ACRL College & Research Libraries News

College & Research Libraries News

C&RL News guidelines for submission of articles or columns

A statement of purpose and content for College & Research Libraries News.

Purpose of C&RL News

College& Research Libraries News is the official news magazine of the Association of College & Research Libraries, a division of the American Library Association. Its purpose is to record significant activities of ACRL and to report news about academic and research libraries. As the official ACRL news magazine, C&RL News maintains a record of selected actions and policy statements of the Association and publishes timely reports on the activities of ACRL and its sections, committees, discussion groups, councils, task forces, and chapters.

As a vehicle for communication among college and research libraries, C&RL News reports news items pertinent to academic and research librari- anship, including information on bibliographic instruction, continuing education, appointments, acquisition of special collections, grants to libraries, new technology, and publications (brief notices).

The editor bears responsibility for the contents of each issue of C&RL News. Materials selected by the editor must be newsworthy, timely, and of practical value to people in the field. The editor has authority to decide what material is appropriate for publication, based on the following guidelines. The editor also reserves the right to make appropriate revisions in material selected for publication in order to standardize style or improve clarity (except official ACRL documents, president’s letters, and similar material).

Formal, theoretical, or research-oriented articles inappropriate for C&RL News will be forwarded to the editor of College & Research Libraries for review.

I. Length

Articles and columns should be no more than 3,000 words and no less than 500 words.

II. Style

C&RL Newsstyle is informal, but informative and accurate.

III. Content

Materials selected should fall into one of the following categories:

a. Reports on a project, program, or research underway or recently completed dealing with a topic relevant to academic librarianship. Footnotes should be minimal and charts or tables avoided. These reports may be preliminary descriptions of programs or research to be published formally at a later date in library literature (e.g., “Creating a Traditional Reference Tool in the Age of Electronics,” December 1987).

b. Reports on a recent conference or workshop of interest to academic or research librarians (e.g., “The First International Conference on Japanese Information,” January 1988).

c. Reasoned and informed speculation or comment on a relevant topic, especially if solicited by the editor or an official ACRL group (e.g., “The Importance of Poetry in American Libraries,” December 1987).

d. State-of-the-art reports on a relevant topic (e.g., “Libraries and Computer Centers,” September 1987).

e. Standards, guidelines, or recommendations of an ACRL committee or other official ACRL group (e.g., “Guidelines for Audiovisual Services in Academic Libraries,” October 1987).

IV. Manuscript

Authors should submit two copies, doublespaced, following either the Chicago Manual of Style or Turabian.

Printing output to be avoided: low-resolution dot matrix, proportional spacing, and hyphenated word breaks.

V. Requests for Donations

C&RL Newsmay occasionally print requests for the donation of books or materials to libraries, especially foreign libraries, which have suffered extensive loss through fire, hurricane, or other natural disaster. Other libraries soliciting contributions for other reasons will be referred to the rates for classified advertising in C&RL News.

Editor’s Note: These guidelines were adopted by theC&RL News Editorial Board at the Denver Midwinter Meeting on January 25, 1982. ■ ■

ACRL staff profile

Elaine Opalka joined ALA in February 1984, working part-time in the Public Information Of- fice, Reprographics, and sending out ballots for the

ALA elections. She joined ACRL in April 1984 and worked part- time on the RBMS Pre- conference. Elaine be- came a full-time ACRL staff member in July 1984. For almost two years she was adminis- trative secretary for Cathleen Bourdon,

ACRL’s deputy execu- tive director. In May 1986 she was promoted to ACRL office man- ager.

Elaine Opalka

Elaine coordinates the flow and organization of day-to-day office operations. Her other responsibilities at ACRL include keeping track of our budget matters. She attends and keeps the minutes of all meetings of the ACRL Budget and Finance Committee.

Elaine is now in the process of assimilating practical information concerning ACRL’s new automation software and equipment so that she can become the resource person for the PC systems now in use and those that will be introduced in the future.

Last spring Elaine completed intensive training to qualify her as the facilitator of the ACRL Quality Circle pilot program.

Prior to coming to ALA, Elaine worked for the New York Life Insurance Company, was a grammar school teacher’s aide, and worked for a florist. Her ALA career is her first after the hiatus created by raising her two sons. ■ ■

ARL launches project to convert Microform Masters files

The Association of Research Libraries has undertaken a new project to enhance research libraries’ preservation efforts and increase access to a significant file of research material. In partnership with the Library of Congress, ARL has signed a contract with The Computer Company of Richmond, Virginia, to convert the National Register of Microform Masters into machine-readable form. The project is funded by grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

During the next two years, The Computer Company will convert about 460,000 bibliographic records, 30-40 % of them not previously in machine- readable form. Staff in LC’s MARC Editorial and Cataloging Management and Publications Divisions will review converted records to see that they conform to guidelines established by ARL and LC based on ARL ’s Guidelines for Retrospective Conversion of Bibliographic Records for Monographs. The LC Cataloging Distribution Service will compile tapes containing the records and distribute them with no constraints on further reproduction or distribution to libraries, networks, and other organizations.

Preservation microfilming is currently recognized as an extremely effective method for reproducing brittle books, one of the most difficult preservation problems. Preventing costly duplication of effort by improving the means to locate existing masters is an important step. Conversion of monographic reports in the NRMM Master File and widespread distribution of the resulting machine- readable records will be a major step toward ensuring that searches for existing microform masters are as efficient and inexpensive as possible. ■ ■