ACRL News Issue (B) of College & Research Libraries


148/C&RL News ■ March 1998

I n t h e wen s

In choosing values for his theme, Presi­

dent W. Lee Hisle challenges us to really 

think about what we value most. How does 

our service in the profession of librarianship 

address these values?

In an interesting, though unscientific, 

survey, Katherine Branch polled those at­

tending a discussion forum on values at the 

Midwinter Meeting. Those in attendance 

overwhelmingly (49%) chose “service to cli­

entele” as the value most important to aca­

demic librarians. Taking second place in the 

poll, intellectual freedom garnered 20% of 

the vote, and these were the only two val­

ues to show double-digit percentages as the 

first choice (page 176).

As academic librarians, we can use our 

commitment to service to help us build new 

partnerships on campus. We want to pro­

vide the information and resources our con­

stituencies need, and yet, at times, the re­

alities of the budget, staffing, collections, 

and other resources at our disposal make it 

difficult. By educating the faculty and ad­

ministrators outside the library about our ser­

vices and the resources needed to provide 

them, we can develop a powerful support 

group that understands the ramifications of 

adding new services— even when it means 

cutting back on existing ones.

Continuing with the values theme, 

Frances Maloy shares with us how her high 

valuing of intellectual freedom (there is that 

20%) brought her to librarianship and re­

minds us that this freedom sometimes means 

defending ideas/materials that are person­

ally offensive (page 169).

I look forward to the President’s Program 

this summer when the discussion on values 

continues.

This issue is filled with other ACRL and 

ALA business. A report of ACRL activities at 

the Midwinter Meeting begins on page 174, 

and statements from the candidates for ALA 

president may be found on page 186.

Mary Ellen K. Davis

Editor-in-chief
medavis@ala.org

mailto:medavis@ala.org