ACRL News Issue (B) of College & Research Libraries


91

From Inside the DLP
By Dr. Katharine M. Stokes

College and University Library Specialist, 
Training and Resources Branch, Division of Li­
brary Programs, Bureau of Libraries and Edu­
cational Technology, U.S. Office of Education, 
Washington, D.C. 20202.

A great many of you are, no doubt, readers 
of The Acquainter, “An International Newslet­
ter for Academic Consortia for Higher Educa­
tion,” published by KCRCHE, the Kansas City 
( Mo.) Regional Council for Higher Education. 
I find it unfailingly stimulating and full of new 
information instead of the repetitious items 
used in many other professional sources.

The December 1970 issue was of special in­
terest to the DLP because of the reports of the 
activities of two consortia in making periodical 
banks available to their members. Both groups 
have been awarded Title II-A (HEA) Special 
Purpose Type C grants in the College Library 
Resources program, so we are particularly hap­
py to read of their successes. Just in case you 
don’t see The Acquainter regularly, I ’m going 
to be guilty of repeating the two items.

The Associated Colleges of the Midwest 
( ACM) maintain their Periodical Bank at their 
Chicago headquarters, 60 West Walton Street 
(zip 60610). The twelve members of the group 
are in five states, Colorado, Illinois, Iowa, Min­
nesota, and Wisconsin.

The Acquainter reports ( page 2) that ACM’s 
board of directors has recently made it possible 
for non-ACM colleges to join the Periodical 
Bank as associate members, with an annual 
membership fee and charges for photocopies 
of articles from its holdings. The Bank is de­
signed to complement and augment the peri­
odical holdings of its member colleges, and has 
backfiles, both in paper and microform, for ap­
proximately 1,884 current subscriptions and 
300 ceased publications. Three types of services 
are provided: (1) Photocopies of tables of con­
tents of periodicals currently received; (2) 
Photocopies of articles from Bank holdings; 
(3 ) Photocopies of articles from periodicals not 
in ACM holdings but available from other Chi­
cago libraries. Orders for photocopies are re­
ceived by TWX and they are normally filled 
within twenty-four hours of receipt. Copies are 
sent by first-class mail. If an order cannot be 
filled from the Bank, a few days are usually 
necessary for obtaining photocopy from another 
Chicago library. In ten months of fiscal year 
1969-70 the Bank filled 12,276 orders.

The second item (page 10) is about 
KCRCHE itself and illustrates perfectly the 
hope the DLP has cherished that the College 
Library Resources grants may act as seed mon­

ey for germinating much larger projects than 
federal funds can support. On September 23, 
1970, the Women’s Chamber of Commerce of 
Greater Kansas City was honored for a project 
that led to the establishment of the KCRCHE 
Periodicals Microfilm Bank. Funds raised by 
the Women’s Chamber served as the matching 
funds for the federal grant to establish the col­
lection now housed a t Park College. Represent­
atives of the Women’s Chamber visited the 
Bank, witnessed a demonstration of its opera­
tions, and were guests of honor at the luncheon 
attended by representatives of the KCRCHE 
board of directors, the librarians, the committee 
of academic deans, and the KCRCHE staff. 
The Bank’s 3,191 reels of microfilm are provid­
ing access for 42,000 area college students to 
most periodicals listed in the leading periodical 
guides for the period since 1955. Using the 
KCRCHE telephone network, a requesting li­
brary can call the Bank and have a printoff of 
an article placed in the mail that day. Lists of 
holdings of the Bank have been provided to li­
brarians for distribution to faculty members as 
well as samples of catalog cards for adding the 
Bank’s holdings to library card files.

Although we would like to think that the 
Title II-A (HEA) Special Purpose Type C 
grant in 1969 was the biggest factor in the sup­
port of KCRCHE’s interesting project, many 
of the consortium’s members have also bene­
fitted from Title III (HEA ) grants for 
Strengthening Developing Institutions. Such 
grants may not have been directly related to 
this library project, but they have undoubtedly 
helped the institutions in learning how to co­
operate successfully in all sorts of academic ac­
tivities, including library services. ■■

M IN IT E R  NAMED FO R 
GOOD TE A CH IN G  AWARD

The Good Teaching Award Committee of 
Beta Phi Mu International Library Science 
Honor Society announces that John J. Miniter 
has been named Library School Teacher of the 
Year for 1971. Miniter is a member of the fac­
ulty of the School of Library Science of Texas 
Woman’s University, Denton. His teaching in­
terests include special library administration, 
library automation, and information storage 
and retrieval. Recipients of the award are elect­
ed by students of library schools accredited by 
the American Library Association from among 
those professors whose courses they attended. 
Miniter is the tenth teacher to be named for 
this honor since it was first given to Frances 
Neel Cheney of Peabody Library School in 
1959. ■■