ACRL News Issue (B) of College & Research Libraries


C&RL N ews ■ N ovem ber 2000 / 907

tion librarians and community members can 
use locally.

In addition, ALA's newest public relations 
initiative @ Your Library will be incorporated 
into sample PR for partnerships as well as a 
strong advocacy piece based on ALA’s LibraRy  
Advocacy program, i.e., “How to advocate 
for information literacy partnerships in your 
institution and in your community.”

Help id entify partnerships
Although a growing number of institutions 
have placed their partnerships on the Web, 
many more have outstanding programs that 
need to be spotlighted.

Committee members need help in identi­
fying what partnerships are out there, includ­
ing those in the most rudimentary of plan­
ning stages, those farther along in the plan­
ning process, and those in progress. Send 
in fo rm atio n  to Ju lie  T od aro (jto d a r o @

austin.cc.tx.us) or Cerise Oberman (cerise. 
oberman@plattsburgh.edu).

Toolkit users could benefit from learning 
about the most basic to the most advanced 
partnerships as well as from the volume of 
partnership activity and interest. Toolkit de­
signers will write summaries o f existing part­
nerships and will link to content summaries 
o f the partnerships with all types o f libraries.

Toolkit address and location
T h e  to o lk it w ill b e  h o u se d  at http:// 
lib r a r y , au stin . c c .tx .u s / s ta ff/ ln a v a r ro /  
CommunityPartnerships/Toolkit.html during 
the next academic year to provide commit­
tee members the greatest and fastest access. 
Future plans for 2002 include moving it to 
the ALA site to increase visibility. Currently it 
is linked to Nancy Kranich’s ALA President’s 
page and to the ACRL Information Literacy 
Institute pages. ■

Letters to the editor
Lone Ranger is not dead
I take friendly umbrage at your killing off the 
Lone Ranger in the library sector of the intel­
lectual community (“The Lone Ranger is dead,” 
by Betsy Wilson, C&RL News, September 2000).

Success demands collaboration? Collabora­
tion is what put McDonald’s between you and 
the local cuisine. Collaboration is what put your 
HMO between you and your doctor. Collabo­
ration has put the Disney version between your 
child and significant literature. Collaboration is 
what reduces writers and scholars to the role 
of “content providers.” Collaboration is what 
puts corporate values ahead of their effect on 
individuals.

There may be problems that require col­
laboration (read politics) for their solution, but 
unless there is an individual to have the prob­
lem, it may be pretty destructive to claim that 
there is one. Think of how the church can col­
laborate on the problem of idolatry among the 
natives.

OCLC may have required collaboration, but 
the books it helps you find that are worth read­
ing after a few years in the catalog are hardly 
ever collaborative works. The books worth 
reading after 50 years in the catalog, the books 
that are worth their shelf space in other than

an archival sense ,  are the ones written by soli­
tary individuals.

Literature, art, and, to a large extent, schol­
arship itself are created or conducted in exis­
tential solitude. A library that forgets the pri­
macy of the individual in its endeavors deserves 
to be merged quietly into the corporate knowl­
edge base.— Tony Wilson, H ighline Com m unity 
College, D es M oines, Iow a, tw ilson@ hcc.ctc.edu

Ambiguity
I was pleased to see “The Lone Ranger is dead” 
essay in C&RL News and look forward to future 
installments. I’m trying to develop a more col­
laborative view of the world here at the DeViy 
Columbus Library, and it’s great to know I'll 
have food for thought for the upcoming year!

Your quotation regarding “ambiguity” was 
especially pleasing. As I read it, I looked to my 
whiteboard, one-third of which had recently 
been covered with an all-caps “AMBIGUITY,” 
and then to the wall above the whiteboard 
where a smaller, more decorative version of 
“Ambiguity!” now resides.

I've now fulfilled a mission of which I’d been 
unaware: seeing a bit of the world as you do.

Thanks for making my day!—B ruce Weaver, 
DeVry Columbus Libraiy bweaver@ deviycols.edu

mailto:oberman@plattsburgh.edu
mailto:twilson@hcc.ctc.edu