ACRL News Issue (B) of College & Research Libraries COLLEGE & RESEARCH LIBRARIES NEWS A sso cia tio n of C o lle g e & R esearch L ibraries September 1983 Vol. 44, No. 8 Liang Kai Chou, history graduate student from Taiwan, explains in Mandarin the use o f library facilities and services to his countrymen. Chinese Spoken Here: Foreign Language Library Orientation Tours Manuel D. Lopez Lockwood Memorial Library SUNY at Buffalo Of the 27,000 students enrolled in the State University of New York at Buffalo, almost 2,000 are foreign students representing some 39 countries. Such students and visiting scholars represent the best of their country’s educational system, and while they read and w rite English very well, unfortunately (continued on p. 268) FIRST C h o ic e —for timely reviews o f publications in subject areas appropriate for undergraduate libraries. 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C IT Y ______________________________________________________________________ □ Please enter our subscription for STATE Z IP CHOICE Reviews-on-Cards for one year at $150.00 (available to CHOICE subscribers only). Choice 100 Riverview Center, M id d le to w n , C o n n e c tic u t 06457 Septem ber 1983 / 267 COLLEGE & RESEARCH LIBRARIES NEWS September 1983 Volume 44 Number 8 CONTENTS Chinese Spoken Here: Foreign Language Orientation Tours Manuel D. Lopez… 265 Financial Restrictions in Academic Libraries Kay F. Jones… 269 Evaluating Bibliographic Instruction: A Handbook Virginia Tief & David K i n g … 271 Seattle ’84 … 274 Highlights of the Annual Conference Meetings of the ACRL B oard… 275 ACRL Officers for 1983-84 … 277 Washington Hotline Carol C. 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All m aterial in this journal subject to copyright by the American L ibrary Association m ay be photocopied for the noncommercial purpose of scientific or educational ad­ vancem ent. 268 / C & R L N ew s Chinese Spoken, c o n t ’d they often have h ad only little practice in hearing English and generally they are com pletely u n fa­ m iliar w ith Am erican library systems and the te r­ minology involved. Consequently, even if they are p a rt of a class th a t includes a lib rary orientation p ro g ra m , they rem ain a t a disadvantage. As a result of this, such students rem ain shy, diffident and reluctant to ask for help in th e use of libraries. Yet given the opportunity, they become exceed­ ingly heavy library users. Lockwood M emorial L ib rary is the graduate so­ cial sciences and hum anities library in the U niver­ sity L ibraries system at SUNY-Buffalo. For th e purposes of aiding the foreign student in becoming a self-sufficient and effective library p atro n , la n ­ guage seemed to be the key. T he use of student n a ­ tive language speakers as to u r leaders in a special library orientation program was considered as a possible solution. E ach foreign student association and club on cam pus w as sent a le tter explaining th e project w ith a request to subm it the names of interested volunteers. This approach was som ew hat less th a n successful as such organizations are not functional during the sum m er and usually are in a period of adm inistrative transition at the beginning of the fall semester. The most productive approach u ti­ lized was personal contact w ith foreign students who spoke excellent English. G enerally, w hen the project was explained to such students, they readily agreed to volunteer for one or m ore tours. Each tour leader received a script of a basic in­ troduction to library facilities and services, i.e., reference desk, reserve desk, com puter searching, interlibrary loan, use of the card catalog, use of in­ dexes and abstracts, location of periodicals and se­ rials w ithin the library system, and circulation pol­ icies. This was supplem ented by an itinerary keyed to the script. L ater all the volunteers w ere given a sample library orientation tour and at this tim e questions generated by the script w ere answered. W hen the students h ad com pleted their own aca­ demic schedules, they w ere asked to indicate on the relev an t to u r sign-up sheets w hich days and at w h at hour they w ould be w illing to give tours. As I was to accom pany them at the session, obviously only one to u r could be scheduled at a time. The presence of a lib rarian w ho could act as a resource person for th e to u r leader seemed to be crucial in term s of th e volunteers’ willingness to accept the task and their com fort and enjoyment of the p re ­ sentation. Last year the foreign language library orientation program was given in Arabic, Chinese (M andarin and Cantonese), Farsi, French, Ja p a ­ nese, Spanish, and Thai. Public relations for the project included flyers and posters in the relevant languages inform ing the foreign students th a t if they w anted to learn to use the library effectively in the p rep aratio n of term papers, class presentations, and sem inars, they then could attend a session in the use of the library, presented by a native speaker of th a t language, by com ing to the library and reserving a place in one or m ore sessions. Similar inform ation was sent to cam pus p u b lica­ tions, student newspapers, and the student radio station. Relevant flyers were sent to the a p p ro p ri­ ate student organizations and clubs, posted on b u l­ letin boards around cam pus, and sent to the dorm i­ to rie s w ith a h ig h c o n c e n tr a tio n of fo re ig n students. The Foreign Student Affairs Office re­ ceived notice of the program and flyers w ere in­ cluded in the Foreign Student O rientation Pro­ gram . M any national groups w hich have their own program s for assisting their newly arrived fellow citizens in registering, finding housing, etc., were also inform ed of the project. W hile a num ber of volunteers in each language were sought in order to give the student a variety of possible times to take the orientation tour, there was no m inim um num ber of students required for a tour to be given. Even if only one person signed up for a p articu lar hour, the tour was conducted. In contrast, library tour stan d ard policy had re­ quired a m inim um of three students. T he foreign students w ere eager participants, so w hile th e tours w ere only scheduled for one hour, questions and explanations sometimes req u ired m ore tim e. Scheduling should allow for this. And foreign students are appreciative! Given the oppor­ tu n ity they become heavy library users, grateful for the special effort m ade to soften cultural shock. T h e y a re d e lig h te d a t b e in g s o m e w h a t self- September 1983 / 269 sufficient and become less bashful and more com­ fortable in their attitude tow ard librarians and the library, once it has been overtly dem onstrated th a t the library is actively seeking to help them in their studies. Such a program relieves some recurring problems in public service departm ents, enhances the library’s image on campus, and the staff in­ volved has the satisfaction of introducing a num ber of foreign students to a very American aspect of their education, as well as contributing to their ad­ justm ent in a new and sometimes confusing envi­ ronment. Letters of appreciation from the head of Lock­ wood and the Director of the University Libraries are sent to all the volunteers. ■ ■ Financial Restrictions in Academic Libraries Kay F. Jones Head of Reference D epartm ent Zim m erm an Library University o f New Mexico Spring is budget time in academic libraries. All around us can be heard mutterings about cuts in book budgets, frozen positions, and other financial restrictions imposed on us by the university, the state legislatures, or other budget authorities. It is fair to assume th a t many librarians wonder how widespread the cuts are in other academic institu­ tions. Are we the only ones who have been hurt? A survey was sent to 28 directors of libraries in the western third of the United States and sixteen responses (57%) were returned. Eleven of the re­ sponding libraries were ARL libraries; the other five w ere one of the three largest university li­ braries in their states. The survey was designed to find out how w idespread financial restrictions were in the West, the nature of these restrictions, and w hat creative solutions had been invented. Only three of the respondents reported no financial restrictions at all; thirteen libraries (81 %) had been cut in some way. Seventy-five per cent of the university librarians or their representatives whose libraries have expe­ rienced financial restrictions in the past four years expressed the opinion th a t the cuts in book budget, reductions in staff, and other restrictions imposed were tem porary in nature, although some defined “tem porary” as four to six years or longer! One less optimistic librarian commented th a t unless the fi­ nancial situation improved in his state, libraries would experience long and perm anent financial re­ strictions such as have not been seen in the state for more th an forty years. Ten of the libraries surveyed (62.5%) have had their book budgets cut or have had book funds taken back by the university adm inistration during the fiscal year. Six of the responding libraries expe­ rienced no book budget cuts; three others were cut by less than one per cent. Cuts at the other libraries ranged from 2% to 25% of the total book budget. Four libraries were cut by 2 % to 8 % ‚ making this range the most common. Three libraries were cut by more than 20% . In dollar amounts, the cuts ranged from around $5,000 to $750,000. All of the libraries experiencing financial restric­ tions had some sort of staffing restrictions. The most common form of restriction was frozen posi­ tions or a tem porary prohibition against filling po­ sitions open through attrition. Eight of the libraries responding (half the respondents) had frozen posi­ tions. Some of the affected positions were faculty or professional librarian positions; some were staff. Some libraries had a freeze on both classifications. Four libraries had positions perm anently reduced. Counting these two areas together, the cuts ranged from one position cut or frozen to one library which had experienced more th a n th irty lost positions since 1979/80. Two libraries had one affected posi­ tion; three had two; only two libraries had reduc­ tions of more than ten positions. One library said staff had been affected but did not specify a num ­ ber. For cuts expressed in percentages of the total staff, see Table 1. S everal lib ra rie s e x p e rien ced th e d o u b le w ham m y of cuts in both the book budget and in the staff. Eight libraries, or half of the sample, had fi­ nancial restrictions in both areas. W hat has been the result of these cuts on the aca­ demic libraries surveyed? Many have responded by cutting services in some way. The most common method employed was a reduction of hours of ser­ vice; six libraries, 37.5% of the respondents, used this way to lighten the load on a reduced staff. One library postponed the construction of a new library addition, another postponed the occupation of a new branch, and a third closed two branches and reabsorbed the collections into the main library. Reference services have been reduced, b ib lio ­ graphic instruction has been curtailed or elimi­ nated, and areas such as Special Collections or Au­ d io v isu a l Services h av e b een re d u c e d or elim in ated . O ne lib ra ria n com m ented th a t no growth in grossly underfunded areas could be con­ sidered a cut. T he question was asked of these lib rarian s, “Have you considered or conducted a systemwide review of operations to identify areas in which to economize?” Two libraries include this as p art of