may04a.indd N e w s f r o m t h e F i e l d Stephanie Orphan ACRL/CHOICE and ALA Editions to co­ publish successor to Books for College Libraries ACRL and ALA Editions have signed an agree­ ment to co­publish Resources for College Libraries (RCL), a new core collection of recommended ti­ tles for academic libraries. The successor to Books for College Libraries 3rd Edition, RCL will be an online product whose coverage includes both electronic resources and books. Once published, RCL will be regularly updated and revised, ensur­ ing that it remains current. CHOICE will manage editorial development. Production, marketing, and distribution will be handled by ALA Editions. The target publication date is 2006. Founded in 1964, CHOICE is a publishing unit of ACRL, best known for its print and electronic academic review publications, CHOICE Magazine and ChoiceReviews.online. Thomson Gale offers free MARC records from literature database Thomson Gale has made available MARC records from the most­studied authors in its Literature Resource Center, a database that provides access to biographies, bibliographies, and critical analysis on more than 120,000 au­ thors. The records use InfoMark technology, which gives libraries the ability to securely de­ liver copyright­cleared information to patrons through cut and paste methodology. MARC records are available for 2,600 authors and can be downloaded at www.gale.com (click “Title Lists,” then “MARC 856 and ASCII Records with InfoMarks”). IMLS seeks proposals for library workforce study The Institute of Museum and Library Services, Office of Library Services is seeking proposals for a national research study on the future of librarians in the workforce. The study will in­ clude an analysis of current and projected U.S. library workforce data by geographic location, type of employers, and functional specifi ca­ tions. It will also assess the demand for librar­ ians over the next decade, the skills they will need, the capacity of graduate schools of li­ brary and information science to meet project­ ed needs, and incentives for attracting qualifi ed individuals. The maximum award is $1 million for the two­year project, which is scheduled to begin September 30, 2004. The award will be made under the 2004 Librarians for the 21st Century Program. Fulbright Senior Specialists Program of­ fers opportunities for librarians The Fulbright Senior Specialists Program, a short­tem exchange program for U.S. faculty and professionals, is seeking librarians with skills, including digitalization of library mate­ rials, records management, cataloguing, and library assessment and evaluation for projects worldwide. Candidates apply to be included on the Fulbright Senior Specialists Roster. The program works to meet the needs of overseas academic institutions by matching candidates from the roster to projects requested by the institutions. Applications are reviewed by dis­ cipline peer­review committees and the Board for Foreign Scholarship eight times per year. Foreign language skills are not necessary, but are a plus. K. Waugh C&RL News  May 2004 / 247 http:www.gale.com Fulbright Senior Specialists grantees lecture at the undergraduate and graduate levels, consult with administrators and faculty on issues related to curriculum and program de­ velopment, and develop and assess academic curricula or educational materials. Visit www. cies.org/specialists for the online application and program overview or contact the Fulbright Senior Specialists Program at fulspec@cies.iie.org or (202) 686­4026. ARL positions itself for the future At its February meeting, the Association of Research Libraries’ (ARL) Board of Directors established its priorities for the coming year. The first priority for 2004 is to initiate a stra­ tegic planning process “that comprehends a review and discussion of the future agen­ das of its member libraries and articulates a vision of how the Association can support and advance those agendas.” To accomplish this priority, ARL has established two new task forces. The ARL Task Force on Gov­ ernance was established to review current practices and consider restructuring options for Board nominations, elections, and other governance­related aspects of the associa­ tion. The ARL Strategic Planning task force will develop and initiate a strategic planning process that “articulates a vision of how the association can support and advance” the fu­ ture agendas of its member libraries. Other priorities established for 2004 relate to information policies; scholarly communi­ cation; collections, access, preservation, and technology; staffing and management; and performance measures. Complete information about ARL’s priorities and the strategic plan­ ning process can be found at www.arl.org. Texas A&M commemorates three­mil­ lionth volume Texas A&M University commemorated the acquisition of its three­millionth volume in April. The milestone volume is a rare fi rst edition of Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass (1855) given by Sara and John Lindsey of Houston. Elmore “Rip” Torn, a former Tex­ as A&M student, presented a special read­ ing from Leaves of Grass at the celebration, which was followed by a two­day sympo­ sium on Whitman featuring American litera­ ture scholars from around the country. Ex Libris developing electronic resource management system Ex Libris has announced that it is devel­ oping an electronic resource management (ERM) system. The system will incorporate the workflows necessary for selecting, eval­ uating, acquiring, maintaining, and provid­ ing informed access to electronic resources in accordance with their business and li­ cense agreements. The ERM system will be Proposals for National Conference contributed papers, panel sessions, workshops, and preconferences due May 28, 2004 The ACRL National Conference Executive Committee invites you to submit a propos­ al for the ACRL 12th National Conference, “Currents and Convergence: Navigating the Rivers of Change,” Minneapolis, April 7–10, 2005. Proposals for contributed papers, panel sessions, workshops, and preconfer­ ences are due May 28. As the premier educational event for academic and research librarians, the ACRL National Conference brings together more than 2,200 librarians and related profes­ sionals. The conference will focus on the increased emphasis on interdisciplinary re­ search and technology, which has librarians constantly “Navigating the Rivers of Change” to provide information access that connects people and resources in new ways. You are encouraged to submit proposals that take a step back from everyday work and explore the major issues, challenges, and opportunities facing academic and research librarians. Applicants are encour­ aged to examine ACRL’s “Focus on the Future Task Force” report while developing program proposals. The report discusses the seven most challenging issues faced by academic librarians, and can be viewed at www.acrl.org, click “Issues & Advocacy.” Full text of the Call for Participation is available at the ACRL National Conference Web site at www.ala.org/acrl/minneapolis. For further information regarding proposal applications or the ACRL 12th National Conference please e­mail tedwards@ala.org or msutton@ala.org. 248 / C&RL News  May 2004 mailto:msutton@ala.org mailto:tedwards@ala.org www.ala.org/acrl/minneapolis http:www.acrl.org http:www.arl.org mailto:fulspec@cies.iie.org a stand­alone product, building on SFX as its core component and with the ability to integrate with other Ex Libris products. The initial release of the system is targeted for the fourth quarter of 2004. Project MUSE launches COUNTER­com­ pliant tool Project Muse has launched its new COUN­ TER­compliant statistics tool, which will eliminate the need to manually run statistics for a specified time period. Instead, month­ ly statistics will be automatically loaded on the 14th of the subsequent month and will be cumulative. This will enable librarians to display year­to­date totals at any point in the year. The tool was developed in re­ sponse to the COUNTER Code of Practice for online usage statistics, which governs the exchange of online usage data and al­ lows librarians to better understand how the information services they purchase are being used. NYPL announces best 25 books of 2003 The New York Public Library (NYPL) has announced its selection of “25 Books to Re­ member for 2003.” This year’s offerings, span­ ning all genres, were chosen for their ability to provide an “informative or transformative reading experience.” Selection criteria for the “Books to Remember” list include liter­ ary excellence, aesthetic appeal, uniqueness of concept, and command of subject matter. Some items from this year’s list are: Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers, by Mary Roach; The Emperor of Scent: A Story of Per­ fume, Obsession, and the Last Mystery of the Senses, by Chandler Burr; and The Voice at 3:00 A.M.: Selected Late and New Poems, by Charles Simic. The list is available for free at all NYPL branch libraries. EBSCOhost pay­per­view articles top one million EBSCOhost Electronic Journals Service En­ hanced now includes more than one million pay­per view articles, largely attributable to the growing portfolio of Taylor & Francis titles and the recent addition of Springer­ Verlag. The pay­per­view service provides immediate access, for a fee, to data and re­ search without a waiting period. Mystery writers honor BGSU library The Mystery Writers of America honored Bowling Green State University on April 29 at the 58th Annual Edgar Awards. The Raven Award for “commitment to preserve mystery fiction through a formidable and constantly growing collection of detective mystery nov­ els and manuscripts” was bestowed upon the Ray and Pat Browne Library for Popular Cul­ ture Studies. Bowling Green is often called the birthplace of popular culture studies. The library’s mystery­detective fi ction col­ lection contains the works of all major au­ thors in the genre, including classic sleuth stories, hardboiled private eye novels, and spy thrillers. Unique serial resources include 8,500 pulp magazines, which fi rst published stories by such writers as Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler. A sampling of detective novels from the Ray and Pat Browne Library for Popular Culture Studies at Bowling Green State University. Corrections In the April 2004 issue, two nominating com­ mittee chairs listed on page 216 were incor­ rect. The Asian, African and Middle Eastern contact is Yue Li, yueli@mail.ufl ib.ufl .edu; the African American Studies librarian con­ tact is Lisa Pillow, lpillow@uic.edu. In the March 2004 issue, a photo credit was mistakenly omitted from the News from the Field column. The photo of the ACRL/AASL Presidential Report on Infor­ mation Literacy 15th Anniversary Celebra­ tion on page 121 was taken by Y. Diana Wu, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Library, San Jose State University. The editors regret the errors. C&RL News  May 2004 / 249 mailto:lpillow@uic.edu mailto:yueli@mail.ufl Columbia U. launches John Howard Griffi n exhibit An exhibition titled The Intrinsic Other: The Life of John Howard Griffi n is on display in the Kempner Gallery of Columbia Universi­ ty’s Rare Book and Manuscript Library. Born in 1920, Griffin became famous as a novel­ ist, journalist, humanitarian, and social critic, best known for his book, Black Like Me. The exhibition, which will be on display through July 2 and is open to the public, includes portions of Griffin’s diary, letters, manu­ scripts, photographs, journals, and books spanning his career. Harvard developing Women Working online project Harvard University Library is working on a project to digitize some of the university’s re­ sources on the topic of “Women Working in the United States, 1870–1930.” A Beta Web site has been developed to distribute the work that his been done to date to the larger scholarly community (ocp.hul.harvard.edu /ww/). The Beta site provides access to more than 200 digitized books and manuscripts. Feedback is appreciated as the library works to improve the usability of the site. “Women Working” is part of Harvard’s Open Collections Program. The goal of the program is to increase the availability and use of historical resources for teaching, learning, and research by digitizing selected resources in broad topic areas and provide access to them via the Web. Thomson ISI reports on impact of open access Thomson ISI has reported that a signifi cant number of open access journals meet the company’s selection criteria, which ensures that only the highest­quality content is in­ dexed. Of the 8,700 selected journals cur­ rently covered in Thomson’s Web of Sci­ ence, 191 are open access journals. While small in comparison to the total number of journals indexed in the product, the number is significant in terms of progress made by the open access movement. Thomson recently conducted a study of the overall performance of open access jour­ nals. Using ISI citation metrics (for example, impact factor and cited half life) the study focused on whether open access journals perform differently from other journals in their respective fields. Initial fi ndings indi­ cate that there was no discernible difference in terms of citation impact of frequency of citation. The full paper is available at www. isinet.com/oaj.  Register by May 21, 2004, for ACRL Preconferences in Orlando Keep up to date with the latest developments in information commons planning, informa­ tion literacy, and scholarly communication. The deadline to register is May 21, 2004. Registration materials are available online at www.ala.org/ala/eventsandconferencesb /annual/an2004/registration.htm. • Information Commons: Nuts & Bolts Planning During this full­day preconference, Infor­ mation Commons (IC) leaders will provide nuts and bolts instruction for early­state IC planners. Increase your understanding of IC planning, implementation, and assessment is­ sues. Return to your institution with increased clarity of IC problems and possible solutions, as well as practical guidelines and preliminary planning and implementation. • Information Literacy: Time for a Com­ prehensive Plan Using a workbook created by the precon­ ference presenters, attendees will be guided through the process of creating a comprehen­ sive plan for information literacy. Learn how to identify essential elements in constructing a comprehensive plan and discover how to apply those elements to build a successful long­term information literacy plan. Leave the session with an outline and draft plan for your home institution. • Scholarly Communications 101 Receive an overview of the schol­ arly communication landscape from ACRL members who are experts on scholarly communication issues. Become fl uent with scholarly communication issues and trends, and position yourself to participate in cam­ pus communications programs and other advocacy efforts. Complete details for these preconfer­ ences are online at www.ala.org/acrl/events. Questions? Contact acrl@ala.org. 250 / C&RL News  May 2004 mailto:acrl@ala.org www.ala.org/acrl/events www.ala.org/ala/eventsandconferencesb http:ocp.hul.harvard.edu