ACRL College & Research Libraries News

College & Research Libraries News

In the News

The summer usually brings with it a hope for less hectic days and time for quiet reflection and planning.

In this issue, we have provided some ideas that you may be able to use as you continue planning the fall semester.

Most academic libraries are dependent on student assistants for filling staffing needs. An affordable way of getting more help is to get a federal work-study student, but sometimes these students are ill-prepared for the rigors of the library’s tasks. Sherry Young shares her ideas for improving both the hiring and training process and for making sure that the work is interesting enough to hold the students’ attention (page 490).

Planning a move? Joanna Burkhardt gives us the benefit of her recent experience and offers 14 tips for making the process go smoothly (page 499).

I am sure that the evaluation of resources is a critical part of all instruction programs. The chart of criteria used to assess Web sites that Jim Kapoun developed for undergraduates (page 522) may help you prepare your next instruction presentation.

More and more libraries are letting students borrow computers. Monty McAdoo and Joan Tease give us a practical procedure for checking in laptops that have been loaned by their library to students (page 507).

While you may not have time to implement this idea in the fall, Barbara Holmes and Art Lichtenstein describe the collaborative effort by faculty and librarians to improve retention rates through a special freshmen program (page 496). A worthy project that you may want to undertake for the 1999 fall semester.

Finally, use some of your reflection time to posit the challenges W. Lee Hisle offers in his final essay of the “Values for the Electronic Information Age” (page 504). Just how does a librarian balance his/her role between intellectual freedom and qualitative collection development?

—Mary Ellen K. Davis Editor-in-chief medavis@ala. org