ACRL College & Research Libraries News

Association of College & Research Libraries

ACRL programs in Chicago

Anthropology and Sociology Section

“Machine Readable Data Files for Social Science: The Librarian’s Role” (Sunday, July 7, 9:00-11:00 a.m.) will be a panel discussion with the following panelists: James P. Curry, Bureau of the Census; Carolyn Geda, ICPSR; Stephen MacLeod, Stanford University; Bliss B. Siman, Baruch College; and Barbara Wittkopf, University of Florida. They will each discuss four questions: the value of numeric databases for social science study in general and anthropology and sociology in particular; the types of patrons who use (or might use) such databases; whether such databases, specialist staff, and access tools should be housed in libraries; and the implications of changing computer technology (e.g., publication on floppy disk) for numeric database access by end-users. The discussion will be followed by questions from the floor and a brief membership meeting.

ANSS will also sponsor a tour of the Field Museum of Natural History (Tuesday, July 9, 1:45-5:00 p. m. The tour will include the Museum’s anthropology library, the main library and its new Runnells Rare Book Room, and the anthropology laboratories and storage areas. A reception with light refreshments will conclude the tour. Tour tickets will allow access earlier in the day to the Museum’s exhibits, including the new and outstanding Northwest Coast hall. The tour is limited to 100 people and costs $3. Send your registration fee by June 14, payable to Gregory Finnegan, Reference Librarian, Roosevelt University Library, 430 S. Michigan Avenue, Chicago, IL 60605-1394.

The ACRL President’s Program

This year’s ACRL program meeting will allow ACRL members to participate actively in determining the future of ACRL and the profession of academic librarianship. “Priorities for Academic Librarianship” (Monday, July 8, 2:00-5:30 p.m.) is the culmination of a year-long effort to set priorities for ACRL activities and fit them within the framework of ACRL’s “Activity Model for the 1990’s.”

The meeting will open at 2:00 in the Great Hall of the Americana Congress Hotel with a presentation by Mignon Adams, coordinator of information services at SUNY-Oswego, who will summarize the findings of a survey sent to 600 ACRL members last autumn. This will be followed at 2:30 by small group discussions led by 70 discussion leaders; each group will rank ACRL activities that were listed as high priority programs by the ACRL membership and brainstorm on those that were also viewed as “low feasibility” activities. Each discussion leader will collect demographic data from the persons in their group.

During the membership meeting at 4:00, when the ACRL/ISI Lazerow and Dissertation Fellowship awards will be presented and the ACRL President and Executive Director will give their reports, the results from each small group discussion will be tabulated on microcomputers by analysts from OCLC. At 4:30 Mignon Adams will present the final summary of the afternoon’s deliberations.

The ACRL Reception, sponsored by the Baker and Taylor Company, will follow at 5:00 in the Gold Room at the same hotel. Activities will include the presentation of the ACRL Academic/Re- search Librarian of the Year Award, also sponsored by Baker and Taylor, to Jessie Carney Smith.

Cr: Chicago Convention & Tourism Bureau

Chicago skyline, with Shedd Aquarium in foreground.

Art Section

“Chicago Film and Video Art: A Screening” (Tuesday, July 9, 2:00-5:30 p.m.) will include films and video art tapes of Chicago artists. Speakers include a filmmaker and a video artist who will talk about and show their work. At the section membership meeting that follows, a discussion will take place on the Art Section and the Cinema Librarians Discussion Group merging to form an ALA Round Table.

Asian and African Section

“Asia and Africa in Washington: Materials Collected and Used by the United States Government” (Monday, July 8, 9:30 a.m.–12:30 p.m.), a program co-sponsored by the ALA Government Documents Round Table and the ALA International Relations Round Table, will feature papers by Richard Cronin, Congressional Research Service; Sylvia Quick, Bureau of the Census; Barbara Perry, International Monetary Fund/World Bank; Andrea Nicolls, National Museum of African Art; and Zdenek David, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

Audiovisual Committee

“Integrated Library Systems and Media Services” (Monday, July 8, 9:30 a.m.–12:30 p.m.), cosponsored by the RTSD Audio-Visual Committee, will identify and respond to some of the special needs of media in the design and operation of integrated library systems. Edward D. Garten, Tennessee Tech University, will review problems and possibilities with online media catalogs, and Gregory M. Diskin, Carnegie-Mellon University, will discuss design components of the LS2000 system.

Bibliographic Instruction Section

“Educating Users of Online Catalogs: Administrative Issues, Practical Applications, and Research Concerns” (Tuesday, July 9, 2:00-5:30 p.m.) will examine the development of homegrown versus turn-key computer catalogs; review the steps involved in initiating a user education program; explain the uses of transaction logging and design issues in relation to BI; examine the potential to broaden online catalog education to the level of concept learning. Speakers are: William J. Studer, Ohio State University; C. Brigid Welch, University of Houston; Brian Neilson and Betsy Baker, Northwestern University; and William Miller, Bowling Green State University.

Black Studies Librarianship Discussion Group

“Popular and Scholarly Trends in Black Publishing since the 1960s” (Sunday, July 7, 2:00-4:00 p.m.) will provide information on black publishing for both types of audience.

College Libraries Section

CLS will host an open forum (Saturday, July 6, 9:00-11:00 a.m.) on the question of the section establishing a national council composed of selected college library delegates from each ACRL chapter.

Community and Junior College Libraries Section

“Fundraising for Community College Libraries/LRC’s—Coalition with the Private Sector” (Sunday, July 7, 2:00-4:00 p.m.) will explore how community college libraries can be effective fundraisers in the private sector. Marilyn Houseman and Charity Kirkpatrick (Rio Hondo Community College District) will explain how they successfully raised money to help automate their library, and G. Jeremiah Ryan (formerly grants officer at Brookdale Community College) will speak on his successful fundraising efforts.

CJCLS will also host a tour of the LRC at the College of DuPage, Glen Ellyn, Illinois (Monday, July8, 8:30 a.m.–1:30 p.m.). All facets of LRCser- vices will be included in the tour including TV, radio, AV services, as well as library services. Buses will leave the Monroe Street entrance to the Palmer House promptly at 8:30 a.m. Tickets are $6 by advance reservation no later than June 24. Send check or money order, payable to Robert Veihman, Learning Resource Center, College of DuPage, Glen Ellyn, IL 60137.

Education and Behavioral Sciences Section

“Building Teamwork during Times of Declining Resources” (Monday, July 8, 9:00 a.m.–12:30 p.m.) will explore teamwork development when staff reductions occur, competition between individuals for professional promotion and tenure decisions, and job demands and the need for learning new skills. The speaker will be Robert Migneault, associate dean for technical services at the University of New Mexico.

English and American Literature Discussion Group

“Building Collections of Contemporary Fiction” (Monday, July 8, 9:30 a.m.–12:30 p.m.) will feature a panel consisting of Robert Sewell, University of Illinois at Urbana; Charles Brownson, Arizona State University; and John O’Brien, editor of the Review of Contemporary Fiction.

Fee-Based Information Service Centers Discussion Group

“Who Cleans up and Who Mops up?” (Tuesday, July 9, 9:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m.), a panel discussion cosponsored by the RASD Interlibrary Loan Committee, will explore the increasingly ambiguous relationship between traditional ILL practices and the new fee-based services that many librarians feel are skimming the reference market and undermining support for traditional, capital-intensive library service.

Law and Political Science Section

“Municipal Reference Sources, Libraries, and Publishers: Information Access and Utilization for Public Policy Issues” (Sunday, July 7, 2:00-4:00 p.m.) will be cosponsored by the GODORT State and Local Documents Task Force. Representatives from four organizations involved in municipal reference work, publishing and/or in the marketing of their bibliographic and urban data services will discuss the nature, scope, and content of their respective publications and libraries. Presentations will also address their organization’s collection development parameters, service policies to libraries and researchers, and future directions, products, and services regarding information dissemination and resource sharing. Program participants will be: Mary Schellinger, International City Management Association; Linda Berigno, Chicago Municipal Reference Library; Maxine Dotseth, Control Data Corporation; and Patricia Coatsworth, Charles E. Merriam Center for Public Administration. A joint LPSS/SLDTF reception, sponsored by Brodart, will follow the program.

Public Relations in Academic Libraries Discussion Group

“How to Make the Bad News Better: Crisis Management” (Monday, July 8, 9:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m.), cosponsored with the LAMA Public Relations Services to Libraries Committee, will provide public and academic library examples of crisis situations which are applicable in all library situations. An introductory keynote will be given by David Ferguson, president of the Public Relations Society of America. ACRL member Peter Hanff, coordinator of tehcnical services at the Bancroft Library, is one of the speakers and will describe rare book thefts.

Rare Books and Manuscripts Section

“Special Collections in Public Libraries” (Sunday, July 7, 2:00-4:00 p.m.) will address the needs and concerns of librarians working in or responsible for special collections and archives in public libraries. It will also highlight some of their goals and achievements. Topics will include gaining wider public and political support for special collections in public libraries, caring for and developing the collections, and problems of funding for special collections within the public support structure. A discussion panel, moderated by Jennifer Lee, Brown University, will consist of: Romaine Ahlstrom, Los Angeles Public Library; Paul Cyr, New Bedford Free Public Library; Laura Lenard, Chicago Public Library; and William Loos, Buffalo and Erie County Public Library.

RBMS is also cosponsoring two other programs: “Tax Deductions for Self-Generated Papers” (Sunday, July 7, 8:00-10:00 p.m.), a panel presentation with the ALA/SAA Joint Committee on Library- Archives Relationships, that will provide current information on the status of the National Heritage Resource Act; and “Historical Mapping of the United States” (Saturday, July 6, 9:30-11:00 a. m.), cosponsored by the ALA Map and Geography Round Table, that will feature Michael Edmonds on “Increase A. Lapham and the Mapping of Wisconsin”; Michael Conzen on “County Atlases”; and David Buisseret on “Early Mapping of the Gulf Coast.”

Science and Technology Section

“Treading Water, Catching the Wave, or Crashing the Party: New Roles for Sci/Tech Libraries” (Tuesday, July 9, 9:30 a.m.–12:30 p.m.) will have Nina Matheson, director of the Welch Medical Library at Johns Hopkins University, as keynote speaker. Matheson will discuss recommendations of the Matheson Report and the potential impact on changing roles for sci/tech librarians, and will assess ideas and concerns generated from the national discussion of the report to date. In addition there will be a reactor panel composed of Katherine Chiang, Cornell University; Charles Martell, California State University at Sacramento and editor of College & Research Libraries; and Maxine Reneker, Columbia University. These panelists will discuss the possible impact of the report on the individual librarian, the implications the report has on the institution as a whole, and transfer- ability of the report from a health sciences orientation to its use by academic libraries in general and science and technology libraries in particular.

Slavic and East European Section

“Pre-World War II Development of Large Slavic and East European Collections in the United States” (Sunday, July 7, 2:00-4:00 p.m.) will review the Slavic collections at the New York Public Library, the Library of Congress, Harvard, and Yale University. Wojciech Zalewski, Stanford University, will serve as commentator.

Undergraduate Librarians Discussion Group

“Online Database Searching in Undergraduate Libraries: Pros and Cons” (Monday, July 8, 9:30-11:00 a.m.) will be a panel discussion on experiments, studies, and reports on online searching both for and by users. Panel members will include Jim Self, University of Virginia; Sandy Ward, Stanford University; Nancy Baker, University of Washington; Lucretia McCulley, University of Tennessee.

University Libraries Section

“Defining the Academic Librarian” (Sunday, July 7, 2:00-4:00 p.m.), cosponsored by the ACRL College Libraries Section, will feature Edward Holley, dean of the School of Library Science at the University of North Carolina, as the main speaker. A reactor panel will consist of Sheila D. Creth, University of Michigan; Irene Hoadley, Texas A&M University; and Herbert S. White, Indiana University School of Library and Information Science.

Western European Specialists Section

“West European Women’s Studies” (Sunday, July 7, 9:30 a.m.–12:30 p.m.) will be cosponsored by the ACRL Women’s Studies Discussion Group. Speakers will be Beth Stafford, University of Illinois, on “Women’s Studies Programs and Collections in West Europe: An Overview”; Virginia Clark, assistant editor at Choice, on “Women’s Studies, the Women’s Movement, and Feminism: The Publishing Scene”; Rita Pankhurst, City of London Polytechnic, on “Women’s Studies Collections in the United Kingdom”; and Margery Resnick, MIT, on “Scholarly Research Patterns in Women’s Studies in Spain and Italy with North American References.”

WASHINGTON HOTLINE

by Carol C. Henderson Deputy Director

ALA Washington Office

Closing the Book, on “a Nation of Readers”? This was the theme of a press conference sponsored by ALA and Rep. Major Owens (D-NY) on April 15 in Washington, D.C. at the beginning of National Library Week. Rep. Owens, ALA President E. J. Josey, ALA Washington Office Director Eileen Cooke and other ALA officials called attention both to the Administration’s budget which would eliminate all federal funds for libraries and all postal subsidy funding, and to the Administration’s attempts to restrict access to government information.

Government Information Restrictions. On March 15, the Office of Management and Budget published a draft policy circular on management of federal information resources. See the March 15 Federal Register, pp. 10734-47 (and corrections in the March 21 FR, p. 11471), or the reprint attached to the April 3 ALA Washington Newsletter. If implemented, the circular would sharply reduce the federal government’s efforts to collect and disseminate information to the public, and would accelerate the current trend toward the commercialization and privatization of government information. ALA will be submitting comments, due by May 14, on the draft.

At the press conference, Rep. Owens challenged the sweeping powers being assumed by 0MB: “No set of accountants and budget cutters should dare to assume the awesome responsibility of deciding what information should be provided to the people of this great democracy." Josey said the trend toward reduced access has gained momentum during the current Administration. He noted the ALA Washington Office publication, "Less Access to Less Information By and About the U.S. Government," which gives a four-year chronology of specific cutbacks and restrictions. Copies are available for $1.00 each with a self-addressed mailing label from the ALA Washington Office, 110 Maryland Avenue, NE, Washington, DC 20002.

Coalition on Government Information. Francis Buckley, recently appointed by Josey to chair an ALA ad hoc committee on forming a coalition on government information as called for in a Midwinter Council resolution, also spoke at the press conference. He said both ALA and the 0MB circular recognized that government information is crucial, but differed on access. Buckley said the circular’s reliance on the private sector and on fees does not assure public access and would set up barriers to many. Students, the poor, small businesses, researchers, all would be affected by fees and by delays in access.

Buckley can be contacted at the Detroit Public Library or through the ALA Washington Office. He would welcome suggestions of other groups with an interest in public access to government information for coalition purposes, and examples of restrictions on access or needed publications no longer available.