ACRL News Issue (B) of College & Research Libraries June 1995/379 N ews from the Field M a ry Ellen D a v is C enter e x p lo r e s d ig ita l lib r a r ie s ' p oten tial The Texas A&M University Board of Regents approved the establishment o f the Center for the Study o f Digital Libraries at the Texas Engineering Ex­ periment Station (TEES). The center w ill build upon the work o f the Hypermedia Re­ search Laboratory (HRL) at Texas A&M. “I see the Center for the Study o f Digital Libraries pro­ viding expertise and experi­ ence to help the Texas A&M community transfer its collec­ tions o f books, journals, bugs, plants, animals and so forth into useful digital libraries,” said John Leggett, codirector o f the HRL. Leggett and others from HRL are expected to be part o f the new center. Leggett added, “The new center already has research projects in the areas o f computer sys­ tem architectures for the storage and retrieval o f digital libraries materials, user-interface and client software for digital libraries, and collabo­ rative scholarship within digital libraries.” U n C o v e r R e v e a l a d d s fe a tu re s Uncover Reveal, an electronic table o f contents alert service, has added new subscription op­ tions. Its users can receive current information direct to their e-mail addresses in two ways— by creating and storing a list of journal titles or by creating and storing special search strate­ gies (author or topic searches). Libraries can now get a site license for the service. UnCover Reveal allows users with profiles to create a list o f journal titles in which they are interested. When the next issue o f any o f those titles is entered into the database, the table o f contents is automatically e-mailed to them. Users who stored search strategies will have the results of those searches e-mailed to them when new ar­ ticles are entered into the database. E v e ry th in g y o u e v e r w a n te d to k n o w a b o u t L.A. The University o f Southern California (USC) will launch the first multimedia database dedicated exclusively to the city o f Los Angeles. The In­ formation System for Los Angeles (ISLA) will plot images and informa­ tion on a grid system, al­ lowing researchers instant connection to historic re­ sources for the study of Los Angeles, including census data, newspaper accounts, and p h o to ­ graphs with the sites they describe. “ISLA will be the first database dedicated exclu­ sively to the history, geol­ ogy, geography, econom­ ics, sociology, and culture of a single city,” said his­ torian Philip Ethington, who headed the USC team— a joint librarian and faculty team— that conceived the database. The ISLA project is housed in USC’s Center for Scholarly Technology (CST), a part o f the USC library. Lucy Wegner, director o f CST, is a member o f the ISLA team. Major funding for the project is coming from the RCL Foundation, a Los Angeles-based non­ profit organization dedicated to educational research, that has budgeted $250,000 over the next five years to develop the project in col­ laboration with USC and a $500,000 gift from the estate o f Lucy Doheny. The database is expected to be fully opera­ tional by the year 2000, but it will be acces­ sible on the Internet via the World Wide Web by the end o f 1995. A demonstration version will be available in June. While the address for the demonstration was not available at press time, it may be found at the USC homepage: http://cwis.use.edu/Library/CST/index.html. E n g lish & A m e ric a n Lit Section starts listse rv ACRL’s English and American Literature Sec­ tion has recently established a listserv. Topics for discussion will include collection develop­ ment, electronic texts, user education, literary reference work, humanities databases, and ad­ ministrative issues necessary to managing the section. To subscribe to the list, send a message to: listserv@gwuvm.gwu.edu. The first (and only) line o f the message should read: subscribe ealsl . Example: subscribe ealsl Linda Miller http://c mailto:listserv@gwuvm.gwu.edu 380/C&RL News Riggs ed ito r nam ed C o lleg e & R e se a rch L ib ra rie s Donald E. Riggs, dean of the University Li­ rary and professor of information and library tudies at the University of Michi­ an, has been named to a three-year erm as editor of College & Research ibraries, the bimonthly refereed ournal of quality research articles rom leading authorities in the field ublished by ACRL. His term as edi­ or will commence in June 1996, af­ er a one-year apprenticeship under urrent editor Gloriana St. Clair. Richard Hume Werking, chair of he ACRL Publications Committee D o n a l nd chair o f the search committee or the new editor, stated, “In a time o f enor­ ous transformation and change in the pro­ ession, Dr. Riggs has the skills, experience, nd vision to ensure that College & Research Libraries continues to be an essential resource or academic librarians.” Riggs is completing his 25th year as a dean/ irector of academic libraries. Prior to his ten­ re at Michigan, he served as dean of Univer­ ity Libraries at Arizona State University, di­ ector o f libraries at the Auraria Higher ducation Center in Denver, and director of he Central Colorado Multi-type Library Sys­ em. He has taught library science at both the b s g t L j f p t t c t a f m f a f d u s r E t t undergraduate and graduate levels for over 20 years, and designed a new course called Ad­ vanced Library Management at the University of Michigan. Riggs brings a solid background in editing and publishing to the position. He is the author/editor of eight books. He has authored 52 journal articles/ technical reports and 31 book chap­ ters. He was the founding editor of Library Administration & Manage­ ment, is currently editing Library H i Tech, and serves on the edito­ . Riggs rial boards of the Journal o f Library Administration and College and Re­ search Libraries. Riggs was a senior fellow at UCLA in 1989, and was the 1991 recipient o f the Hugh Atkinson Memorial Award. He has served on various national groups including the ALA Council, the OCLC Users Council, and the Research Libraries Group Board of Governors. In accepting the appointment, Riggs said he “looks forward to continuing the fine work that current editor Gloriana St. Clair has done with the journal and to keeping the quality of the research in the journal at the highest level.” He “welcomes comments from the member­ ship about how to improve the journal.” d E Inquiries should be directed to the list mod­ erator, Scott Stebelman, at e-mail: scottlib® gwis2.circ.gwu.edu. C a ll fo r sci/ tech a b stra cts Science and technology librarians and informa­ tion specialists take note— here is an opportu­ nity to present your preliminary original re­ search results or ALA committee findings by submitting an abstract to the Forum for Science and Technology Library Research. ACRL’s Sci­ ence and Technology Section Forum Commit­ tee invites abstracts describing recent research or work in progress o f interest to science and/ or technology librarians. Committee members will select individuals to present reports o f their research at the 1996 ALA Annual Conference in New York. Proposals will be judged on the basis of time­ liness, evidence of scholarship in methodology, and relevance to science and technology librari anship. Proposals should be limited to one page and contain an abstract o f not more than 250 words, as well as the researcher’s name, insti­ tution, phone number, and e-mail address. The deadline for submission is January 3, 1996. Pa­ pers will be selected at ALA Midwinter 1996. Send abstracts to: Sheila Johnson, Oklahoma State University Library, 204 Library, Stillwater, OK 74078-0375; sheila@okway.okstate.edu; fax: (405) 744-7579; phone: (405) 744-5271. IBM lau n ch e s d ig ita l lib r a r y in itiative IBM has launched the IBM Digital Library, an initiative aimed at helping owners of informa­ tion content in all its forms— including films, mailto:sheila@okway.okstate.edu June 1995/381 music, text, art, and rare manu­ scripts— become electronic pub­ lishers able to make their infor­ mation available on networks around the world. The IBM Digi­ tal Library will consist o f an ar­ ray o f products and services aimed at helping customers trans­ form information into digital mul­ timedia that can be shared via networks. The initiative will give customers the tools to manage, present, and protect that infor­ mation. The five functions o f the Digital Library are: storage and management, search and access, rights management, content cre­ ation and capture, and distribu­ tion. R e a d m o re sp o n so rs B a c k s e rv Backserv is a listserv devoted exclusively to the informal exchange of serials back issues and books in all subject areas sponsored by Readmore, Inc. The Backserv archives are pub­ licly accessible. They are also part of a gopher and are fully searchable using built-in WAIS indexing. In addition to the searchable archives of the Backserv list, the gopher will provide access to back issue dealers’ catalogs in browsable and searchable formats, including online order and information request forms which may be e-mailed directly to the dealer. The Jerry Alper catalog is now available as a prototype. There is no cost to the library for using any of these services and they are not restricted to Readmore clients. To subscribe to the list send the message “subscribe backserv first name last nam e” to listserv©sun. readmore.com. To access the gopher: gopher. readmore.com. E CLSS s e e k s re se a rch e rs Providing library services to extended campus students is a fertile field o f research concluded the Research Committee o f the ACRL Extended Campus Library Services Section (ECLSS) after analyzing the results of a comprehensive sur­ vey of extended campus librarians across the U.S. and Canada. The committee hopes that by offering key research topics as identified by professionals working in the field, interest will be stimulated among library school faculty, graduate students, and others seeking problems and issues for original research. This is a digitized im age o f a w o r ld m ap fro m Ptolem y’s G eog rap h y as it appears o n a n IBM display term inal. IBM ’s D igital Library is m akin g available to sch olars replicas o f selected Vatican manuscripts. Respondents to the survey itemized a total of three dozen research topics they would like to see addressed. Here are the top five: • Bibliographic instruction for extended cam­ pus students. What techniques are being used to deliver bibliographic instruction to distant learners and what is their relative effectiveness? • Use o f new technologies to enhance li­ brary support for distant learners. How can emerging digital resources best be integrated into library services for extended campus stu­ dents? How do we measure their effectiveness? • Perceptions of campus administrators re­ garding the value of extended campus library services. Do campus administrators view library services to extended campus students an im­ portant and justifiable use o f resources? If so, why? If not, why? • Funding extended campus library services. What are the cost components of providing li­ brary services to extended campus students? What funding models and formulas are being used and how adequate are they? • Providing library services to independent learners who are not able to use an academic library in person. What are the essential library services off-campus students should be pro­ vided? What models are in place for providing these services and what are the factors that contribute to their success? Other topics identified which merit research include: how does copyright law affect deliv­ ery of library services to distant learners? and how are library schools preparing aspiring aca­ demic librarians for serving the remote, non- traditional student in an electronic environment? 382/C&RL News ACRL co llectin g in fo rm a tio n lit e r a c y d a ta This fall ACRL was approached by the Middle States Association Commission on Higher Education to enter a cooperative research project for the pur­ pose of collecting data on existing information lit­ eracy programs in higher education institutions across the U.S. The address files of the six regional accred­ iting agencies were used for the mailing to campuses, which was addressed to the accrediting agencies' campus contact (usually presidents, provosts, and deans) with instructions that the instruments were to be distributed on campus to the unit best suited to respond. In some cases the campus identified the library as the appropriate unit to respond. More than 3,000 surveys have been mailed; over 1,000 responses have been completed. We are try­ ing to obtain the clearest and most complete picture possible of current state-of-the-art information literacy programs at institutions of higher learning across the U.S. If you have a program at your library and have not completed the survey, we invite you to use the form below and respond. Please attach any docu­ mentation (course syllabi, text, worksheets, or goal statements) that provide further clarity about your pro­ gram. If you have any questions, call Althea Jenkins at (800) 545-2433 ext. 3248 or e-mail: althea.jenkins @ala.org. June 1995/383 The survey also identified people who are interested in collaborating with others on re­ search. There is not only considerable interest in seeing the results o f that research, but also in working with others to carry out and report it. The committee will be pleased to provide the names and e-mail addresses o f respondents willing to collaborate, as well as detailed re­ sults o f the survey, to anyone interested in re­ searching topics in extended library services. Please contact Alexander Slade at e-mail: libext@uwm.uvic.ca. C o lle a g u e s a n d frie n d s h o n o r B ill M offett A. On a sunny Saturday morning, First Church in Oberlin, Ohio, was the scene o f a memo­ rial service. The event was held on May 6 in celebration and thanksgiving for the life of William Andrew Moffett, who served as library director at Oberlin College from 1979-90 and then as librarian o f the Huntington Library until his un­ timely death last February. On Saturday afternoon, the audi­ torium at the college library was named in Bill’s honor. Eleven speakers at the ser­ vice offered remembrances, in­ cluding Bill’s two daughters and one of his sons. Coworker and friend Marlene Merrill re­ called the time when, just be­ W illia m fore the school year began, she saw Bill placing gold and purple chrysanthe­ mums near the library’s entrance and asked him what the big event was; “Our students are coming,” he replied. ACRL executive director Althea Jenkins said that Bill Moffett was a national and interna­ tional figure, and she read a memorial resolu­ tion that had been passed by ACRL's execu­ tive board and read at an earlier memorial service held on February 28 in San Marino, California. (See the April C&RL News, p. 232.) Ray English, Bill’s successor as director of the Oberlin College Library, passed along the comment o f an alumnus who had been a stu­ dent editor in 1979 when the new director arrived at the college: “Bill stole the show on campus.” Ray noted Bill’s obvious charm and intelligence, but emphasized another charac­ teristic— his courage, whether confronting a physically imposing book thief; standing up to persons in power; risking his career over principles he believed in; or facing death with grace, humor, and equanimity. Richard Werking (U.S. Naval Academy Library) read the concluding lines of Tennyson's “Ulysses,” which Bill had recited at the end o f his re­ marks when accepting the ACRL Academic/Research Li­ brarian o f the Year Award in 1993. Alison Ricker, science li­ brarian at Oberlin, told the congregation how she had come to work at the college in 1983 on her way to “some­ thing big,” and Bill had shown her how being in a small place did not mean that one couldn’t do big things. William Andrew Moffett Jr. Moffett read Robert Burns’s poem, “O, Wert Thou in the Cauld Blast,” observing that his father and Bums shared January 25 birthdays. In introducing the hymn “Morning Has Broken,” Stephanie Moffett Hynds said that the tune had originated on the Isle of Mull, where Bill’s maternal ances­ tors came from. At her request, the congrega­ tion provided a rousing version of the song in order “to break the morning.” Reverend John Elder characterized Bill as energetic, cre­ ative, and courageous, and he reminded the group that Bill’s persona reflected a combina­ tion of the conscientious and the whimsical. At the conclusion of the benediction, a bag­ pipe played the recessional. Its sound mingled with the fainter sound of rock music from Tappan Square across the street, produced by the annual Mayfair Festival. As the Reverend Douglas Long noted, Bill would have enjoyed that combination too.— (This report was com­ piled from information provided by Ray En­ glish, Althea Jenkins, Alison Ricker, and Rich­ ard Werking) mailto:libext@uwm.uvic.ca 384/C&RL News