ACRL News Issue (B) of College & Research Libraries 634 / C&RL News uary 1, 1988. Partial payment for these arrangements will be due December 31, 1987; full payment will be due in February 1988. JoAn Segal, ACRL executive di­ rector, is staff liaison for the Conference. To register, complete the form on the previous page and send it to ACRL/WESS Conference, 50 E. Huron St., Chicago, IL 60611. ■ ■ N eed a ch an ge? Try a n ex ch a n g e By Nancy J. K eane Cataloger University of Vermont Trading places w ith one’s counterpart in the Republic of Ireland. As I began to pack my bags and prepare to leave for a one-year exchange, it seemed that this mo­ ment had been a long time coming. As a matter of fact, it had been almost two years. There were times when I felt as if it never would arrive. When I mentioned my plans to colleagues, the most fre­ quently asked question was not why I was going, but how I went about arranging an exchange. Each exchange is a unique situation with its own problems. However, I hope my experience will shed some light on the process for those of you who are contemplating an exchange. Let me first touch upon the “why” of exchanges. Job exchanges have been around for a long time and have taken many forms. Exchanges range from international to intralibrary. They benefit the li­ brarians who are involved in the exchange, those who have dealings with the guest librarian, and the institutions involved. Exchanges foster inter- institutional cooperation, information sharing, networking, and standardization. They offer an exciting way for the librarians involved to “re­ charge” their batteries. Now that you are convinced that exchanges are worthwhile, how do you arrange one? The first part of the process requires one to think long and hard about this idea. Are you prepared to leave your job, home, friends, relatives, etc., for an ex­ tended amount of time? Do you really want to go through with this experience? Then there are the arrangements to deal with. Not only do you have the frustrations and costs involved in setting up an exchange, but you must also be able to convince your administrators that the exchange will benefit both librarians and institutions. Without strong support from your administrators, you may not be able to get through the arrangements. They will be called upon time and time again to provide docu­ ments, recommendations, phone calls, etc. The University of Vermont has no formal mechanism for a job exchange so I was left to find my own way through the process. This was both good and bad. It was good in that I did not have strict guidelines that must be followed so I was able to tailor the ex­ change to meet my needs. It was bad in that I had to work by trial and error. After I had convinced myself of the advantages of the exchange, I then sought approval from my supervisor. The major stipulation set out by the University was that the exchange partner must be an experienced cataloger from an academic library. W ith my goal set and approval from my supervi- 636 / C&RL News sor, I began the search for an exchange partner. For a variety of both practical and personal rea­ sons, I decided I wanted to work in the Republic of Ireland. Not having any idea of how to go about this, I sent a letter to the Library Council in Ire­ land and they were kind enough to include my let­ ter in their newsletter. I received very few re­ sponses. Only one seemed a likely candidate, but after corresponding with her, negotiations fell through because we could not agree on the dates and length of the exchange. The ACRL New England C hapter’s Ad Hoc Committee on Librarian Exchanges proved to be helpful in my arrangements. The chair of the Com­ mittee, Arline Davis, was able to supply the names of other librarians from my area who had partici­ pated in exchanges. I corresponded with these peo­ ple and found some of their advice to apply to my situation. One thing that became very evident is that most people who arrange exchanges do so on an individual basis and that very few formal ex­ change arrangements exist. The Ad Hoc Commit­ tee organized a meeting on exchanges during the first part of 1986 and I was able to speak with a va­ riety of people who were currently on exchanges, had completed exchanges, or were arranging ex­ changes. I found this to be extremely helpful to me in clarifying in my own mind how to proceed. I then decided to use the direct approach. I nar­ rowed down the institutions in which I felt I would like to work. I wrote letters to the directors of each explaining my plan and requesting that they post the announcement in the Catalog Departm ent. Several directors wrote back stating that although they believed an exchange was beneficial, their in­ stitutions could not support an exchange because of financial restraints. I did receive several responses from librarians from those institutions where my inquiry was posted or circulated. I then sent those interested few a general statement of my intentions which in­ cluded dates and suggestions as to w hat additional things could be exchanged, such as housing. By Au­ gust 1986,1 had selected an exchange partner. Brid Conneely, a cataloger at Trinity College Dublin, met the requirements set out by both my supervisor and myself. After the exchange negotiations had begun, I had a chance to meet Brid while she was vacationing in the United States. This is a wonder­ ful but rare opportunity. We had the luxury of sit­ ting down for the day and working out the nitty gritty of the exchange, and it saved us many letters, phone calls and time. Now it was time to get the higher administration of the University involved. It was decided that I would continue to receive my salary and benefits from Vermont. Brid would also continue to receive hers from Trinity. We would observe the holidays of the host institute and all vacation time would be taken at the end of the exchange. The one stum­ bling block we ran into was Trinity’s insistence that there be a two-week overlap on their end. There­ fore, for the first two weeks of the exchange, both Brid and I were at Trinity. Since no one was com­ pensating Vermont for those two weeks, we had to find a way to deal with the situation. I volunteered to take the time out of my vacation allotment, ef­ fectively eliminating that problem. Because of these arrangements, very little paper work needed to be done by either institution, which made the ex­ change much more attractive to administrators. In order to minimize the cost, I began to investi­ gate funding sources. There are sources out there but I was not able to receive any aid for travel to Ireland. The Council for International Exchange of Scholars in Washington, D .C ., is a good place to start but they do not offer awards to all countries. Ireland is one of those countries not included. Hav­ ing found no outside funding, I looked to Vermont for help. We are fortunate enough to have a profes­ sional development budget on which we can turn for monies. I was able to secure airfare from this fund. When one arranges an exchange it is very impor­ tant to keep in mind the differences in salaries and cost of living. If you are going to a country like Ire­ land where salaries are much lower than the U.S., some form of compensation must be made. Librar­ ians from some countries simply could not live on their home salaries. This may mean that some of the salary of the higher paid librarian be given to the lower paid. Since Brid and I were exchanging accommodations as well as jobs, we agreed to con­ tinue to pay for our own homes. Since I pay about twice as much for my house as Brid does for rent, we felt that for our situation this eliminated the in­ equities. Each exchange must work out how to do away with this problem. This leads me to another point I would like to make. Try to make the exchange as simple as possible—exchange as many things as you can. This includes homes, cars, dogs, cats, etc. It’s hard enough planning for a year away w ithout the added worry of subletting, putting things in stor­ age, finding homes for pets, and then setting up housekeeping in a foreign country. I planned to put my personal things in a closet so they would be out of Brid’s way and she has done the same. I do plan to leave my down parka in the hall closet for her though! Requests for work visas seemed too simple. The institutions must request the visa for the guest li­ brarian. Therefore, for Brid’s visa, all we needed to do was fill out an application and turn it in to the University’s Office of Overseas Programs. Al­ though the Office deals p rim arily w ith study abroad, they have been very helpful to me as far as visas and requirements are concerned. The Irish government requires passport photos in addition to the application, but the process for us has been equally simple. I suspect that if we were being paid by the host institution, more questions would be asked and the process would not have been as easy. The main thing I learned during this process was November 1987 / 637 th a t everything takes longer th a n I thought it would—especially the mail service. I have had to use telefax on a few occasions when “we simply must have it by Friday.” Be sure to allow yourself plenty of time. My exchange took longer to arrange than most I know of, but much of that time was spent finding an exchange partner. Another thing I learned was th at in your initial inquiry, make your institution and area as attrac­ tive as possible. I doubt that too many people in Ireland are all that familiar with Vermont. After I described the city and noted that it was located 90 minutes from Montreal and 4 hours from Boston, the area seemed much more attractive. After my initial letter received so few responses, I jazzed it up so th at I emphasized the city and area more. I know this made a vast difference. It has now been two years since I first started to think about the possibility of an exchange. It was hard to believe it until I actually was sitting at my desk at Trinity College. Since most of my time had been taken up with w hat Brid would encounter when she arrived in Vermont, I really hadn’t any time to worry or wonder about w hat awaited me in Dublin. I’m sure when I return next Fall, all the time, frustrations, and worries of the past two years will be just a memory and it will have all been worthwhile. ■ ■ Newberry Library and Center for Research Libraries announce cooperative plan The Newberry Library, Chicago’s pre-eminent humanities research library, and the Center for Re­ search Libraries (CRL) have agreed to inaugurate a program of inter-institutional cooperation. The program stresses improved access to each other’s collections as well as joint projects in preservation and collection development. Newberry Library fellows may now use CRL’s unrestricted collections on site at the Newberry or through interlibrary loan. The Newberry in turn is offering to CRL member institutions, via interli­ brary loan, materials from its collection of Ameri­ can Indian studies on microform. Newberry Li­ b ra ry collections have tra d itio n a lly not been available for loaning to other libraries. The two institutions are planning cooperative collection development to extend their resources. Mutually beneficial collaboration in preservation and conservation will blend the extensive experi­ ence of CRL in preservation microfilming with the significant expertise in conservation and restora­ tion practices of the Newberry staff, which has been a leader in this field. A joint working group has been established to recommend procedures for implementing all areas of cooperation. The Newberry Library, which celebrates its 100th birthday this fall, houses collections in his­ tory and the humanities from the Middle Ages to the 20th century. The N ew berry aw ards some $300,000 annually in fellowships for research in residence, sponsors four centers for scholarly re­ search, and conducts numerous outreach programs to draw public attention to its collections. The Center for Research Libraries was founded in 1949 to provide a means by which the libraries of major research institutions can practice coopera­ tive collection development and management. The Center’s prinicipal program is the acquisition and preservation of a dedicated-to-lending collection, now exceeding 3.6 million volumes and 1.2 million microfilm units, th a t complements and supple­ ments the collections of its 150 member institu­ tions. ■ ■ ACRL executive summary Every month, JoAn Segal, A C R L ’s executive direc­ tor, will summarize Association activity. The “Ex­ ecutive Sum m ary”will highlight accomplishments of broad interest to the Association. Although the New Orleans Conference seems a long way off, Sandy Donnelly has been soliciting new course proposals, advertising scholarships and cooperative courses, and developing new courses on “Negotiating Contracts with Vendors” and “In ­ formation Liability,” based on last spring’s needs assessment. ACRL President Joanne Euster appointed a new Task Force on Awards to review ACRL’s awards p ro g ra m an d m ake re c o m m e n d a tio n s—Joan Chambers chairs the task force. Mary Ellen Davis is working with the ACRL Performance Measures chair Virginia Tiefel to re­ vise and circulate an RFP seeking an author for a M anual o f O u tp u t Measures fo r A cadem ic L i­