ACRL News Issue (B) of College & Research Libraries


4 /  C&R L  News

ACRL P resid en t’s letter

How A C R L  has m et its goals in 1988.

D e a r  ACRL Colleagues:

It is customary for the President of ACRL to 
w rite an annual sum m ary of activities for the 
J a n u a r y  issue of th e 
C & R L  N ew s. W h ile 
rev iew in g  v ario u s 
documents in preparing 
these lines, th e  
dynam ism  of th e 
Association was clearly 
emphasized to me. The 
m an y  activ itie s th a t 
have been carried out 
during the past year are 
hardly dependent on me 
as president, or the other 
officers of th e 
A ssociation. T he Joseph A. Boissé
overwhelming majority
of th e  p ro jects w hich w ere m oved to w a rd  
completion or completed during 1988 owe their 
success to individual members of ACRL and to our 
very competent headquarters staff. While every 
president tries very hard to give something to the 
Association, he or she receives far more from the 
Association than it is humanly possible to give.

P erh ap s th e  b est w ay to su m m arize th e 
Association’s activities and accomplishments for 
1988 is to look at them as they relate to the four 
goals adopted by ACRL in 1986.

The first of these is: to contribute to the total 
p ro fessio n al d ev elo p m en t of acad em ic and 
research librarians. This entire letter could be 
spent com m enting on activities carried out in 
support of this goal! In addition to the outstanding 
continuing education courses which continue to be 
offered around national conferences and at sites 
th ro u g h o u t th e  c o u n try , a n d  to th e  hig h ly  
successful RIS and RBMS preconferences which 
were held before the annual conference, ACRL

ach ie v ed  tw o very sig n ific a n t firsts. T he 
Community and Junior College Libraries Section 
held ACRL’s first teleconference. The session was 
beamed by satellite to over 320 sites in 47 states and 
reached some 10,000 individuals! ACRL w ent 
international w ith the first overseas conference 
which was sponsored by the Western European 
Specialists Section. Held in Florence, Italy , it 
attracted some 170 participants from 20 countries.

Although it will not take place until April 1989, 
the Fifth National Conference sponsored by ACRL 
can easily be included in this report since virtually 
all of the planning and preparation took place in 
1988. For the first time at one of these conferences, 
programs will be scheduled alongside papers and 
m ajor speakers. The occasion of the C incinnati 
conference provides ACRL w ith  a w o n d erfu l 
opportunity to celebrate a variety of anniversaries: 
th e  100th an n iv ersary  of the College L ib rary  
Section of ALA; the 50th anniversary of ACRL as a 
division of ALA; th e  50th anniversary of th e 
launching of College and Research Libraries; and 
the 25th anniversary of the publication of Choice. 
The planning committee has kept these milestones 
in m in d  an d  th o se m em bers w ho a tte n d  th e  
conference will join in a variety of activities to note 
the various anniversaries.

Once again, at the annual conference, ACRL 
conferred the many awards which the Division and 
its Sections sponsor. Chief among these was the 
Academic or Research Librarian of the Year aw ard 
m ade to E dw ard Holley. Also significant was the 
presentation of the first Hugh Atkinson Memorial 
Award, sponsored by ACRL, LAMA, LITA, and 
RTSD, to Richard Dougherty.

A second goal of the strategic plan is to enhance 
the capability of academic and research libraries to 
serve the needs of users. In many ways, the most 
significant undertaking in this area was the Board’s 
decision to contract w ith Nancy Van House to



January 1989 /  5

p rep are a M anual of O u tp u t M easures. This 
document will serve every single academic library 
in the c o u n try , no m a tte r w h a t its size, by 
pro v id in g  a m eth o d o lo g y  for e v a lu a tin g  th e  
efficacy of their services.

D u rin g  th e  y ear, fo u r g uidelines w ere 
disseminated after having been approved at the 
1988 Midwinter Meeting. These are: “Guidelines 
on the Selection of General Collection Materials for 
Transfer to Special Collections,” “Mission of a 
U niversity U n d e rg ra d u a te  L ib ra ry : M odel 
Statement,” “Guidelines for Audiovisual Services 
in A cadem ic L ib r a r ie s ,” an d  “ G uidelines 
Regarding Thefts in Libraries.”

Work of a special nature was carried out by the 
Task Force on Historically Black Colleges and 
Universities. C haired by Beverly Lynch, the group 
identified a few projects which ACRL could carry 
out and which would assist the librarians in the 
HBCU ’s in s tre n g th e n in g  th e ir  lib ra rie s. An 
NEH-funded humanities workshop will be held 
specifically for these institutions, a statistics project 
is underway, and a preconference on preparing for 
reaccreditation evaluation w ill be held at the 
Annual Conference in Dallas.

Throughout the year, the headquarters staff 
continued to provide advisory service to librarians 
and acad em ic a d m in is tra to rs . R equests for 
information come in by telephone and in the mail; 
all are promptly handled. A part of this service 
en tails sending o u t copies of s ta n d a rd s an d  
guidelines upon request. D uring the year more 
th a n  3,200 copies of these d o cu m en ts w ere 
distributed.

The plan lists as the third goal of the Association: 
to promote and speak for the interests of academic 
and research librarianship. This advocacy role is 
carried out in a variety of ways. Some of the 
specific activities in 1988 which come under this 
h ead in g  w ere: a m eetin g  of JoA n Segal and 
C athleen Bourdon w ith E laine D idier, AECT 
President, to discuss the progress of the Joint 
A C R L /A E C T  S ta n d a rd s C o m m ittee; a 
B oard-passed reso lu tio n  su p p o rtin g  th e 
re a u th o riz a tio n  of LSCA; th e  th ir d  of th re e  
sem inars of C am p u s In fo rm a tio n  Systems, 
co-sponsored w ith the Association of American 
Colleges and O CLC , and attended by academic 
administrators in addition to librarians; a mailing 
about the privatization of NTIS which encouraged 
recipients to take action on this crucial question; 
attendance at the annual meeting of the American 
Association of Higher Education; a meeting w ith 
staff members from the AAUP and the Council of 
Graduate Schools to discuss prelim inary plans for a 
w orkshop for librarians and faculty mem bers; 
presence of a delegation of academic librarians at 
L eg islativ e D ay in  W a sh in g to n , D .C . T he 
P rofessional A ssociation L iaison C o m m ittee 
recom mended th a t efforts in this arena involve 
close cooperation between our Executive Director 
and various members of the Association, especially

in co n ferrin g  w ith  staff and officers of o th er 
professional academic associations.

The fourth goal which guides our Association’s 
activities is: to prom ote stu d y , research, and 
publication relevant to academ ic and research 
librarianship. W e continued to publish our major 
journal, our Association news magazine and the 
v ario u s n ew sle tte rs of th e  sections. C hoice 
continued to serve the needs of academic libraries 
throughout the country and in many parts of the 
w orld. T he th ird  edition of Books fo r  College 
Libraries was completed and was published in 
print and computerized form. O ur other journal, 
R are Books and M a n u scrip ts L ib r a ria n s h ip , 
became a regular publication of the Division.

Many other specialized publications made their 
debut in 1988. Some of these are: Your Old Books; 
A ca d em ic Status: S ta tem en ts and Resources; 
Annual Reports fo r College Libraries, Clip Note 
#1; Binding Terms: Thesaurus fo r Use in Rare and 
Special Collections Cataloguing; and Provenance 
Evidence: Thesaurus fo r Use in Rare Book and 
Special Collections Cataloguing.

The listing of these m any activities is ample 
evidence th a t we are a d ynam ic A ssociation. 
H u n d red s of our m em bers w ork, not only at 
conferences bu t throughout the year, to further the 
interest of the profession. In addition, we are 
f o r tu n a te  to h av e th e  c o n trib u tio n s of our 
d e d ic a te d  h e a d q u a rte rs  sta ff w ith o u t w hose 
energy the list of Association accomplishments 
w ould be much shorter.

As though these efforts were not enough, I have 
taken advantage of my position as president to 
appoint several new task forces. The members of 
those groups will address certain issues which, in 
my view, need attention. Some of the task forces 
w ill look a t 1) issues s u rro u n d in g  th e  use of 
P a ra p ro fe ssio n a ls in A cadem ic L ib ra rie s , 2) 
R ecruitm ent of U nderrepresented Minorities to 
academ ic lib rarian sh ip , 3) th e L ibrary School 
C urriculum , 4) the possibility of establishing a 
Retired Librarians Service Corps.

I would like to conclude this retrospective look 
by c o n g ra tu la tin g  you, th e  m em bers of th e 
A ssociation. You a re  A C R L ’s m ost im p o rta n t 
resource; the accomplishments of the Association 
are your accomplishments. Together, w ith the 
assistance of the dedicated Association staff, we 
can continue to work tow ard the improvement of 
lib ra ry  services in academ ic in stitu tio n s and 
to w a rd  th e  fu r th e ra n c e  of th e  goals of our 
profession.

Joseph A. Boissé 
A C R L  President

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