ACRL News Issue (B) of College & Research Libraries 372 / C&R L News lib ra ry experien ce/u n d erstan d in g th e students have, as well as the major areas of insecurity or concern for individual students. Survey answers can also tell you, directly or indi­ rectly, some useful things about your library. For example, if students can’t find the reference desk, is signage adequate? Should there be a better m ap of the library? If students feel ignored even if they ask for help, is overall service w h at it should be? Are student assistants misdirecting people? Are there some personnel who are less th an helpful? Should instructions for autom ated equipm ent, the cata­ log, individual service locations be more clear? In an anonymous survey, students often tell you m ore th a n you asked to know; comments often come more from personal feelings and individual experiences th an as a direct answer to your survey questions. You may also begin to identify faculty who give the library short shrift or bad press, since students often absorb teachers’ peeves and biases by osmosis. Such evidence can be useful in spurring some action on the p a rt of the library to address faculty problems—or problem faculty. Sometimes a simple update will do; sometimes re-education m ay be necessary, especially for some who have not gotten any of your library’s dust on their feet since the last revision of their lecture notes tw enty years ago. Careful w riting of the survey can give forth sta­ tistics useful to the BI program , and to the library as a whole. If a com puter program were w ritten to correlate elements of the individual survey forms, good statistical evidence supporting a BI program m ight emerge. For example, the num ber and type of problems encountered could be correlated to the num ber, level, or absence of previous BI lectures or tours; student level might be correlated w ith a tti­ tude, evaluation of lectures, or type of problems encountered. [If anyone has, and is willing to share such a com puter program , please let m e—and the editor of C &R L N ew s— know!] O f course, anonymous surveys and evaluations have th e ir draw backs; some students w ill tell things on an anonymous w ritten form th at they would never tell in person—which obviously has its repercussions in the form of spurious, comic, or de­ viant comments. But sometimes students have cre­ a tiv e insights t h a t can c u t th ro u g h acad em ic insulation—and th at fog of professional prejudice- by-habit. Best of all, using a survey’s results at the begin­ ning of your lecture is a good w ay to gain confi­ dence (you’re not coming at them cold); to get a t­ tention; to give the class the feeling (one would hope, based in reality) th a t you care about their in­ dividual problems; and to keep them listening for the solution to the problem they w rote about— w hich your talk probably would have addressed in any case, but which now is perceptively tailored to your audience as individuals. Innovative use of in-house current awareness profiles as a guide for collection development in a pharmaceutical library By Daniel T. Law Senior Inform ation Specialist Sm ith Kline & French Laboratories, King o f Prussia, Pa. If th e basic tenor of collection developm ent (CD) is the identification and procurem ent of re­ sources in support of current and anticipated p a­ tron needs, then it becomes the prim ary responsi­ bility of the CD librarian to first assess those needs, and then to select and acquire resources for the meeting of those needs. However, CD librarians are often m et w ith distrust, particularly from fac­ ulty colleagues who often are mildly suspicious of their qualifications as “book selectors” (“Are they really qualified?”) , or their “methods of selection” (“How do they choose their books anyway?”) . The problem stems largely from the imprecise nature of their work. G ranted, CD is not an exact science; but it need not become an entirely subjective and arbitrary undertaking either. Perhaps w hat is needed is a heightened aw are­ ness on the p art of collection developers to p u t CD on a more objective and “scientific” foundation. Such a feat is not as impossible as it m ay appear. Collection development has at least two attributes which qualify it as “scientific.” They are: control­ lability and quantifiability. Collection develop­ m ent is controllable, to the extent th at its activities can be efficiently directed towards the attainm ent of desired objectives.1 It is quantifiable, because L. Ackoff, et al., Scientific Method: O pti­ m izing A p p lied Research Decisions (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1962), 3. May 1989 / 373 374 / C&RL News such directed activities can be m onitored num eri­ cally, and the attainm ent of collection objectives can be m easured quantitatively, if not q u a lita ­ tively. As an attem pt to p u t CD on a more controlled and quantitative basis, the Research and Develop­ m ent L ibrary of Smith Kline & French Laborato­ ries has ad o p ted an innovative approach. Key w ords and key phrases from in-house c u rre n t awareness profiles are structured into hierarchical subject categories reflecting the research emphases of the company. The resultant Collection Develop­ m ent Guide serves the dual function of: 1) an em­ pirical guide for the selection of books, and 2) an Acquisition Record for keeping track of collection activities. Description of CD Guide The current awareness program at Smith Kline & French Laboratories consists of, in large part, a contracted service w ith the Institute for Scientific Inform ation (ISI) in Philadelphia. Over 76 ASCA (A utom ated Subject C itation Alert) and ASCA Topic profiles are now being m aintained, covering all areas of interest to research and development. In constructing the CD Guide, key words and key phrases from these profiles are compiled and classi­ fied into a somewhat hierarchical scheme, consist­ ing of 13 m ajor subjects, such as molecular biology, tum or, gastrointestinal, anti-infectives, etc. Under each m ajor subject, key words and key phrases from various profiles are further grouped together into sub-categories. The subjects of gastrointestinal and pharm aceutics/drug design are reproduced o the previous page as an illustration. In actual practice, a fresh copy of this Guide is sed each month to record acquisition transactions or the m onth. W henever a title is ordered under a articular subject, its listed price is entered in the pace provided next to the appropriate category. If he title happens to be a reference work, its cost is hen circled in red. At the end of each m onth, ex­ enditure by subjects and types of books ordered (i.e., reference vs. non-reference) can then be read­ ly tallied and obtained. Summary By using this simple Guide, we have found the ollowing purposes served: 1. W ith the use of this instrum ent, CD has be­ ome to us a purposeful an d targ e ted activity uided by param eters derived from the objective nalysis of research directions and interests of the ompany. 2. The use of this Guide as an acquisition record lso permits the tracking of monthly expenditure y subjects and types of books ordered. This in tu rn rovides us w ith the basis for program-monitoring, ince collection efforts are now traceable by sub­ ects and costs. 3. Furtherm ore, the adoption of this approach to D has successfully allowed us to put an essentially ubjective activity as CD on a more objective and cientific foundation, thus making the selling of the D concept to our research/scientific community a uch easier task. ■ ■ n u f p s t t p i f c g a c a b p s j C s s C m Standards for archival description The Working G roup on Standards for Archival Description, a project funded by a grant from the N atio n al H isto ric al P u b lica tio n s and R ecords Commission and sponsored by H arvard Univer­ sity, held its first meeting December 3-4, 1988, at the University of Maryland, College Park. Several concerned activists initiated the project w hen they recognized an increasing desire in the archival community for standardized descriptive practices and a growing frustration over the ab­ sence of systematic procedures for developing or evaluating such standards. The rapidly growing num ber of archival institutions th a t are developing internal information systems or participating in networks has only increased the intensity of interest in and need for clarification of standards-related is­ sues. At its meeting the group discussed the nature of archival description and how its processes and products might be affected, both positively and negatively, by the development, formal adoption, and widespread use of standards. It acknowledged th a t stan d ard s are not ends in themselves b u t m eans to im prove professional practice. W hile standards could be pursued in many areas, some m ight be too expensive or cumbersome to imple­ m ent or consensus among affected individuals or institutions might be impossible to achieve. Standards specific to archival description can be developed at four levels. Inform ation systems stan­ dards, the broadest, might define the components of a repository’s total descriptive program . Data structure standards establish w hat elements of in­ form ation are included in a particular type of de­ scriptive product, such as a MARC record or repos­ itory guide. Data content standards specify w hat rules apply to the language used in any given ele­ m ent. The narrowest, data value standards, are lists of standard terms to be used w ithin a specific element (e.g., authority lists). The working group also developed a list of ten criteria against which to measure the desirability of adopting existing standards, creating new ones, or influencing their development outside the archival M ay 1989 / 375 profession. T h e c rite ria in clu d e co nsiderations such as cost-effectiveness, im m ediacy of the need or effect, and breadth of applicability. Members of the working group, chaired by L aw ­ rence Dow ler, are now preparing background or inform ational papers on several topics raised be­ fore the group reconvenes in June. The issues ad ­ dressed will include th e potential for developing guidelines or conventions for archival inform ation systems, th e im pact of form at integration on archi­ val uses of th e MARC form at, and the relationship betw een description standards activities in the U.S. and C anada. For m ore inform ation, contact Victo­ ria W alch, 65 N. W estm inster St., Iow a C ity, IA 52245; (319) 338-6650. ■ ■ O n lin e se a r c h services in th e c o m m u n ity c o lle g e By Wanda K. Johnston Director o f Learning Resources M orton College O nline services can im prove the L R C ’s image. I n 1977 the Am erican L ibrary Association passe a resolution prom oting equal access to inform a tion. This resolution states in p a rt th a t “It shall b th e policy of the American L ibrary Association to seek to m ake it possible for library and inform ation science agencies w hich receive their m ajor support from public funds to provide service to all people w ith o u t additional fees and to utilize th e latest technological developments to ensure the best pos sible access to inform ation.” 1 Academic libraries in the U nited States are suf fering from severe economic pressure due to tig h t­ ened budgets and coupled w ith rapidly increasing costs. T uition revenue and enrollments are declin­ ing. State and federal assistance has decreased. Lo­ cal tax referenda are increasingly difficult to pass. Some costs, such as those for facilities and tenured 1Sara D. K napp and C. James Schmidt, “Budg eting to Provide Com puter-Based Reference Ser vices: A Case Study.” Journal o f Academ ic Librari- anship 5 (March 1979): 9. d ­ e ­ ­ ­ ­ faculty, are relatively fixed com pared to enroll­ m ent, necessitating budget cuts in other areas, such as libraries. Academic library budgets are rising m ore slowly than overall university budgets and definitely more slowly th an inform ation costs.2 H ow are academ ic libraries, specifically com ­ m unity college libraries, responding to the ALA policy of equal access to inform ation during this period of economic decline? A review of the litera­ ture, com bined w ith a survey of th e mem bership of the N orthern Illinois L earning Resources C oopera­ tive, provides m ore inform ation. Among published individual case studies, three describe successful free online services. T he L i­ b rary at C alifornia State College considers online services an integral p a rt of the total reference ser­ vice; consequently, online search services are not treated any differently from any other reference 2D onald W . King, “Pricing Policies in Academic L ib ra rie s,” L ibrary Trends 28 (Summer 1979): 47-62.