ACRL News Issue (B) of College & Research Libraries


8

L etter to the Editor
Dear Editor,

In an item on the University of Arizona Library 
in the June 1977 issue of College and Research 
Libraries News (page 176), the art history collec­
tions of that library are described with reference 
to those of several other schools—but with no 
mention of a sister institution barely one hundred 
miles away. Arizona State University, located at 
Tempe in the metropolitan area of Phoenix, is a 
much younger institution, having achieved uni­
versity status only in 1958. How ever, it does 
have the largest art history departm ent in the 
state, consisting of ten full-time faculty members 
(five more than at the University of Arizona) and 
offering a total of forty-eight courses in all areas 
of art history. In conjunction with a supportive 
library administration, its faculty has worked ac­
tively to develop a collection for study and re­
search in art history. As a result, the university

library now has 21,000 titles in art and photog
raphy and currently receives 180 serial titles in 
those fields. T he Howe A rchitecture L ibrary 
houses another 15,000 titles, in addition to some 
200 serial titles. O ther important resources are 
those of the slide collection of the D epartment of 
Art, with 160,000 slides, placing it within the top 
tw enty u n iversity facilities of its kind in the 
United States, and the university art collections.

Clearly, the holdings of the Arizona State Uni­
versity Library qualify it for recognition not only 
within the state but also for its significant con­
tribution to the emerging library resources in art 
history in the Southwest—the fastest-growing re­
gion of the country.

W inberta Yao
Art Reference Librarian
Arizona State University, Tempe ■■

ACRL Chapters
•  The A C R L  I o w a  C h a p t e r  (Iowa Library 

Association, College and University Librarians 
Section) held its annual meeting October 21 in 
Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Guest speaker was Barbara 
Evans Markuson, executive director of the In­
diana Cooperative Library Services Authority. 
H er topic was “Considerations in Network Plan­
ning.”

The business meeting included: (1) a vote to 
endorse the “Joint Statement on Faculty Status”;
(2) a report on the past spring workshop and the 
selection of the site for next year’s workshop; (3) 
election of officers; and (4) a recommendation 
made to the I LA executive board that a represen­
tative from the ACRL Iowa chapter participate on 
the planning committee for the forthcoming Gov­
ernor’s Conference on Libraries.

•  The ACRL N e w  Yo r k / O n t a r i o  C h a p t e r  
held its fall m eeting on October 15 at Niagara 
College, Welland, Ontario. Twenty-nine librar­
ians attended the one-day session, representing 
university, college, and research libraries.

The theme, “Economic Backlash: Its Implica­
tions for Libraries,” focused on an ACRL Eastern 
New York C h a p te r v ideotape e n title d  “ Re­
trenchment In Higher Education: Implications for 
Libraries.”

Following the morning’s videotape presenta­
tion, four guest panelists spoke on specific areas 
being affected by budgetary constraints in the li­
brary field:

John Black, associate librarian, McLaughlin Li­
brary, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, 
spoke on “Reader Services”;

Tom' Drynan, chief librarian, Mohawk College 
of Applied Arts and Technology Library, Hamil­
ton, Ontario, discussed “Technical Services”;

H e n d rick  E delm an, assistant d ire c to r, d e ­
velopment of collections, Cornell Unversity Li­
braries, Ithaca, New York, talked on “Collec­
tions”; and

Robin M urray, d ire c to r, Scholes L ibrary, 
Alfred University— New York State College of 
Ceramics, Alfred, New York, talked on “Adminis­
tration.”

The afternoon session was given to group dis­
cussion under the leadership of the four panelists. 
An informal exchange of common problems and 
possible solutions provided a stimulating atmos­
phere for the participants.

•  The ACRL E a s t e r n  N e w  Yo r k  C h a p t e r  
was formed in the fall of 1975 and within two 
years has become well established. The chapter’s 
fell workshop was held at the Colgate University 
Library in Hamilton, New York, on September
30, 1977.

The meeting focused on six important topics of 
librarianship: copyright, closing the card catalog, 
collection development, library budgeting, library 
instruction, and OCLC for reader services. The 
format of the meeting was to have round table 
discussions on these topics in the context of the



9

problems and challenges that librarians face to­
day.

M adeleine Cohen Oakley of Cornell University 
and Karen W ittenborg of the State University of 
New York (SUNY) at Albany led the “copyright” 
discussion group. The consequences of the new 
copyright law, which will go into effect in Janu­
ary, were discussed, and participants considered 
the impact of the new copyright rules on interli­
brary loan and reserve materials. The feeling of 
the group was that there would be some confu­
sion in the beginning b u t that once librarians, 
professors, and stu d e n ts get used to th e  new 
copyright law, th ere may not be as many prob­
lems as are now foreseen.

The “closing the card catalog” discussion group 
was led by L inda W est of C ornell U niversity. 
T here appears to be much interest, in large li­
braries, at least, in closing th e ir card catalogs. 
One reason is that the Library of Congress will 
close its catalog in January 1980. O ther reasons 
include the space consumption and size of exist­
ing card catalogs. It was an interesting discussion 
in which many alternatives, such as on-line sys­
tems, book catalogs and supplements, com puter 
output, and microforms, w ere discussed. Many 
large libraries are thinking along these lines, and 
m ost changes will be m ade in the 1980s. The 
group also discussed how such closing would af­
fect service patterns in libraries, staffing, budget­
ing, and the attendant problems of serials publi­
cations and nonrom an alphabets. O ne question 
asked was: How much can we afford to depend 
on m odern technology in view  o f th e  energy 
crisis?

The “collection developm ent” group, led by 
Mary Beilby of SUNY Cortland, talked about the 
roles of reference librarians, bibliographers, ac­
quisition librarians, and faculty m em bers in col­
lection d e v elo p m en t. Most of th e  p a rticipants 
agreed that, d ue to the tight m oney situation, 
subject specialists will play a greater role in the 
developm ent and weeding of collections in the fu­
ture.

Library budgeting is a problem  for many li­
brary directors because libraries never seem to get 
their fair share of institutions’ budgets. W henever 
there is a budget cut, the library is often the first 
d e p a r tm e n t to suffer. V arious b u d g e tin g  
strategies w ere discussed. T he participants felt 
th at lib ra ry  b u d g e ts  d e p e n d  a g re a t d e al on 
budget presentation, budget creditability, and li­
brarians’ abilities to form strong interpersonal re­
lations betw een themselves and the faculty and 
administration. Politics, of course, is always an 
im portant factor. This round table was led by 
Mahlon Peterson from St. Lawrence University 
in Canton, New York.

Jacquelyn Morris of SUNY Forestry and Anne 
Roberts of SUNY Albany were the leaders for the 
“library instruction” group. The discussion cen­
tered  mainly on th e  c red it course, with some

em phasis on c o urse-related instruction. It was 
m entioned that faculty backing and good planning 
are very im portant to successful programs in li­
brary instruction. Though there are problem s in­
volved in creating effective programs, the feeling 
was th at it is essential for every in stitution to 
have an instruction program for the benefit of 
students and faculty.

OCLC is a good b ut expensive tool at this time 
to use in reader services. It seem ed too early to 
judge the success of the system in this area, as 
only a few lib raries have term inals for re ad e r 
services. T h e s e  term in als are also lim ite d  by 
OCLC’s c u rre n t capabilities: no subject access, 
lim ite d  a u th o r  access, lim ite d  w e e k e n d  
availability, etc. The participants at this session, 
led by Jane E. Roberts of SUNY C entral Admin­
istration, Albany, concluded that, though OCLC 
is a com pact tool and very helpful and fast in 
searching for books, conference proceedings, and 
government documents and in providing locations 
for these materials for interlibrary loan and other 
purposes, it still cannot replace a reference libra­
rian.

This workshop was attended by more than 125 
librarians. Many participants have expressed the 
need for m ore meetings of this kind.— Ravindra 
N. Sharma, Colgate University ■■