ACRL News Issue (B) of College & Research Libraries March 1989 / 203 dents and not leave it up to individual faculty members. In some universities bibliographic instruction li­ brarians and their services are seen as non-essential or as the fat in the library’s budget, while at other universities bibliographic instruction programs are expanding. In any case, decisions on the retention, expansion, or elimination of bibliographic instruc­ tion programs are often made without the benefit of data. It behooves the bibliographic instruction librarian to become fam iliar w ith survey tech­ niques and to take responsibility for examining bib­ liographic instruction contributions to library ser­ vices. Most colleges and universities have experts on campus who can help librarians conduct surveys and interpret their results. In this case, the coordi­ nator of instructional development from the Media Resources Center helped with the survey design, while a statistician from the Statistical Lab helped draw the sample and interpret the survey results. Conventional wisdom may believe th at biblio­ graphic instruction is a library service luxury but when belief is tested against data, conventional wisdom may be dispelled. ■ ■ INNOVATIONS Humor and creativity: Preservation B y N o r m a n D . S tev en s Director The Molesworth Institute Even the most casual perusal of contemporary ephemeral library publications confirms the fact that the emergent field of preservation has become a fertile field for our imagination. The surprising wealth of library humor that now focuses on this aspect of librarianship deserves attention and anal­ ysis. Why should this arcane subject exercise the creative minds of librarians and result in the pro­ duction of a wide range of w hat are meant to be— even if they aren’t always—humorous items and events? Part of this may be simply the allure of a relatively new field but there may also be some darker underlying explanation. Much of this humor is generated by preservation advocates themselves largely in the context of their continuing efforts to educate both staff and users. The theory, which I heartily endorse, seems to be that a light-hearted approach in respect to serious efforts to improve the behavior of staff and users in respect to their treatm ent of our precious books will get the message across in a more palatable fashion and might, thus, even result in actual positive changes in behavior. W hether or not this theory can be proven, it certainly is widely held. Perhaps the best example is a splendid 3:55- minute video, Handle W ith Care ($39.00), pro­ duced by Lora Hays at the New York University Li­ braries. In this offbeat video, which effectively utilizes im aginative fake paper sets, a careless young male patron demonstrates all the wrong ways to treat books to a background of strange comments by an off-screen n arrato r and weird sounds. As the video ends the reformed user finds true love as he helps an attractive, young, unin­ formed female patron learn how to treat library books properly. This same kind of creative approach is often widely used in exhibits, such as th at at the Fairfield University Library in 1988, which attem pt to visu­ ally demonstrate to users the horrors of food and drink in the library and how, in other ways, poor treatm ent can damage library materials. Using as their theme “Murder in the Stacks,” the Fairfield University Library staff, for example, set up two display cases labelled “ The E vidence,” one of which contained an evening’s w orth of garbage 204 / C& RL News collected in the library and the other the ingenious bookmarks (including the tim e-honored strip of bacon) used by their patrons. Preservation Comics, which is issued sporadically by Joseph G rant (free from Box 255 4 4 , L ib r a r y L a n e , T e m p e , AZ 85285), features as its heroine a normal librarian who becomes transform ed into a crusading su­ perheroine at th e sight of a preservation offense. Some preservation hum or is just the kind of good plain fun th a t emerges from our fascination w ith a new field th a t, on the one han d , carries w ith it some of the trappings of a science and, on the other hand, offers exciting new solutions to age-old li­ brary problems. In one of the earliest known efforts at preservation hum or D avid W eber, in 1965, de­ scribed th e successful conclusion of a p ro ject, funded by the Sopwith Graphics Foundation, to develop a new felt tip pen ink containing a soluble pigm ent, 99.3% of which is absorbed into the fi­ bers of book paper w ithin 48 to 72 hours, thus elim­ inating the dam age caused by users who underline and otherwise deface library books through the use of the more common felt tip pen. Despite W eber’s assertion th a t these new im proved pens would be available nationally w ithin a year of his announce­ m ent, they have yet, alas, to appear on the m arket. A more recent anonymous missive about Project Omega urges, w ith the usual whereases and re- solveds, the use of self-destructing paper, properly labelled, in books as a contribution to the effective elimination of the massive cataloging backlogs so common in academ ic libraries. T h at approach is welcome in p art, of course, because it hearkens back to some of the earliest work of the Molesworth Institute. Some have even been foolhardy enough to suggest th a t preservation techniques m ight be used w ith librarians. In one of the most widely re­ printed pieces of contem porary lib rary hum or, which seems to have first been published in Cum Notis Variorum the newsletter of the Music L i­ brary of the University of California at Berkeley in about 1982/1983, S.Q .F. deals w ith “The Storage and C are of L ibrarians” urging th at they be stored in the dark since they “decompose w hen exposed to lig h t.” A nother recom m endation in th a t classic piece has to do w ith th e provision of adequate shelving for oversize librarians since “the rugged­ ness of structure of such librarians is rarely com­ m ensurate w ith their size, their weight, and w ith beatings they take because of their inherent un­ wieldiness.” Sometimes, as is often the case w ith satirical h u ­ mor, an underlying touch of concern, protective­ ness, or even jealousy surfaces. As new library pro­ grams, such as preservation, develop and compete w ith established program s for scarce resources, some of us m ay see in the ap parent favored status of those program s a th reat to support for our own ef­ forts. G ood-natured, if sometimes snide, attacks on the typical crusading fervor of most preservation li­ brarians may be a w ay of expressing th a t latent hos­ tility. T h at m ay in p a rt be w hat lies behind the de­ scription of the rise and fall of preservation efforts at the Ohio State University Library between 1986 and 1988 as reported in News Nosey (see box be­ low) . The story begins w ith the announcem ent in 1986 of the creation of fourteen new positions rang­ ing from Preservation L ibrary D irector to Preser­ vation L ibrary Clerk II. In 1987 there is a report on how the new get-tough approach has led to the cre­ ation of yet another five new positions ranging this tim e from Preservation K om m andant to Preserva­ tion Dog H andler II. In 1988 there is the gleeful an­ nouncem ent of the term ination of the “Librerries Preservative Office” since the D irector has decided th a t “every book should be allowed to die w ith dig­ n ity .” All preservation positions have been reas­ signed on a p e rm a n e n t te m p o ra ry basis to an equally useless new Search C om m ittee D e p art­ m ent. Feeling funny? Your response has im proved, but please keep those (business) cards and (news)letters com­ ing. O ther descriptions, reports, stories, and tales of the creative use of hum or to spice up ac­ ademic libraries and librarianship are also most welcome. Special thanks go to Susan Logan (aka S. Log-On) of the Ohio State University Libraries for sending me no less th an nine wonderful, fun-filled issues of an irregular new sletter (now titled News Nosey) th a t has been distributed anonymously—b u t widely suspected to be mas­ term inded by the clever genius Mike Valinis— there since at least 1982. Described most re­ cently as th e n ew sletter of T he A hia S tate Multiversity Liberries, N ew s Nosey takes a sa­ tirical look at th e real issues facing th a t library (e.g., “Tex, burly but handsom e stew ard for Local 411, U nited Cockroaches of Am erica, wishes to notify the OSUL staff cockroaches th a t the staff lounge will be the site of the 1982 national U .C.A. convention”) and especially the foibles of its adm inistrators (e.g., the estab­ lishment in 1984 of the R ubber Stam p C om m it­ tee “to give form al approval to any of the ad ­ m inistration’s decisions”) . One theory is th a t such creative endeavors m ay surface w hen staff m orale is low and staff are unhappy w ith their w ork situation. I sub­ scribe to the som ewhat naive b u t more optimis­ tic theory th a t such endeavors reflect a situation in which staff feel com fortable in analyzing the problems th a t face them w ith a sharp eye, be­ cause they are working in a healthy environ­ m ent w here such efforts are endured if not en­ couraged and appreciated. O ther examples of April Fool’s newsletters, and sim ilar insider a t­ tacks on a library establishm ent, would be espe­ cially a p p re c ia te d as g rist fo r an e v en tu a l lengthy article on th a t topic. Please send all such stuff, as usual, to: N orm an D. Stevens, 143 Hanks Hill Road, Storrs, CT 06268. March 1989 / 205 The proclamation in an issue of The Library Muse from the University of Missouri Library pro­ claiming April as Book Desecration Month, along with the presentation of the official Don’t Care Bear symbol, may be, in part, an effort to focus at­ tention on untow ard user behavior but it too car­ ries with it just a hint of discomfort about preserva­ tion efforts. The description and illustration in that same issue of Saint Asafoetida—the Patron Saint of Book Preservation, also know n as the Blessed Fum igator—who “felt the call of her venerated profession and abandoned library school to wander through the m idw estern libraries spreading the Doctrine of Preservation” clearly expresses the con­ cern that many librarians seem to have with the too ardent dedication of their colleagues who have seen the preservation light. In their zeal those colleagues can become easy targets for fun. For that we should be thankful. Our concerns may be especially evident when those nasty preservation librarians attem pt to im­ pose their doctrines in ways that affect the personal habits of users and/or staff in relationship to the consumption of food and drink in the proximity of library materials. As the New York University Li­ braries videotape and the Fairfield University Li­ brary exhibit demonstrate, the damage that food and drink can do to library books is real but reform­ ing the guilty m ay be more successful, and less re­ sented, if approached w ith a touch of humor. But those same issues obviously affect library staff who may be just as accustomed as users to a more casual approach to the consumption of food and drink at work. The imposition of the same, or more strin­ gent, standards on lib rary staff as imposed on users—for after all we must be good role models— can generate outright hostility to th at aspect of the preservation cause th a t may surface through hu­ mor. News Nosey reported, for example, in 1985 on a new series of brown bag lectures to which staff were encouraged to bring their brown bags but without food or drink in them. The continuing cockroach battle at the Ohio State University Li­ brary (see box below again)—including the de­ scription of the discovery of the largest cockroach species known to m an—and other aspects of the battle against food and drink in the library, have been featured there in a humorous context but the dividing lines among the library staff have not been clearly drawn. But whether in simple jest or in earnest satire the im portant national library effort to address serious preservation concerns does have its lighter aspects. Just as it has added a new dimension to the serious side of librarianship, so it has added a new dimen­ sion to the humorous side. That has been an unan­ ticipated and welcome benefit of this vital work. Applications invited for C&RL editor Nominations and applications are invited for the position of editor of College ‹b- Research L i­ braries. The editor is appointed for a three-year term which may be renewed for an additional three years. Applicants must be members of ALA and ACRL. Qualifications include experi­ ence in academic libraries, evidence of research and editing activity, and a broad knowledge of the issues confronting academic libraries. A small honorarium for the editor and funding arrangements for editorial assistance are avail­ able. Nominations or resumes w ith names of th ree references m ay be sent to: C. Brigid Welch, Chair, College and Research Libraries Search C om m ittee, C en tral U niversity L i­ brary, C-075-R, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093. The deadline for applications is May 1, 1989. Library benefit concerts: Blood, sweat, and cash B y P e t e r A. M ü n sted t Conservatory Librarian University o f Missouri-Kansas City Budget cuts and inadequate funding have in­ creasingly sent academic librarians in search of outside money. Grants are one means of obtaining support, but this funding has become scarce over the years. Finding grants applicable to a library and its particular needs also restricts the possibili­ ties, especially for smaller academic libraries. In these lean financial times for libraries, new and creative approaches are often necessary to supple­ ment a budget. As Peter Spyers-Duran points out: “The choice between operative poverty and rela­ tive affluence may be determined by the academic library’s ability to increase outside support level.”1 1Peter Spyers-Duran, “Revitalization of Aca­ demic Library Programs through Creative Fund- Raising,” in Austerity Management in Academic Libraries, ed. John F. Harvey and Peter Spyers-