ACRL News Issue (B) of College & Research Libraries 386 / C&RL News ACRL P r e sid e n t’s rep o rt, 1 9 8 6 - 8 7 B y H a n n e lo r e B . R a d e r A C R L ’s 48th President A C R L ’s past year in perspective. M y year as President of ACRL has been an excit- ing tim e to be active in ACRL and ALA affairs. N ew task forces and committees In response to suggestions from members about th eir needs and interests, I appointed four task forces in July 1986. The Task Force on Librarians as Instructors, chaired by M arian W inner, will present its final re port in New Orleans. The group has been examin ing lib ra ria n s ’ roles in b ib lio g ra p h ic in s tru c tion and credit courses, and as instructors in li brary schools. A prelim in a ry re p o rt has been p re s e n te d a t th e San Francisco Conference. The Task Force on Li b ra ries and C o m p u te r C enters, R ichard Boss, chair, carried out a sur vey to identify some of th e o r g a n iz a tio n a l changes being m ade to Hannelore B. Rader accom m odate develop ments in com puting on campus. They will present a final report in New Orleans, describing guide lines for cooperation between libraries and com puting centers. T h e T ask F o rc e on L ib r a r y A ccess, w ith K athleen G u n n in g as c h a ir, p re p a re d th e fine ACRL response to the Lacy Report, which I p re sented to the ALA Special Com m ittee on Freedom and E quality of Access to Inform ation at the M id w inter M eeting in Chicago. They have continued to consider access items on behalf of ACRL. The Task Force on C hapter Guidelines has been working on a revision of the guidelines th a t will protect ACRL from liability w ithout placing re straints on the activities in which chapters can en gage. Bob C arm ack has chaired the task force, which has reported on a plan at San Francisco. At the 1987 M idw inter Meeting, the Board ap proved the establishm ent of an International Rela tions C om m ittee, and M aureen Pastine has agreed to serve as chair. My contacts w ith academ ic li brarians indicated there was great interest in the international scene and I am pleased to see ACRL establish a form al unit to deal w ith international affairs. The charge includes the p re p a ra tio n of guidelines for prom oting international exchanges of librarians and inform ation, and assisting lib rari ans of other countries in the use of library and bib liographic techniques. Chapters I am very enthusiastic about the ACRL C hapter affiliates. W orking w ith these groups has been one of the most satisfying of my presidential duties. W ith 38 chapter links, ACRL is “close to hom e” for academ ic lib ra ria n s , w h e th e r or not th ey are ACRL members. The following chapters had “offi cial visits,” and as visitors we enjoyed interesting program s and stim ulating discussion and brought back some great ideas for ACRL: A labam a, Colo rado, Iow a, M innesota, New Mexico, Ohio, O re gon/W ashington. July/August 1987 / 387 ACRL Board and Executive Committee Some of the highlights of Board and Executive Committee meetings this year: • approved the publication of a brief version of the ACRE Strategic Plan in two formats—as pub lished in College & Research Libraries News, Janu ary 1987, and (same content, different look) as a brochure. Free copies of the brochure are available from the ACRL office. •began the Candidates’ Forum for ACRL presi dential candidates at Midwinter. This project will now be coordinated by the ACRL Chapters Coun cil. •approved the “Standards for Ethical Conduct for Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collec tions Librarians.” The full statement of the stan dards appeared in the March 1987 issue of College & Research Libraries News. •approved the “Model Statement of Criteria and Procedures for Appointment, Promotion in Academic Rank, and Tenure for College and Uni versity Librarians.” The full statement appeared in the May 1987 issue of College & Research Libraries News. •selected Phoenix, Arizona, as the site for ACRL’s Sixth National Conference, April 1-4, 1992. ALA Executive Board approval has been sought at the San Francisco Conference. •approved the petitions for the establishment of two new discussion groups: one for Canadian Stud ies and another on Electronic Library Develop ment in Academic Libraries. •voted to sponsor the Western European Spe cialist’s Section conference, April 5-8, 1988, in Florence, Italy. ALA affairs This has been a year of serious discussion be tween ALA and its divisions and among the divi sions themselves. I found the Division Officers’ meeting in Chicago very interesting and partici pated actively. Widespread discussion at the Mid winter Meeting focused on the “Policies of ALA in Relation to Divisions” (the new version of the Op erating Agreement). In the meetings of ACRL’s Budget and Finance Committee and its Board of Directors, as well as at the ALA Planning and Budget Assembly, the ACRL position was clari fied. By April when the ACRL Executive Commit tee met, they were ready to endorse a statement of their position regarding the new “ O p eratin g Agreement.” This statement has been published in College & Research Libraries News and widely dis tributed among the ALA and ACRL membership, in the hope th at a position of Association-wide unity can be reached by the time the Council votes on the new Policies in San Antonio in January 1988. C h o ice and B o o k s f o r C o lleg e L ib ra rie s 3d edition In November I visited the offices of Choice and Books for College Libraries and observed two excit ing operations. There, a staff of 21 under Patricia Sabosik, editor and publisher, produces 11 issues a year of Choice which publishes more reviews than any other reviewing medium in English (over 6,000 a year). Each issue also includes a featured bibliographic essay and there are other special fea tures, such as one on reference books each Novem ber and the special issue featuring the “Outstand ing Academic Books,” a list of some 600 top titles, every May. The 3d edition of Books for College Libraries is nearing completion. The 6-volume set, edited by Virginia Clark under Pat Sabosik as project direc tor, will be published jointly with ALA Publishing during the 1987-88 fiscal year. It is the product of more than 500 faculty members: Choice reviewers who volunteered to select titles in their fields, using lists prepared by Clark and her staff from BCL2 and Choice reviews published since BCL2, and adding any additional works they wished. All sub ject lists so created are then being scrutinized by collection development librarians with subject Oberly Award winners Jacqueline A. Ashby and Stella Gomez have been selected to receive the 1987 Eunice Rock wood Oberly Award for Bibliography in the Agricultural Sciences. The award recognizes their jointly written monograph, Women, Ag riculture, and Rural Development in Latin America, co-published in Colombia by the In ternational Fertilizer Development C enter (IFDC) and the Centro Internacional de Agri- cultura Tropical (CIAT) in 1985. Ashby is a sociologist with the IFDC/CIAT Phosphorus Project in Cali, Colombia; Gomez is a Cali native with an MLS from the Universi- dad de Antioquia and is now Bibliographical and Reference Section supervisor at the IFDC/ CIAT library. The Oberly Memorial Award, instituted in 1925, is presented in odd-numbered years to American citizens who compile the best bibli ographies in agriculture or related sciences in the preceding two-year period. The award is administered by ACRL’s Science and Technol ogy Section, and is made possible by a fund es tablished by colleagues in memory of Eunice Rockwood Oberly. One of the authors is an American citizen and thus conforms to the rules of the award. The bibliography is available for $11.75 (plus $2.50 postage) through the Agribook store, c/o Winrock International, 1611 N. Kent St., Arlington, VA 22209. 388 / C&RL News a re a sp ec ia liz a tio n to en su re b a la n c e . A bout 50,000 titles will appear in the 3d edition. Conclusion The year has also been an exciting one for me personally. I am grateful for the support of my ACRL and ALA friends as I move into a new posi tion as director of libraries at Cleveland State Uni versity, and honored to have had the opportunity to serve as ACRL President. ■ ■ CD-ROM: A p rim er B y K a r e n A . B e c k e r Circulation Librarian Rosary College Some definitions, questions, and answers on a very hot topic. This prim er evolved from a cheat sheet I pre- pared for myself to alleviate my confusion in deal ing w ith the new optical/laser technology. After a t tending the Online ’86 conference in Chicago, I realized how much I didn’t know about CD-ROM and related technologies, and attem pting to read the journal literature didn’t help much. Authors as sumed th at the reader already understood the b a sics, such as: w hat is the difference between video disks and CD-ROM (there’s a difference?), w hat are the “com patibility” problems to which every one kept referring (com patible w ith w hat?), or w h at is really a “fair” price? The presentations and demonstrations were very am azing, but I w anted to be able to ask the salespeople and representatives some intelligent questions, and wished I was more fam iliar w ith the “burning issues.” This article is divided into tw o parts: the first p art includes a “family tree” of optical technology and a list of definitions. As these applications of la ser technology are fairly new, definitions do vary som ewhat from source to source, but I have tried to synthesize the most commonly recognized defini tions. The second p art attem pts to cover the issues currently being discussed w ith reference to optical technology, especially as it relates to libraries. The purpose of this paper is to instill confidence in the reader—confidence to read a journal article (even in a com puter journal!) and confidence to com m u nicate w ith publishers and vendors of optical tech nology. Optical disks O ptical disk: Generic term for media produced and read w ith laser technology. Laser disk: O ptical disk. A nalog/digital: An analog signal has signifi cance at all times. An analog (dial) w atch can show any time, such as 8:32 and 37 seconds. Television transmissions use analog signals. A digital signal is m easured as being either on or off, up or down, etc. A digital w atch will show the tim e as being either 8:32 or 8:33. Digital signals are commonly used in com puter program m ing languages. The im portant fact to rem em ber from all this, is th a t some optical technology uses the analog form at, and some the digital form at. How are optical disks made? The inform ation is converted to the proper form at (analog or digital) and w ritten on a master disk w ith a laser (master-