june05b.indd


ACRL National Conference 
Julia
Kelly,
Joan
Roca,
and
Ross
Thrasher


Currents and convergence 
The ACRL 12th National Conference wrap-up 

Attendees of the ACRL 12th National Conference, “Currents and Convergence: 
Navigating the Rivers of 
Change,” held in Minne­
apolis, April 7–10, 2005, 
had the opportunity to 
explore ideas, interact 
with colleagues and ven­
dors, and share research 
results and success sto­
ries. The Minneapolis 
conference committee, 
chaired by Camila A. 
Alire, dean of library ser­
vices, University of New 
Mexico, selected more 
than 300 stimulating and 
thought­provoking pro­
grams. 

The committee’s ef­
forts were appreciated 
by the 2,800 conference 
participants, which included 1,059 fi rst­time 
attendees and 94 scholarship recipients. The 
conference drew nearly 4,000 total attendees 
(including paid registrants, exhibitors, staff, 
and guests), a record­breaking number. 

Keynotes and invited papers 
Keynote addresses and invited papers from 
outside the library field gave fresh perspec­
tives and insights on areas of common inter­
est, including library buildings, fi rst­year stu­
dents, and the diverse communities served 
by academic libraries. In his opening key­
note, William Mitchell, professor of architec­
ture and media arts and sciences at Massa­
chusetts Institute of Technology, challenged 

Camila
 Alire,
 ACRL
 12th
 National

Conference
chair
and
incoming
ACRL

president,
 welcomes
 attendees
 to

Minneapolis.


the audience to view technology and the 
space it inhabits in a new way. He pointed 

out that wireless connectivity 
reduces the need to organize 
spaces around technical re­
quirements, and he empha­
sized the new importance of 
“unassigned” space, where 
individuals and groups work 
and interact. 

Invited paper presenter 
Betsy Barefoot, co­director of 
the Policy Center of the First 
Year of College at Brevard 
College in North Carolina, 
shared research and perspec­
tives on fi rst­year students. 
She emphasized that the fi rst 
year is a time for students to 
establish patterns of behavior 
and hopefully chart success­
ful pathways, both socially 

and academically. In applying her group’s 
research to library instruction, Barefoot 
suggested librarians keep in mind that few 
students understand plagiarism, most benefi t 
from peer mentors, and integrating library 
instruction into the curriculum seems to be 
a successful strategy. 

“A Place to Belong: The Library as Proto­
type for Context Diversity” was the topic of a 

Julia Kelly is reference librarian at the University of 
Minnesota-St. Paul, e-mail: jkelly@tc.umn.edu; Joan 
Roca is dean of library services at Minnesota State 
University-Mankato, e-mail: roca@mnsu.edu; and 
Ross Thrasher is director of library services at Mount 
Royal College in Canada, e-mail: rthrasher@mtroyal.ca 

© 2005 Julia Kelly, Joan Roca, Ross Thrasher 

June 2005 
439
 C&RL News 

mailto:rthrasher@mtroyal.ca
mailto:roca@mnsu.edu
mailto:jkelly@tc.umn.edu


R ­Who are the wolves? A feral professional at the ACRL National Conference 
. 

I am not a librarian, and yet I recently 
returned from my first ACRL National 
Conference in Minneapolis. I am an admin­
istrator charged with facilitating collabora­
tions between 26 small private liberal arts 
colleges. I do this work for the Midwest 
Instructional Technology Center (MITC), 
one of three regional centers that make 
up the National Institute for Technology 
and Liberal Education (NITLE). At the core 
of our charge and our method is a belief 
that small, private liberal arts colleges must 
collaborate on considering questions of 
technology and teaching, and that such 
collaborations must be grounded in and 
informed by three perspectives: those of 
faculty, of instructional technologists, and 
of librarians. 

I have a long history of working with 
librarians as teaching faculty and an IT 
professional, however, it was last summer’s 
Frye Leadership Institute that taught me 
(among many other things) that I really 
needed to spend more time considering 
the library. The librarians among my Frye 
classmates made a unanimous suggestion: 
Come to the ACRL National Conference in 
Minneapolis. And they were right. From 
the first timers’ session to the closing ses­
sion, I was struck by the thoughtful and 
engaged presenters and by the fact that they 
were asking questions about collaboration, 
change, pedagogy, and technology that 
were the questions I, too, was asking. 

The panel session, “Menage a Trois: 
The Essential Computing, Library and 
Instructional Technology Partnership to 
Advance New Media Learning,” given by 
a group from Columbia University, made 
a particular impact. It gave a very positive 
look at collaboration between library, IT, 
and instructional technology. The panel 
stressed the value not only of substantive 
knowledge, but also of acknowledging 
the method of approach that each brings 

to the effort. Clearly this group was go­
ing about collaboration in a way that was 
sensitive to and drew upon the different 
perspectives of each of the groups, while 
keeping the pedagogical and disciplinary 
needs of the faculty at the center. I did fi nd 
myself wishing they might have been able 
to bring one of those faculty members to 
join the panel. 

Roberto Ibarra’s invited paper “A Place 
to Belong: The Campus Library as Prototype 
for Context Diversity” suggested the limits 
of structural and multicultural approaches 
to diversity. Ibarra argued that the barriers 
to diversity lay more deeply in the origins of 
academic culture in a centuries­old German 
research model that displaces questions of, 
for instance, relationship, in favor of more ab­
stracted, disembodied concepts and methods 
of learning. How might we be more effective 
at teaching if we stop trying to adjust the user 
to better use the library and toward adjusting 
the library to better meet the needs of users? 
I found myself asking what this might also 
suggest about furthering relations between 
the IT and library. Perhaps we need to fi nd 
ways of attracting each other to our projects 
and organizations and to help each other 
thrive in them in ways that recognize the 
value of the contexts each of us brings to 
those efforts. 

For me, James Neal’s talk, “Raised by 
Wolves: The New Generation of Feral 
Professionals in the Academic Library,” 
picked up where Ibarra’s talk left off. What 
happens as you introduce professionals 
into libraries who do not share the social­
ization implied by the MLS degree? As I 
listened I found myself wondering who 
the “wolves” are who are “raising” these 
feral professionals? Most of these profes­
sionals do come with cultural traditions 
of their own, whether from IT or from 
academic disciplines, and thus do have 
“culture,” even if it is different than that 

440C&RL News June 2005



of the more traditional librarian. As such, 
the process of socialization may need to 
be conceived as a process of engaging in 
equal exchanges with these individuals as 
cultural representatives. 

Sylvia Hurtado’s closing keynote built 
upon the insights of cognitive psychol­
ogy to note that, while our tendency is 
toward mindlessness to save our thinking 
for “important” things, we must create 
disequilibrium, both in ourselves, and in 
our students, to help break mindlessness 
and learn. Furthermore, the learning and 
development that takes place once we 
are in such situations of disequilibrium 
happen most effectively through social 
interaction. 

This is what I experienced as a feral 
professional at the ACRL National Confer­
ence: having begun to settle into a (not 
quite) mindless comfort with my perspec­
tive from IT and faculty locations, it was 
unsettling to find myself immersed within 

the library discourse. Drawing upon the 
supportive environment and interaction 
with individual librarians, especially those I 
knew from Frye and from the institutions in 
the Associated Colleges of the Midwest and 
Great Lakes Colleges Association, I began 
to engage with this new perspective and to 
begin the process of incorporating it more 
fully into myself. Yet, I also hope that the 
opposite occurred, and that my attending 
and engaging with librarians has changed 
ACRL just a little as well. 

I think we need more opportunities to 
put ourselves into unfamiliar situations, not 
to simply take on a fixed IT, library, or fac­
ulty perspective, but to engage with them, 
to learn and be changed by them and, in 
turn, to change them. Perhaps we can be­
gin to ask how to attract each other to our 
organizations and how to help each other 
thrive within them.—Alex Wirth-Cauchon, 
wirth-cauchon@midwest-itc.org, Midwest 
Instructional Technology Center 

talk by Roberto Ibarra, a sociol­
ogy professor at the University 
of New Mexico. He defi ned 
context diversity as a way to 
reframe rather than reform the 
academic community, and he 
observed that many libraries 
already focus on improving the 
environment for all learners. 

Conference themes: 
First-year experience and 
beyond 
A number of themes emerged 
among the hundreds of papers, 
panels, posters, and roundtables 
that made up the conference. 

In addition to Barefoot’s 
discussion of fi rst­year students, 
a number of other sessions fo­
cused on the characteristics and 
learning styles of “millennials” 
or members of the “Net Genera­

I n
 his
 opening
 keynote

address,
William
Mitchell
of

MIT
applied
anthropological

analyses
to
discuss
changes

b ro u g h t 
 a b o u t 
 b y 
 n e w 

c o m m u n i c a t i o n 
 a n d 

information
 technologies

and
 what
 this
 means
 for

libraries.


tion” (students born between 
1979 and 1994) and older, 
nontraditional students. A pre­
conference on making libraries 
relevant to younger students 
featured a live focus group 
made up of millennials from 
the Twin Cities, while a paper 
by Kimberly Franklin (librar­
ies of the Claremont Colleges) 
highlighted the perceptions of 
graduate students, especially in 
regard to information literacy. 

Other sessions covered cap­
turing the attention of millenni­

als through marketing efforts and 
various instruction activities. 

Presentations on space fo­
cused on the realities of building 
projects, revamping or eliminat­
ing the reference desk, sharing 
space with campus computing, 
and creating an information com­

June 2005 
441
 C&RL News 

mailto:wirth-cauchon@midwest-itc.org


mons. During the panel session, “Keeping 
Baby: Cost Realities and Choices of What Can 
Be Thrown Out in Building Projects,” fi ve par­
ticipants in a $100 million library expansion at 
San Francisco State University discussed the 
planning and cost­control process. The work­
shop “Trading Spaces: Designing Instruction 
That Fits by Balancing Space, Technology, 
and Learning” explored how outdated design, 
limited space, and technological barriers can 
interfere with effective instruction. 

Learning about open access 
Scholarly communication was discussed from 
numerous viewpoints. In a panel highlighting 
the open­access models and federally funded 
research, the National Institutes of Health 
(NIH) Director Elias Zerhouni, via videotape, 
discussed the new NIH recommendations on 

making articles freely available within a short 
time after publication. Elizabeth Marincola, 
American Society for Cell Biology, discussed 
her group’s policy of making articles public 
just two months after they appear in print and 
gave insights about the societies that choose 
not to participate as fully in the open­ac­
cess movement. Another panel challenged 
attendees to envision a world where open 
access was the norm, and to consider how 
to prepare for that reality. 

For anyone wondering about the rewards 
and hurdles involved in publishing an open­
access journal, faculty member Ken Carter 
and librarian Kitty McNeill (Emory University) 
discussed the details of their efforts to launch 
The Journal of Cognitive Affective Learning 
(www.jcal.emory.edu), a joint effort of the 
library and an academic department. 

ACRL’s Virtual National Conference 

For the first time, ACRL offered a virtu­
al conference to complement the face­
to­face conference in Minneapolis. The 
ACRL Virtual National Conference was 
held completely via the Internet and in­
cluded select 12th National Conference 
speakers in live, interactive Webcasts. 
Virtual attendees were able to keep up 
with the pulse of the conference via daily 
blogs and conference images from rov­
ing “conference correspondents.” 

The virtual conference online 
community will remain available to 
both virtual and face­to­face confer­
ence attendees through April 2006. 
In addition to archives of Webcasts 
held in April, the online community 
also includes text­based discussion 
boards so participants can chat 
about hot conference issues. Log in 
to join the conversation; discussion 
threads include: 

• Assessment without action 
• Exploring portals: Portal OR 

NOT to portal, Is that still a ques­
tion? 

• Googlelizors and Resistors: Which 
one are you? 

• Librarians and the fi rst­year expe­
rience 

• Obstacles for Institutional Repositories 
You can also view speaker materials, 

such as PowerPoints, bibliographies, speak­
er bios, and texts of invited and contributed 
papers. The community can be accessed at 
home.learningtimes.net/acrl. 

Presenters
 from
 six
 panel
 presentations
 reconvened

to
 produce
 live,
 interactive
 Webcasts
 for
 the
 virtual

conference
audience.


442C&RL News June 2005

http:www.jcal.emory.edu


Conference
attendees
flocked
to
the
exhibits
during
the


opening
reception
and
throughout
the
conference.



The Google eff ect 
Google Scholar and Google Print were high­
lighted in a session with Adam Smith, Google 
product manager, and John Price Wilkin from 
the University of Michigan—one of the insti­
tutions partnering in the Google Print digi­
tization effort. They addressed expectations, 
challenges, and possible future scenarios. 

Google was also the topic of a number 
of papers and posters that addressed how 
librarians teach about it, what students 
know about it, and how it has impacted 
the information landscape. The panel 
session “Googlelization, Visualization, 
Metasearch, Mapping and Other Dis­
ruptive Technologies: Implications of 
Revolutionary Change for User Education 
and Information Literacy” began with 
an entertaining debate as to whether li­
brary catalogs and search screens should 
emulate the Google interface. The “pro” 
side argued that Google is a good model 
because it offers simple and advanced 
searching, and because it is fast and wide­
ranging; while the “cons” cited ineffi cient 
and nonauthoritative results and a lack of 
precision and comprehensiveness. 

Information literacy and the role of 
reference 
The conference was rich in opportunities to 
learn more about information literacy. Post­
ers and roundtables addressed the practical 
aspects, with many examples of successful 
strategies for engaging faculty members 

and carrying out activities for students. 
One panel focused on working with 
first­year students, and in the paper, 
“Improving Instruction: What Librarians 
Can Learn from the Study of College 
Teaching,” Scott Walter (University of 
Kansas) linked the ideas about college 
teaching to opportunities for librarians 
to become better teachers. Papers on 
curiosity, motivation, and using the 
Socratic method challenged listeners 
to look at their work as instructors in 
new ways. During the preconference 
workshop “Information Literacy in the 

Disciplines: Librarian/Faculty Collaboration 
for 21st Century Research,” one of the speak­
ers challenged librarians to adopt the point 
of view of providing a solution to a need 
and helping faculty accomplish what they 
want to achieve. 

The changing role of reference and the 
expanding role of outreach were addressed 
in a number of sessions. Successful models 
for virtual reference were debated, and a 

The
 All-Conference
 Reception
 was
 held
 on
 Saturday

night
at
the
Minneapolis
Institutes
of
Arts,
off
 ering
a

chance
to
mingle
with
colleagues,
soak
in
some
culture,

and
enjoy
fantastic
desserts.


panel from Portland State University looked 
back on the predictions about changes in 
reference service to see if the “rethinking 
reference” challenges have been addressed. 
Groups reported about closing their refer­
ence desk, relocating it outside, staffi ng it 
completely with students, and sharing the 
desk with computer support personnel. In the 

June 2005 
443
 C&RL News 



Books
 by
 keynote
 speakers
 were
 available
 for

sale
 in
 the
 ACRL/Bound
 to
 be
 Read
 Bookstore,

a
 real
 plus
 for
 attendees
 heading
 for
 the
 book

signings.


panel “Academic Libraries Reap Benefi ts From 
Community Outreach,” presenters described 
ways that campus libraries, in collaboration 
with student groups, could use ALA 
traveling exhibits as a starting point 
for community programming. 

Managing collections and 
preserving knowledge 
Digital archives, institutional reposi­
tories, and other forms of electronic 
preservation were also featured, with 
a preconference devoted to institu­
tional repositories and a workshop 
on institutional repositories for small­
er libraries. Several posters touched 
on the topic, and one paper covered 
the Western Waters Digital Library, 
which is a collaborative effort of sev­
eral academic libraries.

 Collection topics at the conference in­
cluded a reality check on cooperative col­

Miss a session? 

Audiorecordings of ACRL National Con­
ference sessions are available for pur­
chase at www.cmc­net.com/ (click on the 
ACRL logo). You can also order the 12th 
National Conference Proceedings online 
at www.acrl.org/publications. 

lection development and a look at collecting 
zines in an academic library. The challenges 
of doing collections work in an electronic 
world were addressed by several speakers, 
and one panel focused on the ever­evolving 
jobs of electronic resource librarians. 

A session on knowledge biodiversity 
explored the atomization of news and its 
impact on the preservation of knowledge in 
popular news publications as distributed in 
various formats. Identifying the pitfalls of re­
lying on commercial interests to capture and 
preserve “heritage” information, the presenter 
challenged librarians to address such issues 
as 1) technology and the methodical selec­
tion and archiving of information, 2) political 
interest when it is not in the best interest of 
the organizations in power to preserve such 
information and/or the lack of incentive to do 
so, and 3) the lack of compelling economic 

Mystery
 writers
 Carolina
 Garcia-Aguilera
 (left),
 J.
 A.

Jance
(center),
and
Valerie
Wilson
Wesley
(not
pictured)

discussed
 their
 works
 with
 moderator
 Liane
 Hansen

(right)
of
National
Public
Radio
during
Saturday’s
keynote

luncheon.


reasons to invest in such an enterprise given 
market forces. 

Successful methods for collaborating 
with faculty members were highlighted in a 
number of talks, as academic librarians spend 
more time working closely with departments 
and less time at the reference desk. 

Other topics that were represented during 
the conference include: 

• Blogs, portals, and other new technolo­
gies, which were popular in discussions at 
roundtables 

444C&RL News June 2005

www.acrl.org/publications
http:www.cmc-net.com


• Geographic information systems, with 
several posters devoted to the practical as­
pects of the library’s involvement in campus­
wide efforts 

• Copyright issues, especially in the elec­
tronic environment 

• Federated searching, with its challenges 
and rewards 

• Theater skills for librarians, covered in 
a half­day workshop 

• Assessment and surveys, such as 
LibQual, which help librarians create user­
centered services 

• Practical statistics for librarians, which 
was a popular workshop 

• Promotion and marketing efforts, espe­
cially for instruction and consultation services 

• Distance students—who is serving them, 
and is it effective? 

• Peer tutoring in the library 
• Mentoring of new librarians 

Many librarians love a good mystery, and 
their appetites were satisfied at the Key­

note Luncheon, which featured a group 
interview with mystery writers Caroline 
Garcia­Aguilera, J. A. Jance, and Valerie 
Wilson Wesley. Liane Hansen, National 
Public Radio, moderated a lively discus­
sion. The authors shared the paths that led 
them to write mysteries (Garcia­Aguilera 
has worked for many years as a private 
investigator), how their stories unfold, and 
other secrets of the trade. 

With close to 2,800 participants from all 
50 states and 15 countries, more than 300 
total sessions to choose from, and a large 
and diverse selection of vendors in the 
exhibit hall, it’s no mystery why this year’s 
conference was a resounding success. 

Conference reports available online 

More detailed reports of select programs 
from the ACRL 12th National Conference 
are available in the online article. 

June 2005 
445
 C&RL News