ACRL News Issue (B) of College & Research Libraries 700 / C& RL News Percent o f response If you’re fortunate, I’ve been told, you will re­ ceive a response from about 30 % of those you con­ tacted. If you’ve targeted your audience carefully, you may receive a greater return. In my own case I mailed 121 questionnaires on January 19 and had received 57 responses by April 2, or 47 %; 60 replies by May 1, or 50% . Added benefits You’ll probably receive responses th a t will make your day—colleagues who realize they have some of the same concerns you do. The next tim e you m eet any of these people at a library conference, you’ll greet each other a bit more warm ly, sharing a bond of having helped each other try to solve problems of m utual concern. W hile it m ay take m ore hours th a n you antici­ pate to prepare and/or collate the results, a survey can open new doors for you. If you are able to use the inform ation gleaned as a basis for an article, be sure to give credit where credit is due. If another colleague or institution has been particularly help­ ful and would appreciate recognition, give it! You may even be asked to share the results of your research w ith other colleagues at local, re­ gional or national conferences. So, dear first–time- or tenth–time-surveyer, be prepared to add a “new dimension” to your life. A survey is well w orth the effort! To better the best and brightest undergraduates By M young C hung Wilson Inform ation Services Librarian Rutgers University an d K evin M ulcahy Reference Coordinator Rutgers University T here is a renew ed interest in im proving the quality of undergraduate education in institutions of higher learning—especially in large, public, re­ search universities w here, it is alleged, laboratory w ork and grant dollars are often p u t ahead of stu­ dents, teaching and learning, and where attention to undergraduates has a low priority.1 Some have also said that faculty members in this environment have little incentive to increase th e ir teaching workload by making assignments th a t require close student supervision.2 In order to ensure high quality education, par­ ticularly th a t of undergraduates, the Council on Improvements on Teaching at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, annually solicits and funds projects th a t encourage creative and innova­ tive instructional methods. A project th a t was pro­ posed by three librarians3 at the Rutgers Alexander L ibrary (the research library for the social sciences and hum anities), entitled “Com prehensive Re­ search Access Training: A Proposal to Enhance the Research Capabilities of U ndergraduate Honors Students,” was funded during the 1985-86 aca­ 1Scott Heller, “Ways to Improve U ndergraduate Education Sought by New Alliance of State Uni­ versities,” Chronicle o f Higher Education, January 14, 1987, pp.13-14. 2Susan H. Anthes & Lawson Crowe, “Teaching Library Literacy,” College Teaching 35 (Summer 19871:92-94. 3They are M arianne I. G aunt, Kevin Mulcahy, and Myoung Chung Wilson. demic year. U ndergraduate honors students were selected for participation in the project for the following reasons: 1) N ationally the needs assessments for biblio­ graphic instruction require, among other things, identification of library user groups for w hom a bibliographic instruction class or series of classes is targeted o r designed. W hile undergraduates as a whole, and especially freshmen and academically disadvantaged students, are frequently identified as target groups for bibliographic instruction, little has been done w ith u n d ergraduate honors stu ­ dents, i.e ., those w ho seek academic excellence. The identification of this group for the purpose of bibliographic instruction is im portant because they tend to fall between the general undergraduate population and the more advanced graduate stu­ dents and faculty. 2) At Rutgers University, w here there has been a n expansion of the u n d ergraduate honors pro­ gram and w here a prem ium has been placed on in­ terd iscip lin ary endeavor an d in d e p en d en t re ­ search, neither the university nor the library has provided honors students w ith systematic training in the acquisition of new inform ation and research materials, particularly by the utilization of new technology. 3) The honors students at Rutgers, as well as at other universities, are potential scholars at the very outset of their careers. An advanced com prehen­ sive training in research techniques is considered essential for their future work. 702 / C&RL News Project description Through various university offices and w ith the cooperation of the directors of honors programs, a total of 32 students in ten different academic disci­ plines was identified for participation in the proj­ ect. The level of these students ranged from those in the General Honors Program (freshman and soph­ omore) to those in the Henry Rutgers Honors Pro­ gram, the oldest and most prestigious honors pro­ gram open only to upper classmen. All of these participants were volunteers. Seven seminars, in­ terspersed throughout Fall Semester 1985, were or­ ganized on the following subjects: commercially available computer databases; academic library information networks; machine-readable text/hu- manities; machine-readable data files; manuscript and archival materials; and government publica­ tions. While the seminars as a whole were conducted by professional librarians (and the data archivist at the University Computer Center), the series was inaugurated by an informal talk given by a Rutgers University history professor, W arren Kimball, w hose tw o-volum e book on C h u rch ill and Roosevelt had just been released by the Princeton University Press. Kimball was asked to participate because his ten years of research for this book had required a sophisticated knowledge of research materials. The participants were required to attend at least two of these seven seminars in order to be eligible for the computer search services free of charge.4 D u rin g the term of th e project, 97 com puter searches were conducted in 33 databases. Students were asked to review the initial search results and were then asked to refine their research focus and, as necessary, return for additional searches. Evaluation and findings The response rate to mailed evaluation question­ naires and follow-up telephone calls was less than 50%, with 13 out of 32 participating students and 11 out of 21 participating faculty advisors respond­ ing. O ur findings from these responses included both surprises and expected results. We were sur­ prised, for example, that none of the participating honors students had ever requested a com puter search before and only two out of 13 wanted to be trained to conduct a search for themselves. We also found that honors students were less familiar with bibliographic sources than expected; they were far more familiar with library services in general. The computer search cost per student was not as high as anticipated—$68 per student and $23 per search are, in our opinion, acceptable for a serious re­ search effort. The honors students for the most p art had rea­ sonable expectations of w hat a computer search ‘Some funding for computer searches is avail­ ble for undergraduate honors students at Rutgers.a could deliver; faculty members were also realistic in their expectations, noting that even a good com­ puter search could not compensate for inadequate research ability. One faculty member also pointed out that the quality of a computer search varied with students’ success in focusing their research ac­ tivities. Although we had originally intended to evaluate the search results with each student, we found that time constraints made this impossible. Conclusion The assumption that intellectually superior un­ dergraduate honors students are also superior in their knowledge of bibliographic skills was not con­ firmed. The findings of this project suggest that un­ dergraduate honors students need training in basic bibliographic skills; indeed they require more fo­ cused attention than the average student due to their higher research expectations. For some stu­ dents, learning that a computer search might not be appropriate for their research topic was also a valuable lesson. Through this project we also hoped to train honors students to develop evalua­ tive judgments concerning manual and computer literature searches. Educating students to select the most appropriate materials by the right method at the right time is, however, a skill that clearly goes far beyond learning how to gain access to computer databases alone. Access to com puter facilities, therefore, cannot replace the general research skill of the students nor the need for effective faculty ad­ vising. Off-campus library services The Off-campus Library Services Confer­ ence, sponsored by the Central Michigan Uni­ versity Libraries and the Institute for Personal an d C areer D evelopm ent, w ill be held in Charleston, South Carolina, October 20-21, 1988. Librarians, educators, administrators, and practitioners involved with adult learning programs or library services to off-campus stu­ dents are invited to submit proposals for presen­ tation. Proposals are sought on a variety of top­ ics including but not limited to interlibrary cooperation, program adm inistration, p ro ­ gram evaluation including needs assessment, li­ censure questions, accreditation, uses of tech­ nology, remote delivery, copyright, student and fa c u lty su p p o rt services, an d in tra - institutional cooperation. Persons interested in participating in the pro­ gram are invited to send a titled abstract of not more than 500 words and a biographical state­ ment of approximately 50 words to Maryhelen G arrett, Regional Librarian, Park Library 315, Central Michigan University, Mt. Pleasant, MI 48859; (800) 248-9271, or in Michigan (800) 292-9076. Proposal evaluation will begin Janu­ ary 1, 1988. December 1987 / 703 This caveat notw ithstanding, the project clearly revealed th a t research in a modern university li­ brary requires access to new inform ation and sys­ tematic training in integrating disparate areas of knowledge. As one of our participating faculty members commented on the training provided by the project, “the best of our students become even better.”5 ■ ■ 5Professor Jerome Aumente, director of the Jour­ nalism Resources Institute, Rutgers University. ACRL executive summary Professional development NEH . W e held the 11th in our series of work­ shops co-sponsored w ith PLA and supported by NEH on public program m ing in the humanities. We have been invited to subm it a proposal for an­ other project. Sandy D onnelly is scheduling a meeting in San Antonio to discuss possible formats and co-sponsors. W ESS Florence Conference. Details have been worked out for an outstanding program. Excite­ m ent has been generated in Europe during a recent visit by Assunta Pisani. If you haven’t received your mailing yet, please call JoAn Segal. Enhancing library service capability H BCU project. The planning conference for the Historically Black College and University (HBCU) Library Project was held in A tlanta on October 18-20, w ith 28 lib ra ria n s a tte n d in g . Beverly Lynch chaired the sessions. Keynote speaker Sa­ muel Proctor urged the group to focus on the needs of students. The librarians were clear and specific about their needs and the directions they’d like ACRL to take. The Com m ittee, w hich also in­ cludes Lorene Brow n, Casper Jordan, Joe Ho­ w ard, and Barbara Williams-Jenkins, m et im me­ diately following the session and m ade tentative plans to make a presentation to the ACRL leader­ ship. O utput measures. The RFP for an author for the O utput Measures M anual is “on the street.” Mary Ellen Davis and the Ad Hoc Committee on Perfor­ mance Measures prepared the piece w ith assistance from consultant Nancy van House. The Comm it­ tee expects to select an author at M idwinter. Copies are available from Mary Ellen Davis. Liaison Grinnell meeting o f college librarians. President Joanne Euster joined some fifty college librarians at their annual get-together, held October 18-20 at Grinnell College. The program was full of practi­ cal and theoretical presentations of special interest to librarians of relatively large private liberal arts colleges. ALA events of interest COPES m eeting. COPES m et at ALA H ead­ quarters on October 26-28. They created tw o sub­ committees: one to review indirect costs; another to consider the basic support to be provided to divi­ sions under a new operating agreement, for which they hope to have a nearly final draft by M idwin­ ter. COPES also said they would be reviewing and m a k in g reco m m en d a tio n s on th e to ta l ALA budget, “including...Divisions,” and “requiring th a t M anagement review and recommend Division budgets. ” A L A Executive Board. Items on the agenda of particular interest to ACRL included: S C O L E . An in te re s tin g discussion of th e SCOLE suggestion regarding a statement on the MLS as the appropriate degree for librarians took place. Emphasis turned to defining w hat a “Li­ b r a r ia n ” is, nam ely, a person w ith an MLS! SCOLE will continue work and come back at Mid­ winter. Candidates’ Forum. The Board voted to sponsor a candidates’ forum for ALA President and Trea­ surer, beginning in San Antonio, and to invite all units to participate in this experimental program for this year. They also voted to have a special elec­ tion supplement bound into American Libraries. ACRL H eadquarters activities Quality circles. The training of staff in quality circle techniques has been proceeding nicely. Elaine Opalka is acting as trainer of the group; they are in the last phase of the training activity and about to select their first project. Membership in the circle is voluntary. W e are all grateful to Elaine for her work on this and excited about w hat will emerge as more staff members begin to partici­ pate actively in managing work at ACRL. Staffing work. The senior staff have been ad­ dressing the problem of work overload. W e have used a process suggested in the publishing literature to identify and analyze tasks performed by ACRL staff members. We are also using the Matrix M an­ agement concept Joanne Euster presented at the ACRL Seattle Conference to identify which staff have w hat level of responsibility for each of the Goals and Strategic M anagement Directions con­ tained in the plan. From this work we hope to be able to better define staffing needs.—JoAn S. Se­ gal . ■ ■