ACRL News Issue (B) of College & Research Libraries


141

An unfinished agenda

By Joseph A. Boissé
A C R L  Vice-President/P resid en telect

The next A C R L  President’s theme looks forward to 
another hundred years.

T he Fifth N ational Conference of the Association 

of College and Research Libraries will celebrate 
the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Col­
lege Library Section of the American L ibrary Asso­
ciation. The them e for the conference, “Building 
on the First C entury,” will provide an opportunity 
for both a look at past accomplishments and a pre­
view of the challenges we are likely to face in the 
future.

D uring my presidential term  I hope to focus on 
some of those challenges. My theme will be: “The 
Unfinished Agenda: P lanning the Second C en­
tu ry .” There are two challenges in particular to 
which I w ant to devote special attention. These 
are: 1) Librarians for the Future; and 2) Services 
for the Future.

The first of these issues has two parts: recruit­
m ent and education. The Association needs to de­
velop a strategy which will result in bringing into 
the field more young people. In addition, our re­
cruitm ent efforts cannot ignore the rapid changes 
taking place in our society. The most populous 
states in the country are also those where the ethnic 
mix is changing most rapidly. O ur recruitm ent ef­
forts must target these groups so th a t oui profession 
will better reflect our society ten, tw enty and thirty 
years from now. I will establish a task force whose 
charge will be to develop an appropriate recruit­
m ent plan for ACRL.

In my view, ACRL must also become more ac­
tive in the area of library education. W e are al­
ready a major provider of continuing education op­
portunities for our membership, but we must go 
further. We must work w ith library educators and

other associations of librarians in order to design 
the library school curriculum  of the future. As 
practitioners we have quite a good idea of the skills 
and abilities needed to be a com petent librarian. 
W e must translate those ideas into specific recom­
mendations to schools of library and inform ation 
science.

D uring the past decade or more, a tremendous 
am ount of energy has been spent considering the 
changing technological environm ent in which we 
operate. No area of librarianship has gone uninflu­
enced by technology. New committees have been 
formed to study these changes and to make recom­
mendations concerning their impact; innum erable 
conferences have addressed various issues related to 
technology; new journals have appeared specifi­
cally to publish articles about technology; new pro­
fessional groups have come into being to foster and 
prom ote technological change. D uring my term  in 
office I would like us, as an association, to refocus 
our attention and do some serious thinking about 
services for the future. W hat will be the role of the 
public services librarian in the future? Will tra d i­
tional patterns of public services in our libraries 
change significantly? If so, how? I plan to bring to­
gether, prior to the Dallas conference, a small 
group of librarians to work for a couple of days as a 
Think Tank. The results of their deliberations will 
be reported to the Association during the Presi­
dent’s Program at Dallas.

ACRL members who wish to be involved in 
these activities are encouraged to w rite to me. I 
would also welcome suggestions for programs and 
activities related to these priorities. ■ ■



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143

L C  also looks to the future

Librarian of Congress James H. Billington has 
announced a comprehensive review and planning 
process to chart the future course for the Library 
th a t will include staff members, Library constitu­
ents, and a professional m anagem ent consulting 
firm.

Basic to the planning and review process will be 
a L ibrarian’s M anagement and Planning C om m it­
tee, consisting of 25 mid-level Library managers 
and other staff selected throughout the Library, 
w ithout formal representation of any given unit or 
constituency. Ellen Plahn, chief of the General 
Reading Rooms Division of the Research Services 
D epartm ent, will serve as chair of the Committee, 
and W inston Tabb, chief of the Inform ation and 
Reference Division of the Copyright Office, will 
serve as vice chair.

Billington said th a t the success of the Committee 
will be judged by its members’ ability to work to­
gether to address the broadest and highest interests 
of the Library as a whole. The Committee has been 
asked to 1) find ways to increase the Library’s effec­
tiveness in serving the Congress, the Federal Gov­
ernm ent, the nation’s libraries, scholars, the entire 
creative community, and all citizens; 2) review the 
L ibrary’s legislative, national, and international 
roles and responsibilities; and 3) recommend broad 
goals the Library should strive to achieve by the

year 2000, and practical steps to im plem ent them.
Billington challenged the Committee, and the 

Library’s entire staff, to seek realistic ways to sus­
tain and extend the Library’s collections, to im­
prove m anagem ent for enhancing the L ibrary’s re­
sponsiveness to its constituencies, and to reach 
“inw ard more deeply” by assisting users to exploit 
collections fully and by attracting more research­
ers. He has also charged the Committee to examine 
ways in which the Library can “reach out more 
broadly” by sharing its resources and disseminating 
its wisdom more widely and effectively in ways 
th a t raise educational levels, tie  expects the Com­
m ittee to recommend priorities for the allocation of 
the L ibrary’s resources in light of present and fore­
seeable budget stringencies.

Two other advisory groups are being named. 
One consists of people representing the L ibrary’s 
broader national and international constituencies, 
and one will be an outside consulting firm asked to 
make recom m endations on adm inistration and 
management.

Billington called on staff members for sugges­
tions they may wish to make at any tim e regarding 
any aspect of the process. Reports on planning and 
review activities will appear in the Library o f Con­
gress Inform ation Bulletin. 

■ ■

Letters

Inform ation for administrators

To the Editor:
As a librarian who has crossed over into another 

area of inform ation services, I was particularly 
pleased to see the article, “Inform ation for Admin­
istrators,” in the January issue of C&R.L News. 
Technologies will present librarians w ith ever ex­
panding opportunities to provide inform ation sup­
port to college and university administrators.

I would encourage, however, th at we not limit 
ourselves to isolated support of the adm inistrative 
function. Rather, we should take the initiative to 
become p art of Strategic Inform ation Systems (SIS) 
and Decision Support Systems (DSS) being devel­
oped at many universities. By incorporating our 
services w ith those provided by other campus in­
formation providers, we can truly have an im pact 
on decision-making at the highest organizational 
levels.—Judith A. Copier, Manager o f Inform a­
tion Technology Planning.

Backlogged books

To the Editor:
Since the middle sixties the Orange Public Li­

brary (New Jersey) has been organizing and dis­
playing its non-fiction backlog by accession num ­
ber. (A backlog assures a constant flow of books for 
the cataloger, maximizing the cataloger’s time.)

After a book is received, the ply of the order form 
previously filled by title as an “on order” notice is 
replaced w ith another ply of the order form now 
bearing the accession num ber (see my “Backlog to 
Frontlog,” Library Journal, September 15, 1969). 
Daniel Gore seized upon this idea and adapted it 
for Macalester College. Gore provided rough sub­
ject classification to the Frontlog by preceding the 
accession numbers w ith the LC class letters (see 
G ore’s “In H ot Pursuit of FASTCAT,” Library 
Journal, September 1, 1973).

Displaying the backlog makes new books brows­
able, and browsing is a major factor in book circu­