ACRL News Issue (B) of College & Research Libraries C&RL News ■ June 2 001/ 581 N e w s f r o m t h e F i e l d Mary Ellen Davis Jenkins to step down from ACRL Althea H. Jenkins will be stepping down as executive director of ACRL at the end of July 2001. Originally se­ lected for the position by the ACRL Board of D ire c to rs a n d a p ­ pointed by the ALA executive director in 1991, Jenkins led the association through its transition to be a fi­ nancially stable, pro­ active advocate for academ ic librarians, Althea H. Jenkins as well as an efficient delivery operation for services, products, and programs to members. Helen Spalding, currently ACRL’s coun­ cilor and the newly elected ACRL viœ-presi- dent/president-elect, said, “Althea Jenkins has been an impressive, articulate, and credible advocate and has extended partnerships of mutual benefit to the higher education and academic library communities.” During her ten-year tenure with ACRL, Jenkins compiled a list of impressive accom­ plishments, including increasing the finan­ cial resources of the association; expanding its publication program, including electronic resources; strengthening the continuing edu­ cation offerings; developing collaborations and partnerships with higher education and other information-related organizations; and promoting information literacy as a concept for student learning. Jenkins said, “As executive director of ACRL, I have had an unparalleled opportu­ nity to view the work of academic libraries within their institutions nationwide and ob­ serve the contributions they make. Our li­ braries, as the cornerstones of a democratic society, have the capacity for changing lives. Their achievement of this mission is very evident on college and university campuses across the country. “It has been a great privilege to serve the academic library community in this reward- ìng way. Helping academic librarians gain the knowledge and skills needed to serve their constituents is one of the highest priori­ ties of the ACRL Board of Directors. I am • pleased to have contributed to ACRL’s suc­ cess in this area.” Jenkins will join the Florida State Univer­ sity (FSU) staff as director of University Li­ braries. In addition to providing leadership and managing two main libraries (Strozier and Dirac) on the FSU campus, Jenkins will be responsible for the information resources and services of nine other departmental, regional, and international university libraries. FSU is a research university serving nearly 26,000 students enrolled in undergraduate and graduate programs. The libraries have hold­ ings of more than 2.3 million volumes and an annual budget of $12.5 million. Jenkins previously served as library direc­ tor at the University of South Florida at Sarasota/ New College and Miami-Dade Community College. She is currently a member of the American Association for Higher Education; the Teaching, Learning, and Technology Group; the Eckerd College Board of Trustees; the University of Pittsburgh Library Visiting Committee; and the North Central Accrediting Association Institutional Action Council. In 2000, she received the FSU School of Information Studies Distinguished Alumni award. Jenkins holds a B.S. from Florida Ag­ ricultural and Mechanical University, an MLS from Florida State University, and an Ed.D from Nova Southeastern University. The ACRL Board will work with ALA to initiate a search process to immediately hire a new executive director. Harvard Library theft French historical materials dating from the late 18th century have been reported stolen from Harvard’s Widener Library. Harvard Col­ lege Library officials suspected theft w hen a num ber of empty book covers were discov­ ered in the Widener stacks on April 19. A subsequent inventory conducted by library staff confirmed that a total of 46 items—in­ 582 / C&RL News ■ June 2001 eluding pamphlets, journals, and books from the French Revolution and Napoleonic peri­ ods, valued at approximately $10,000—were missing. The Harvard University Police Department is investigating the case and is working with library officials to gather information for the involvement of other law enforcement agen­ cies. Book dealers, research libraries, and deal­ ers specializing in French antiquities are being notified. Anyone with information pertaining to the whereabouts of these materials is asked to contact Detective Sgt. Richard Mederos, Criminal Investigation Division, Harvard Uni­ versity Police Department, (617) 495-1796, e- mail: LHCL@fas.harvard.edu. ACRL selects 23 libraries for info literacy assessment project Twenty-three libraries have been selected to participate in the ACRL project “Assessing Stu­ dent Learning Outcomes in Information Lit­ eracy Programs: Training Academic Librarians.” The purpose of this project, funded by a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Ser­ vices (IMLS), is to train academic librarians who will work with faculty to design, implement, and evaluate tools for assessing student learn­ ing resulting from information literacy instruc­ tion taught by librarians and faculty. Close cam­ pus partnerships will help define student learning outcomes based on the new “Infor­ mation Literacy C om petency Standards for Higher Education.” Participants include representatives from throughout the United States and include four- year public and private colleges as well as comprehensive universities, community col­ leges, and research universities. The institu­ tions are Western State College, Dakota State University, Indiana Purdue University-Colum- bus, Lewis and Clark College, Oberlin College, Illinois Wesleyan University, St. Olaf College, Lexington Community College, Diablo Valley College, Tompkins Courtland Community Col­ lege, S pokane Falls C om m unity College, Highline Community College, Midlands Tech­ nical College, University of the Pacific, Califor­ nia State University-Northridge, Millersville Uni­ versity, Appalachian State University, Austin Peay State University, Hunter College, Univer­ sity of Cincinnati, Regent University, Univer­ sity of Northern Colorado, and Montana State University-Bozeman. Wisconsin libraries debut new loan program As a part of their Cooperative Access Program (CAP), the libraries of Marquette University, the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UWM), and the Medical College of Wisconsin (MCW) have implemented a unique cooperative loan program that makes temporary transfers of ar­ chival an d m anuscript resources possible among the three institutions within two busi­ ness days. Descriptions of each institution’s collections may be found on the Web: UWM at http://www. uw m .edu/L ibrary/arch/invenah.htm ; MCW Archives at h ttp ://w w w .lib .m cw .ed u ; and Marquette’s holdings at http://www.marquette. edu/library/collections/archives. Due to donor restrictions, institutional poli­ cies, and preservation concerns, some collec­ tions at each repository will not be available for transfer, but those that are can generally be loaned for up to 20 days. For more information about the SHSW’s Area Research Center netw ork, visit the Web at h t t p : / / w w w . s h s w . w i s c . e d u / archives/arcnet. Pitt develops e-print server The University of Pittsburgh Library System, in collaboration with the Department of History and Philoso­ phy of Science and Center for Phi­ losophy of Science have developed and im plem ented a new electronic archive for preprints in the philoso- mailto:LHCL@fas.harvard.edu http://www.lib.mcw.edu http://www.marquette http://www.shsw.wisc.edu/ C&RL News ■ June 2001 / 583 phy of science. The preprint service, c a lle d th e P h ilS ci A rc h iv e (http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/) pro­ vides a forum for authors w ho wish to present their ideas to the schol­ arly community quickly, and receive critical response in a timely fashion. The archive uses electronic pre­ print server software from ePrint.org, an organization that is part of the O pen Citation Project, a DLI2 Inter­ national Digital Libraries Project funded by the Joint Information Sys­ tems Committee of the Higher Edu­ cation Funding Councils, in collabo­ ration with the National Science Foundation. The PhilSci Archive pre­ print server supports the O pen Ar­ chives Initiative, which develops and promotes interoperability stan­ dards that aim to facilitate the effi­ cient dissemination of content. Call for popular culture papers Updating know ledge, netw orking and sharing ideas, and learning abo u t new products are key reasons librarians atte n d th e ACRL N ational Conference. If you missed th e conference, you can still keep up w ith th e sessions by purchasing audiotapes (see page 588), a conference proceedings, or view ing a Webcast o f selected programs. Details on th e Webcast w ill be posted to th e Web at http://w w w .ala.org/acrl/denver.htm l. The Popular Culture Association is seeking proposals for its annual joint meeting with the American Culture Association in Toronto, Canada, on March 13-16, 2002. The Libraries, Archives, and Popular Culture Research Area is soliciting papers dealing with any aspect of popular culture as it pertains to libraries, archives, museums, or research. Prospective presenters should send a one- page abstract by September 15, 2001, to Allen Ellis, W. Frank Steely Library, Northern Ken­ tucky University, Highland Heights, KY 41099- 6101, e-mail: ellisa@nku.edu. ACRL's characteristics of best practices in information literacy available The characteristics of best practices in infor­ mation literacy programming are now avail­ a b le as a c h e c k lis t o n th e W eb at http://www.ala.org/acrl/infolit.html. Select “In­ formation Literacy Best Practices.” A team of six librarians, a classroom fac­ ulty member, and an information technologist, working under the auspices of ACRL’s Insti­ tute for Information Literacy, developed the list over the last year. The Web site includes the ability to add comments that will be considered during fu­ ture revisions. This statement of best practices is in­ tended to serve as a benchmark for assess­ ing an information literacy program. These characteristics of best practice along with outcomes assessment based on the ACRL “In­ formation Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education” (http://w w w .ala.org/acrl/ ilcomstan.html) provide a robust multidimen­ sional approach to program assessment. The list of characteristics of best practices remains a w orking draft until it is tested against real programs. This testing will be done in the process of selecting eight-to-ten institutions for a national invitational con­ ference on best practices in information lit­ eracy programming in Atlanta in 2002. It will be held prior to the ALA’s Annual Confer­ ence. During this conference, the characteris­ tics will be reviewed and revised based on the discussions. A revised edition is expect to be released sometime in late 2002 with documentation of the programs that were part of the invitational conference. More information on the best practices project is available at http://www.ala.org/acrl/ nili/bestprac.html. Inquiries about the char­ acteristics and about the invitational confer­ ence should be directed to Tom Kirk, Earlham College, p hone: (765) 983-1360, e-mail: kirkto@earlham.edu. ■ http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/ ePrint.org http://www.ala.org/acrl/denver.html mailto:ellisa@nku.edu http://www.ala.org/acrl/infolit.html http://www.ala.org/acrl/ http://www.ala.org/acrl/ mailto:kirkto@earlham.edu