ACRL News Issue (B) of College & Research Libraries December 1986 / 721 W ith end user programs becoming available, “long distance searches” may not be so attractive, but faced with the present economic conditions in higher education, resource sharing in all forms seems worthy of consideration. The ability of the small academic library to offer the latest inform a­ tion techniques will depend heavily upon creative and imaginative library programs. ■ ■ T rain in g online catalo g assistants: C reating a friendly in terface By H arvey S a g er Instructional Services Librarian Arizona State University The design and implementation of a staff training program fo r online catalog assistants at ASU. The use of lib r a r y assistants to p ro v id e o n dem and assistance to users of Online Public Access Catalogs (OPACs) has been a successful compo­ nent of OPAC instructional programs at several ac­ ademic libraries. This article suggests the benefits th at can accrue to the individual participants as well as to the library as a whole when such a p ro ­ gram is implemented, and describes the staff tra in ­ ing program developed at Arizona State University Libraries to prepare staff volunteers to serve as PAC assistants. More th an a year prior to “going public” with our L ib raries’ ALIS III online catalog, indeed while the online catalog was still in its design stage, a committee of seven librarians representing a cross section from public services and the b ran c h li­ braries was appointed by the assistant university li­ brarian for autom ated systems and charged with the task of designing and implementing an orienta­ tion and training program in the use of our new on­ line catalog for our library staff and public. Specif­ ically, the committee was charged with finding a solution to the anticipated instructional “crunch” which, it was feared, would inevitably affect the public service staff in the main and science library reference service areas where the online catalog terminals would be located. In other words, we had to find a way to meet the anticipated need for online catalog instruction in our reference areas without sacrificing the q u a n ­ tity and quality of existing reference and inform a­ tional services already being provided to our stu­ dents a n d f a c u l t y — a n d we h a d to do it w ith existing library staff. The committee agreed th at one component of such a program should include a corps of trained volunteers recruited from the existing library staff to be stationed in the main and science library ref­ erence areas during our busiest hours to provide p a ­ tron assistance in the use of the new online catalog, thereby freeing the reference librarians and infor­ mation desk personnel to carry on business as usual. Such a program, we speculated, would provide benefits to the trainee participants as well as to the library. Specifically, it would provide opportuni­ ties for motivated and outgoing staff (and every li­ brary has such employees) to: 1) receive some special recognition and visibility 722 / C &R L News by working directly w ith the public in an instruc­ tional capacity; 2) to exercise, discover, or acquire new public contact skills; 3) to expand their knowledge and understanding of library operations outside their own d ep artm e n t (all online assistants w ere recru ited from n o n ­ reference d ep artm e n t staff); 4) to learn new library skills and add variety to their jobs. Most im portantly, perhaps, this program would give staff members an opportunity to be active p a r ­ ticipants rath e r th a n mere spectators in an exciting period of the Libraries’ evolution. Beyond m erely relieving reference lib rarian s a n d in fo rm atio n desk staff from an an tic ip a te d tidal wave of online catalog questions, such a p ro ­ gram, it was hoped, would bring equal benefits to the library as a whole. First, the library would b e n ­ efit from improved in terd ep artm en tal com m u n i­ cation and cooperation which could result from a library-wide staff development program . Such a program also h ad the potential to make less distinct the us versus them divisions betw een librarians and classified staff which are p a rt of most library envi­ ronments. This would be a result of the program design itself, which treated librarians and online catalog assistants equally in terms of the training each group received. Lastly, and quite practically, these staff “volunteers” would serve as the pilot group; the first to go through the complete catalog training program . They w ould help us test and evaluate the train in g program which would then be administered to the rest of the participating li­ brary staff. R ecruiting staff L ibrary staff were continuously kept abreast of developments regarding the im plem entation of the on lin e c a ta lo g th ro u g h th e L ib ra r ie s ’ in-house n e w s le tte r in a r e g u la r “ A u to m a tio n U p d a t e ” column w ritten by the assistant university librarian for auto m ated systems. O u r first call for Public Ac­ cess Catalog (PAC) volunteers to assist users was sent via this newsletter which reaches all library staff. The committee was seeking eight courageous staff volunteers who, w ith the approval of their su­ pervisors, would be willing to be guinea pigs for our comm ittee to test the effectiveness of the tra in ­ ing program we had developed. T he call for volunteers invited participants to critique the training and the trainers, and held the promise of an opportunity to join the ranks of the first PAC-ettes, as they w ere dubbed, who it was hoped would form the core of a future expanded group of online-catalog assistants. A follow-up let­ ter was sent to all d e p artm e n t heads asking them to personally dru m up a little staff support and inter­ est in the program and possibly seek out employees w hom they felt w ould make interested and capable PAC-ettes. O ur call for volunteers provided the necessary quorum of eight, plus two “alternates.” The training program D u rin g this tim e our comm ittee h ad not been idle. W e h a d w ritten a 100-plus page Users M anual for th e online catalog; h a d developed an d p r o ­ duced prototypes of the basic point-of-use instruc­ tional materials we could provide to the public; h a d e v a lu a te d a n d m a d e r e c o m m e n d a tio n s on changes and enhancements to various versions of the online catalog released by the vendor; h ad w rit­ ten online “H E L P ” screens; h ad drafted a script to use in the train in g program ; h ad developed a series of catalog “exercises” to be used in training; and lastly, we h ad decided th a t our comm ittee would do the training. These constituted the basic ele­ ments of our train in g program . T he program was conceived as two tw o-hour in­ tensive tra in in g sessions offered in th e m ain li­ b ra ry ’s instructional classroom w here four PAC terminals were installed. Prior to the first training session, our first eight trainees were sent a packet of training materials which included a printed copy of the online H E L P screens the comm ittee h ad recently w ritten and a copy of a bookm ark designed by the committee containing the basic system comm ands and func­ tions. E ach was also encouraged to review the hot- off-the-press A L I S Users Manual, copies of which were m ade available. T h e first tw o -h o u r session was devoted to an overview and description of the online catalog, an introduction to the keyboard explaining functions of specific keys (backspace, tab , char/insert, etc.) and a hands-on session in which trainees worked through a series of practice searches designed to dem onstrate the various capabilities, strengths and weaknesses of the system as it then existed. Trainees were then given a take-home assignment of slightly greater difficulty, which they w ere asked to com ­ plete and bring to the second training session to be held several days later. The second tw o-hour training session was de­ voted to a review of the subject m a tte r treated in the first session, followed by a step-by-step review of the take-home assignment. W e also identified difficulties encountered by the trainees and dis­ cussed alternate search strategies for answering the questions. T hen, a brief am ount of tim e was de­ voted to “dealing with the public” and potential “p roblem ” patrons, at th at time perceived mainly as com puterphobes or frustrated and angry a n ti­ technology types (these two products of our im agi­ nation, or of our own misgivings, never really did em erge). Lastly, trainees were given two brief evaluation instruments to complete. The first was a com bina­ tion of “find w h a t ’s w ro n g ,” fill-in-the-blank, and short answer type questions designed to assess the trainee’s general understanding of the system; the second, a brief term inal exercise to assess their mas­ tery of basic search skills a n d strategies. E a c h “quiz” took 10 minutes. Trainee feedback during the first, and especially the second sessions, as well December 1986 / 723 as d a ta gathered from the evaluation instruments was useful in id en tify in g areas w h e re tra in e rs needed to place m ore emphasis, and helped us id e n tif y system f e a tu re s w ith w h ic h tra in e e s needed more practice and instruction. Knowledge gained from these first training sessions and from the trainees’ frank evaluation of the program re­ sulted in some modification of the training script and in a more structured approach in the review segment of the second session. This training program for our Online Catalog Assistants served as the model for training the re­ m aining library staff, including librarians, in the use of our Libraries’ new online catalog. L ibrary members were signed up for these tra in ­ ing sessions (14 groups in all) in priority order, with librarians and staff who would be interpreting the online catalog for the public being trained first, and those staff who w anted training b u t would not be working w ith the catalog or the public in the course of their regular duties being trained last. In all, over eighty librarians and classified staff p a r ­ ticipated in the general training program. The PAC-ettes later became the “ALIS Assis­ tan ts” (a nam e change more in keeping with the terminology in our w ritten instructional and p ro ­ m o tio n al m aterials) a n d th e ir n u m b ers briefly swelled to over tw enty volunteers after a second round of recruiting. Because attrition and schedul­ ing conflicts have since reduced their ranks some­ w h at, ALIS assistants are still routinely recruited through our libraries’ orientation program for new staff. From personal observation of their work and feedback from the ALIS assistants themselves, it is my opinion th a t the program has been a valuable asset for the libraries, and has proven personally re­ w a r d in g to all those w ho h av e p a r t i c i p a t e d — trainees and trainers alike. ■ ■ Books for College Libraries In the fall of 1984 Choice responded to a request for a proposal (RFP) issued by the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) to compile a n e w e d itio n of Books f o r C ollege L ib ra rie s (BCL). The RFP was the result of an ad hoc com­ mittee established by ACRL to determine whether another revision of this standard work was needed in the academic library community. The first edition of BCL was published in 1967 by the American Library Association. The work contained 53,410 titles edited by Melvin J. Voight, university librarian, and Joseph H. Treyz, head of the New C am pus Program of the University of C a l­ ifornia, San Diego. This edition represented the core title list of the New Campuses Program for the University of California, as revised by Choice edi­ tors and reviewers. The founding of Choice, whose first issue appeared in March 1964, was seen as a complement to this core list although no official tie- in was developed other th an the 1963 cut-off date for titles in the 1967 edition. ALA published the second edition of BCL in 1975 with funding from the Council on Library Resources to produce a library catalog of 40,000 volumes for college libraries (38,651 titles are in the 1975 edition). The 1967 edition and Choice re­ views through 1972 served as the main basis for the 1975 edition. Choice reviewers and other librari­ ans and subject experts m ade the selections. The n e w m a c h i n e - r e a d a b l e c a t a l o g i n g p r o g r a m (MARC) developed at the Library of Congress was seen as a source of bibliographic d ata about se­ lected titles. Only about a third of the titles selected by scholars, librarians, and specialists were found to be available on the MARC file, however, and MARC tagging of other titles was done by the proj­ ect’s com puter contractor. T h e t h i r d e d it io n of B C L , an a n t i c i p a t e d 50,000-title collection, is currently being compiled at the Choice offices. The editor of Choice, Pat Sa bosik, is overall project m anager. Virginia Clark, on leave from her position as assistant editor at Choice, is serving as editor of the new edition. ALA will again be the publisher (co-publishing with ACRL) and an estimated publication date of the six-volume work is set for late 1987. Strong ties to the Choice operation are again evi­ dent in this edition. Choice subject editors are rec­ om m ending reviewers to be invited to work on the project. These reviewers are developing subject lists for the new edition using pages from the 1975 e d itio n a n d selected C h o ic e c a rd s from 1972 through 1985. As in the past, they are also invited to recommend other titles. Approximately 500 re­ viewers of the 3,000 reviewer pool will be used in this first pass selection process. Unique to this edi­ tion will be a second pass at review and selection by academic librarians responsible for selection and collection development in the various subjects. An estimated 200 librarians will be used for this stage of the process. The database development for the project has been subcontracted to UTLAS, Inc., a vendor of o n lin e b i b lio g r a p h ic d a ta b a s e s . An e s tim a te d 27,000 titles, representing faculty selections, are now in the BCL III in-process database, and the BCL III staff is experiencing a 96 % hit rate of titles requested from the UTLAS master file. W ith such complete database backup available through current MARC cataloging and reconver­ sion projects, it will be possible to update BCL on a more frequent basis. The Choice Editorial Board 724 / C &R L News and the BCL III Advisory C o m m itte e will be studying the updating issue in the next few years and m a k in g r e c o m m e n d a tio n s to Choice and ACRL for a more current review and revision cy cle. The high degree of involvement of the Choice staff and reviewer pool in the revision of BCL is in­ dicative of their commitment to publish usable, high quality collection development resources for academic libraries. C &R L News readers who would like to volun­ teer or to recommend colleagues for the librarian review stage of the BCL III project are invited to submit names and a statement of subject interest and qualifications to Virginia Clark, Editor BCL, Choice, 100 Riverview Center, Middletown, CT 06457. ■ ■ ACRL cand idates, 1 9 8 7 elections W h o ’s who on the Spring ballot. T he listing for each of the following candidates includes their title, institution, and institutional address. Vice-President/President-Elect Joseph Boissé, University Librarian, University of California, Santa B arb ara, CA 93106; Joan Chambers, Director of Libraries, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO 80523. Board of Directors Director-at-Large: Charles S. Finem an, H u ­ manities Bibliographer, Collection Management Office, Northw estern University L ibrary, 1935 Sheridan Road, Evanston, IL 6Ó201-2924; Peter Malanchuk, Chairm an, D epartm ent of Reference and Bibliography, 116 Library West, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611. Director-at-Large: L arry Hardesty, Director of Library Services, Eckerd College Library, P.O. Box 12560, St. P etersb u rg , FL 33733; N orm a Yueh, Director of Library Services, Ramapo Col­ lege of New Jersey, M ahwah, NJ 07430. Anthropology and Sociology Section (ANSS) Vice-Chair/Chair-Elect: Stephen E. MacLeod, Social Sciences B ibliographer, G reen L ib ra ry , Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305. Secretary: Deborah A. Kane, Social Science Ref­ erence Librarian, Reference D epartm ent, Univer­ sity Library, University of Nebraska at O m aha, Om aha, NE 68182; Cheryl C. Kugler, Head of Monograph Services, Jean & Alexander Heard Li­ brary, Vanderbilt University, 419 21st Ave. South, Nashville, TN 37205. Member-at-Large: Jo Kibbee, Anthropology Subject Specialist, 100 Library, University of Illi­ nois, Urbana, IL 61801; Virginia F. Moreland, C o m p u te r Search C o o rd in a to r, University L i­ braries, University of N ebraska, Lincoln, NE 68588-0410. Art Section (ARTS) Vice-Chair/Chair-Elect: Charles R. Smith, H u ­ manities Reference Librarian, Sterling C. Evans Library, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843. Secretary: Micheline Nilsen, Creative Arts Li­ brarian, Cheever Hall, Montana State University, B o zem an , MT 59717; Stephen A llan P a tric k , Head, Documents Departm ent, Sherrod Library, East Tennessee State University, P.O. Box 22450 A, Johnson City, TN 37614-0002. Asian and African Section (AAS) Vice-Chair/Chair-Elect: Basima Q . Bezirgan, 5000 S. Cornell, #7B, Chicago, IL 60615; Ka­ tharine K. Elsasser, Head, Humanities I Section, Subject Cataloging Division, Library of Congress, Washington, DC 20540. Member-at-Large: E lean o r M u rp h y D aniel,