ACRL News Issue (B) of College & Research Libraries 140 know handled a situation like this by suggesting that all present introduce themselves and de­ scribe their duties. This suggestion relaxed the group and led to the discussion of a number of interesting issues. Now to focus on my second point. What can the interview process tell you about the library? Even before the interview the institution should provide you with materials about the library, the school, and perhaps the city or locale to help you prepare. You should receive: a job description and specifications, a library organization chart, pertinent personnel policies, insurance and re­ tirem ent plans. Potential employers should de­ scribe in writing the conditions of employment that go with a job. If they do not, you may ques­ tion their procedures and their consideration for the important decision you may have to make. Note the kinds of questions you are asked dur­ ing your interview. All should be directly job- related. If you want the job, you may be willing to respond to illegal, personal questions. But be aware that an organization that finds information like this of interest may not be one in which you wish to work. You may be interviewed by the entire staff of the department in which you would be working, or you may be interviewed by only a few top people. The way this is handled may tell you something about the management style of the library. Some people use a stress-inducing interviewing technique. The idea is to see how you handle yourself under pressure. Other interviewers will help you over the rough spots with ego-building friendliness, while they probe for information. Here again, you have an opportunity to see how people in the library operate. To summarize, there are two basic issues in­ volved in interviewing that will help promote your professional survival: preparing for the inter­ view so as to put your best foot forward and using the interview to help you determine whether a given library position would be the best for you. ■■ Continuing Education Career Goals—Achieved through Continuing Education One is tem pted to brand “continuing educa­ tion” a fad because a number of institutions and organizations are now rushing—or being pushed—to embrace the concept. Needless to say, this has come none too early for the library profession and for each of us as individual academic librarians. ALA has begun, just as have other organiza­ tions, to assume a leadership role in continuing education. A Council resolution passed in January calls for the creation of a comprehensive ALA plan for continuing education. It will be interest­ ing to see what the plan will be and how it will be implemented. We academic librarians, like other profession­ als, should be careful, however, that in a frenzied rush to update credentials, to acquire new skills, and to gain new knowledge, we do not simply take any continuing education offering we can get our hands on, just for the sake of participating in continuing education. If we do, we will be dis­ appointed, and the concept of continuing educa­ tion will suffer. We must determine, through individual career goal analysis and commitment, the kind of pro­ gram we each need to fulfill our individual goals. This is an often overlooked but vital step in the whole lifelong learning process. It is only after such self-analysis that the individual will be able to capitalize on the many offerings in increasingly varied formats—including self-directed study (reading, correspondence courses, etc.), telecon­ ferencing, or other programs, in both traditional and nontraditional formats. In other words, all activities undertaken as a part of a career de­ velopm ent program should be goal-oriented. Although many of us may participate in con­ tinuing education in its broadest definition, only a few ever manage to concentrate on and direct our activities and energies toward that career goal. I must stress again that most of us have partici­ pated in haphazard or sporadic education rather than a continuous or ongoing one. Instead of simply having a group of isolated, unplanned, and unintegrated learning experiences, we must move to the point where we can experience sequential modules of learning that will have a continuous and cumulative impact on our individual career development. When this has been achieved, then we can truly fulfill our continuing education obligations.—Robert D. Stueart. Editor’s Note: Robert D. Stueart is dean, Gradu­ ate School o f Library and Information Science at Simmons College. He is a m em ber o f ALA Council’s Standing Committee on Library Edu­ cation and a member o f the Planning Committee fo r the recently held ALA Continuing Education Forum. ■■ Having easy access to review articles is very im port­ ant to librarians and researchers since these articles are among the most useful published. They are a key starting point fo r a thorough literature search. They also enable students to get an overview o f an un­ familiar field and specialists to stay informed about advances at the periphery o f their desciplines. But it's not always easy to find a review article in a specific field. A t least, it wasn't until the Index to Scientific Reviews" — the index which brings review articles in science together in one easy-to-use ref­ erence. ISRTM covers over 30,000 reviews from more than 2,900 of the world's most im portant journals every year. These journals range from agriculture to medi­ cine to the physical, chemical and behavioral sciences. In fact, over 100 disciplines in every area of science are covered. You d o n 't have to go through separate references to find reviews fo r subjects in any o f these areas - they are all in the multidisciplinary ISR. ISR is highly current, keeping you on top o f the latest review articles. It comes out as a soft-bound semi-annual issue, which covers January to June, and a hard-bound annual cumulation. ISR makes it easy to find the review articles you need. Search by authors, title words and phrases, or organi­ zations. Or use the ISR's Citation Index. It lets you start a search with an older publication relevant to your subject, and find more recent reviews which cited it and thus likely to be on the same topic. Learn more about how you can have better access to the review literature. Send today fo r a free brochure which describes ISR and how to use it.