ACRL News Issue (B) of College & Research Libraries C&RL News ■ A p ril 1999 / 263 N e w s f r o m t h e F i e l d M ary Ellen Davis UConn partners w ith African National Congress The University of Connecticut (UConn) and the African National Congress (ANC) signed an agreement on March 1 that forms a part­ nership to archive and share with scholars materials from the ANC’s struggle for human rights in South Africa, to chronicle the struggle through an oral history, and to link UConn and the University of Fort Hare (UFH) on the Eastern Cape of South Africa to focus on comparative human rights. The agreement means that UConn will be the official reposi­ tory for ANC materials in North America, and that UConn and the UFH will exchange fac­ ulty, staff and students, conduct an annual conference on comparative human rights to take place in alternate years in South Africa and the U.S., and produce a journal twice a year on comparative human rights, the first of its type. UConn was selected in a competition that included several top American universities for partnership with the South Africans chiefly because of its first-rate archival facilities at the Dodd Research Center, the publicity sur­ rounding the human rights events at the uni­ versity during Dodd Year, and the linkage between UConn and Narissa Ramdhani, di­ rector of the ANC historical archives project. Ramdhani received a master’s degree in his­ tory with a concentration in archival man­ agement from UConn in 1990. Frankel steps dow n from IMLS Diane Frankel stepped down as the director of the Institute of Museum and Library Ser­ vices (IMLS) at the end of March. Originally appointed by President Bill Clinton to be the director o f IMLS, Frankel led the agency through its transition to include federal li­ brary as well as museum programs. Upon learning o f her resignation, Clinton said “Diane Frankel’s outstanding leadership skills have expertly guided the Institute of Museum and Library Services through a period of growth and change.” During her five-and-one-half years o f ser­ vice, Frankel made great strides in working with both the museum and library commu­ nities. She convened the first joint meetings of the National Commission on Libraries and Information Science and the National Mu­ seum Board to provide policy advice. She worked with the library community to en­ sure a smooth transition to a new set of pro­ grams, freer of regulations, resulting in more flexibility to use funds to address high prior­ ity library needs and allowing federal library staff to improve customer service. She worked with librarians to develop guidelines for a new federal library competi­ tive grant program known as National Lead­ ership Grants. Frankel said, “Through our joint efforts, I believe that this program will support projects of national significance to enhance the quality of services nationwide Learn about licensing Learn how to interpret and manage licensing contracts, promote compliance at your institution, explore future licens­ ing trends, and gain negotiation skills! Attend “Understanding the Licensing Landscape,” on Friday, June 25, 1999, from 1:30-4:30 p.m. in New Orleans. Pre­ senters include: Kimberly Parker, Yale University; Ellen Duranceau, MIT Librar­ ies; Barbara McFadden Allen, Commit­ tee on Institutional Cooperation; Ivy Anderson, Harvard University; and Hannah Stevens, Boston Library Consor­ tium. Details about the program are on the Web at http://www.ala.org/acrl/ liceprec.html. Registration materials are available in the January 1999 edition of A m erican L ibraries or register online at: http:// www.internetpros.com/registration.cfm. Questions? Contact Margot Sutton at (800) 545-2433 ext. 2522 or e-mail: msutton® ala.org. http://www.ala.org/acrl/ http://www.internetpros.com/registration.cfm 264 / C&RL News ■ A p ril 1999 and provide an important opportunity for collaboration between museums and librar­ ies.” M issouri brings up online union catalog A new union catalog came online in January through Mobius, a cooperative effort among academic libraries in Missouri. Materials from Washington University, St. Louis University, and the four University of Missouri campuses are now available. “Washington University has 3.3 million volumes in its catalog; the five other univer­ sities’ holdings bring the union catalog total to seven million,” said Shirley Baker, Wash­ ington University vice chancellor for infor­ mation technology and dean of university libraries. “Within four years, 50 colleges and universities in Missouri will be on board rais­ ing the number of volumes available to 13 million.” Baker, a member of the Mobius Execu­ tive Committee, added that increased access to materials is not the only benefit of the catalog. “The speed of delivery is much better than traditional library loans, which can take three weeks, and it’s less expensive to obtain the items, because the software does the work instead of staff,” Baker said. “The cost of borrowing through Mobius is one-tenth of the cost of interlibrary loans.” Georgia introduces Web-based catalog The Libraries of Georgia State University (GSU) have introduced GIL, a new, integrated online catalog system at http://gil.gsu.edu. GIL (GALILEO Interconnected Libraries) is a Web-based system with a Windows interface available at the Pullen, Law, and Instructional Technology Center at GSU. It replaces OLLI, the system in use at GSU since 1987. GIL is an Endeavor Voyager product scheduled for phase-in throughout the State University Sys­ tem of Georgia, finally linking all 34 state universities in a statewide system. GIL is a continuation of the popular GALILEO project and GSU Libraries are the first large-scale implementation within the state. GSU is also one of three server sites for GIL, hosting the online library catalogs of 13 other state insti­ tutions. The network is expected to be com­ pleted within two years and will enable si­ m u ltan eo u s sea rch in g a cro ss m ultiple databases as well as universal borrowing throughout all 34 participating institutions. GIL is a user-friendly system with graphical inter­ face, hotlinks from catalog records to relevant Web sites on the Internet, and enhanced ac­ cess for off-campus users. It also offers pa­ trons information on the status of specific journal issues, records for titles on-order, and options for printing, downloading, and e- mailing results. University of V irginia's Library Cafe ranks #5 Results of a recent customer sur­ vey rank the University o f Virginia’s Alderman Cafe among the top five college and univer­ sity dining facilities serviced by ARAmark, Inc., a national con­ tract food service provider. The coffee house, located inside Al­ derman Library’s Memorial Hall, has become a popular meeting place for students, faculty, and staff since its opening on Sep­ tember 1, 1998. Cafe su p erv isor, D iane McLellan attributes the shop’s success to the relaxed attitude of its patrons. “It doesn’t mat­ ter whether someone’s an un­ dergraduate, a tenured profes- http://gil.gsu.edu C&RL News ■ A p ril 1999 / 265 The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Rare Books and Special Collections Library has a number of bookplates featuring various funds. Here are three submitted by Barbara Jones, RBSC librarian. Send in your favorite bookplates to Bookplates, C&RL News, 50 E. Huron St., Chicago, IL 60611. sor, or the dean of students. In here, they’re a tall latte, an iced chai, or a grande mocha,” she said. “The laid back atmosphere really breaks down barriers.” Six Texas colleges select SIRSI Six T exas c o lle g e s have s e le c te d Sirsi Corporation’s Unicorn Library Management System to automate their libraries, joining an increasing number of Texas libraries that have SIRSI. The libraries o f Alvin Community Col­ lege, Angelina College in Lufkin, North Cen­ tral Texas College in Gainesville, Northeast Texas Community College in Mt. Pleasant, Panola College in Carthage, and South Texas Community College in McAllen will use SIRSI’s WebCat to provide an online public access catalog for students and WorkFlows to provide library staff with an easy-to-use staff client. Rice University, St. Edward’s Uni­ versity in Austin, Our Lady of the Lake Uni­ versity in San Antonio, and Texas Medical Center Libraries in Houston are among other academic libraries in Texas using SIRSI’s Unicorn system. New books on Friends, reference, and service published by ACRL F rie n d s o f C ollege L ib ra ries, 2 nd Edition CLIP Note #27, compiled by Ronelle K. H. Thompson and Ann M. Smith examines the roles of library friends groups from assisting in strengthening the resources and services a library is able to provide its constituents to advocating on behalf of a library’s interests. This volume discusses establishing library friends groups and includes a survey of li­ brary practices as well as sample documents such as constitution and bylaws, membership brochures, program ideas, newsletters, and publications. Friends is available for $25.00 to ACRL members; $28.00 list price. (ISBN:0- 8389-8002-3) T he R e f e r e n c e E n c o u n te r: I n t e r p e r ­ so n a l Com m unication in th e A ca d em ic Li­ bra ry , ACRL’s P u blication s in L ibrarian sh ip no. 52, by Marie L. Radford challenges the tradi­ tional view of reference goals: the belief that us­ ers seek only satisfactory answers to their ques­ tions. The research presented shows that users and librarians differ in their descriptions of goals for ref­ erence, and that of critical importance is the goal of building positive relation­ ships with library users. Both content and rela­ tional dim ensions are present in every instance of interpersonal communica­ tion. Like other types of in­ teractions, the information exchange between librarian and user is not, and cannot be, free of relational messages. This book adds to our current understanding of this complex process by exploring interper­ sonal issues in the academic reference encoun­ ter through in-depth interviews following refer­ ence interactions at academic libraries. Illustrated with the eloquent voice of both library users and librarians, the results help explain the complex nature of the commu­ nication process inherent in reference trans­ actions. The R eferen ce E n cou n ter is available for $27.00 to ACRL members; $30.00 list price. (ISBN:0-8389-7951-3) ■ 266 / C&RL News ■ A p ril 7999 A C U R E F O R AIDS W I L L H A V E T O G E T P A S T T H E FDA. T h e W o r l d H e a l t h O r g a n i z a t i o n . A n d t h e C e n t e r s f o r D i s e a s e C o n t r o l . B u t f i r s t i t ’ s g o t t o g e t p a s t s o m e o n e e l s e . As much as w e’d like to think that profit plays no part in medical breakthroughs, the biotechnology and health care industries are businesses — with justifiable needs to pursue healthy bottom lines. But what if business chose to save money over lives? You can explore all sides of this and other critical p u blic and social po licy issues through PAIS International. PAIS gives you instant access to an index of some 450,000 hard-to-find a rtic le s , books, g o ve rnm ent docu m e nts, statistical directories and more. It references literature published around the globe. And now it's even available on leased tape. So if you’re looking for information, go through the right channel. 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