ACRL News Issue (B) of College & Research Libraries


March 1 9 9 3 /1 2 3

Subscription ra te  
reduction p la n
Gordon and Breach Publish­
ers are im p lem e n tin g  an 
award program for academic 
institutions and their librar­
ies based on the number of 
research papers accepted to 
its more than 200 journals in 
the sciences and arts.

C a lle d  N e g a tiv e  P age 
Charges (as opposed to the 
fee that some journal publish­
ers charge their authors), this 
p ro g ra m  gives a u th o rs  a 
credit for their article.

Upon a paper’s acceptance for publication 
in any Gordon and Breach or Harwood Aca­
demic journal, the publisher will send the au­
thor a credit valued at either $20 U.S., 3,000 
Yen, or 15 ECU (European Currency Unit). 
These credits may be used as currency for any 
Gordon and Breach Publishing Group titles and 
services. The author can forward these vouch­
ers to his or her library and the library can use 
them to reduce the purchase price o f Gordon 
and Breach titles.

EDUCOM w a n ts  in p u t on use o f 
te ch n olo gy fo r teaching a n d  le a rn in g
EDUCOM wants help identifying programmatic 
applications of specific information technolo­
gies already succeeding in delivering quality 
instruction at reduced costs per student. They 
are looking for cost-effective implementations 
th a t reflect n ew  p aradigm s an d  n ew  a p ­
proaches to teaching and learning in higher 
education.

Bob Zeterick, EDUCOM’s new president, has 
made the use of information technology for 
teaching and learning a high priority. Steven 
W. Gilbert, vice-president of EDUCOM, has 
been assigned full-time responsibility for pro­
grammatic activity in this area.

Send this inform ation electronically to 
Gilbert at: GILBERT@bitnic.educom.edu or call 
(202) 872-4200 for more information.

C olum bia develops v irtu a l lib ra ry
Columbia University Law Library has begun 
creating a “virtual library” that can find and dis­
play on one computer screen the full text of 
any document among millions stored digitally

News
fro m  the

f i e l d

as optical images. Named 
Project Janus, the system 
uses a supercomputer and 
advanced search software 
provided by Thinking Ma­
chines Corp, of Cambridge, 
M assachusetts, w h ich  is 
working with Columbia to 
test the system.

James Hoover, Colum­
bia’s law librarian, expects 
limited access for Columbia 
re s e a rc h e rs  th is sp rin g : 
“Early on w e’ll have avail­
able extensive documenta­

tion in certain key areas of legal research. For 
example, researchers will have full-text access to 
the Congressional documents surrounding the adop­
tion of the 14th Amendment." The system allows 
full-text searches.

By 1996 the library ex p ects to convert 
10,000-12,000 volumes annually to computer 
storage, about the same number it now  adds 
to its holdings each year.

Librarians a t  m id-sized libraries share 
interests
An ad hoc committee on Medium-sized Librar­
ies formed by ACRL’s College Libraries and 
University Libraries Sections is considering es­
tablishing an ACRL Discussion Group for Li­
brarians in Medium-sized Colleges. The com­
mittee will meet with interested librarians during 
ALA’s Annual Conference on Monday, June 28, 
from 8:00-9:00 a.m.

For this purpose, mid-sized libraries are at 
those institutions that do not grant doctorates 
and have student enrollments between 5,000 
and 14,000. Topics for discussion include fea­
sibility of forming a discussion group, as well 
as budget, personnel, acquisitions, operational 
matters, statistical analyses, and SPEC- and CLIP 
Note-like publications for medium-sized aca­
demic libraries.

For additional information contact members 
of the ad hoc committee: David B. Walch, chair 
(California Polytechnic State University, San Luis 
Obispo), Patricia Butcher (Trenton [N.J.] State 
College Library), E. Dale Cluff (Texas Tech Uni­
versity), Marvin Leavy (Western Kentucky Uni­
versity), Billy Pennington (Birmingham [Ala.]- 
Southern College), and Ralph Russell (Georgia 
State University).

mailto:GILBERT@bitnic.educom.edu


124 /  C&RL News

Women’s History Month is March. Celebrate 
with this poster by Kiki ($25) and a Women's 
History Kit ($23.80) available from ALA. Call 
(800) 545-2433, press 8, for details.

ALA opts o u t o f D enver
In resp o n se to the passage o f C olorado’s 
Amendment 2, ALA’s Executive Board voted 
at its January 23 meeting in Denver not to hold 
ALA’s 1998 Midwinter Meeting in Denver and 
not to consider any site in Colorado as a future 
conference site for ALA or any of its units until 
such time as Amendment 2 is either overturned 
by the courts or repealed by the voters.

Amendment 2 prohibits the state or any of 
its subdivisions from adopting or enforcing any 
law or policy that provides anti-discrimination 
protection based on sexual orientation.

The majority of board members felt that this 
amendment permits discrimination which con­
flicts with ALA policies 54.17 and 54.3 sup­
porting equal employment opportunities for 
gay librarians and all workers regardless of race, 
color, creed, sex, age, physical or mental handi­
cap, individual lifestyle, or national origin.

S ta n fo rd  com pletes RECON
Stanford University Libraries has com pleted 
a ten-year retrospective conversion (RECON) 
project to convert virtually all of its main li­
brary card catalog records to machine-read- 
able form. At the beginning of the project 
nearly 900,000 items w ere not accessible o n ­
line.

Faculty support information literacy
Strong faculty support for information lit­

eracy skills was shown by a recent survey of 
faculty attitudes conducted at Dalhousie Uni­
versity in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Six hundred 
faculty in the humanities, social sciences, sci­
ences, medicine, law, and other professions 
were surveyed. Sixty-six percent responded 
to questions about their expectations of stu­
d en t library know ledge, attitudes tow ards 
librarian’s roles, priorities about teaching and 
information literacy, and the instructor’s use 
o f the library.

Preliminary analysis reveals that 84% agree 
that students should know how to do library 
research and 95% agree that it will be essen­
tial to students in later life that they are able 
to find information efficiently. In addition, 88% 
agree that librarians and faculty are partners 
in the educational process. Of particular in­
terest was the fact the 89% of those surveyed 
agreed that it should be a requirement of the

Baccalaureate degree that students know how 
to do library research.

These initial results argue that faculty place 
high value on information skills, a finding 
which tends to disagree with the perceptions 
of librarians. Further analysis may confirm that 
librarians can concentrate on overcoming the 
other obstacles that prevent the development 
of information-literate students without wor­
rying about negative faculty attitudes. These 
obstacles include lack of awareness of instruc­
tion programs, lack of available time in the 
curriculum, etc.

Additional correlations are planned in the 
study. These will include rank, discipline, and 
personal experience of the faculty member. 
Researchers are Elizabeth Frick, professor at 
the School of Library and Information Stud­
ies, and Fran Nowakowski, reference librar­
ian, Killam Library, Dalhousie University.— 
Fran Nowakowski, Dalhousie University