ACRL College & Research Libraries News

Association of College & Research Libraries

News from the Field

UT adds databases to online catalog

The University of Texas at Austin added a full text version of the 20-volume Academic American Encyclopedia and indexes to nearly 2,000 academic and business periodicals to its online catalog, UTCAT. “We were looking for research resources that would have broad appeal on campus,” said librarian John Kupersmith. “UT is a diverse place— the encyclopedia is ideal because it covers so many subjects.” The new UTCAT PLUS is expected to increase use of the system that already had 525 people calling in from remote locations each day.

Rutgers begins library expansion

Rutgers Universityrecently broke ground for a $16.5 million expansion and renovation project for the Archibald S. Alexander Library, the oldest, largest, and most heavily used library in the university’s system. The 18-month project will involve construction of a four-story addition to the right front side of the library. The additional 63,000 square feet of space will be used for increased seating and study space, storage room for collections, reserve reading rooms, and staff and public service functions. The project also includes renovation of 22,000 square feet of existing space in the library, as well as major deferred maintenance items. “Students in particular will benefit from the increased space and more efficient organization of collections and services,” said Joanne Euster, vice- president for university libraries at Rutgers.

UNO celebrates 500,000th volume

The University of North Carolina at Charlottecelebrated the acquisition of its 500,000th volume by receiving from Mary Dalton, of Charlotte, North Caroloina, a rare first American edition of Herman Melville’s Moby Dick; or, The Whale, published by Harper and Brothers in 1851. The celebration included an exhibit and program featuring Harrison Hayford, professor emeritus at Northwestern University and general editor of The Writings of Herman Melville.

Indiana makes friends with Peru

Indiana University (IU)Libraries and the School of Library and Information Science at IU signed an agreement of friendship and cooperation with the Latin American Association of Development Financing Institutions (ALIDE), headquartered in Lima, Peru. The purpose is to develop long-term bilateral links through faculty exchange and collaborative efforts in networking and information management.

A drawing of the Rutgers University addition to the front of the Archibald S. Alexander Library.

First multicultural library interns named

The libraries and the School of Information Science and Policy of the University at Albany, State University of New York have selected three African American students for their jointly sponsored Multicultural Internship Library Education/ Scholarship Program (MILES). The MILES internship recipients for the 1991-92 academic year are: Marcia Fulcher of Bronx, New York; Simone Freeman of Albany, New York; and Scott Hughes from Coeymans, New York. Each of the interns is a senior interested in pursuing graduate education in library and information science or a related field. In an effort to address the underrepresentation of minorities in librarianship, the MILES program provides African American, Latino, Asian American, and Native American students a pre-professional paid internship leading to a master’s degree program in libraiy and information science. The MILES program offers academic, financial, and professional development support. Students successfully completing the internship program are eligible for a full graduate scholarship at Albany’s School of Information Science and Policy.

Maricopa Community College District and Data Research to develop Apple Macintosh interface

An Apple Macintosh interface to the Data Research System for library automation is being developed by Maricopa Community College District, Phoenix, Arizona, and Data Research in conjunction with the League for Innovation in the Community College. “This project promises to enhance even further our students’ ability to exploit the resources our libraries make available to them,” according to Ron Bleed, vice chancellor of Information Technologies at Maricopa Community Colleges. The Maricopa Community College District is the second largest multi-campus community college in the United States. Approximately 40% of all adults residing in the county have attended one of the colleges.

Call for papers

The Sixth Annual Western Kentucky University (WKU) Women’s Studies Conference, “Women: Voices, Visions, and Vexations,” seeks proposals for individual papers/panels and complete sessions in all areas ofWomen’s Studies. The conference scheduled for September 24—26, 1992, will be held at WKU in Bowling Green, Kentucky. Abstracts for papers should be about 200 words, typed and double-spaced and are due by March 6, 1992. Contact: Program Committee, WKU Women’s Studies Conference, 200 Fine Arts Center, Western Kentucky University, BowlingGreen, KY42101; (502) 745-6477; (502) 745-2344; fax: (502) 745- 5387.

Guidelines for international visits available

Three new documents released by ALA’s International Relations Committee/Intemational Relations Round Table are brief and practical and provide a checklist of issues to consider when hosting or planning a visit to a foreign library. Here are some of the questions you’ll need to have answers to before you undertake an exchange or visit: How do you choose a host institution? Who will pay your salary? How will your home institution benefit? Where will you live? What kind of medical insurance will you need? These issues are covered in the two documents called “Guidelines for Shortterm Visits to the United States by Foreign Librarians” and “Checklist for Preparing an International Exchange.”

A third document, “Preparing United States students for academic library use in other countries” makes sensible recommendations to promote the role of the library in the overall experience of studying abroad. To obtain copies of the documents send an SASE to: Robert P. Doyle, ALA, 50 E. Huron St., Chicago, IL 60611.

Products available for Black History Month

Publicize Black History Month with a ltit available from ALA. The kit includes a tip sheet containing program ideas and resources, a 48 72" x 13" Martin Luther King Jr. mural, and posters of Frederick Douglass, Martin Luther King Jr., and Zora Neale Hurston. The kit is available for $19 from ALA Graphics, 50 E.Huron St., Chicago, IL 60611 or call 1 (800) 545-2433, press 8.

Acquisitions

(Listings of acquisitions, grants, and gifts are taken from press releases, library newsletters, and notes to the editor. To ensure news about your library is considered for inclusion, send the information to: Cò-RL News, 50 E. Huron St., Chicago, IL 60611; bitnet: U38398@UICVM.bitnet.)

• Brown University Library acquired a collection of George Bernard Shaw materials including more than 90 autographed and typed letters, post cards, notes, inscribed books, and signed photographs as well as costume designs and a fragment of music in Shaw’s hand. The collection was acquired from Sidney P. Albert, professor emeritus at California State University-Los Angeles, and an internationally known Shavian scholar. Brown also acquired the correspondence between Shaw and his American publisher, Dodd, Mead & Company.

• Drew University received the papers of Bela Komitzer, a Hungarian-American journalist and popular biographer, from the deceased author’s sister and brother-in-law, Alicia Komitzer Karpati and George Karpati. Among Bela Komitzer’s works are The Real Nixon and American Fathers ‹Lr Sons. The collection includes audiotapes of interviews with prominent politicians and public figures active in the U.S. in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

• Indiana University-Purdue University of Indianapolis acquired the papers of Hugh N. Brown, an independent fundraising and public relations consultant with five decades of professional experience. “The collection is important because it represents an independent consultant’s view of fund-raising,” explained Dwight Burlingame, associate director of research and academic programs at the Center on Philanthropy. “The systematic way in which Brown has detailed his consulting jobs over 50 years will be invaluable to researchers. ”

• Oberlin College acquired more than 200 linear feet of the congressional papers of its former 13th district Republican representative, Charles A. Mosher (1906-1984).

• Radcliffe College’s Schlesinger Library acquired 130 cubic feet of records of the National Women’s Political Caucus documenting its efforts to increase the number of women in elective and appointive offices and its work for pay equity, the ERA, and reproductive rights.

• Southern Illinois University (SIU) acquired a collection of more than a dozen documents including original letters by Ulysses S. Grant, Abraham Lincoln, and Stephen A. Douglas. The collection was a gift from Charles Keim, former dean of arts and letters at the University of Alaska, as a tribute to the late George W. Adams, former chairman and professor of history at SIU. The two men had formed a lasting friendship 30 years ago.

• The University of Akron has acquired the Sylvia Smith Archives of Smith Publications and Sonic Art Editions. Smith Publications concentrates on publishing music of living American composers. The archives include 275 published scores, more than 100 original manuscripts from the 1930s to the present, historically valuable correspondence between composers and publisher, and photographs of composers and musical events.

• The University of Tulsa acquired a collection of more than 30 letters and documents relating to ranching operations in the Cherokee Strip during the 1880s and 1890s. The Cherokee Nation earned profits from the leasing of the land—bounded on the north by the Oklahoma-Kansas state line and stretching from just west of Tulsa to the beginning of the Oklahoma panhandle—to cattlemen who brought their cattle up the Chisholm and Texas trails. Most of the letters are from or to DeWitt Lipe, then treasurer of the Cherokee Nation. There is also a letter written by Chief Dennis Wolfe Busyhead.

A section of the Martin Luther King Jr. Mural by artist Don Miller on display at the Washington, D.C. Public Library, and now available on a poster from ALA Graphics to honor Black History Month.

Grants & gifts

• Broadcast Pioneers Library, in the National Association of Broadcasters headquarters in Washington, D.C., will receive the income from $1 million for ten years thanks to a donation by Lawrence B. Taishoff, a Washington publishing executive and board chairman of Broadcasting magazine. The gift is expected to realize annual revenue of about $75,000.

• Harvard University’s Houghton Library will receive the archives of the publishing firm Houghton Mifflin Company. The archives, valued at $2.5 million, include author correspondence, business records, and original manuscripts representing over 150 years of activities.

• McMaster University received on deposit 10 linear feet ofWestinghouse Canada Inc. archives consisting of photographs, catalogs, employee magazines, invoices, contracts, and general correspondence dating from 1897 to the mid-1970s.

• The National Endowment for the Humanities awarded eleven grants for a total of $1.4 million. Included amongthese grants were: $198,700 to the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C. to support an exhibition with an interpretive catalog, lectures, gallery tours, and curriculum materials about how Europeans in the 16th and 17th centuries formed their initial images of the new world; $70,000to Lincoln University in Pennsylvania to support a variety of programs examining the life and work of Langston Hughes; $158,035 to the University of North Carolina, Asheville, to support a series of lectures, reading and discussion, and film and discussion programs on the social, cultural, and economic history of the railroads; $300,000 to the American School of Classical Studies in New York to support planning of an exhibition with a catalog, gallery guide, and educational materials about ancient Athenian democracy and its links to American democracy; and $311,460 to ALA to support a traveling panel exhibition and promotional and programmatic material about the transforming effects of the Columbian voyage upon European thought.

• The National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC) recommended $2,308,862 in grants to 49 projects. Among the grants are $29,813 to Duke University to support a conference, in partnership with the Smithsonian Institution, to initiate work toward the development of a documentation strategy for American advertising.

• The New York State Newspaper Project received a $10,000 grant from the New York Newspapers Foundation to match a $10,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. The funds will be used to preserve over 100,000pages of newsprint on microfilm, one-fifth of the historic newspapers of the Capital District region.

• St. John’s University (Jamaica, New York) has received a $122,646 grant from the U.S. Department of Higher Education through HE A, Title II-D—College Library Technology and Cooperation Grants. The award represents 11% of the $1,093,000 to be expended by 1992 to automate the Universities three libraries.

• The San Jacinto College Central will install an electronic index center and expand its literature collection as a result of a $60,000 grant from the Fondren Foundation.

• The University of Manitoba received a $20,000 Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada grant to purchase retrospective materials to strengthen the Elizabeth Dafoe Library’s Icelandic Collection.

• The University of Nevada System (UNS) received a $230,917 grant from the U.S. Department of Education to help mount the Nevada Academic Libraries Information System. The system will provide easy remote access to a number of databases, including online catalogs of all the UN S libraries, electronic periodical indexes, and eventually government publications catalogs. It will also provide a gateway to major library catalogs such as the University of California’s MELVYL and Colorado’s CARL systems.

• The University of Waterloo Library has received a grant of $2,422 from the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada to purchase a collection of 74 titles on the topic of women and work.