ACRL News Issue (B) of College & Research Libraries 546 / C&R L News MALC 1 9 8 7 By Marva L. D eL oach Head, Cataloging & Records Maintenance Illinois State University an d Lynetta Lewis A lexan d er Cataloger Illinois State University The Midwest Academic Library Conference at Illinois State University. T he Midwest Academic L ibrary Conference (MALC) does not have a creed, officers, commit­ tees, or dues. MALC’s organizational structure is so loose, in fact, that we are not even certain about its official name. For example, previous accounts in College & Research Libraries by II. Vail Deale re­ ferred to the gathering as the “Midwest Academic L ibrarians C onference.”1 This inform ality con­ tinues the tradition th a t began in May 1956 at Michigan State University in East Lansing, Michi­ gan. One of its few traditions is that MALC has been jointly sponsored by several neighboring academic institutions. For the 1987 conference, Illinois State University (Normal) and Illinois Wesleyan Univer­ sity (Bloomington) cosponsored “Toward Holistic L ibrary Services: Putting the Pieces Together” (May 27-29,1987), a follow-up on the 1986 confer­ ence held at Iowa State University (Ames). Approximately 175 people, including a visitor from California, gathered to hear such speakers as Congressman Major R. Owens (D-NY), JoAn Se­ gal, (ACRL’s executive director), Evan F arber (Earlham College), Michael Gorman (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign), and William Nugent (Library of Congress), present and ex­ change their ideas with participants. Segal, Evans 1See II. Vail Deale, “A Decade with MALC,” C&RL 25 (November 1964):475-82; and “MALC’s Second D ecade: C om m itm ent to C om m unica­ tion,” C&RL 36 (March 1975): 143-51. and Gorman set the pace at the opening session with “Challenges for Libraries,” “BI: Past, Present and Future Challenges,” and “Technology: The Problem or the Solution.” The conference con­ cluded with the presentation, “Putting the Pieces Together: An A dm inistrator’s Perspective,” by Thomas Shaughnessy, University of Missouri. All of them were provocative! A pig roast and banquet at the ISU Foundation’s Ewing Manor, the estate of the late Plazel Buck Ewing patterned after an English castle with a Jap­ anese garden, were held to provide librarians with an informal atmosphere for hammering out ideas about holistic library services. Participants were encouraged to tour the Illinois State University Library. Unfortunately, Illinois W esleyan’s beautiful facility was tem porarily closed for asbestos removal, a situation that others may perhaps empathize with. Thomas Shaughnessy summarized some of the problems discussed at the conference in his wrap- up talk. Shaughnessy pointed out that good library habits must be formed in one’s student years and that a campus–wide campaign must be mounted to alert students and administrators to the services and information available at their libraries. C ur­ rently, he said, university faculty and adm inistra­ tors are trying to resolve a myriad of diverse prob­ lems such as “bright flight,” student retention, minority recruitment, and training foreign teach­ ing assistants to speak English. Quite often campus planning does not include libraries in these finan­ October 1987 / 547 cially draining endeavors. Pressure encourages com petition, not collabora­ tion, and Shaughnessy strongly believes th a t the li­ b rary m ust prom ote collaboration. He encouraged li b r a r y w o rk e rs to b e c o m e in v o lv e d in th e se cam pus–w ide problems and suggested th a t a d a ta ­ base search of a topic could illustrate interest to university adm inistrators, as w ould cooperating in a program to help students learn to w rite m ore ef­ fectively. In order for the library staff to cope w ith all of these dem ands, Shaughnessy feels th a t staff devel­ opm ent should begin on day one of em ploym ent. Since its s ta f f is a key to a l i b r a r y ’s success, Shaughnessy develops a them e each year, such as grant w riting, for staff development. Interestingly, Shaughnessy believes th a t attending conferences such as MALC are costly in both lost work tim e and h ard dollars and benefit individual staff members only—not the institutions th a t bear most of the costs. Jo An Segal stated th a t current library practices contribute to personnel specialization rath er th a n generalization. In order to create a holistic library, adm inistrators m ust urge library staff to interact beyond their own departm ents. She closely exam­ ined the them e of “holistic library services” and presented an intriguing picture of the library as a system interacting w ith a web of other systems. Michael G orm an agreed th a t libraries are u n ­ dervalued by faculty and society at large, and th a t the lib rary ’s passivity to the outside w orld contrib­ utes to this attitude. G orm an explained th a t in the last decade there has been little additional money for services th a t are in high dem and. L ibrary m a n ­ agers are now challenged to cope w ith rising expec­ tations am ong staff members who are seeking m ore job responsibility and fulfillm ent. G o rm a n said th a t alth o u g h a u to m a tio n has m ade personnel redeploym ent possible, he ad m it­ ted th a t reorganization is h ard to im plem ent. He recom m ended th a t adm inistrators redefine staff and library roles, then decide the most cost effec­ tive w ay to enforce reorganization. Professional duties will be encouraged and specific tasks will drift dow n to the lowest level at w hich the task can be perform ed. Eventually these actions will result in more resources for the user, G orm an said. E van F arb er described the effect th a t au to m a­ tion and other new technologies will have on the in ­ tellectual fram ew ork of the cam pus over the next 15 years. He reassured the audience th a t students’ need for inform ation and assistance in evaluating d ata will persist. W illiam N ugent related th e L ib rary of C o n ­ gress’s progress w ith optical disk technology. One optical disk can store several shelves of magazines and can also provide m ore public access to such items as rare photographs. In addition, m echa­ nized indexing will provide better access to collec­ tions and preserve images longer th an the printed page. W hen concern was expressed th a t optical Major R. Owens answers questions after the M A L C banquet as author D eLoach looks on. disks m ay only have a lifetim e of 10-20 years, N u­ gent rep o rted th a t a final verdict h ad not been reached on disk longevity. O ther conference speakers w ere D oug Bedient (Southern Illinois University) on video technology; Betsy Baker (Northwestern University) on training end-users in d a ta b a se searching; L in d a Piele, H arold Tuckett, and D onna Nicholson (University of Wisconsin-Parkside) on m icrocom puters; D ana Smith (Purdue University) on computer-assisted bibliographic instruction; G erald Cole (Illinois State University) on bibliographic instruction in history; Florence Lewis (Sangamon State U niver­ sity) on the instructional services librarian; Judy Rycombel (DePaul University) and M ary Marshall (OCLC) on docum ent delivery; and Tom Dorst (D epaul University), Beth Sandore and Bernie Sloan (University of Illinois, U rbana-C ham paign) on resource sharing using the LCS system. Congressman M ajor R. Owens, the only lib ra r­ ian in Congress, gave a stim ulating speech at the T hursday night b anquet (in the same tim e slot as his son, who plays Elvin on “The Cosby Show” !). He urged librarians to continually rem ind elected officials of our contributions to society and the need for im proved library funding. He pointed out a n u m b e r of bills, m an y th a t he h ad sponsored, w hich are of special interest to academ ic lib ra ri­ ans. The 1988 MALC will be at the University of W isconsin-M ilw aukee, w hich also sponsored a 1974 MALC m eeting. Kansas State University, M anhattan, will host the 1989 program . ■ ■ October 1987 / 549