ACRL News Issue (B) of College & Research Libraries C & R L N e w s ■ D e c e m b e r 2001 / 1061 N e w s f r o m t h e F i e l d Maureen Gleason T h ird n a tio n a l c o n fe re n c e o n d iv e r s it y in a c a d e m ic lib ra r ie s The Committee on Institutional Cooperation and the Association o f Research Libraries are sponsoring “Diversity: Building a Strategic Future,” a national conference for academic libraries hosted by the University o f Iowa on April 4-6, 2002, in Iowa City, Iowa. Papers, panel discussions, and posters will explore current issues related to diversity in academic libraries covering collections, recruitment and retention, services and outreach, and organi­ zational/workplace climate. The registration fee for the conference is $149, which also includes refreshments dur­ ing the opening reception; continental break­ fast, lunch, and dinner on Thursday; conti­ nental breakfast and lunch on Friday; conti­ nental breakfast on Saturday; and refreshment breaks throughout the conference. The con­ feren ce W eb site is located at http:// www.lib.uiowa.edu/cicdiversity/ and contains a link to the registration page. L e a r n in g c o m m u n itie s a n d A C R L Everyone is invited to join an informal dis­ cussion forum during ALA’s Midwinter Meet­ ing that will focus on ACRL as a learning com­ munity. ACRL President Mary Reichel will lead the discussion and highlight her theme of learning communities and excellence in aca­ demic libraries. The forum will be held on Monday, Janu­ ary 21, 2002, from 9:30-11:00 a.m. Check the Midwinter Meeting calendar for location. The forum will focus on how ACRL, acting as a learning community through its sponsored programs and activities, has promoted ex­ cellence in academic library services. Spe­ cific examples o f how libraries have ben­ efited by ACRL programs will be presented. This is a great opportunity for ACRL mem­ bers to come together as a learning com­ munity to share their stories about the kinds o f programs ACRL has supported and to discuss their participation in specific learn­ ing communities on their campuses. N e w C SU in fo r m a tio n c o m p e te n c e W eb site California State University (CSU), serving 370,000 students on 23 campuses, has a new W eb site for its Information Competence Ini­ tiative: http://www.calstate.edu/infocomp shtml. The site includes background infor­ mation about the initiative, resources for teaching and learning created by CSU librar­ ians and discipline-based faculty members, systemwide resources (including citations to publications and presentations), and links to other resources from associations, organiza­ tions, and universities. Additional information is available from Ilene Rockman, manager of the CSU Information Competence Initiative, at e-mail: irockman@calstate.edu. A C R L a d s in Chronicle o f Higher Education ACRL began placing a series o f ads in the Chronicle o f H igher Education this year to promote the importance o f librarians in teach­ ing and research. Our advertising messages are aimed at campus decision-makers, and profile the value and strength o f librarians and libraries in meeting the knowledge de­ mands o f faculty and students. The full-page ad in the November 16 issue o f the Chronicle has quotations from administrators, in a vari­ ety o f post-secondary institutions, about the importance o f librarians on their campuses. ACRL suggests that academic librarians: • send a copy to deans or provost with a note; http://www.lib.uiowa.edu/cicdiversity/ http://www.calstate.edu/infocomp mailto:irockman@calstate.edu 1 0 6 2 / C& RL N ew s ■ D e c e m b e r 2001 • take it to the next faculty library com­ mittee or senate meeting; • post copies close to the circulation desk; • put copies on the library staff bulletin board or in the newsletter; and • hang it on your office wall to spread the message. ACRL feels that with the profile commer­ cial information providers and e-publishers have established for themselves, libraries need to be just as visible, and more persuasive, causing campus decision-makers to think about their own libraries when they see this ad. Remember that advertisements do not ap­ pear in the electronic version of the Chronicle, so librarians will want to make sure campus administrators see it nonetheless. A copy can be found on the ACRL Web site at http:// www.ala.org/acrl. The next two ads will focus on the value of librarians and libraries to faculty and to students. ACRL asks that librarians submit good quotations from any faculty member or student who wishes to be featured in the Chronicle to ACRL Program Officer Shannon Cary at e-mail: scary@ala.org. Lib ra ry o f C o n g re s s re o p en e d The Library of Congress (LC) was closed from October 17 to October 25 to enable special­ ists to test all three buildings for possible anthrax contamination. No evidence o f an­ thrax was discovered, but like the rest o f the government, LC is now having to institute rig­ orous and time-consuming procedures for the examination of all incoming mail. According to Winston Tabb, associate librar­ ian, it will take weeks— more likely, months— to catch up and return to normal productivity levels. He requests librarians’ forbearance as LC attempts to regain lost ground. The impact will likely be greatest on: 1) those libraries that participate in LC’s coop­ erative acquisitions programs in Islamabad and Jakarta, where staff have performed in a truly heroic manner under very dangerous conditions; and 2) on libraries that depend on LC cataloging records, whether via OPAC, OCLC, RLG, and/or the Cataloging Distribu­ tion Service. N o v a -B ro w ard C o u n ty o p e n jo in t- use fa c ility The $43 million Library, Research, and Infor­ mation Technology Center, located on the Nova Southeastern University’s (NSU) main campus in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, is now open to the public. A joint-use facility, the library was created through a partnership between the university and the Broward County ACRL President's Program poster proposals As part o f the ACRL President’s Program at the 2002 ALA Annual Conference in Atlanta, a number of poster sessions are planned. In keeping with Mary Reichel’s theme “ACRL: The Learning Community for Excel­ lence in Academic Libraries,” the title of the program is “Transformational Learning Com­ munities: Claiming Our Future.” Proposed poster sessions should focus on projects and activities around that theme. Suggested topics include, but are not lim­ ited to: libraries’ roles in campus learning communities; libraries as learning commu­ nities; libraries transforming themselves as learning communities; ACRL as a learning community; or ACRL’s role in transforming libraries and/or librarians. The poster session is scheduled for 4:00- 5:00 p.m., Monday, June 17, 2002, follow­ ing the regular program. At least one author should be present, and should bring whatever is necessary to present the session, a sufficient num­ ber of handouts (300 is suggested), and a sign­ up sheet to record the names and addresses of those seeking further information. Submit proposals as a Word attachment or surface mail to: Don Frank, Portland State Uni­ versity, Millar library, P.O. Box 1151, Portland, OR 97207-1151, e-m ail: fra n k d @ pdx.edu. Include the following information: 1) title of poster session; 2) author(s); 3) insti­ tutional affiliation of each author, including city and state; 4) contact person (select one author to serve); 5) contact person’s mailing address, phone number, fax number, and e-mail address; abstract of no more than 200 words. http://www.ala.org/acrl mailto:scary@ala.org C& RL N e w s ■ D e c e m b e r 2001 / 1063 Library. It was designed to serve both the NSU community and the residents of Broward County. With space to house 1.4 million volumes, the five-story, 325,000 square-foot facility will be Florida’s largest library. It includes space dedicated to education, technology, cultural events, art, and social interaction for 18,000 NSU students and users o f the Broward County Library, one of the nation’s largest public li­ brary systems with 36 locations. Designed to take advantage of today’s and future technolo­ gies, the library offers both wireline and wire­ less modes o f communication, with extensive capabilities for data ports and computer con­ nections. “The library of tomorrow has arrived and everyone at NSU and in the county will ben­ efit,” said Don Riggs, vice president for informa­ tion services and university librarian at NSU. IU Lib ra rie s in stall b o x -m a k in g m ach in e With the installation o f a box-making machine, the Indiana University Bloomington Libraries have become the first academic research li­ brary in the country to automate the process o f creating protective enclosures for fragile books, joining other institutions such as the Library of Congress, the British Library, the New York Public Library, and the Vatican Library. The computer-driven machine, which can produce intricate boxes in minutes, speeds the time required to create enclosures. Construct­ ing boxes for individual books by hand is an exacting undertaking. The new machine takes over the work of cutting and scoring the sheets o f board. Staff members enter a book’s dimen­ sions into a database, and a computer-aided design program then reads the data and batches several enclosures together to optimize the use o f materials. Last year staff members in the Preservation Department made about 2,500 boxes by hand, but administrators anticipate that the new ma­ chine, which can cut and score a box in two to three minutes, will help the department cre­ ate 25,000 in its first year. SMCU d ig itiz e s WWII g o v e rn m e n t do cu m e n ts The Southern Methodist Central University Li­ braries has mounted an exhibit to celebrate the opening of the first collection in its new digital library initiative. The exhibit will feature a half-dozen computers set up to display the more than 200 World War II government docu­ ments, representing 6,000 pages of material from pamphlets, posters, booklets, and pho­ tos, that have been digitized and are available for viewing on the Internet. Some of the WWII government documents deal with issues such as how to contact the fami­ lies of deceased war personnel, boarding houses for women working during the war, war bond plays, and how the 4-H could help the war effort. Photos in the collection include German recon­ naissance photos of bombing targets in England. Many of the documents, which are disintegrating rapidly, were printed quickly during wartime on the cheap paper available. For more information, visit the Web site at http://worldwar2.smu.edu. Prin cip les on co p y r ig h t in the e le ctro n ic e n v iro n m e n t The joint Steering Group of the International Federation of Library Associations and Institu­ tions (IFLA) and the International Publishers Association (IP A ) has announced further progress on promoting common principles on copyright in the electronic environment. They will promote the following principles to their respective memberships. • While the fundamental principles remain the same in the electronic environment...the Group recognizes that the advent o f new tech­ nologies has fundamentally changed methods o f publication and dissemination as well as rights management.... • Bridging the digital divide is best achieved by government programs increasing funding for the provision of books and other publica­ tions in libraries as well as for connecting end- users to the Internet, especially in developing countries and disadvantaged groups in devel­ oped nations. • Exceptions and limitations to copyright in the public interest remain necessary in the electronic environment, in order to maintain an equitable balance between the rights of cre­ ators and distributors and the needs of users but the nature and extent of these must be assessed by applying the three step test. • Libraries are key players in ensuring long­ term preservation archiving of electronic in­ formation, through appropriate arrangements with publishers. However, the conditions of access and other technical and policy issues re­ quire further discussion among stake holders. http://worldwar2.smu.edu