ACRL News Issue (B) of College & Research Libraries 52 / C&RL News News from the Field Acquisitions • Houghton Library o f Harvard University has purchased the complete journals o f John Cheever, excerpts from which have been pub­ lished by The New Yorker in a separate arrange­ ment with the late writer s children, Susan and Ben Cheever. According to Rodney Dennis, curator of manuscripts in the Harvard College Library, the journals are so beautiful as to discourage people who read them from keeping journals of their own. The journals consist o f some 3 0 volumes o f singlespaced typewritten pages, composed over the course o f Cheever’s adult life. The New Yorker plans to publish additional excerpts, but the jour­ nals in the Houghton Library are sealed for 10 years. • The Library o f Congress has acquired a collection consisting o f approximately 5,000 pre- Revolutionary 78 rpm records manufactured in Russia, chiefly from 1899 to 1917. Fewer than 5% o f the recordings are available anywhere else in the United States, and much o f the material is ex­ tremely rare, even within the Soviet Union. The collection has come to the library over the last few years in installments from Joel Berger, who as­ sembled it, beginning in the mid-1960s, from pri­ vate sources, European collections, and visits to the Soviet Union. About 10,000 vocal perform­ ances are represented in the Berger Collection, in­ cluding examples of opera, art songs, traditional and Gypsy romances, liturgical music, patriotic songs, and ethnic and popular materials. The col­ lection includes the complete recordings o f some o f the greatest artists. In addition, there are 150 original and photocopied Russian music catalogs and more than 100 photographs and postcards of early Russian vocalists and musicians that Berger collected. • University o f Manitoba Archives in Win- nipeg has been selected by United Grain Growers Ltd. as a depository for its corporate archives. These papers are said to represent a tremendous contribution to the history o f Canada, especially the Canadian prairies. • Washington University in St. Louis has inherited the papers o f the American poet May Swenson, who died in D ecember 1989. The Li­ braries began collecting Swenson’s work in 1964 and hold a complete run of her publications and many o f her poetry worksheets, other manuscripts, and correspondence, including an extensive se­ quence o f letters with poet Elizabeth Bishop. The newly acquired material will complete the picture researchers will have of Swenson’s remarkable writing and publishing career. Swenson’s work was honored with numerous awards. She was elected to the National Institute of Arts and Letters in 1970 and became a chancellor o f the Academy of Ameri­ can Poets in 1980. Grants • Academy o f Natural Sciences, Philadel- phia, has received a grant o f up to $147,876 from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission for a project to contribute approxi­ mately 30,000 name authority records to the Li­ brary o f Congress Name Authority File. The proj­ ect is being conducted by the Philadelphia Area Consortium o f Special Collections Libraries. • AMIGOS Bibliographic Council, Inc., is using a $160,000 grant from the National Endow­ ment for the Humanities to develop a preservation service that will provide information, training, and consultation to libraries and archives in Arizona, Arkansas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas. AMIGOS’ new preservation service is expected to serve as a catalyst to subregional and state-based preservation planning initiatives in the southwest. • Boston Library Consortium has received an LSCA grant o f $119,000 to develop a telecom­ munications system linking computers in homes and offices with computers in the Boston Public Library, the State Library o f Massachusetts, Bos­ ton College, Boston University, Brandeis, MIT' Northeastern, Tufts, Wellesley College, and the University o f Massachusetts at Amherst and Bos­ ton. In addition to online catalog information, a “table of contents” service will be available, alerting searchers to articles in about 10,000 journals in hundreds o f subject areas. • Duke University Library must match on a three-to-one basis a challenge grant o f $100,000 from the J. Walter Thompson Company to create Jan u ary 1991 / 53 an endowment for the J. W alter Thompson Com­ pany Archives. In 1987, the advertising agency gave Duke the corporate archives and $100,000 to support the initial archival work to process the materials. It is, according to University Librarian Jerry D . Campbell, the single most complete and informative corporate record o f the history o f mod­ em advertising and contains over 3 million items. • F o lg er Shakespeare L ibrary in Washing- ton received $25,000 from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation for a retrospective exhibition of important recent acquisitions. • Franklin P ierce College in Rindge. New Hampshire, has been awarded $380,000 from the Davis Educational Foundation for renovation o f the library. • Massehusetts B oard o f L ibrary Commis- sioners, Nebraska Library Commission, and North Carolina Preservation Consortium have received the first N EH grants in a new category that supports the development o f comprehensive statewide preservation plans. • Miami University L ibraries. Oxford. Ohio have been awarded $64,333 by the U.S. Depart­ ment o f Education under the Strengthening R e­ search Library Resources Program, to fund the first year o f a project to support the A.W. Kuchler Vegetation Map C ollection. This collection o f 2,000 maps and 5 0 0 books and booklets accurately represents every type o f natural vegetation and covers every country o f the world. After original cataloging records are created, they will be added simultaneously to O C L C and the local online cata­ log. At the end o f the project, MARC records will be provided for the R LIN database. Alternative forms o f access such as color microfiche and digital mapping are also being considered. • New York Public L ibrary has received $5 million from Dorothy and Lewis Cullman for the Performing Arts Research C enter at Lincoln C en­ ter. The funds will support staff positions, endow the Lewis and Dorothy Cullman Curator for T h e­ atre, and support hours for public service. • Newberry Library. Chicago, has received $25,000 for its public-outreach concert series from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. • North C arolina State University. Raleigh. has received a U.S. Department o f Education Title II-D grant o f $107,017 to help make agricultural information more accessible and more up-to-date for researchers throughout the world. The grant will be used to expand a current research project with the National Agricultural Library to test the transmission o f digitized documents. The project uses electronic scanning o f documents to convert printed material into electronic images that can be transmitted by local and national networks. • Shorter College. Rome. Georgia has re- ceived a grant o f up to $42,855 from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission to preserve and make available historical records from northwest Georgia. • Southeastern L ibrary Network. In c.. re- ceived over $1.25 million from the National E n ­ dowment for the Humanities to microfilm more than 18,000 brittle books and serials held by 12 institutions in six southeastern states. • University o f California Preservation Pro- gram has received a precedent-setting grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities for the training o f preservation technicians on a sys­ temwide basis. The training will focus on repair techniques for the circulating collections. Three different groups o f five persons each will attend a three-session training program at UC Berkeley from O ctober 1990 through May 1991. Each ses­ sion lasts one week. • University o f Southern California. Los Angeles, has received $1 million from the Fletcher Jones Foundation to support construction o f the new Teaching Library on the University Park campus. T h e grant will establish the Fletch er Jones Foundation New Technology Demonstration and Evaluation Center, a specialized research, devel­ opment, testing and evaluation area to b e located in the library. • V irg in ia C o m m o n w ealth U n iv ersity . Richm ond has been awarded $ 1 0 0 ,0 0 0 to be shared by the University Library Services’ Special Collections and Archives D epartm ent and the C enter for Educational Development and R e ­ sources at VCU. The Ford Foundation grant funds a two-year project to identify, acquire, and use archival materials that support the study o f cultural diversity. A Multicultural Resources Database, comprised o f b rie f information about persons and organizations in central Virginia, will be developed and made available to researchers. This database will also note holdings in organized archives such as those in the State Library and the Virginia Histori­ cal Society. Within the Richmond metropolitan area relevant personal papers and organizational records will be located and, i f possible, accessioned or microfilmed. • T he College o f William and Mary’s Earl Gregg Swem Library, Williamsburg, Virginia has received a $42,116 gran t' from the U.S. Depart­ m ent o f Education under its Strengthening R e­ search Library Resources program. T he yearlong grant is for cataloging the college’s manuscript collections. Access to more than 1,000 manuscript collections will becom e available in both the li­ brary’s online public access catalog and O C LC . • The W interthu r Museum. Delaware has received $130,000 from the Pew Charitable Tm sts to establish a library conservation laboratory and expand the museum’s art conservation program to include library and archives preservation. The 3- 54 / C&RL News year grant enables Winterthur to establish a hands- on training facility where students and interns can acquire the skills and training needed for a career in library conservation. The training will be incopo- rated into the Winterthur-University o f Delaware Art Conservation Program, a 3-year course o f study leading to an MS. In addition, internships will be available for individuals outside the program who want to pursue a career in library and archives conservation. News notes • The Library o f Congress has extended two popular exhibits currently on display in the James Madison Memorial Building, 101 Independence Avenue, S.E . “My Dear W ife: Letters from Mem­ bers o f Congress to Their Spouses, 1791—1944” will remain on view through March 30, 1991. Twenty- one members o f Congress— and their wives— are featured in the exhibition of letters, drawn entirely from the collections o f the Library o f Congress Manuscript Division. The other popular exhibition, “A World o f Names,” which celebrates the centen­ nial o f the U.S. Board on Geographic Names, will continue in the Madison Gallery through July 27, 1991. Using rare maps, explorers’ journals, musical scores, government reports and case files, books, posters, prints, photographs, and artifacts, “A World o f Names” explores four main themes: the romance o f names; the process by which names are applied to the landscape; conflicts in the selection of new names; and how names are standardized through the U.S. Board on Geographic Names. • O regon State University, Corvallis has named Melvin R. George, director o f libraries, the first holder o f the Donald and Delpha Campbell Director o f Libraries endowed chair at OSU. The chair has been established with $1.6 million desig­ nated by the OSU Foundation from a trust be­ queathed by Donald N. and Delpha M. Campbell of Montrose, California. Under a new program, the Oregon State Board o f Higher Education will match $1.5 million o f the gift for this endowed chair, creating a total endowment pool o f more than $3 million. Part o f the annual earnings from the endowment will be used to pay the director s salary, while other funds will be available to use in expanding collections and staff and acquiring new technology. • Rosary College Graduate School o f Li- brary and Information Science presented the first Sr. Anne Schaudenecker Memorial Lecture on Decem ber 7. Robert Maloy, former director of the Smithsonian Institute Libraries and current di­ rector o f the Bridwell Library, Perkins School of Theology at Southern Methodist University, spoke on “Seeking Continuities: Humanities and Librari­ anship.” The program was in memory o f Sister Schaudenecker, known to many as Sister Reynold- ine, who died Decem ber 7 ,1 9 8 9 . She taught at the Rosary G SL IS for many years, before her retire­ ment in 1972, and also served as editor o f the Catholic Library Association Booklist. • At the State University o f New York at Buffalo, members o f the Law Library staff are im­ plementing a service excellence strategy learned in a workshop on “Knowing the Mission, Planning, and Organization” sponsored by the University at Buffalo personnel department. The entire staff de­ cided to implement an “action plan” to investigate thoroughly the functional relationships between departments within the library. Based on a para­ digm from the workshop, the plan involved every member o f the staff and created an opportunity for increased communication among all levels o f staff throughout the library. Each department devel­ oped a plan with the following elements: 1) Identify 3 aspects o f service that are currently working well between your department and th e ___ department. 2) Identify 6 ways in which you can positively reinforce these. 3) Identify 3 aspects o f service which are not currently working well between your department and t h e _____ department. 4) Identify Academic librarians urged to adopt ALA Code o f Ethics A CRL and the ALA Professional Ethics Committee have joined efforts in urging aca­ demic librarians to adopt ALA’s Code o f Ethics. A joint letter from ACRL president Barbara J. Ford and ALA Professional Ethics Commit­ tee chair Anne Marie Allison will be published in College and Research Libraries News. The Code o f Ethics states librarians must: “provide the highest level o f service through ap­ propriate and usefully organized collections, fair and equitable circulation and service poli­ cies, and skillful, accurate, unbiased, and cour­ teous responses to all requests for assistance; resist all efforts by groups or individuals to censor library materials; protect each user’s right to privacy with respect to information sought or received, and materials consulted, borrowed or acquired; adhere to the principle o f due process and equality o f opportunity in peer relationships and personnel actions; dis­ tinguish clearly in their actions and statements between their personal philosophies and atti­ tudes and those o f an institution or professional body; and avoid situations in which personal interest might be served or financial benefits gained at the expense o f library users, col­ leagues or the employing institution.” January 1991 / 55 6 ways in which you can affect these positively. The efforts o f each department were followed by staff meetings, where problems were discussed and strategies for improvement were developed. The results were tangible, focusing most importantly on a sustained increase in communication between departments. Some specific results are: 1) Devel­ opment o f enhanced training programs for librari­ ans and student assistants. 2) Development and presentation o f a legal research course for law students, in which many staff members participate. 3) Establishment of a formal system for notifying circulation about missing books. 4) A subscription to the Buffalo News for the staff lounge. 5) More frequent full staff meetings. 6) Occasional social events open to all library staff. 7) Staff suggestion book. • At Texas A & M University, Galveston, public services librarian Diane Watson has learned that having a star guest makes it easier to get media coverage. Diane started out with the guest list for commencement exercises and then consulted administrators, department heads, university em­ ployees who had lived in the community for a long time, and media representatives for suggestions about whom to invite. Diane feels that contributing Diane is shown here with h er star guest, Admiral Alan Shepard, fo r m e r astronaut and the first American in space, at a reception to honor Texas A & M faculty f o r their publications and projects. to the guest list made people feel they were partici­ pating in planning the reception and made them more supportive o f the event. Some o f the guests from the community knew Alan Shepard and asked him to attend the reception. • At the University o f Arizona, Tucson, infor- mation literacy is off and running. Reference li­ brarian Lois Olsrud can prove it. The athletic de­ partment at UA invited Lois to accompany the football team as their guest (all expenses paid) when the players flew to Oregon State for a game last fall. Lois reports that on the flight the players had to take exams that had questions like: “What is your route on 69 Blaze Dart?” and “What does ‘F ’ do on Ram 130 ↔ 60?” Presumably the answers to these inquiries cannot be found in the UA Librar­ ies, but head football coach Dick Tomey brings his players to the library the second day after they arrive in town. As part o f their first week o f training, the coach comes with them for library orientation. Lois and another librarian divide the players into “offense” and “defense” and give each team a tour o f the library and bibliographic instruction. • The University o f California, B erkeley’s Chinese Chapter and Foundation o f the Alumni Association made no small plans for its benefit in November. The gala event at I. Magnin on Union Square in San Francisco featured a dinner buffet and dancing, an exhibit o f treasures from the U C B ’s East Asiatic Library, international holiday fashions, and a raffle drawing for prizes that in­ cluded round trip tickets to Hong Kong. Proceeds from the benefit will go to campus programs and activities including scholarships and the East Asi­ atic Library. • The Friends o f the University o f Kansas Po- etry Collection will continue this month their third season of readings by major American poets whose work is somewhat outside the mainstream. A pro­ gram on January 31 will feature Robert Peters of Huntington B each, California. Peters is best known for his series of long “persona poems,” in which he has dramatized the lives and inner con­ flicts o f persons as diverse as King Ludwig of Bavaria, Mother Ann Lee, Arctic explorer Elisha Kane, Cornish pastor Robert Hawker, and Erzebet Bathory, the “Blood Countess” o f Hungary. • At the University o f Illinois, Urbana, the Mothers and th e Dads collaborated to raise $15,000 for a state o f the art career center for the undergraduate library. The two organizations sold $5.00 chances to win a year’s worth o f instate tuition, free instate tuition for a semester, or a pair of university sweatshirts. The money will be used to acquire furniture, video equipment, hardware and software, to be selected with input from the univer­ sity’s Career Development and Placement Office, which will hold career seminars in the library out­ side regular office hours. ■ ■