ACRL News Issue (B) of College & Research Libraries


3 8 6  /  C&RL News

ACRL addresses the future, 
part 1

ACRL’s 8th National Conference 
soared to new heights

E xcitement, enthusiasm, and intellectual stimulation permeated the discussions as 
2,973 participants explored the theme “Choos­
ing Our Futures” at ACRL’s 8th National Con­
ference in Nashville, April 11-14, 1997.

Nearly 1,900 librarians representing all 50 
states and nine foreign countries participated 
in the more than 226 sessions which included 
a keynote presentation, five invited papers, 42 
contributed papers, 38 panel sessions, 100 
roundtable discussions, and 40 poster sessions. 
More than 150 companies brought 756 exhibi­
tors and 190 individuals used ACRL’s free ex­
hibits passes to examine state-of-the-art prod­
ucts and services available to academic libraries.

Not only were the numbers of attendees the 
highest since 1989, the attendees were also very 
enthusiastic about their participation:

“This was one of the best conferences I’ve 
ever attended.”

“On our lim ited travel budget this confer­
ence is the best for the money.”

“Very relevant.”
“The ACRL conference was exactly the kind 

of conference I’ve been looking for— devoted 
to academic library issues, practical informa­
tion from excellent presenters, well organized.”

“This conference had a number of interest­
ing and challenging sessions that allows me to 
take back to my campus certain information 
that can be used to implement various projects.”

Librarians had the opportunity to engage 
academic administrators in useful conversation 
about the future of libraries in relation to chang­
ing campus missions. Alan Guskin, chancellor 
of Antioch University, explored how universi­
ties will need to be restructured to focus on 
student learning. Eli Noam, professor of busi­

ness and finance at Columbia University, pos­
ited that libraries will be weakened by the grow­
ing communication technologies. ACRL made 
use of these electronic communication meth­
ods by mounting both of these papers and other 
information about the conference on its Web 
site.

Participants also had the opportunity to take 
home plenty of practical ideas for managing 
their libraries’ services and collections. The re­
cent addition of roundtables to the conference 
program continued to be a popular way to 
network and share ideas informally with col­
leagues, drawing more than 400 individuals to 
each of the sessions.

Conference attendees made time for fun too, 
and packed the dance floor of the Wild Horse 
Saloon at the All-Conference Reception. From 
country line dancing to the hits of the 60s and 
70s, the music and the party were a great way 
to celebrate this successful conference.

C&RL News is pleased to offer the following 
summaries of some conference programs and 
thanks the many volunteers who provided these 
reports. Part two will appear in the July/Au
gust issue. If you want more details about the 
sessions, many were audiotaped (see the in­
sert in this issue for a list of available tapes) 
and the contributed papers will be mounted 
on ACRL’s Web page.— Mary Ellen Davis

Cornel W est calls for courage
The always eloquent Dr. Cornel West, profes­
sor of philosophy of religion and Afro-Ameri­
can studies at Harvard University, set the tone 
for ACRL’s 8th National Conference with a pas­
sionate and provocative keynote address, “Race 
Matters.” West’s lecture was not, however, a 
mere rehashing of the ideas contained in his 
1993 bestselling collection of essays o f the same 
name. Rather West’s speech was a rousing call 
to boldly face the twin problems of poverty 
and paranoia that threaten our democracy.



Ju n e  1997 /  3 8 7

West began by paying tribute to libraries 
and librarians, noting that “libraries changed 
my life” and adding that the bookmobile gave 
him “access to a very different world” and al­
lowed him to develop “something profoundly 
un-American, a sense of history.”

West then critiqued the tendency of some 
A m erican s to p r e fe r  “h o llo w , sh a llo w , 
shadowless” world views. Calling color blind­
ness proof of “the limitation of the American 
imagination,” West mocked those Republicans 
who claimed they never noticed General Colin 
Powell was black. “Why did you have to elimi­
nate his body,” West quipped, “to see him?”

There is a serious message behind West’s 
witticism. These superficial thinkers, accord­
ing to West, “reluctant to deal with the dark­
ness and thunder” in the world, are ill prepared 
for a future that includes “escalating levels of 
despair” among the poor and “escalating levels 
of distrust” among the affluent. Both are factors 
that endanger our democracy. As West observed 
darkly, “Democracies tend to be short-lived.”

West then ended his address by listing four 
things we can do to “leave the world a little 
better than we found it”: 1) “begin a serious 
confrontation with history”; 2) avoid becom­
ing “idolatrous about market values”; 3) accent 
courage because the chief question of the fu­
ture is “Will we have enough courage?” and 4) 
but realize “it takes tremendous courage to 
love.”—J a c k  Helbig, ACRL

Y e s, you can perform outcomes 
a ssessm en t on instruction efforts
In “A Method of Measuring the Reach of a Bib­
liographic Instruction Program,” Sara Penhale 
reported on a new method devised at Earlham 
College using readily available data to mea­
sure the reach of their extensive program of 
instruction across the curriculum. Student tran­
script data (which students took what courses) 
are merged with instruction statistics (for which 
courses instruction was done) and with data 
from a survey of faculty as to which of their 
courses required library research without sched­
uled instruction. This quantitative analysis yields 
results which can then be used to write library 
instruction program objectives relating to its 
frequency in a student’s curriculum, its consis­
tency with information needs, and its availabil­
ity in all disciplines.

In “Assessment of Information Literacy Pro­
grams: Lessons from the Higher Education As­
sessment M ovement,” drawing from Trudy

C ornel W est challenged  listen ers to leave the 
w orld  “a little b etter th an w e found it.”

Banta et a l.’s A ssessm ent in P r a c tic e , Mary 
Pagliero Popp (Indiana University) described 
effective outcomes assessment as beginning 
with stated goals and objectives, reflecting learn­
ing as multidimensional over time, considering 
both outcomes and the experiences which lead 
to them, and being student-centered. Methods 
include formal tests, performance appraisal, self
report, behavioral observation, portfolios of 
work, classroom assessment, focus groups, sat­
isfaction surveys, learning logs, and capstone 
seminars. For one-shot library instruction ses­
sions, assessment may be as simple as the one-
minute paper describing the most important 
concept presented, the one-sentence summary 
of what was learned, or the statement of the 
least clear point.—A nn e Berwind, Austin P eay  
State University

HBCUs’ virtual a rch iv es; diverse 
w o rk fo rce in libraries
In “Policies and Issues Related to African Ameri­
can Archives, Electronic Information and Di­
versity: An Urgent Agenda,” panelists Itibari M. 
Zulu and Ann A. Shockley discussed digitizing 
African American archives. They envision the 
world having access to historically black col­
leges’ and universities’ (HBCU) archives via the 
Web. Zulu spoke of a need for an association 
or clearinghouse that will decide what archives 
at HBCUs should be accessible via the Web. 
Shockley shared her thoughts about consider­
ations for digitizing HBCU’s archival manuscript 
collections. Organized archival collections, sup­
port from college presidents, and digitizing



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project funds from corporations are consider­
ations. Cultural diversity was another topic dis­
cussed. Moderator V. Perry-Evans introduced 
the third panelist, E. J. Josey, as a pioneer in 
black librarianship. Jo se y  believes there are 
miles to go before diversity is achieved in aca­
demic libraries and a team approach is one way 
o f developing that diversity.— N a n cy  A llen, 
University o f  South F lorid a a t  S arasota

E -jo u rn a ls: A re  w e  th ere y e t?
In “Academic Use of Electronic Publications in 
Social Sciences and Humanities and Changing 
Roles for Libraries,” Linda McCann described 
the results o f a study she conducted at the Uni­
versity o f Southern California during academic 
year 1995/96 which probed faculty attitudes 
towards the impact o f electronic publishing on 
their research.

Although the faculty in this study recognized 
the im portance o f ele c­
tronic publishing, most 
did not understand what 
it really was, especially 
with regard to the Inter­
net. Most worried about 
the lack o f peer review, 
su gg estin g  that until a 
core o f prestigious jour­
nals was available online 
and copyright issues were 
resolved, many would not 
participate. Lack of appro­
p ria te  e q u ip m e n t and 
problems with printing or 
d o w n lo a d in g  a r t ic le s  
w ere further barriers to 
a ctive involvem ent. As 
McCann noted, “they rec­
ognized an inevitability 
about [electronic publish­
ing] and hoped it would 
b e different w hen they 
had to participate.” C arla Stoffle, W illiam  M iller, A lthea J e n ­

k ins, an d j o s e p h  B oissé  o p e n  th e exh ib its 
o n  th e  first d ay  o f  th e c o n fe re n c e .

In “The Nature o f the 
Electronic Journal: Struc­
ture and Use of Information in Scholarly Elec­
tronic Journals,” Barbara D eFelice described a 
W eb journals test conducted at Dartmouth Col­
lege, in which 108 Web documents were made 
available to the campus through the online cata­
log.

Comments about the project suggest that, 
although many professors liked the idea o f 
having access to electronic journals, the bot­

tom line was to get a quality print quickly. 
Whether this occurred more successfully in elec­
tronic or print format depended on individual 
definitions of availability and convenience. In 
fact, some professors were overwhelmed by the 
amount o f material on the Web. DeFelice noted 
that “they don’t want more that is harder to get.” 

Feedback from this project suggests that li­
brarians will have to take a more active role in 
connecting users with relevant electronic jour­
nals, informing them about the varied features 
at each site, and teaching them how to access, 
search, and manipulate data at these sites.—  
B a r b a r a  V alentine, L in field  C ollege

C h a n g in g  ro le s, n e w  re la tio n sh ip s for 
lib ra rie s a n d  v e n d o rs
Although the speakers at “Libraries and Ven­
dors/Libraries As Vendors: How New Methods 
o f Publication Create New Partnerships and 

New C o m p etito rs” did 
not claim to have solu­
tions to the “serials crisis,” 
each offered perspectives 
on library and vendor ad­
aptations. Ilene Rockman 
(C aliforn ia P o ly tech n ic 
State University) outlined 
publication methods that 
blur the line betw een in­
formation producers and 
c o n s u m e rs , in c lu d in g  
Project Muse and JSTOR. 
Such projects necessitate 
creative partnerships, stra­
tegic alliances, and “value
added” collaborations.

E ve D av is d e ta ile d  
E B S C O ’s p a r tn e r s h ip s  
with research universities 
like the University o f Cali­
fornia-Berkeley to form 
th e  E B S C O d o c  d o c u
m e n t-d e liv e ry  s e rv ic e . 
Davis reinforced the need 
for open communication 

betw een libraries and vendors and encouraged 
libraries to make vendors “part o f the team .”

Linda D obb (Bowling Green State Univer­
sity) compared the serials crisis with the Viet­
nam War; libraries thought they were right to 
becom e information producers partnering with 
vendors, yet libraries are now vendor com peti­
tors, and may be enm eshed in uncomfortable 
partnerships.



J u n e  199 7  /  389

Libraries should not purchase products if 
they necessitate constant changes in workflow 
and services. Dobbs urged librarians to pro­
actively drive user interfaces, choose informa­
tion products, improve the Internet, and include 
disenfranchised groups. She does not want li­
braries becoming outmoded like bank build­
ings, asserting libraries must “change or die.”—  
April Purcell, Austin P eay  State University

W ill universities su rviv e?
Eli Noam (Columbia Institute for Teleinforma­
tion, Columbia University) threw down the 
gauntlet in his session called “Electronics and 
the Future of the University” by predicting de­
cades of strife for the university as it faces the 
challenges of the information age. The tradi­
tional university is based upon place because 
students and scholars needed to come to the 
university’s information storehouse, the library, 
for this scarce commodity. This is changing as 
information technology fosters remote access 
to information. In addition, the traditional uni­
versity is very expensive. Less expensive alter­
natives, according to Noam, are interlinked in­
formation communities of scholars, ready access 
to information without the library as go-be­
tween, and the emergence of other nonprofit 
and commercial teaching services. Even worse, 
he did not believe that the university is capable 
of self-reform.

The three panel members each took ex­
ception to Noam’s conclusions based upon 
economic factors. Rebecca Martin (University 
of Vermont) contended that he overestimated 
the impact of technology in the short term. The 
historical precedent provides many examples 
of successful resistance to radical change. The 
university and the library will use this breath­
ing room to adapt successfully to the new en­
vironment for teaching and research. Richard 
Meyer (Trinity University) argued that even if 
the new model makes economic sense, people 
may still want to come to the information to 
overcome the social isolation created by tech­
nology. Noam may also have slighted the eco­
nomic benefits o f resource sharing and the 
library’s role in providing guidance to users to 
manage the vast quantity of available informa­
tion. Finally, Ellen Waite (Loyola University) 
countered that Noam’s formulation was too sim­
plistic. She drew upon the models of other fu­
turists to present her ten trends that will in part 
counterbalance Noam’s bleak predictions.— Rob­
ert P. Holley, W ayne State University

Lib rary investm ents
“Listen! Listen! Listen to the distress cries of li­
brarians around North America,” Michael Keller 
began, enumerating myriad familiar problems 
resulting from downsized staffs and reduced 
budgets in his presentation, “Capitalizing on 
the Library Investment.” He reviewed in detail 
how capital investments are routinely made in 
the physical facilities, collections, staffs, and ser­
vices of academic libraries (not to mention the 
personal investments in continuing education 
and training made by librarians themselves), 
setting the stage for how those libraries could 
leverage their sizeable investments.

Keller listed many reasons why academic 
libraries should consider potential entrepreneur­
ial opportunities. These include returning re­
sponsibility for— and control of— scholarly 
works to university publishers; the potential 
market of nonacademics competing for access 
to collections; and raising capital to reinvest in 
facilities, collections, staffs, and services.

Using Stanford and other academic librar­
ies as examples, Keller suggested a number of 
strategies by which academic libraries could 
leverage their considerable investments, such 
as digitally producing journals and monographs, 
instituting memberships for corporations and 
individuals outside the library’s primary clien­
tele, and creating virtual libraries.

Post-presentation discussion focused prima­
rily on how digitized information, which con­
tinues to in crease exp o n entially , may be 
archived and indexed— another possible mar­
ket niche that librarians may wish to consider.—  
M argaret R. Lambert, University o f  M emphis

Team -based o rganization a s one 
option
Many libraries, both large and small, are ex­
perimenting with a team-based approach as one 
way to increase accountability, do more with 
less, become more customer-oriented, and use 
human resources to their fullest. As with so 
many other developments in libraries, this one 
has been driven in large part by an unprec­
edented explosion of information and technol­
ogy. And as organizational structures change, 
so do ways of measuring productivity. Not only 
is it important to know how many books we 
are buying, catalogin g, and binding, but 
whether the things we are buying are indeed 
ones our customers need.

The library at Indiana University-Purdue 
University Indianapolis (IUPUI) has used a



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team-based organizational model for the past 
year. In this panel session, entitled “Change or 
Be Changed,” Vania Goodwin, Robin Crumrin, 
and Sharon Hay— three librarians from IUPUI—
described the challenges posed by the new 
structure and how it has affected such issues as 
work flow, evaluation, work satisfaction, and 
accountability. The presentation generated a 
lively discussion which served to illustrate the 
multifaceted potential o f a team structure as 
individual organizations try to apply this model 
to their own unique requirements.— M a ija  M. 
Lutz, H a r v a r d  University

Learning strateg ies for the inform ation 
a g e
“Collaborating with Faculty in Preparing Stu­
dents for the Asynchronous Classroom ” de­
scribed a learning and teaching model titled 
Project Vision, tested at six o f Penn State’s cam ­
puses. Kay Harvey, (Penn State, McKeesport 
Campus) described the program which was 
originally designed to be totally asynchronous; 
20 students on each o f the six campuses would 
be given laptop computers and would elec­
tronically access coursework on the W eb, any­
where and anytime. Computer-mediated com ­
m u n ic a tio n  s u c h  as e -m a il an d  g ro u p  
conferencing as well as interactive video (Pic­
ture Tel) would also play a part. Early in the 
planning stages faculty began to involve librar­
ians when they realized that students would 
need assistance with research strategies, access­
ing online databases, critical evaluations, etc.

When the project began, the library studies 
course “Learning Strategies for the Information 
Age” was paired with a bioethics class, and 
the library skills were taught using the bioeth­
ics course assignments. The five-week synchro­
nous portion o f the course was taught with 
both regular faculty and librarians in the class­
room teaching various modules. The learning 
strategies portion o f the course included mod­
ules on teamwork, online and remote access 
to the OPAC and its databases, search strate­
gies, critical thinking skills, evaluation tools, 
search engines, e-mail, Powerpoint, and inter­
active video. The final assignment involved stu­
dent teams writing a paper and creating a 
Powerpoint presentation together.

Nancy Dewald, (Penn State, Berks Campus) 
urged librarians to be proactive in aggressively 
pursing opportunities to collaborate with teach­
ing faculty and technical support personnel in 
preparing students for the new learning envi­

ronment. With students remotely accessing vari­
ous databases and the Internet, we must help 
them develop skills in thinking critically about 
these resources. We need to make faculty aware 
o f the new skills needed in the networked class­
room, and we need to discuss curricular in­
novation and our role in it to campus adminis­
trators who can do much to encourage such 
collaborations.— D eb b ie  M alone, Ursinus College

C o lla b o ra tio n : Teachin g fa cu lty  a n d  
lib ra ria n s
In “Collaborating for Information Literacy in 
Graduate Education via the World Wide W eb,” 
Katherine Holmes and Cynthia Brown (Lesley 
College) described their collaboration in creat­
ing and presenting a library research workshop 
for the required graduate course “Educational 
Research & Evaluation” taught in a w eekend 
format off campus. W eb pages were developed 
for presentation o f the process-oriented w ork­
shop intended to prepare students for comput­
erized research. The W eb site allows for ongo­
ing student research on and off campus. Holmes 
and Brow n dem onstrated one o f the active 
learning techniques they use by involving the 
audience in a brainstorming exercise to list syn­
onyms for formulating a search. In addition to 
teaching the necessary  electronic research skills, 
they wish to model collaboration and Internet 
support o f teaching and learning to the stu­
dents and other faculty on campus.

Holmes and Brown urged librarians to ini­
tiate collaboration with teaching faculty, publi­
cize those collaborations on campus, and write 
about and publish them in journals read by 
faculty to encourage this kind o f work. Holmes 
also recommended the use o f software such as 
W ebW acker when presenting W eb materials 
at a remote site.— M ary  A n n  B arto n , Univer­
sity o f  N e b r a s k a

N o lib r a r y  is a n  isla n d
Much is being written about the need for librar­
ies to form partnerships in order to meet the 
needs o f library users. An example of this is a 
project taking place at ALCOM, the National Sci­
ence Foundation’s Science and Technology Cen­
ter for Advanced Liquid Crystalline Optical Ma­
terials. Laura Bartolo, (Kent State University and 
ALCOM principal investigator), presented “Build­
ing Partnerships: A World Wide Web-based In­
formation Management/Preprint Tool for Re­
search Scientists, Government Researchers, and 
Industrial Partners in the Phase Separation



J u n e  199 7  /  391

Project.” Bartolo’s talk focused on one goal of 
the Phase Separation Project: constructing a Web 
server to contain scientific information.

To meet the challenge of indexing cross-disci­
plinary information, the researchers are building a 
thesaurus using indexing terms from INSPEC, 
Compendex, and CA which covers the disciplines 
of physics, chemistry, and mathematics. The 
Chemical Physics Interdisciplinary Program 
Home Page is currently not available to the pub­
lic, but it may be at some time in the future.

The academic partners in this project are 
ALCOM at Kent State, Case Western Reserve 
University, and the University o f Akron. The 
NIST Center for Theoretical and Computational 
Materials Science (CTCMS) is a government part­
ner. The industrial partners are: IBM, dpiS 
(XEROX), General Motors, and Raychem Cor­
poration.— P at Viele, C ornell University

Restructuring for learn in g in the 2 1 st 
century
“If we were creating a university today …  
what would it look like?” asked Alan Guskin, 
chancellor o f Antioch University. This noted 
academic believes that reduced funding, pub­
lic demand for accountability, and new tech­
nologies will force universities to change in the 
21st century. These changes will greatly im­
pact the current structures o f higher education.

Does this mean there will be huge classes 
where learning takes place only in a classroom 
led by faculty? Or will universities transform 
the teaching/learning environment? Guskin b e­
lieves the future o f learning will require the 
integration of new technologies and new mod­
els of learning. Through 
this p ro cess, students 
will take primary respon­
sibility for learning.

A panel o f librarians 
responded to Guskin’s 
model. At the University 
o f W ashington, the li­
brary is “transform ing 
practices” to reshape the 
library into “collaborative 
spaces” for student learn­
ing, stated Betsy Wilson. 
Susan Perry described 
the process of reorganiz­
ing library services at Mt. 
Holyoke College to re­
duce costs and becom e Alan Guskin said  u niversities m u st ad op t

n ew  m odels o f  learn in g.more efficient. However,

Kenneth Frazier (University o f Wisconsin-Macli
son) cautioned us “to remember our sense of 
history and place” in transforming higher edu­
cation practices for the 21st century.— P a u la  
Duffy, M o n ta n a State University-Billings

Distance learn in g issues
Anna Abate (Nova Southeastern University) pre­
sented her experiences in conducting an elec­
tronic survey of distance education students in 
“Determining User Needs in Order to Provide 
Library Services for Distance Education Pro­
grams.” Abate reported that use of the elec­
tronic survey format means many more people 
can be contacted at less expense; however, it 
limits the population to those with electronic 
access. Also, the surveyor needs to do a lot of 
advance preparation in order to arrange the 
necessary permission and gain access to mail­
boxes. Abate used two different instruments—  
one about student use of the library and the 
other about locating information and research 
material without reference to the library— in 
attempting to determine students’ information 
skills and their attitudes toward technology. Her 
results will be available soon.

Carolyn Snyder, Susan Logue, and Barbara 
Preece (Southern Illinois University) discussed 
their examination of issues related to distance 
education and libraries in “Expanding the Role 
o f the Library in Teaching and Learning: Dis­
tance Learning Initiatives.” In addition to clari­
fying terminology and describing some pro­
grams, they presented the results of an ARL 
SPEC survey they conducted about the role of 
libraries in distance education programs. Their 

results indicate that few 
libraries are directly in­
volved in the administra­
tion o f distance educa­
tion programs. However, 
most libraries try to pro­
vide the same service to 
rem ote u sers as they 
provide to on-site pa­
trons. T h e p resen ters 
encouraged combining 
the expertise of teaching 
faculty, librarians, and 
instruction technicians 
to p rovide g oo d  d is­
tance learning environ­
m e n t s .— M a r y  A n n  

 B arton , University o f  Ne­
b r a s k a  ■



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