ACRL News Issue (B) of College & Research Libraries 1 1 2 / C&RL News and th e Book Jobber: T he M arketing o f a New Collection D evelopm ent Service,” by F o rrest E. Link; “T rends Affecting V endor Selection: O ne Academic Library’s Experience,” by Twyla M ueller Racz an d Trudie A. Root o f E astern Michigan University; “Foreign Acquisitions: F ru stration and Fun!” by Linda S. V ertrees; an d “C hoice a t a Distance: A F ootnote for an Official History,” by R obert S. Bravard, on th e controversial Choice editor P e te r D oiron. C opies are available for $29.95 from H aw orth Press, 10 Alice St., B inghamton, NY 13904-1580. ISBN 1-56024-121-7. • Who’s Who o f Women in World Politics (311 pages, 1991) features m ore th an 1,500 biogra­ phies o f pro m in en t w om en politicians worldwide. T o b e included in th e book, an individual m ust be e ith e r h ead o f state, a m em b er o f governm ent, a m e m b e r o f th e national legislature, a party o r trade union leader, a regional leader, o r m ayor o f a large city. Statistics on fem ale share o f cabinet-level posts by country are given, along with such historical data as y ear o f wom en’s enfranchisem ent. T he volume m ay be purchased for $95.00 from K. G. Saur, P.O. Box 31, N ew Providence, NJ 07974-9903. ISBN 0- 86291-627-5. • Your Buried Treasures: Can You Find Them? by M arjorie Thom as Payne (24 pages, S ep tem b er 1991), designed as a guide for creating a personal records plan, features a detailed records reten tio n and destruction schedule, a bibliography an d reading list, and an extensive index. Copies are available for $7.50 (discounts given for large q uan­ tities) from C. B erger an d Com pany, P.O. Box 274, W heaton, IL 60189. ■ ■ Optical local area network at Walla Walla College Installation o f an optical netw ork at Peterson M em orial Library, Walla Walla College, has proved to be p o p u lar am ong students and faculty. A 1990 fall survey o f students usingthe netw orked LaserCats elicited th ese overwhelmingly positive com m ents: “They’re great!” an d “I like it, thanks for getting th em .” G rants totalling $28,759 from th e college’s C om m ittee o f 100 funded the two-year project. Librarians at Peterson w ere looking for an inex­ pensive way to provide com puterized access to th eir collections. Key personnel at th e C am pus C om ­ p u te r C e n te r suggested developing an optical n e t­ w ork allowing m ultiple access to C D -R O M p ro d ­ ucts. They knew w e w ere already using LaserCat, a C D -R O M version o f W estern Library N etw ork’s bibliographic database, an d thought it a prim e candidate. LaserC at provides access to th e holdings o f over 496 public, special, research, a n d academ ic libraries, including Peterson’s. As o f D ecem b er 1991, 3.7 million records w ere available through LaserCat. W LN m em ber libraries are concentrated in th e Pacific Northwest. Peterson has b een using W estern Library N etw ork as th e ir bibliographic utility since 1980. By N ovem ber 1990 th e optical netw ork had becom e a reality. Using LaserC at as th e library’s main catalog, patrons can execute exact, keyword, o r browse searches. Six public access workstations are located in th e library. Five o f th em are dedi­ cated to operating LaserCat. A sixth, a d d ed in Sep tem b er 1991, supports A cademic Abstracts, a C D -R O M index covering 769 academ ic an d gen­ eral periodicals. W orkstations share printers. Signs nam ing th e C D pro d u ct in operation cover the floppy disc drives on each workstation, effectively elim inating problem s with students trying to access th e cam pus netw ork for o th e r purposes. To bring th e system up each m orning, N etw ork and C D p ro d u c t software are automatically loaded onto the library’s com puters. O ver 400 com puters located in stu d en t PC labs and faculty offices have shared access to both products through th e m ain cam pus network. T h e optical netw ork consists o f th e server, a D ell 386 PC , and 6 Toshiba 3200 C D -R O M drives, w hich a re connected to th e cam pus’ e th e m e t n e t­ w ork backbone. O ptiN et software drives th e server. Novell’s N etW are is th e operating system for th e larger cam pus network. Tw isted-pair cabling p ro ­ vides th e basic infrastructure. Because o f th e success o f o u r optical network, W alla Walla High School Library used increased funding for technology, provided by th e school district, to install an optical netw ork m odelled after ours. Since th e fall o f 1991, th e ir students have had access to Wilson’s R eader’s G uide and G eneral Science Index. R esponse tim e is slower on th e optical networks because C D -R O M products execute searches m ore slowly th an an autom ated system does. T h e major p ro b lem we have experienced with th e optical netw ork, however, occurs w hen cam pus netw ork o p erating software is upgraded. Such upgrades have inadvertently affected not only th e operation o f th e optical netw ork b u t access to it by older PCs. O u r C am pus C om puter C en ter personnel have fo u n d th at a thorough re-exam ination o f the optical netw ork is need ed after all regular netw ork u p ­ grades. O ver all, though, we have b een quite pleased w ith th e perform ance o f o u r optical network.— Carolyn Gaskeïl, Peterson Memorial Library, Walla W alla College ■ ■