsibility for maintaining and providing access to selected journal backfiles so that the other IRIS libraries could discard duplicates.” Libraries of record have only to maintain the archives, not the current subscriptions. Also successful is the Germanists Project in which materials from all three libraries are selected as for a single collection.

Workshops—a new program feature—gave attendees the opportunity to interact with each other and the speakers.

Ultimately, the panelists stressed, the success of IRIS will depend on the confidence of library bibliographers in the IRIS process, fast delivery of requested materials, visibility of the project among colleagues and administrators, and effective recordkeeping and selection procedures.

By demonstrating that unifying selected print collections lessens duplication, increases research specialization and controls space management, hopefully, this project will encourage other institutions to collaborate and to illustrate the benefits of collaboration to their own administrations and colleagues. —Susan B. Markley, Villanova University, susan.markley@villanova.edu

Web portals

Library portals are a way to help students manage information overload. Panel members discussed three different approaches to creating library portals in the session “Web Portals: Solving the Problems of Creation and Maintenance.”

Librarians at Lehigh University chose to organize the information universe along the colleges and majors offered at the school. Each section of the portal is called an InfoDome (www.lehigh.edu/library/infodome/); each InfoDome includes three key elements: library resources, featured resources, and Web resources. Jean M. Johnson (Lehigh University) descried InfoDome as “an integrated approach that ensures stable, structured, and unified access to library research resources.”

Anne Beaubien answers questions at her poster session.

Deb Holmes-Wong (University of Southern California) presented the issues and concerns her library faced as it initiated a portallike service. Problems ranged from deciding on taxonomy to organizing the results to planning for on-going maintenance. Holmes- Wong recommended that other libraries starting a portal define the project, decide the focus of the portal database (generation of lists or searching), and create guidelines for consistency in approach and format.

Eric Lease Morgan (North Carolina State University) described MyLibrary@NCState (my.lib.ncsu.edu/), a service in which library users create their own portals. When users create their account, they identify themselves as being interested in a discipline. Based on information they provide, the users’ customized portals provide links to library resources on a subject. In addition to these resources, the customized portals have information on the subject librarian for that discipline as well as relevant news, information, and announcements.—Julia K. Nims, Eastern Michigan University, jnims@online .emich .edu

New to the core curriculum

The session “This Changes Everything: Information Literacy in the New Core Curriculum” focused on the development, implementation, and assessment of a two-credit course on information literacy at York College of Pennsylvania (YCP).

The speakers Mary Graham (YCP), Susan Campbell (YCP), Perri Druen (YCP), and Vickie Zeiler (York Health Systems) provided background information on the devel- opment of the course as a result of General Education Reform at YCP. Issues identified in design- ing the online class included get- ting the commitment of the col- lege community, remodeling the classroom, and staffing issues. eText, which is an online textbook of the course, was also shown.

A student and faculty member of YCP were invited to share their experiences with information lit- eracy and how it benefited their personal and professional lives. The student and faculty assessments conducted at YCP were discussed, which both focused on the value of the course and clarity or awareness of objectives. In addition to that, the student assessment asked for comparison of the course with other YCP courses, while the faculty assessment asked for their suggestions for improvement. Generally, both assessments obtained favorable results. Some faculty recommendations for improvements were contextualizing information literacy by linking it to English classes and accommodating student’s differing needs.—Rochelle A. Perez, Tacoma Community College, rperez@tcc.tacoma.ctc.edu

Delivering distance learning, from Calgary to Quito

Training future energy sector leaders in Latin America and worldwide, the University of Calgary, partnering with the Latin American Energy Organization, offers an M.S. in energy and the environment delivered at OLADE (Organización Latinoamericana de Entergîa) headquarters in Quito, Ecuador. The library support for the 14-month program with research assistance, document delivery, and access to electronic databases, along with site visits and instruction sessions, was described in this paper presentation “Research Services for Distance Learners: The OLADE Project” by Arden Matheson (University of Calgary’s Management Resource Centre).

As the delivery of courses evolved with new technologies, the library and instructional literacy component also evolved. The Management Resource Centre staff, with technical support, designed and produced a CD- ROM product to meet the instructional goal of the Research Skills module for its distance learners. Using video clips and teaching screens, the CD-ROM provides an overview and demonstration of database content, searching techniques, and hands-on practice. Though the CD-ROM accommodates Internet searching and provides Web links to data- bases and sites, its content can be delivered without Internet access.

Questions from the audience about the reliability of connectivity in an “off-continent” environment gave Matheson the opportunity to reiterate that one of the strengths of the CD-ROM is its usefulness as an instruction tool without an Internet connection. Participants also asked about updating the CD-ROM, which Matheson ac- knowledged as an issue when database vendors change search in- terfaces.—Barbara Petersohn, Georgia State University, bpetersoh n@gsu. edu

The postmodern library in an age of assessment

Regarded as a historical period that marks the end of the era of enlight- enment and reason and as a theory that shifts away from control and convention, postmodernism is char- acterized by ambiguity, subjectivity, relativism, fluidity, multidimensionality, chance, and even playfulness. Modernism, by contrast, is certain, objective, universal, stable, linear, controlled, and somber. Modernists understand the world by dividing it and examining the parts.

Rules are constant, and objectivity is vital. Sound familiar? It should, as libraries have been the “quintessential modernist organization.” Bibliographic control reflects a modemist viewpoint, whereas an emerging “pomo” perspective is revealed by the divergent Internet, libraries without walls, virtual reference, and so on. Libraries are hybrid organizations, still valuing resources, holdings, and access, but embracing use and, increasingly, learning as their primaiy principles.

In “The Postmodern Library in an Age of Assessment,” Kathy Ray (University of the Pacific) imagines the postmodern library organization as a bug happily flying along until it hits the “windshield of assessment.” The traditional assessment tools of libraries are modernist in that they are quantifiable, verifiable, analytical, event focused, and stable over time.

Examples include standardized tests, surveys, and statistics. They are important and necessary but are also limited in what they can assess. Indeed, they do not assess the activities in which libraries are increasingly involved. Pomo tools complement traditional assessment by measuring trends, examining processes, emphasizing holism, and allowing for dynamic conditions. Focus groups, interviews, observation, and portfolios allow individual, open-ended responses to be seen in the aggregate. These tools look at relationships and inter-connectedness; through them libraries can ask the question, “How do we impact student learning?”—-JaneanneRockwell- Kincanon, Western Oregon University, kincanj@wou.edu

Interactive learning was an important element of ACRL's program sessions.

Personalized Research Clinics

The purpose of the session “From ‘My Library’ to ‘My Librarian’: A Reinvestigation of Personalized Research Clinics” was to discuss how libraries can effectively incorporate research project clinics (RPCs) into their busy reference service environments. Thus, after loosely defining an RPC as a one-on-one personalized research consultation with a librarian, the panelists Catherine Cardwell (Bowling Green State University), Katherine Furlong (Gettysburg College), and Julie O’Keeffe (Marquette University)—launched into a lively and wide-ranging discussion covering publicity, assessment, and potential pitfalls.

Although each of the institutions represented somewhat different approaches to the RPC booking process, there was consensus among the panelists that limiting the number of RPCs per week is a necessity in order not to be overwhelmed by demand (as was in fact the case at Gettysburg before they revamped their process). It is sometimes useful to vary limits based on demand—as is done at Bowling Green, for example, where there are more RPC spots available during “crunch” time at the end of term.

All three libraries advertise their RPCs in fairly similar fashion, but measure the success of their programs in quite different ways. Two of the institutions target only the patrons, by means of a survey (one written, one over the telephone). In the third case, however, both the patron and the librarian are required to fill out an evaluation form, post-RPC, and rate its success (then the results are compared to determine whether both parties felt the same way about the interaction).

The panelists concluded the session by confirming that as long as the number of RPCs is kept to a manageable level, this value-added service is indeed worthwhile.— Susan Russell, University of Toronto, srussell@credit. erin. utoronto. ca

Becoming pockets of hope

Speaker, Eileen de los Reyes (Harvard Graduate School of Education) argued in her session “Becoming Pockets of Hope: The Challenge to Academic Libraries of the 21st Century” that libraries need to struggle to remain pockets of hope in our institutions.

She defined “pockets of hope” as “physical, intellectual, emotional, spiritual, and political communities where participants engage in reflection and action, challenging the despair so widespread throughout our educational institutions today.” de los Reyes has coauthored a soon-to-be-published book, Pockets of Hope: How Students and Teachers Change the World.

She shared an her experience in which she noticed something was wrong at her institution after returning in January from a year spent writing her book. When her students failed to become engaged in the courses, she began asking what had changed. Eventually she discovered that a number of student-focused faculty and administrators had left, and in so doing had created a “vacuum in the fabric of caring” that sustained the students. This forced her to ask, “What happens when you lose too many pockets of hope?”

Her answer: “You cannot replace something that has developed organically, that is not part of the formal structure of your organization, if you don’t know that it existed in the first place.” She challenged librarians, “who believe in humanizing our institutions,” to identify and understand the connection between ourselves and other pockets of hope on campus.

“I am counting on you because you have always been there for me and countless others as the people and the spaces that keep our institutions from becoming pockets of despair.”

Questions posed for discussion included identifying “pockets of hope” at your institution and examining how to sustain and link the library with other “pockets” on campus. Answers included student services and organizations, custodians, food seivice workers, and faculty.

“It takes a conscious effort to create partnerships,” said participant John Forsythe of Bowling Green, Ohio. “The library is the ultimate facilitator.”—Naomi Sutherland, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, Naomi-Sutherland@utc.edu

Digital dominoes

This well-attended panel presentation, “Digital Dominoes: The Impact of Digital Reference on the Traditional Reference Model,” described the MIT and Cornell University real-time digital reference projects. Pat Flanagan (MIT) gave an overview of their pilot project “Ask Us!—Live,” which uses the chat and cobrowsing capabilities of LSSI software. Volunteer librarians from all MIT libraries staff the service. She reported that the user satisfaction rate has been high. Paul Constantine (Cornell University) discussed the development of their “LiveHelp” service, which has been operational since January 2000.

“LiveHelp” incorporates LivePerson chat software, which allows for canned responses and the pushing of Web pages. The vision for the service is to provide users with access to high-quality reference service digitally anytime from anywhere, for reference service to be a key component of the digital library, and for it to be “high tech and high touch.”

LiveHelp is staffed by a combination of librarians and reference assistants. Constantine acknowledged that implementation of digital reference requires a shifting of resources. Deborah Helman, Lisa Horowitz, Sarah Wenzel (MIT), and Nancy Skipper (Cornell) spoke about software selection and other planning issues, policy issues, training, staffing, and marketing of their digital reference services. Possible developments may include collaboration with other libraries to provide extended hours of service, voiceover IP capability, and real-time technical, interlibrary loan, and technical assistance.—Martha Tarlton, University of North Texas Libraries, tarlton@library.unt.edu ■