ACRL News Issue (B) of College & Research Libraries


C&RL News ■ June 2002 / 411

N e w s  f r o m  t h e  F i e l d Stephanie Orphan

O h io LIN K  d e liv e rs  v id e o  o n  d e m a n d  
O hio’s college and university students can 
now  access three video collections over the 
W eb through OhioLINK’s Digital Media Cen­
ter (DMC). A collection of foreign language 
videos, 600 physics experim ents, and a se­
lection of video and audio files that com ple­
m ent selected image files in the DMC Art & 
Architecture Database are available for search­
ing, viewing or listening, and dow nloading 
by students and faculty.

The physics videos are licensed from the 
Education Group’s Video Encyclopedia o f Phys­
ics Demonstrations and comprise a series of 
demonstrations using the RealVideo format, 
which may be streamed or dow nloaded to an 
individual workstation. The foreign language 
videos are contributed by the Viewpoints 
Project and offer a collection of clips, ranging 
from 30 seconds to 2 minutes, in which native 
speakers elaborate on their culture, family, and 
daily life. The video-on-dem and content and 
se rv ic es are d e liv e re d  o v e r th e  W eb to 
OhioLINK’s 79 m em ber institutions, with sev­
eral of the collections open to all Ohioans.

R IT's W a lla ce  L ib ra ry  a d s C H O IC E  
R e v ie w s  to  its O PA C
R ochester Institute of T echnology’s (RIT) 
Wallace Library has licensed CHOICE Reviews 
for inclusion in its OPAC. As a result of this 
initiative, all Wallace patrons now  have seam ­
less point-and-click access to the CHOICE re­
view  of any title included in the OPAC that 
has b e e n  review ed by CHOICE since 
Septem ber 1988.

The OPAC availability of the re­
views is the result of a partnership be­
tw e e n  CHOICE a n d  Syndetic Solu­
tions, Inc., w hich allows libraries to 
license the entire CHOICE review  d a ­
tabase o f m ore than 80,000 reviews. 
The reviews m ay b e  licensed directly 
through Syndetic Solutions or through 
participating ILS vendors, w hich in­
c l u d e  B r o d a r t, DRA, E n d e a v o r , 
e p ix te c h , Ex Libris/SFX, G aylord, 
GEAC, Innovative Interfaces, Sirsi, 
TLC/CARL, and VTLS.

B a k e r & T a y lo r a n n o u n c e s e -co n te n t 
a g re e m e n ts
Baker & Taylor has entered into eBook dis­
tribution agreem ents with Oxford University 
Press, the w orld’s largest university press, and 
H oughton Mifflin Company, publisher of an 
extensive line of reference, fiction, and n o n ­
fiction titles. The eBooks will b e  m ade avail­
able through Baker & Taylor’s eContent d e ­
livery system, ED. ED, w hich will be available 
later this year, provides public and academic 
libraries with a turnkey solution for deliver­
ing eBooks and related services to their pa­
trons.

Univ. o f O k la h o m a 's  a th le tic s  
d e p a rtm e n t a n d  u n iv e rs ity  lib ra rie s  
cre a te  p a rtn e rs h ip
In w hat is believed to b e  the first partnership 
of its kind in the United States, the University 
of O klahom a’s (OU) athletics departm ent will 
assist the libraries in establishing a $1 million 
endow m ent by making a leadership gift of 
$250,000 tow ard the endow m ent, using roy­
alties derived from sales of athletics m erchan­
dise.

To launch the venture, the two entities 
copresented OU’s second annual Books that 
Inspire exhibit in April, w hich featured 52 
books recom m ended by OU faculty, coaches, 
and staff. The partnership was created to sym­
bolize the shared com m itm ent to excellence 
of the entire university and underscore OU’s 
goal of encouraging student athletes to fully



4 1 2  /  C&RL News ■ June 2002

participate in the academic life of the institution.

A H H S L  o ffe rs  fre e  e le c tro n ic  
re c ru itm e n t g u id e
The Association of Academic Health Sciences 
Libraries (AAHSL) has m ade Recruiting a n d  
Selecting A ca d em ic Health Sciences Library 
Directors: A  G uide available on  its Web site 
free of charge. The guide provides direction 
for all facets of the recruitm ent process, from 
analyzing the vacancy to appointm ent of the 
successful candidate. Current data on  sala­
ries a n d  the racial a n d  gender com position 
of the candidate pool are provided, as well 
as recom m endations for posting jobs and 
exam ples of position descriptions. The p u b ­
lication of the guide is part o f AAHSL’s Fu­
ture Leadership Initiative. PDF a n d  HTML 
versions of the guide are online at h ttp :// 
w w w .aahsl.org/recruitguide/index.htm l.

C e n tre  C o lle g e  re tu rn s ra re  te x ts  to  
D ic k in s o n  C o lle g e
Two handw ritten books filled with lecture 
notes and com m encem ent addresses from the 
f ir s t t h r e e  g r a d u a t i o n  c e r e m o n i e s  o f 
Pennsylvania’s D ickinson College have been  
returned to D ickinson aftèr the historic vol­
um es w ere discovered at Centre College, lo­
cated in Danville, Kentucky. The lectures and 
a d d re sse s w e re  given by C harles Nisbet, 
D ickinson’s first president.

It is u n k n o w n  ho w  the volum es, w hich 
date back to the 1780s, m ade their w ay to 
Centre College. The books w ere handw ritten 
by Jo h n  Young w hile attending D ickinson in 
the 1780s. Interestingly, b o th  Young’s 
son and grandson w en t on to becom e 
presidents of Centre College. The vol­
um es w ere discovered by Bob Glass, 
h e a d  of Technical Services and Special 
Collections at Centre. Centre College’s 
vice president a n d  de a n  of academ ic af­
fairs, Jo h n  C. Ward, p resented the vol­
um es as a gift to Dickison in a cerem ony 
in April.

U N C G re e n s b o ro  jo in s  A S E R L
The W alter Clinton Jackson Library of 
the University of North Carolina (UNC) 
at Greensboro recently becam e the new ­

ACRL members Lisa H inchliffe and A rlie Sims at the 
American Association o f Higher Education National 
Conference, at w hich they presented a poster session 
on the Inform ation Literacy Infusion.

est m em ber of the Association of South­
eastern Research Libraries (ASERL), the 
largest research library consortia in the

United States. ASERL was founded in 1956 
a n d  w as a founding m em ber of the South­
eastern Library Network (SOLINET), establish­
ing SOLINET’s licensing program.

ASERL-sponsored projects include com pe­
tency guidelines for research librarians, docu­
m ent delivery am ong select m em bers, and a 
virtual electronic library system that links the 
catalogs of the 16 ASERL libraries. Members 
of ASERL are contributing to the developm ent 
of Am ericanSouth.org, a portal of digitized 
resources describing the history a n d  culture 
o f th e American South after th e Civil War.

A C R L  la u n c h e s In fo rm a tio n  L ite ra c y  
W eb s ite  w ith  e x p e rt lo c a to r
ACRL has created a n e w  Inform ation Literacy 
W eb site, w ith an expert locator am ong its 
m any features. The site is a gatew ay to re­
sources on inform ation literacy as well as a 
gathering place for som e of the m ost im por­
tant initiatives in this area. In addition to learn­
ing a b o u t the basics of inform ation literacy 
and finding the latest new s on the informa­
tion literacy front, visitors to the site can read 
about program s im plem ented at oth er insti­
tutions in the “Examples in IL” section, w here 
practicing librarians and teachers are asked 
to share their work.

The expert locator, designed to ease the 
b u rd en  of planning a panel, funding a w ork­
shop, or looking for a consultant, is one of 
the site’s m ost valuable resources. The loca­
tor includes nam es of librarians a n d  teaching 
faculty w ho have special expertise in the area 
of inform ation literacy and have m ade them -

http://www.aahsl.org/recruitguide/index.html
AmericanSouth.org


C&RL News ■ June 2002 /  413

selves available to share this with 
others. Listings are available by name, 
state, and area of expertise. Current 
topic areas are Learning O utcom es, 
Assessment, a n d  Com petency Stan­
dards; Com m unity Partnerships; and 
F a c u lty /L ib ra ria n  C o lla b o ra tio n s. 
O ther areas will be a d d e d  as the lo­
cator grows.

The Expert Locator is interactive, 
with o n e click connecting visitors to 
a page on  w hich they can sign u p  as 
an expert, while another lets them  
nom inate som eone else.

The goal of the Information Literacy 
Web site is to provide one-stop shop­
ping for anyone wanting information lit­
eracy resources, including new librarians, 
those w ho are already in the field, and 
teaching faculty and administrators. The 
site is available http://www.ala.oig/acrl/ 
infolit.

U n iv e rs ity  o f  T e n n e sse e  g r a d  
s tu d e n ts  s u p p o rt th e  lib ra ry
For ten  consecutive years, the University of 
T ennessee (UT) G raduate Student Associa­
tion (GSA) has sponsored the “Love Your 
Libraries” Fun Run, a race to benefit the UT 
Libraries. This year’s run raised m ore than 
$7,000 from registration fees, corporate sp o n ­
sorships, and a m atching gift from the UT 
Athletics Department, the largest am ount ever 
raised by the GSA Fun Run. The proceeds 
w ere presented to the libraries this spring and 
will be u se d  to purchase electronic journals.

Fretw ell-D ow ning and A R L collaborate 
on Scholars Portal Project
The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) 
has launched the Scholars Portal Project, a 
collaboration b etw een  seven ARL m em ber 
libraries a n d  Fretwell-Downing. The goal of 
the Scholars Portal Project is to provide soft­
w are tools for an academ ic com m unity to 
have a single point of access on the W eb for 
finding high-quality inform ation resources.

The initial p h ase of the project involves 
deploying Fretw ell-D ow ning’s ZPORTAL to 
deliver cross-dom ain searching of licensed 
a n d  openly available content in a range of 
subject fields and from  m ultiple institutions. 
Initial project participants and Fretwell-Down­
ing will collaborate to d evelop additional

Oberlin College Libraries received the 2002 Excellence 
in Academic Libraries Aw ard in a ceremony held on the 
Oberlin campus on May 1. A pproxim ately 150 people 
were in attendance, including (from  le ft to  right) Clayton 
Koppes, dean o f the College o f Arts and Science; Nancy 
S. Dye, president o f Oberlin College; Ray English, director 
o f libraries; Mary Reichel, president o f ACRL; Scott Smith, 
representative fro m  Blackwell's Book Services and an 
Oberlin College graduate; and Ann Sherif, chair o f the 
General Faculty Library Committee.

functionality that they identify as critical and 
will evaluate the n e w  capabilities in teaching 
a n d  library production environm ents.

O ver the course of the three-year project, 
the n um ber of participating libraries is ex­
p ected  to expand; the capabilities provided 
by the portal will be refined, developed, and 
evaluated; a n d  priorities will be set for future 
developm ent. The participating libraries are 
funding the project, w ith Fretwell-Downing 
contributing to som e of the costs of the d e ­
velopm ental w ork for enhancem ents.

e b ra ry  o ffe r s  n e w  p r ic in g  m o d e l
ebrary has ad d e d  an “all you can eat” pricing 
o ption for its ebrarian for Libraries service. 
The option includes an annual license fee plus 
a fixed charge based on FTE and allows p a ­
trons unlim ited print a n d  copy transactions. 
U nder the initial pricing m odel, w hich librar­
ians may still choose, patrons set up  accounts 
w ith ebrary and pay for their ow n  print and 
copy transactions. There is n o  extra charge 
during the subscription year as ebrary expands 
its collection, ebrarian currently offers librar­
ies m ore than 6,000 full-text titles for sim ulta­
neous, m ulti-user access by patrons.

S w e ts  B la c k w e ll a n d  S e ria ls
S o lu t io n s  c o lla b o r a te  to  e a se  e- 
jo u r n a l m a n a g e m e n t
Swets Blackwell and Serials solutions are col­
laborating to sim plify th e m an ag em en t of

http://www.ala.oig/acrl/


414 /  C&RL News ■ June 2002

electronic journals in an effort to provide li­
braries w ith com prehensive coverage of their 
e-journal collections. The tw o com panies will 
co o rd in ate a n d  transfer holding data o n  b e ­
half of libraries that subscribe to bo th  the 
S w etsn etN a vig a to r a n d  Serials Solutions ser­
vices. For libraries that ch o o se to participate, 
e-journals licensed through SwetsnetNavigator 
will b e  in c o rp o ra te d  into the com prehensive 
electronic serials reports p ro v id ed  by Serials 
Solutions. Direct, journal-level linking will also 
b e  p ro v id e d  for all Sw etsn etN a vig a to r c o n ­
tent.

C a n a d ia n  P o e try  D a ta b a s e  la u n c h e d
The Electronic Text Centre at the University 
o f  N e w  B r u n s w ic k  (U N B ) L ib ra rie s  in 
Fredericton has digitized the poetry o f 185 
Canadian poets and m ade their w orks avail­
able through the C anadian Poetry Database. 
The database w as produced through an agree­
m ent w ith Chadw yck-Healey, a division o f

P ro Q u e st In fo rm a tio n  a n d  Learning, m ak ­
ing th e  E lectronic T ext C entre th e  first in 
C anada a n d  s e c o n d  in th e w o rld  to c o lla b o ­
rate w ith  th e  p u b lis h e r o n  a m ajor s c h o l­
arly p roject.

T h e p ro je c t in v o lv e d  th e  d ig itiz a tio n  of 
m ore than 100,000 pages o f pre-19th-, 19th-, 
a n d  2 0 th -cen tu ry  p o e try  in to  a c o m p r e h e n ­
sive, full-text, se a rc h a b le  d a ta b a se . T he d a ­
ta b a se  in clu d e s a b io g ra p h ic a l p ro file  a n d  
p h o to g ra p h  o f e a c h  p o e t as w ell as a n  e x ­
ten siv e b ib lio g ra p h y . U sers can  s e a rc h  th e  
p o e try  in th e  d a ta b a s e  by subject, author, 
title, first line, a n d  k e y w o rd s.

The C anadian Poetry D atabase is the larg­
est p u b lis h in g  initiative ev e ry  u n d e rta k e n  
by UNB’s E lectronic Text C entre. In a d d i­
tio n  to  staff o f th e  c e n tre , c re d it is g iv en  to 
th e  d o c u m e n t d e liv e ry  staff at UNB, w h o  
fo u n d  o riginals o f m aterial for d igitization, 
a n d  lib raries acro ss C an ad a a n d  th e  U nited 
States, for th e ir c o o p e ra tio n . ■

ACRL/Harvard Leadership Institute

A cadem ic libraries ex ist in a c o n sta n tly  
changing environm ent with m any n e w  chal­
lenges a n d  m any available opportunities. 
New  dem ands on  academ ic libraries call for 
fundam ental shifts in leadership know -how . 
In response to these challenges, ACRL is col­
laborating w ith the Harvard Institutes for 
H igher Education to offer its p o p u lar ACRL/ 
Harvard Leadership Institute.

At the ACRL/Harvard Institute, you will 
b e  am ong y our fellow leaders in academ ic 
librarianship. The institute is designed for 
directors o f libraries and individuals in p o ­
sitions such as associate university librarian, 
assistant dean, vice president of inform ation 
resources, university librarian, a n d  college 
librarian. The institute w o u ld  also b e  useful 
for individuals regularly involved in deci­
sion-m aking that affects the entire library 
op eratio n  a n d  that involves oth er im portant 
relationships on  cam pus.

Comments from past participants include: 
“For the first time I have understood w hat 

I can find and see in m yself to b e  a leader, 
and I kn o w  th at I have excellent tools with 
w hich to d o  this. I will learn to build o n  my 
strengths.”

“I e x p ected  excellence and that is ex­
actly w hat I found. The quality o f the p ro ­
gram, the faculty, and the participants m ade 
for an outstanding experience. T hank you 
for setting the tone and providing the space 
and tim e for o p e n  discussion a n d  debate, 
laughter and learning.”

“I think th e mix a n d  diversity o f partici­
pants w as integral to the success of the p ro ­
gram. I enjoyed the chance to m eet librar­
ians from  all types of academ ic institutions, 
and all parts of the country.”

The 2002 ACRL/Harvard Leadership In­
stitute will b e  held in Cambridge, Massa­
chusetts, August 4-9, 2002. Registration m a­
terials a n d  com plete details about the insti­
tute are available o n  the W eb at h ttp :// 
w w w .gse.harvard.edu/~ppe/program s/acrl/ 
program.html.

Register early as spots will fill quickly. 
ACRL/Harvard Leadership Institute alum ni 
benefits include a subscription to an o n g o ­
ing electronic list a n d  annual alum ni re ­
unions at th e ALA M idwinter Meeting.

Q uestions about this institute can b e  di­
rected to acrl@ala.org; (800) 545-2433, ext. 
2522.

http://www.gse.harvard.edu/~ppe/programs/acrl/
mailto:acrl@ala.org