ACRL News Issue (B) of College & Research Libraries 4 1 8 /C & R LN e w s ■ June 1998 The Eighth Off-Campus Library Services Conference A look at one of the major growth areas in academic libraries by Cheryl LaGuardia T he Eighth Off-Campus Library Services Conference was held April 22-24, 1998, at the Biltmore Hotel in Providence, Rh Island. Sponsored by the Central Michigan University (CMU) Libraries and CMU Col­ lege of Extended Learning, the conference attracted approxim ately 220 participants from th ro u g h o u t the U nited States an d Canada, as well as South Africa and the United Kingdom. The program addressed a host of issues related to off-campus services, including remote service program planning, partnering with individuals and institutions, copyright and licensing, telelearning, elec­ tronic reserves, staffing implications, ou t­ comes assessment, and marketing services. Featured speakers were Kay J. Kohl, ex­ ecutive director of the University Continu­ ing E d u c a tio n A s s o c ia tio n a n d K urt Sloboclzian, university librarian and dean of Instructional Technology at the University of Phoenix. Kohl’s talk, “Trends in Continu­ ing Education,” exam ined the changing d e­ mographics of higher education, noting that shifts in work and educational patterns and dem ands among the general population will raise the ages of both new and returning students in academe, and that these shifts will affect the ways in which large segments of the population choose to pursue continu­ ing educational opportunities. Slobodzian’s talk, entitled “Libraries at a Distance: Past, Present, and Future,” explored library ser­ od vices in support of adult education from within a corporate learning environment, noting that e the online learning market will grow 900 percent by 2001, and that there is only “1 percent market penetration of adult educa­ tion.” O ff-c a m p u s s e rv ic e s A wide range of off-campus services were discussed by library practitioners in the con­ current p a p e r sessions. Topics included course-specific Web pages, Web tutorials and handbooks for research, Picture-Tel- based instruction, partnerships among dis­ tantly located libraries to serve remote cli­ entele, collaborations betw een librarians and classroom faculty for information literacy programs, library instruction courses taught both on-site and via the Web, and off-cam­ pus library programs in which librarians do research for “custom ers” and deliver it di­ rectly to them rather than instruct in the ways of research. As the aforem entioned presentations il­ lustrate, conference presentations addressed an interesting com bination of educational and economic issues. In several talks, continuing education markets and marketing strategies were the strongly highlighted themes: the economic possibilities presented by Web-based degree programs offer many colleges and universities (co n tin u ed on page 431) About the author Cheryl LaGuardia is coordinator o f the Electronic Teaching Center a t the Widener Library a t Harvard University, e-mail: claguard@ fas.harvard.edu mailto:claguard@fas.harvard.edu C&RL News ■ June 1998 / 419 C&RL News ■ June 1998 / 431 your money will buy! The Currency Con­ verter by Oanda is the most comprehensive currency converter, performing interactive conversions for over l60 currencies. Access: http://w w w .oancla.com /cgi-bin/ncc/. • Travelang. Travelang provides the ba­ sic words, numbers, shopping, dining, travel, directions, places, time, and dates for over 60 languages. Simple to use, just indicate your native language, then the language to learn. Many valuable links to other language resources on the Web are provided here, too. Access: http://www.travlang.com/languages/. • In tellica st, CNN, T he W eather C h an ­ n e l. Although there are many weather sites available, the international traveler will want to consult the Intellicast site, which includes four-day forecasts and satellite images for the world. A handy (0C/0F converter is pro­ vided in a pop-up window. CNN and The Weather Channel also have extensive world­ w id e c o v e ra g e . Access: h ttp ://w w w . i n t e l l i c a s t .c o m / w e a t h e r / i n t l / ; h t t p : / / www.cnn.com/W EATHER/; h ttp ://w w w . w eather.com /. T o u rin g on th e cheap • Fare T ra ck er. Fare Tracker from Expedia will, at no cost, periodically send the user a customized e-mail report listing the lowest roundtrip published airfares for preselected routes. Similar e-mail services are available from specific airlines (e.g., TWA), Travelocity, and others. Access: http:// expedia.m sn.com /; http://w w w .tw a.com /; http://w w w .travelocity.com /. • C o n su m er World. This site is adver­ tised as a public service site with over 1,700 useful consumer Internet resources, includ­ ing Ravel and tourism pointers. Access: http:// www.consumerworld.org/. • BizM iles. Weary of keeping track of your frequent traveler rewards? Let BizMiles do it for you. Register at the site for free and record your frequent traveler account numbers once; thereafter, just check back to see how the benefits have grown. Ac­ cess: http://bizmiles.biztravel.com/. • Sm art Travel Tips. For scores of ma­ jor cities, Fodor’s provides Smart Travel Tips, which includes ideas and strategies for mak­ ing travel easier and cheaper. Coverage of major cities varies. For instance, there is currently no listing for Beijing or Sao Paulo, but 20 pages of smart tips for Hong Kong. Access: http://w w w .fodors.com /stt.cgi. N otes 1. “Tourism Growth Slows Due to Asian Fi­ nancial Crisis.” WTO News (March-April 1998): 1. Access: h ttp ://w w w .w o r ld - t o u r i s m . o r g / n e w s l e t t / m a r a p r 9 8 / 1997RES.htm. (Eighth Off-Campus. … cont. fro m page 4 18) access to a new student population that will increase dramatically within the decade. The expectations of these students for online delivery of instruction, information, and ser­ vice are high, and the off-campus library programs devised in response to these de­ m ands are very high tech, built mostly around Web-based systems. Other presen­ tations focused on the challenges remote learning situations present for learning and research. They accentuated the need for a highly personalized approach to providing off-cam­ pus services, using online chat rooms, e- mail, and often telephone consultations in reaching and teaching remote library users. Off-campus and remote services prom­ ise to be major growth areas in the academic library community over the next decade. It will be useful for more academic librarians to become involved in discussions about these library services, given the improve­ ment and expansion of educational technol­ ogy and its applications for learning. N ote Proceedings of this and several past Off- Campus Library Services Conferences are available. Contact Central Michigan Univer­ sity Dean of Libraries’ Office, Park Library 207, Central Michigan University, Mt. Pleas­ ant, MI 48859, (517) 774-3500 or fax: (517) 774-2179. http://www.oancla.com/cgi-bin/ncc/ http://www.travlang.com/languages/ intellicast.com/weather/intl/ http://www.cnn.com/WEATHER/ weather.com/ expedia.msn.com/ http://www.twa.com/ http://www.travelocity.com/ http://www.consumerworld.org/ http://bizmiles.biztravel.com/ http://www.fodors.com/stt.cgi http://www.world-tourism.org/newslett/marapr98/ http://www.world-tourism.org/newslett/marapr98/