ACRL News Issue (B) of College & Research Libraries 410 / C &RL News ence department at McMaster University’s Health Sciences Library, described their job sharing expe­ rience from the points of view of the employer and the employee. Linda Baker discussed the disadvantages and ad­ vantages to the employer of a job sharing arrange­ ment, noting that the pros far outweighed the cons. On the negative side, she cautioned that good com­ munications had to be maintained, that there was a possibility of personality conflicts between the job sharers, that there might be a lack of continuity on the job and that one or the other of the job shar­ ing team would be absent from staff meetings. However, on the positive side, job sharing encour­ aged more productivity and more initiative, the job sharers could act as reliefs for one another when emergencies arose, and the employer is provided with more skills in one position. Since the job shar­ ing team usually derives greater job satisfaction from a working arrangement that allows them freedom, the benefits to the employer of happier employees is obvious. Panel members then discussed sabbatical leaves and job exchanges from one library to another on the same campus and from one country to another. Eve Buckle described her experience from a practi­ cal point of view in which she mentioned salary and tax considerations, checking out accomoda­ Research at ALA By Mary Jo Lynch Director ALA Office fo r Research As Director of ALA’s Office for Research and staff liaison to the ALA Committee on Research and the Library Research Round Table (LRRT) I was delighted to see the initiation of a “Research Forum” column in College and Research Libraries News. The new column should prove to be a useful supplement to the “Research Notes” which already tions, medical and insurance coverage and the pos­ sibility of an exchange of cars. In personal terms, she and other panel members described the benefits of a year away from your job as providing you with the possibility of acquiring new skills and new ex­ periences and of returning to your former position feeling refreshed. The single disappointing session was held at Queen’s Faculty of Education’s computer lab in or­ der to demonstrate the possibility of using CAI to combat staff shortages. The problem with the ses­ sion was that the quality of software packages available for library instruction was extremely poor. Among the ones demonstrated were guides to poetry indexes and Current Biography from Calico (Computer Assisted Library Instruction Co., Inc.) and a library skills program from Right On Pro­ grams. The general impression of the librarians who attended this session was that the software was elementary and didn’t warrant the amount of time devoted to it in the lab. Most of the participants felt, however, that it was worthwhile in showing that this is an area where there is much room for improvement. It should be somewhat heartening though, to know that, at least for the moment, the human element is not imminently in danger of be­ ing replaced. ■ ■ appear in College and Research Libraries. Sharing information about research is a major interest of the Office, the Committee, and LRRT. All of these units welcome the focus on research which ACRL President Sharon Rogers has initiated within ACRL. Of the three units I am associated with, the Li- RESEARCH FORUM September 1984 / 411 brary Research Round Table is the one most likely to be of interest to ACRL members because it is a u n it w hich has conference activities and gives away money, albeit a small am ount. LRRT was of­ ficially organized “to contribute tow ard the exten­ sion and improvement of library research; to pro­ vide public program opportunities for describing and criticizing library research projects and for dis­ seminating their findings; to orient and educate ALA members concerning research techniques and th eir usefulness in o b tain in g in form ation w ith which to reach administrative decisions and solve problem s.” Currently LRRT has a three-part program to achieve the ends just stated. Each year LRRT con­ ducts a Research Paper Competition and awards a $500 prize to an outstanding paper reporting the results of research. The w inner is selected by LR R T’s Research Developm ent Com m ittee ac­ cording to guidelines available from the chair or from the Office for Research. The deadline for sub­ mission of papers is February 1 of each year; a deci­ sion is made by May 1. Unless the author(s) has other plans, the winning paper will be published in Library and Information Science Research. The committee chair for 1984-85 is Mildred Lowe, St. John’s University, Division of Library and Infor­ m ation Science, Jam aica, NY 11439. E ach year at th e ALA A nnual C onference, LRRT sponsors two additional activities. Formal presentation of research takes place at a num ber of “Research Forum s.” Interested parties are invited to send to the Research Forums Committee by D e­ cem ber 15 of each year one-page summaries of work which will be completed by Annual Confer­ ence. The Committee groups papers by topic and informs presentors of the time for presentation. For 1984-85 the Committee chair is Pamela Snelson, D rew U niversity L ib rary , Periodicals D e p a rt­ ment, Madison, NJ 07940. In addition, LRRT sponsors eaôh year an Infor­ m ation Exchange Suite where research-in-progress may be discussed informally. Help w ith research design is also available in the Suite. Persons wishing to discuss projects or seeking assistance w ith any as­ pect of research design should send the topic to the Inform ation Exchange Suite Committee by April 15 of each year. The Committee will group topics as appropriate and prepare a schedule for Suite dis­ cussions. Chair of the Inform ation Exchange Suite for 1984-85 is Eleanor Jo Rodger, Enoch P ratt Free L ibrary, State N etwork Service, 400 C athedral Street, Baltimore, MD 21201. A program of events in the Suite is distributed by LRRT at each confer­ ence as is a list of “Meetings Related to Research” compiled by the Office for Research and including all relevant programs and committee meetings. Shirley Fitzgibbons from the School of Library and Inform ation Science at Indiana University is the current chair of LRRT; Irene Hoadley, Direc­ tor of Libraries at Texas A&M, is the Secretary/ Treasurer. Members of ALA may join LRRT for only an additional $5. Join when you renew your ALA membership for 1985! Using the academic computer center By R o n a ld D a le K arr Public Services Librarian Transportation Library, Northwestern University C an’t w ait to get your own desktop microcom­ puter? Envious of those lucky librarians with Ap­ ples and PCs? It may be a while before every librar­ ian has access to a personal computer. But this does not mean th a t the rest of us must be spectators in the com puter revolution. Most colleges and universities have an academic com puter center available to students and faculty, including librarians. These facilities are no substi­ tute for personal computers, to be sure, but they can do much for those who take the time to learn to use th em . The typical academic com puter center was es­ tablished in the 1960s to house a lum bering m ain­ fram e computer. Early users were almost exclu­ sively engineering or science students and faculty. Access was through decks of laboriously prepared punch cards; users wrote their own FORTRAN programs. Com puter centers haven’t altogether es­ caped their initial o rientation—FORTRAN re­ mains popular—but the great expansion in com­ puting, first by social scientists and now by the entire academic community, has forced the centers to diversify. The micro revolution has cost the cen­ ters some of their original clientele while sim ulta­ neously increasing demands from new users. Today it isn’t necessary to learn to program in or­ der to use your com puter center. Instead of pro­ gramm ing you can utilize a vast array of available software capable of doing almost anything a micro can do (albeit not as conveniently). It is, however, necessary to gain a fam iliarity w ith your com­ p u ter’s control language and utilities, since it is through these you access and run software, enter commands and data, and determine output and storage. 412 / C&RL News Northwestern University’s Vogelhack C om puting Center features a Cyber CDC 170/730 M ainframe, a D E C VAX-11/780, and numerous printers, plotters, and disk drives. The best way to get started at your local center is to attend the various seminars and training courses they offer. Make use of the consultants and assis­ tants at the center. Be patient. Computers take tim e to learn. Older mainframes in particular are not always easy to use—docum entation is often poorly w ritten and the systems can be forbidding (or, in com puter parlance, “user unfriendly”). W hat can you do at your com puter center? I’ve used computers in a variety of ways in m y job as public services librarian at Northwestern Univer­ sity’s Transportation Library. N orthwestern’s Vo­ gelback C om puting Center houses two computers, a C yber CD C 170/730 m ainfram e and a DEC VAX-11/780 m inicom puter. It supports a vast a r­ ray of printers, plotters, and punches, and can be accessed by numerous CRT term inals at many lo­ cations on our tw o campuses (including the li­ brary). T he following tasks w ere undertaken at our com puter center, utilizing existing software pack­ ages w ithout actual program m ing on my part. The hardw are and software at your local center will differ, of course, but you’ll probably find similar features available. Word processing W ord processing is becoming the function most often perform ed on campus computers. A desktop m icrocom puter is unquestionably the preferred de­ vice. Minis and especially mainframes in a tim e­ sharing configuration are ill-suited for this task; like most installations, the Vogelback Com puting Center at Northwestern does not offer true word processing. But all is not lost. At Northwestern we do have text form atting, the poor m an’s word processing. Text is entered using the com puter’s editor pro­ gram (designed for entering d ata and programs), together w ith control commands. The form atter— PROSE and RUNOFF are used at Vogelback—is then called to form at the text. Margins, justifica­ tion, line spacing, underscoring, and even boldface can be specified as desired. The text can be printed on a line printer or sent to a letter-quality printer for results almost indistinguishable from an office typewriter. I use the text form atter to prepare bibliogra­ phies, memos, articles (including this one), and guides for users. The great advantage in using the com puter is the ease w ith which a docum ent can be revised, both between working drafts and for those items th a t require frequent updating. Once w rit­ ten, a document can be stored on disk or tape for future use. Text form atting on a time-sharing m ainfram e or mini is clumsier than true word processing, but it sure beats conventional typing. Statistical analysis Computers excel at processing statistical data. Over the years numerous software packages have been developed to perform statistical analysis, w ithout the need to w rite programs. Among the better known of these are SPSS, BMD, M initab, and D ata Text. I ’ve used SPSS for many years, both in scholarly research and in library work. SPSS employs simple commands to enter data and perform analysis. Al­ though SPSS is often used for advanced statistical How Long Would It Take You to Identify All Biomedical Publications, Related to Engineering, Published in England, in a Large Database or Directory? You Could Do It in Seconds, With EBSCO/SEARCH. Introducing EBSCO/SEARCH . . . The System That Can Search The Daily-Updated Online Periodicals Directory. EBSCO/SEARCH—A major EBSCONET OSS Enhancement—is a powerful new information retrieval system for EBSCO’s database including publisher, title and price files. Using natural language commands, you can access information by subject, language, price and much more. EBSCO/SEARCH gives you fast, efficient access to a database of more than 160,000 serial titles. Simply key in your request, and EBSCO/SEARCH does the serials searching for you. It’s the first information retrieval system of its kind for such an extensive database. EBSCO/SEARCH is available only through our EBSCONET Online Subscription Service—the online system which allows you to claim, order, route and much more. For more information, call or write your nearest EBSCO office today. P .O . Box 1943 Birm ingham , A L 35201 (205) 991-6600 414 / C&RL News procedures, like multiple regression or factor anal­ ysis, it’s also excellent for counting and preparing simple cross tabulations. SPSS helped me autom ate a typical library sta­ tistical task. I administer a document delivery/in- terlibrary loan service th a t processes more than 2,000 requests each year. We compile monthly and annual statistics on the total num ber of requests, broken down by status of requester, location and affiliation of requester, type of document sought, and so on. We obtained these data by laboriously tallying the requests by hand. I autom ated the compilation of these figures by assigning each individual request a seven-digit code, w ith each digit representing inform ation about the requester, the item requested, and the action taken. For example, the first digit is coded 1 if the request is from a library, 0 if not. The second digit indicates the form of the request (1 = by tele­ phone, 2 = in person on site, 3 = by mail, 4 = by IL L form , 5 = by OCLC IL L subsystem). The third digit tells the location of the requester ( ^ I l ­ linois, 2 = other U .S., 9 = foreign). The codes are w ritten at the top of each request sheet or form (coding goes quickly once you get the hang of it), and they are input to the computer from a term inal in a batch, a month at a time, and saved as a file. My SPSS routine is then run, pro­ ducing a full count of each variable as well as any specified cross tabulations (i.e., location of re­ quester by form of request). I can process a m onth’s statistics in an hour, including coding and input, and the data can be saved for future analysis at any time. Each year I combine the monthly figures to produce an annual summary. The computer can be used for nearly any statisti­ cal chore. W ith the ready availability of proven software packages like SPSS there is little excuse for continuing to compile and process data by hand. Preparing an index The Transportation Library catalogs with its own list of subject headings. Geographic terms are generally used only as subheads, so the card catalog does not provide information on a particular city or country. To compensate for this we m aintain an in­ dex of all subject headings th a t have been assigned w ith a specific geographic subhead. W ith this in­ dex one can look under the nam e of a country, state, or city to check w hich headings have in ­ cluded th a t geographic term as a subhead. The original index was prepared many years ago before my arrival at the library. I have supervised several updates since. We store the file on com­ puter tape, broken into many subfiles. The tape is loaded on the computer, updated from a terminal at the library, output to a line printer, and then re­ turned to tape for storage. The files can be m anipu­ lated, combined, and split as need be. Recently I merged portions of these files with a new index to create still another index. Creating a name and address file Databases are not solely the province of DIA­ LOG and OCLC. You too can create your own. Vogelback Computing Center at Northwestern has several file and database packages. I used their RIQS system to autom ate an old name and address file. The RIQS program allows the user to design his own database. I chose a simple eleven-field for­ m at consisting of record num ber, personal name, title, organization, street address, city, state, zip code, phone num ber, input date, and revision date. RIQS produces a name and organization in­ dex, and prints out the text of the entire file. I store the file on tape and update it periodically. Making signs and posters Like most libraries we must from time to time make signs and posters to announce changes in hours, special events, and other inform ation. Typewriter characters are often too small, and un­ less a calligrapher is on the premises, hand-m ade signs are usually disappointing. The Vogelback Center has w ritten a program to create signs and posters using pen plotters—devices used by engineers and the like to draw graphs. W ith Vogelback’s PRESENT program signs can be made w ith a few simple form atting comands. The results are quite good. A num ber of fonts are available—even Old English!—and centering and spacing can be controlled automatically. There is little excuse for librarians not to make better use of the computer. For the time being only a few of us will be fortunate enough to have a micro on our desks. But almost any academic librarian has access to a computer center. And though it car­ ries neither the prestige nor the convenience of a personal computer, librarians owe it to themselves to find out w hat their local computer center can do for them. ■ ■ Seattle Conference proceedings available ACRL has just published the proceedings of its April 4-7, 1984, conference in Seattle on the theme “Academic Libraries: Myths and Reali­ ties.’’ The proceedings include the papers from the six theme sessions, 47 contributed papers, and the papers from four alternate form at ses­ sions. Including the index, the proceedings are over 420 pages in length. C om plim entary copies of the proceedings will be sent to all full registrants who attended the Seattle Conference. A free copy will also be sent to each organization w ith an exhibit at the conference. Others may purchase copies (pre­ paid only) from ACRL at $20 for ACRL mem­ bers and $28 for non-members. The ISBN is 0- 8389-6787-6. Send orders to ACRL/ALA, 50 E. Huron St., Chicago, IL 60611-2795.