COLLEGE & RESEARCH LIBRARIES NEWS

The View From HQ

Sandy Whiteley ACRL Program Officer

Since joining ACRL in November, 1981, as a half-time program officer, I have had the interim responsibility for the Bibliographic Instruction

Liaison Project. By working with nine scholarly associations, we are trying to educate faculty and administrators about bibliographic instruction (see C&RL News, October 1981, pp. 319-20).

These organizations are:

American Assembly of Collegiate Schools of Business, American Association for Higher Education, American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Council on Education, American Historical Association, American Political Science Association, American Psychological Association, American Sociological Association, and the Modern Language Association.

In March and April, librarians will be giving workshops on library skills in sociology for sociologists attending six regional meetings of the American Sociological Association. The librarians will attempt to have the participating sociologists make a connection between what they have learned in the workshop and what their students need to learn—leading, we hope, to opportunities for bibliographic instruction on their home campuses.

Our proposal to the American Association for Higher Education for a program at their annual meeting was not accepted. We did not submit a proposal to the American Psychological Association because I was unable to find anyone to do a program for them. I would very much appreciate hearing from someone with a background in bibliographic instruction in psychology (especially an APA member or someone with a Ph.D. in psychology) who would be willing to prepare a proposal for next year’s meeting.

We are now preparing for the proposal deadlines for the American Council on Education and the Modern Language Association. We know the meeting places and dates and proposal deadlines for the remaining five organizations and will proceed with them as time permits.

We continue to build our resource file of librarians with experience in bibliographic instruction who are willing to write proposals and give papers at the meetings of professional associations. I wrote to all the committee members of the Bibliographic Instruction Section and the Anthropology and Sociology Section, soliciting participation in the project, and I would like to thank all the people who have responded. We will be getting back to all of you eventually and we would still be happy to receive more names.

Sandy Whiteley

To determine the future of the project, an advisory committee has been formed. The committee, chaired by Sharon Rogers, is exploring other ways in which the project can be completed. The project will be carried out until its conclusion in August, 1983, but at this time it hasn’t been decided whether it will be done by staff in the ACRL office or by someone hired in the Washington area where most of the nine organizations have their headquarters.

We have learned a lot about other professional organizations from this project. Most of them have loose membership requirements (like ALA) but some, like the American Psychological Association, are quite rigid. The APA, for instance, requires either a Ph.D. in psychology or a comparable number of years as a practicing psychologist. This makes it difficult for librarians to participate, and we must find faculty members to sponsor our programs. Some organizations have very elaborate procedures for submitting program proposals while others only require a letter to the program chair. I have discovered that librarians have been participating in some of these organizations (notably the American Historical Association and the Modern Language Association) for many years and are continuing to do so. We want to coordinate our efforts. If you are going to give a paper on bibliographic instruction at a regional or national meeting of a scholarly organization, please let this office know. Also, some of you are publishing articles on bibliographic instruction in the journals of scholarly associations. Please let us know about these too.

Much of the rest of my time is taken up with advisory services to academic librarians, college and university administrators, and members of the general public. Some of the kinds of questions which are received at the ACRL office daily include:

Our college is going to be accredited—do you have any standards for college libraries?

Where can I find statistics on community college libraries?

We are looking for a speaker for our conference on continuing education.

I am a graduate student at the University of Ghent and I need books on Mark Twain.

What is the trend in faculty status for librarians?

Can you send me information about external user fees in libraries?

Where can I get information about disaster preparedness in libraries?

Are there any standard forms for user surveys?

Are there standards for curriculum centers?

How do I go about renting the ACRL membership list?

I use the Headquarters Library to find answers to some of these questions but some of the best answers come from ACRL members. When a question relates to an area where ACRL has a section or committee, I often call that chair for advice.

I am also in charge of maintaining the Librarian Exchange and Consultant Exchange Programs (see C&RL News, July-August 1981, p. 206). Alas, we have had very little response to either of these programs.

Other miscellaneous duties of mine have been the preliminary selection for the ACRL/NEH Workshops, promoting the recent ACRL publication Libraries and Accreditation in Institutions of Higher Education, drafting items for consideration by the ACRL Board, and whatever else the executive director delegates.

My own experience has been limited to work in university libraries so I am enjoying the opportunity to learn more about community college and college libraries. I have especially enjoyed getting to know so many ACRL members, even if only over the phone or through the mail, and am very appreciative of the assistance given me by the membership. ■ ■