ACRL College & Research Libraries News

College & Research Libraries News

News From the Field

ACADEMIC STATUS

Editor’s Note:From time to time the News will publish position papers and reports that pertain to the general area of academic status. The following statement on Work Week is by Norman D. Stevens, Associate University Librarian, Wilbur Cross Library, The University of Connecticut, Storrs, Connecticut 06268. We invite replies. These should be directed to the editor of the News. We also invite further submissions on the general topic of academic status for consideration for inclusion in the News. These should also be addressed to the editor of the News.

WORK WEEK

In an age in which substantial changes in attitudes and responsibilities in the academic library are taking place it is difficult to know quite what to say about the work week. As we move toward standards which will provide for self-determination on the job, sabbatical leaves, access to research funds, and other kinds of substantial changes which are likely to have a dramatic impact on the work week of library staff, one can only offer, at this point, some general comments about attitudes and responsibilities. It is increasingly important for the individual to determine what his responsibilities are in terms of work attendance as well as in terms of work performance.

The Wilbur Cross library is open over 100 hours a week during the academic year. Since each staff member is normally expected to work approximately 35 hours a week this provides many opportunities as well as many problems in the scheduling of staff assignments and in the establishment of the work week. The library tries to be as flexible as possible in the assignment of work schedules and tries to arrange schedules that will be convenient for the individual and which will also meet the needs of the library’s users. In the technical areas, the normal work week is 8:30 to 4:30, Monday through Friday, and there are likely to be relatively few scheduling problems. Where the need arises individuals may work out arrangements to work a different schedule. In the public service areas, however, some evening and weekend work must be scheduled for each staff member. Normally this is discussed with a new employee prior to his employment but changes in patterns of use, the addition of new staff, and other changes beyond our control may require an adjustment of schedules at a later date. In any case each department has the final responsibility for the establishment and definition of its hours and schedules. In most of the public service departments specific desk schedules must be met and staff assignments must be made to cover such schedules. Staff members are, of course, responsible for meeting and maintaining those schedules which are normally drawn up after consultation with the staff. As emergencies arise these schedules can be adjusted, but every effort to meet them and to notify the person in charge of scheduling as far in advance as possible of any necessary changes should be made.

Except for assignments of desk coverage and evening and weekend work which involve maintaining a specific schedule, the matter of work week and the use of time on the job is to be largely a matter of self-determination after consultation with other staff members and supervisors and with due consideration of the needs of the department, the library, and the users. The main emphasis ought to be on seeing that the department head is informed of the individual’s schedule and work week and that the department head has reasonable knowledge of where a staff member is and how time is being utilized.

Matters such as coffee breaks and use of time for professional reading, for personal research, for work on committees within and without the library, for attending seminars and meetings on campus, and for a variety of other tasks are left to the judgment of the individual. He is in many ways the best judge of how he can use his time to provide for the most effective performance of his duties. Department heads and other staff members, however, have a responsibility for notifying an individual when they feel that the way time is being used is interfering with the person’s contribution to the library and is becoming detrimental both to the library and to the person’s own opportunities for advancement.

Staff members should feel free to adjust their schedule to assist in the meeting of personal needs without using vacation time. Staff members ought to feel free to take time during the week, as necessary, to attend to banking matters, to meet dental and medical appointments, to take care of automobile registration, and to handle other business which it is difficult and inconvenient to transact on weekends and evenings. It is not necessary to report this time in detail or to keep strict records on the time spent and to make up exactly that amount of time. As a matter of courtesy and good practice, however, the department ought to be informed by a staff member when he is going to be away, especially if he is to be out of the building for any extended period of time during the day.

In an institution such as the library it is quite evident that staff members at all levels are likely to spend some time outside of work in thinking about work-related problems. Thus the question of work week in terms of actual physical attendance in the library is not an important consideration. The important considerations are for the individual to feel that he is making the maximum contribution to the library, that he is making the best use of his time to achieve that objective, and that he is satisfied that the library and the university are receiving adequate attention from him both in the actual performance of specific work assignments and in the consideration of the broader functions and responsibilities of the library and the university. Increasingly, the judgment of other staff members as to whether a person is making the most effective use of his time and is contributing significantly to the purposes of the library and the university will play an important role in the determination of the retention, promotion, and advancement of staff members.

It would perhaps be easier both for the library and for the individual if each staff member were assigned a very specific schedule and a very specific work week of 35 hours. Greater freedom and flexibility of schedules and in the use of time place greater responsibility on the individual and may lead to questions and complaints about how any one individual is utilizing his time. In the long run, however, such flexibility and freedom should contribute more to the growth of the individual staff member and to the growth of the library.

ACQUISITIONS

• The American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, Massachusetts, has recently received a major donation of material on early American transportation from the family of the late Thomas Winthrop Streeter. Consisting of 518 books and pamphlets from the late Mr. Streeter’s large collection of Americana, these nineteenth-century materials now join the 230 pieces on American railroads and canals from a previous Streeter gift in 1955. Among the latter are 150 unique (one-of-a-kind) items printed in this country before 1841. When added to the transportation materials at AAS acquired over the years from other sources, the total approximates 5,200 printed pieces. Altogether, this collection represents the finest and most complete documentation of early American railroads, canals, bridges, turnpikes, and harbors in existence. The entire collection will be known as the Thomas Winthrop Streeter Collection on Transportation.

The railroad material begins in 1805 with a large number of pamphlets printed before 1825, prior to the beginning of practical railroading. For the northeastern area of the country, the greater part of the collection falls into the pre-1841 period. For the southern and western states, the collection covers the entire formative period of railroading. In all, the material relates to 136 different railroads, and many canal, bridge, and harbor companies. Another group consists of national, regional, and state guidebooks to turnpikes, canals, and railroads. Few things better record the swift advance of civilization across the continent or better communicate the flavor of travel in those early generations.

• The library of the late Professor Karl Strecker has been acquired by the MacOdrum library, Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada. One of the giants in medieval Latin philological studies of the early twentieth century, Strecker was an editor-in-chief of the Poetae series of the Monumenta Germaniae Historica. His studies of the works of Hrotsvitha and Waltharius are widely known, and his Einfuhrung in das Mittellatein (trans, into French and English) is a standard handbook on medieval Latin. The library of Professor Strecker contains approximately 1,600 volumes, hundreds of offprints of articles and monographs inscribed and sent to him by noted scholars in medieval studies, several dozen rare books and medieval manuscript fragments, and photographs of medieval manuscripts which he had studied. Many of the books and offprints are filled with Strecker’s annotations and comments. The collection has been augmented by volumes acquired since Strecker’s death in 1945 by Dr. Norbert Eichermann, one of Strecker’s colleagues and also an editor in the Monumenta enterprise.

• The University of Delaware library has announced the acquisition of two important manuscript collections. The first is an extensive and important collection of letters and notes written to Louis Untermeyer, poet and anthologist, by more than 100 major and minor American and English authors, editors, and publishers. There are approximately 1,100 literary letters from such figures as Conrad Aiken, William R. Benet, William S. Braithwaite, Hart Crane, Louis Golding, Ezra Pound, Edwin Arlington Robinson, and Carl Sandburg, as well as a host of others. Most of the letters were composed between 1906 and 1940, with the majority written from 1912 to 1925. The second manuscript collection consists of all the remaining manuscripts and correspondence pertaining to the publication of Pagany: A Native Quarterly, 1930-1933. This was among the most important of the little magazines published during the depression years of the early thirties. Pagany’s most important contribution to modern American writing was in the field of fiction. Selections of William Carlos Williams’ novel, “White Male,” were first published here. Other contributions include Erskine Caldwell, Robert McAlmon, Ezra Pound, Yvor Winter, and Louis Zukofsky, as well as many other known and lesser known figures. This collection consists of approximately 800 letters and manuscripts.

• The Department of Special Collections of the Iowa State University library has announced the acquisition and processing of several collections, the most notable of which are the Herbert Gilkey and Alfred Kehlenbeck collections of E. Haldeman-Julius “Little Blue Book” series, the Louis Hermann Pammel papers, and the Earle D. Ross papers. Gilkey is professor of Engineering Mechanics and Kehlenbeck was professor of German and head of the Department of Modem Languages at Iowa State University. The University’s collection of Little Blue Books is now one of the largest extant, and is cataloged by edition, number, and title. Originally intended as an attempt to bring culture to the masses, the nickel-and-dime pamphlets soon were expanded to include doit-yourself instructional booklets and discussions of contemporary questions, primarily from a socialist viewpoint. Although not always important in a literary sense, the series are valuable sources of social history.

The L. H. Pammel papers provide a very extense and important file of personal correspondence and other documents of one of the most prominent scientists in early twentieth-century America. A friend of leading scientists and amateurs alike, Pammel was the guiding force in the educational development of George Washington Carver, and was instrumental in conservation movements and the founding of the American Association of University Professors. He is best known as the father of the Iowa State Park System.

The papers of Earle D. Ross constitute a third collection of significance for the Library. Called by Henry Steele Commager “the father of American agricultural history,” Dr. Ross is now Professor Emeritus of History at Iowa State University.

Requests for further information concerning research use should be addressed to: Dr. Stanley M. Yates, Head, Department of Special Collections, Iowa State University Library, Ames, Iowa 50010.

• The University of Minnesota library, Rare Book Division, has recently received a gift of a comprehensive collection relating to August Strindberg. The life, work, and influence of Strindberg, the great Swedish dramatist, novelist, autobiographer, poet, and essayist, were the lifelong scholarly interests of the late Professor Alrik Gustafson, chairman of the Scandinavian department at the University of Minnesota from 1944 until his death in 1970. While pursuing his research, Professor Gustafson assembled this collection of publications relating to Strindberg. Consisting of 800 volumes it includes first and later editions of his plays and other writings, translations, biographical studies, and literary criticism, as well as photographs, and a large assemblage of theater programs, periodical articles, and newspaper clippings of reviews of his plays.

• Isaac Bashevis Singer, the noted Yiddish fiction writer, has donated thirty-five short-story manuscripts to New York University. The donation, which includes holograph manuscripts, typescripts, galley proofs, and notes in English and Yiddish, will be added to the permanent collection of the Fales Library, part of NYU’s Division of Special Collections. Included in his donation to NYU are the original manuscripts of “Zlateh, the Goat,” “The Magician of Lublin,” and “Mazel and Schlimazel.” Singer currently has more than twenty books in print.

• The Ohio University library has recently acquired the collection of Professor Harlan W. Hamilton, a specialist in the Georgian period of English history and the author of a recent book on William Combe, the creator of Dr. Syntax. The collection, which includes several manuscripts and prints as well as some 1,300 volumes, was obtained through the efforts of Carr Liggett of Cleveland, a 1916 graduate of Ohio University. Among the William Combe items are four autographed letters, first editions of the three Tours of Dr. Syntax and of The Diaboliad, and copies of many of Combe’s lesser-known works. Other manuscripts of the period include letters of Samuel Rogers, Henry Crabb Robinson, and Elizabeth Chudleigh (“Duchess of Kingston”). About one-third of the collection is composed of imprints of the period 1760-1830. These are strongly supported by works of the post-1830 period. This section of the collection is particularly strong in biography, social life, and manners of the time. A number of engravings, prints, and playbills add pictorial interest to this Georgian collection.

• Russell Sage College library, Troy, New York, has announced the acquisition of some 2,200 pieces of correspondence dating from 1962 through 1968, from the files of Ian Hamilton Finlay, noted Scotch concrete poet. This collection consists in letters, cards, and manuscript poems of other poets, artists, and critics, both traditional and avant-garde, sent to Finlay over the five-year period. Notable names involved are, among others, Stephen Bann, Augusto de Campos, Henri Chopin, Eugen Gomringer, Dick Higgins, Ernst Jandl, Edwin Morgan, Hansjorg Mayer, and Diter Rot. Concrete poetry as a conscious movement is an avantgarde poetic activity dating approximately from 1950, which stresses the fusion of the arts.

• The Hoover Institution, Stanford University, recently acquired an important collection of over 300 letters from famous people regarding their opinions of Woodrow Wilson. These letters had been sent to Paul A. Hill in Washington over a period of thirty years, 1928-1958. Paul A. Hill was a retired schoolteacher who believed that Wilson was “the greatest statesman” of the age and, intending to write a book to support his conviction, he appealed to more than 500 famous people all over the world asking for their opinions. Over 300 replied and, although the book was never written, the letters were preserved. When Paul Hill died in 1968 the letters were given to the Hoover Institution by his sister, Mrs. Viola Koch, and his son, Gene Hill.

The letters may be divided into the general headings of (1) those who knew Wilson and had some dealing with him in the political scene in the United States, e.g., W. E. B. Du Bois, who wrote an eight-page letter telling how he influenced the Negro vote for the Democratic ticket in 1912, and Norman Thomas; (2) people prominent in the cultural milieu of the Wilson era—authors, educators, historians, psychiatrists, and religious leaders, e.g., George Bernard Shaw, H. L. Mencken, Edgar Lee Masters, Sigmund Freud, and David Starr Jordan; (3) leaders in the diplomatic and political world outside the United States, e.g., J. Paul

Boncour, Wellington Koo, Edward Benes, Andre Tardieu, Vittorio E. Orlando, and Sir Norman Angell. None of these letters has previously been published.

• A unified and annotated collection of the first scientific books, bulletins, and articles on American forestry, range science, ecology, and botany has been presented to the Texas A & M University library by Professor Emeritus and Mrs. E. J. Dyksterhuis. The collection includes the earliest scientific reports on the botany and zoology of the western United States of America; the first national yearbooks on agriculture (1849-1861) issued by the U.S. Patent Office, and also the first issued by the Department of Agriculture (1862.); noteworthy and now rare, early publications of the U.S. Forest Service (1877-1905); and materials tracing such origins as that of range science.

• A collection of the correspondence and the literary and professional papers of the American poet, William Jay Smith, has recently been processed by the Rare Book Department, Washington University libraries, St. Louis. The collection—more than 600 letters and 500 other items dating from ca. 1924-1968—includes worksheets, corrected typescripts, autograph drafts, notebooks, journals, galley proofs, publicity material, and miscellaneous related items connected with his books of poetry, translations, and writings for children. Correspondents include Witter Bynner, Winfield Townley Scott, Louise Bogan, X. J. Kennedy, Merloyd Laurance, Hubert Creekmore, Richard Wilbur, Marianne Moore, Jackson Mathews, Babette Deutsch, Rosemary Benet, Donald Allen, Ruthven Todd, Romualdo Romano, and many others. In addition, the collection includes autograph and typescript drafts of poems by Guy Daniels, Stephen Spender, and Allen Tate and drafts of addresses by Richard Wilbur and Louise Bogan.

FELLOWSHIPS/SCHOLARSHIPS

• The Biomedical Library, Center for the Health Sciences, University of California, is offering three one-year traineeships in medical librarianship for the year beginning September I, 1971. The internship year is divided between planned training in medical librarianship and formal academic coursework selected from one or more of the following fields: health and life sciences, history of science, administration, information science, and foreign languages. In addition, one traineeship is available for specialized training in either the History of Medicine Division or the MEDLARS Search Station for candidates with appropriate academic qualifications. Applicants must be citizens of the United States (or have applied for citizenship) and hold master’s degrees from American Library Association-accredited library schools. Preference will be given to recent library school graduates who have strong backgrounds in the biological sciences. Application forms and additional information should be requested from Mrs. Leide Gilman, Training Officer, Biomedical Library, Center for the Health Sciences, University of California, Los Angeles, California 90024. The deadline for submitting applications is April 1, 1971.

• The University of Florida libraries offers a number of graduate assistantships for the academic year 1971/72, primarily for practicing professional librarians interested in study leading to a master’s or doctoral degree in a subject field other than library science. Stipends of $2,574 are awarded for a nine-month workstudy period and require fifteen hours of library duty each week. Holders of assistantships are exempt from out-of-state tuition fees but pay resident registration fee. Awards are conditional on admission to the Graduate School of the university, and formal applications, including Graduate Record Examination scores, must be submitted by February 15, 1971; necessary forms may be obtained from the Director of Libraries, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida 32601.

• Illinois Institute of Technology is offering ten traineeship grants in science information for the academic year beginning September 1971. This program brings together the fields of information processes, library orientation, technical writing, and management and operation of information centers. Applicants must have a bachelor’s degree in a science-, engineering-, sociology-, library science-, management-, or health-related discipline. The trainees will receive a full-tuition scholarship and a living allowance of $2,400, plus $500 for each dependent. Further information and preliminary evaluation forms can be obtained from Dr. Albert J. Brouse, Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, Illinois 60616. Deadline for preliminary application is March 1, 1971.

GRANTS

• In a major move to enable university libraries to better meet increasing demands for service with limited funds, the Association of Research Libraries and the American Council on Education are jointly sponsoring the establishment of an Office of University Library Management Studies. The Council on Library Resources has made a grant of $130,000 for a two-year period for the purpose. The work of the new Office of University Library Management Studies will be directed toward this objective and will be under the guidance of a joint Association of Research Libraries/American Council on Education Advisory Committee on University Library Management composed of university administrators and research librarians.

Members of the committee are Willard L. Boyd, President, University of Iowa; Howard W. Johnson, President, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Richard W. Lyman, President, Stanford University; Allan M. Cartter, Chancellor and Executive Vice-President, New York University; and five university librarians; Warren J. Haas, Columbia; Douglas W. Bryant, Harvard; Herman Fussier, Chicago; John McDonald, Connecticut, and Robert Vosper, California at Los Angeles; also ex officio, Stephen A. McCarthy, Executive Director, and Louis E. Martin, Associate Executive Director of the Association of Research Libraries. Duane Webster has been named director of the Office, located in the Association of Research Libraries’ headquarters. Mr. Webster, previously manager of library systems for the Service Technology Corporation in Cambridge, Massachusetts, has a background of experience in business, public, and university libraries.

• The Drexel University Graduate School of Library Science has been awarded $13,402 by the U.S. Office of Education to conduct an institute on nonconventional methods in reference librarianship. A selected group of twenty reference librarians currently working at a supervisory level in large academic or public libraries throughout the country will participate in the institute which will be held from April 12 through April 16, 1971.

Recent developments in the technology of information processing have been dramatic, and the principal objective of the institute will be to develop the participants’ understanding of this technology so that they can utilize it and see its relevance to their own organizations. To accomplish this, the institute will provide instruction in the instrumentation which is used in typical modern systems for information storage, retrieval, and dissemination. In addition, it will discuss information use and generation, and problems of system design and analysis, with emphasis given to practical means of developing and evaluating modern techniques of reference augmentation.

The entire operating cycle of a modern information service will be outlined and discussed: the formulation of users’ interest profiles; the choice of devices and media; the art and science of writing search strategy; the interpretation and possible editing of output from the search; the measurement of user satisfaction; and the factors involved in revising either the interest profiles or the search strategy to obtain optimal output from the searches. Both retrospective and current-awareness search services will be covered in the instruction.

Dr. Charles H. Davis and Dr. Belver C. Griffith of the Graduate School of Library Science will serve as director and codirector of the institute, and Dr. A. Kathryn Oiler, Associate Dean of the School, will be a part-time instructor. In addition, there will be four information specialists from outside the University who will function as resource personnel: Mrs. Mary Herner of Herner & Company, Washington, D.C.; Miss Stella Keenan of the National Federation of Science Abstracting and Indexing Service; Dr. Edwin Parker from Stanford University; and Mrs. Claire Schultz of Line Lexington, Pennsylvania. Application forms and further information can be obtained from Professor Charles Davis, Drexel University Graduate School of Library Science, 32d and Chestnut Streets, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104.

• The Council on Library Resources has made a $400,000 grant to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to support for one year the experimental operation of a computerbased technical library system that could be a prototype for future libraries of many kinds. The grant is the fifth the Council has made since 1967 in support of the project, known as INTREX. Other support for the design and development of Project INTREX has come from the National Science Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation, and the Independence Foundation.

Studies leading to the design of the system were initiated at MIT five years ago under the direction of Professor Carl F. J. Overhage, who previously headed MIT’s Lincoln Laboratory at Lexington, Massachusetts. The prototype system that is now in operation was developed by MIT’s Electronic Systems Laboratory under the direction of Professor J. Francis Reintjes.

The system, which users can operate from remote display consoles, contains a continually growing literature base consisting of detailed catalog data and microfilm texts on more than 12,000 recent articles in the fields of materials science and engineering. This is a field that overlaps primarily between physics and metallurgy and is not restricted to a single discipline. The base is being added to at the rate of 400 new articles a month.

The system has now reached a stage where further development and improvement can best be achieved through on-line experiments that permit engineering and science faculty and students to use the service for their own library work. The new grant from the Council on Library Resources will be used for these experimental operations during the current 1970-71 year.

• The Tri-College Library Consortium of Concordia College and Moorhead State College in Moorhead, Minnesota, and North Dakota State University in Fargo, North Dakota, has received a $94,000 grant from the Bush Foundation in St. Paul for coordinating library resources and services among those three schools. Covering a three-year period, the grant will provide for the services of a consortium library coordinator, teletype exchange service with principal libraries throughout the nation, and supportive administrative and clerical services for the Tri-College University.

Of special significance in the grant award were the assets which undergird potential cooperation among the three libraries; the competence and congeniality of the library directors and their staffs; the complementarity of the curricula and library resources of the three institutions; the benevolent climate of the consortium within which library cooperation takes place; the geographical proximity of the libraries which tends to make the “university” concept workable (cutting across state lines and breaking down barriers between public and private institutions); and the bibliographic power of the libraries in nonduplicative quantity and variety.

MEETINGS

Feb. 17-19: The third international seminar on “Approval and Gathering Plans,” sponsored by the Florida Atlantic University Library and Division of Continuing Education, will be held in West Palm Beach, Florida, on February 17- 19, 1971. The two-day seminar is designed to assist those who have recently started with approval plans or are contemplating starting one.

The attendance will be limited to individuals who participate in the decision-making process affecting acquisitions policies and practices in their respective institutions.

Feb. 22-24: The 1971 Conference of the National Federation of Science Abstracting and Indexing Services will be held from February 22-24, 1971, in Washington, D.C. More information from National Federation of Science Abstracting and Indexing Services, 2102 Arch Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19103.

Details on program, organization, and topics are to be found in the December News, Meetings section.

Mabch 11-13, May 13-15: To provide library administrators an opportunity to learn about the solutions of management problems related to automation, two workshops in administrative and management aspects of library automation have been scheduled by the Information Science and Automation Division of the American Library Association (ALA ISAD). Workshops are scheduled for Asilomar Conference Grounds, Pacific Grove, California, March 11- 13, 1971; and for MIT Endicott House, Dedham, Massachusetts, May 13-15, 1971. Information and application forms may be obtained from ISAD Institutes, American Library Association, 50 East Huron Street, Chicago, Illinois 60611. More complete details can be found in the January News.

March 25-27: The Sixth Annual Conference on Junior College Libraries will be held on the University of Illinois campus, Champaign, Illinois, from March 25 through March 27, 1971. The theme for this year’s conference is: The Junior College Media Center Looks at Itself. The Conference is partially sponsored again this year by the Illinois Library Association but is not limited to junior college librarians or media specialists from Illinois.

While the program is not yet completed, one of the speakers will be Roger H. Garrison, former chairman of the English department and vice-president at Briarcliff College, New York; presently, chairman of the Language and Literature department, Westbrook Junior College, Portland, Maine. Another is Terry O’Banion, associate professor of higher education at the University of Illinois.

The formal program and other details when completed will be available from: Ambrose Easterly, Harper College Library, Algonquin and Roselle Roads, Palatine, Illinois 60067.

Apr. 23-24: Sixteenth annual Midwest Academic Librarians Conference at Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana.

May 6-7: The 8th Annual National Information Retrieval Colloquium (ANIRC) will be held in Philadelphia, May 6-7, with the establishment of a goal of participation by practitioners and those new in the field of information retrieval as the basic objective of the meeting. Formal papers are not being solicited because source material for discussion is available to attendees and discussants in advance in this experiment to establish the type of interaction and dialog implied by the word, “colloquium.” Subjects for discussion will be the major information retrieval issues reviewed in chapters of the Annual Review of Information Science and Technology (Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.), categorized for purposes of the Colloquium as “design,” “implementation,” and “management.” Selected authors of appropriate chapters in the five volumes of the Annual Review and other skilled moderators will chair sessions. To develop the closer tie between panel and audience needed for active participation of attendees, one or more preregistrants will be selected randomly and invited to join the panel. Each can briefly sketch his point of view of the subject under discussion whether based on academic study, work experience, or other bases of conviction.

The 8th annual meeting will be held at the new Holiday Inn, 18th and Market Streets, Philadelphia. Additional information may be obtained from program chairman Don King, Graduate School of Library Service at Rutgers, The State University, New Brunswick, New Jersey 08903. Inquiries and registration material requests should be addressed to Miss A. Berten, MDS-COP, 19 South 22d Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19103.

May 7-8: Ohio Valley Group of Technical Services Librarians will hold its annual meeting at Berea College, Berea, Kentucky, May 7-8. The topic will be “The Challenge of Reprints.”

May 20-22: A three-day institute entitled “Library Management: Man-Material-Service” will be held at Indiana State University, Terre Haute, Indiana, May 20-22, 1971. The institute is intended for library administrators and supervisors. The institute director will be John H. Moriarty, Professor Emeritus of Library Science, Purdue University. For additional information, interested persons may write Department of Library Science, Indiana State University, Terre Haute, Indiana 47809.

May 30-June 3: The 70th Annual Meeting of the Medical Library Association will be held in New York City, May 30-June 3.

July 11-13: The School of Library and Information Services, University of Maryland, is planning the fifth annual Library Administrators Development Program to be held July 11- 23. Those interested in further information are invited to address inquiries to Mrs. Effie T. Knight, Administrative Assistant, Library Administrators Development Program, School of Library and Information Services, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20742. The January News contains complete details.

July 20-23: The third Cranfield International Conference on Mechanised Information Storage and Retrieval Systems will be held July 20- July 23 in Bedford, England.

See the December News, Meetings section, for complete details on the topics to be covered and general theme outline.

Enquiries or offers to present papers should be sent to the Conference Director, Cyril Cleverdon, Cranfield Institute of Technology, Cranfield, Bedford, England.

Aug. 29-Sept. 3: The International Conference on Information Science in Tel Aviv originally announced for August 23-28, has been changed to the week following the IFIP Conference in Yugoslavia, from August 29 to September 3. Group flights at reduced rates will be available from various points including Yugoslavia. Titles and abstracts are due no later than January 1971. Registration fee ($50) includes a ladies’ program and a tour of Jerusalem. For further information contact: The Organizing Committee, P.O. Box 16271, Tel Aviv, Israel. See also September News, page 249.

Sept. 30-Oct. 2: The Indiana Library Association will meet at Stoufīer’s Inn, Indianapolis, Indiana. Further information can be obtained from Jane G. Flener, President, Indiana Library Association, Indiana University Library, Bloomington, Indiana 47401.

Oct. 22-23: The North Dakota Library Association will hold its 1971 convention in Fargo on Friday and Saturday, October 22 and 23. Headquarters will be the Town House Motel.

MISCELLANY

• For several years the University of South Dakota libraries has spearheaded a cooperative project designed to do two things: (1) supply on demand a complete set of catalog cards for any item for which LC cards have ever been printed in a maximum turnaround time of one week (most orders are filled within three days); and (2) reproduce copies of a library’s own master card on the same day they are received. Cost: (1) 40-50¢ per set depending on date of publication; and (2) 3¢ per card produced.

This project began as one library’s response to a problem common to most other libraries. By establishing our own system we could get the job done faster and cheaper than LC or any commercial dealer could. Over seventy-five libraries of all types in fifteen states are now working together on this cooperative venture. Any librarian who thinks that librarians working together can solve some of their own problems as well as or better than commercial firms is welcome to join this cooperative venture. For details, write Joseph R. Edelen, Jr., Head of Technical Services, University of South Dakota Libraries, Vermillion, South Dakota 57069.

• The Library of Congress has announced that on January 1, 1971, it began to assign Dewey Decimal numbers from the forthcoming 18th edition of the Dewey Decimal Classification and to print the results on catalog cards and in book catalogs, as well as to record them on the MARC tapes.

The 18th edition of Dewey is now in press and is expected to be published in mid-1971 by Forest Press, Inc., from its new address, 85 Watervliet Avenue, Albany, New York 12206. Although libraries utilizing LC’s bibliographic services may thus receive classification numbers the meanings of which have not yet been published, they will enjoy the advantage of early use of many important new expansions, such as those for mathematics, law, economics, nuclear physics, the biological and medical sciences, history, and geography.

The Library’s decision to apply the provisions of DC 18 before publication is based on a desire not only to take early advantage of an edition of Dewey deemed superior in many respects to DC 17, but also to promote international cooperation through coordination with the British National Bibliography, which began to use DC 18 on January 1 with the beginning of its new five-year cumulation, 1971-75.

• Nominations for the Robert B. Downs Award for outstanding contribution to intellectual freedom in libraries are being accepted by the University of Illinois Graduate School of Library Science at Urbana-Champaign. The award was created in 1968 to honor Mr. Downs, dean of library administration at Illinois, and to mark his twenty-five years with the university. The award of $500 will be presented during a meeting of library school alumni at the annual convention of the American Library Association. The convention will be held June 20- 26, 1971, in Dallas.

The award may be given for research study, a publication, or successful or unsuccessful opposition to censorship. It may be made to an individual or a group. The award may go to a library board member, a nonprofessional staff member, a professional librarian, or another person. Preference will be given to such contributions in the United States, but candidates from other countries will be considered. The award may or may not be made every year. Nominations will be considered from any source up to April 15, 1971, and should be sent to Herbert Goldhor at the Graduate School of Library Science, University of Illinois, Urbana, Illinois 61801. Final decision will be made by vote of the school faculty.

• A proposal to proclaim 1972 as International Book Year, under the slogan, “Books for All,” has been recommended at the UNESCO General Conference. A subcommission on communication at the 125-nation meeting called for the proclamation of 1972 as a year in which world attention would be focused on the role of books in society.

Delegates approved a blueprint of activities for the celebration of the year under four main headings: encouragement of authorship and translation with due regard for copyright; production and distribution of books, including the development of libraries; promotion of the reading habit; and books in the service of education, international understanding, and peaceful cooperation.

Plans for International Book Year were drawn up with the help of international professional organizations of publishers, authors, librarians, and booksellers. All of them expressed support for this UNESCO initiative as a means of helping to ensure that full advantage is taken of the recent spectacular advance in book production and distribution techniques.

These advances have been described as a “book revolution” in a UNESCO study by Robert Escarpit (France), who was the rapporteur of a twenty-nation working party that examined in detail the proposals for International Book Year. There are twice as many readers as twenty years ago, Escarpit noted, and three times as many books, but minimal needs are still far from being satisfied for the immense majority of the world’s population.

Preliminary work for International Book Year is to begin immediately upon the conclusion of the General Conference. An international planning committee will meet at UNESCO headquarters early in 1971 to help put into effect the program adopted by the General Conference.

• The Pittsburgh Regional Library Center and the Ohio College Library Center have concluded an agreement which provides for their cooperation in the development of a library network based on methods and services developed by OCLC. Under this agreement, OCLC will produce off-line catalog production to meet the requirements of members of PRLC as well as the Ohio group.

It is anticipated that subsequent agreements will enable PRLC to participate with OCLC in OCLC’s on-line shared cataloging system providing on-line remote catalog access and circulation control; searches by postcoordination of authors, subject words, and title words; serials control; and a technical processing system. Extension of this prototype linkage between OCLC and PRLC to other regional library systems could ultimately lead to the development of a national information network that would provide greater availability of library resources, improvement of library use and operations, and reduction of the rate of use of library per-user costs.

• The Social Responsibilities Round Table of the American Library Association has created a new Task Force on the American Indian. This group’s purpose is to change the condition of library service to the native American in the city and on the reservation. Librarians, especially native Americans, are urged to contact the coordinator, Charles Townley, American Indian bibliographer, Library, University of California, Santa Barbara, California 93106. The Task Force on the American Indian will hold meetings at ALA’s Midwinter Meeting in Los Angeles and Annual Conference in Dallas.

PUBLICATIONS

• J. P. Danton’s study of sixth-year library science specialist programs has now appeared in print. Entitled Between M.L.S. and Ph.D.; A Study of Sixth-Year Specialist Programs in Accredited Library Schools, tire study was sponsored by ALA’s Committee on Accreditation. Professor Danton is on the faculty of the School of Librarianship, University of California, Berkeley.

• The Atlanta University School of Library Service has initiated a new series of publications, “Occasional Papers,” which will be issued irregularly. The series will deal with various aspects of librarianship. The first number was authored by Casper L. Jordan, Assistant Professor of Library Service. “Black Academic Libraries: An Inventory” recounts the results of a survey of black academic libraries made in the fall of 1969. The papers are priced at $1.00, and inquiries and orders should be sent to Dr. Virginia L. Jones, Dean, School of Library Service, Atlanta University, Atlanta, Georgia 30314.

• As a by-product of a recent small conference at the Aspen institute on man and space, the institute has published an extensive annotated Bibliography on Impact of Space Program on Human Values. The bibliography, which reviews 176 books, monographs, and documents, 33 periodicals, and 38 bibliographies, is divided into three parts. Part one covers space science, exploration and policy, and materials dealing largely or entirely with space and astronautics. Part two deals with science and technology in relation to space and includes generally broader material on the history, philosophy, and policy of science and technology. Each of the first two parts is further divided into books, monographs, government documents, and whole issues of journals; articles from the periodical literature; and bibliographies and secondary sources. Part three is a list of periodicals in which articles on the humanistic and social aspects of space are likely to be found. Copies may be purchased from the Aspen Institute for Humanistic Studies, P.O. Box 219, Aspen, Colorado 81611 at a cost of $2.50 each.

• The second publication in a series of special publications issued by the U.S. National Section of the Pan American Institute of Geography and History is now available. The second publication, A Bibliography of Theses and Dissertations on Latin America by U.S. Geographers, 1960-1970, was compiled by Ernst C. Griffin and Clarence W. Minkel of Michigan State University. The 240 bibliographic entries are arranged on an individual country basis, while the 37 dissertations in preparation are listed alphabetically at the end of the bibliography. The bibliographic entry indicates if the thesis or dissertation is available on interlibrary loan, has been microfilmed by a university or by University Microfilms, or if the abstract has been published in Dissertation Abstracts. The bibliography consists of a preface and a sixteenpage bibliography, and costs $1.00. Individuals interested in receiving this publication should make their check or money order payable to: Dr. Arthur L. Burt, Chairman, U.S. National Section, PAIGH, Department of State, Room 8847, Washington, D.C. 20520.

• A Guide to the Manuscripts in the Eleutherian Mills Historical Library: Accessions through the year 1965 by John Beverley Riggs has been published by the Eleutherian Mills Historical Library, Greenville, Wilmington, Delaware. This 1,205-page Guide lists the library’s extensive holdings in the field of industrial history and the history of one of America’s important industrial families. Described in detail are the archives of the Du Pont Company from 1802-1902 as well as a large accumulation of the records of enterprises located in the Delaware River region. A comprehensive index fills over 200 pages.

Included with business and economic records is a large collection of the papers of prominent members of the Du Pont family. Among the over two-and-one-half million manuscripts which fill shelves nearly a mile in extent are the papers of Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours, who led his family to America in 1800. Du Pont de Nemours was a friend of Jefferson and Franklin, a government official in France under the Ancien Regime, and a member of the revolutionary government. To assist the researcher, author Riggs has prepared biographical sketches and chronologies of the more significant personalities and businesses. The Guide is available from the Publications Department, Eleutherian Mills-Hagley Foundation, Greenville, Wilmington, Delaware 19807.

• A bibliography of serial publications for the study of sub-Saharan Africa has been issued by the Library of Congress. Sub-Saharan Africa; A Guide to Serials is for sale at $5.25 a copy from the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C. 20402. Compiled by the African Section of the Library’s General Reference and Bibliography Division, the 409-page guide contains 4,670 entries recording a selection of serials published before 1969 in western languages and in African languages using the Roman alphabet. It includes many of the titles appearing in Serials for African Studies, issued by the Library in 1961, except that publications specifically on North Africa (Algeria, Libya, Morocco, Tunisia, and the United Arab Republic) have been excluded. Most of the titles are held by the Library of Congress and other American libraries represented in the National Union Catalog. In selecting the entries, the compilers have included monographic series, yearbooks, directories, and annual reports of learned institutions. Several categories of publications have been excluded, however, such as annual reports of African government departments, serials of most territorial, provincial, and municipal administrations, publishers’ lists, daily press releases, missionary journals devoted primarily to religious material rather than African affairs, and telephone directories. Notes to several hundred entries include information as to where the serials are abstracted or indexed.