June 1999 Newsletter Highlights
(from vol. 17, no. 2,
June 1999)
1999-2000
ELECTIONS RESULTS
BOARD MEETING
HIGHLIGHTS, including COMMITTEE CHAIRS
and SURVEY RESULTS
ALAO SUPPORTS ARCHIVES WEEK WITH $200
FOR POSTER
DUES INCREASE UNDER CONSIDERATION
SILVER JUBILEE
CONFERENCE UPDATE
LEGISLATIVE
ADVOCATE REPORT FROM WASHINGTON
ACRL
NATIONAL CONFERENCE REPORT
ARCHIVES WEEK WILL
CELEBRATE EDUCATION IN OHIO
1999-2000 ALAO
Elections Results
Congratulations to our newly elected
ALAO Executive Board Officers:
Vice President/President Elect
- Carolyn
Radcliff, Kent State
University
Membership Chair/Treasurer Elect
- Lisa Santucci, Miami
University
Board Members at Large
Ximena Chrisagis, Wright
State University
David Lincove, Ohio State
University
Susan Scott, Denison
University
The members of the Nominating Committee
appreciate all of the candidates who
agreed to run for office. Our sincere
thanks to each of you! ALAO succeeds
through active member participation such
as yours. We also thank the ALAO members
who took time to vote; 256 valid ballots
were received this year.
New officers and board members begin
their service at the Leadership Retreat,
held on June 14-15, 1999.
Sherri Edwards
1998/1999 Past President and Nominations
Committee Chair
University of Akron
1998-99 President's
Report - Mary S. Konkel, University of
Akron
EXECUTIVE BOARD ACTIONS
The ALAO Executive Board met April 22nd
at Ohionet. A wholehearted thank you to
Ohionet for graciously allowing us to use
their meeting space through this year and
to Pam Rossman for always making our
accommodations just right and always
picking the "good" doughnuts for us.
Items of business included:
1) results of the ALAO election,
2) update on the 1999 Annual Conference
ALAO@25: Celebrating our Past, Claiming
our Future, November 13th at the
Fawcett Center in Columbus,
3) update on the Leadership Retreat June
14-15 at the Honey Run Inn in
Millersburg,
4) presentation of the 1999/2000 draft
budget,
5) discussion of the ALAO Minority
Scholarship and its possible tie in with
ALA's
Spectrum Initiative,
6) results of the membership survey,
7) presentation of drafts of the
1999/00-2001/02 Strategic Plan and
corresponding Objectives and Directions
for 1999/2000,
8) proposed constitutional amendments,
9) approval of $200 ALAO sponsorship to
the Society
of Ohio Archivists in support of
Archives Week, and
10) officer, committee, and liaison
reports.
In addition to your new officers and
Board members, the following
committee
chair appointments have been made:
Budget and Planning Committee -
Elys Kettling
Communications Review Committee -
Mary Konkel
Human Diversity Committee - Gladys
Smiley Bell
Professional Development Committee
- Gail Richmond
Program Committee - Carolyn
Radcliff
Public Relations Committee - Sherri
Edwards
Research and Publications Committee
- John Burke
AND THE SURVEY
SAID.....
In February, an activities survey and
membership profile was mailed to the ALAO
membership (both current members and those
who hadn't renewed to date). The 201
survey responses we received will assist
us in preparing the 1999/2002 ALAO
Strategic Plan, to be finalized at the
annual Board leadership retreat in June
and published in a subsequent newsletter.
The following are selected survey
highlights.
According to survey respondents, the
top 5 priority activities for ALAO are: 1)
sponsoring conferences and workshops, 2)
publishing a newsletter, 3) providing
information to state and federal
legislators and other appropriate
agencies/offices related to academic
librarianship, 4) maintaining subject and
special interest groups, and 5)
maintaining a Web site for ALAO
information.
Survey respondents all have ready
access to email and the Web. More than
half of those responding work in public, 4
year institutions with either fewer than
2,500 students, or, more than 10,000
students. The years in the library field
range from 1 to 40 years, with 10, 20, and
25 years receiving the highest tallies.
Years as an ALAO member range from 1 to 24
including a charter member, with 1 and 10
years receiving the highest tallies. Half
of survey respondents are also ACRL
members.
Tallies for members' primary work
responsibility:
- 65 Administration
- 74 Bibliographic Instruction
- 122 Public Services
- 56 Technical Services
- 8 Archives and Special
Collections
- 75 Collection Management
- 26 Systems and Automation
- 7 Preservation/Conservation
2/3rds of respondents receive partial
financial support and full release time
for staff development activities; are
female; and are 40 years or older.
Thank you to all who took the time to
respond to this survey. We needed your
input! Thank you for sharing your
interests, voicing your concerns, and
giving us ideas on how we can better meet
your needs. Your responses will help shape
the organization's future activities, and
guide us in fulfilling ALAO's mission to
advance academic libraries in Ohio.
Mary S. Konkel - President (University
of Akron)
ALAO
CONTRIBUTES $200 IN SUPPORT OF ARCHIVES
WEEK
ALAO is supporting Archives Week with a
$200 contribution towards the publication
of the annual Archives Week poster which
will be posted in schools, colleges, and
universities throughout the state,
celebrating the program theme and inviting
interested parties to explore their local
and regional archives
Since 1993 the Society
of Ohio Archivists (SOA) has held an
annual Archives Week in Ohio program. The
purpose of the program is 1) to increase
the general public's awareness of archival
materials and archival repositories, 2) to
focus upon materials with a broad thematic
appeal 3) to inspire persons and
organizations with records of enduring
value to preserve these materials properly
for posterity, and 4) to strengthen ties
with regular users and to introduce new
and potential users to archival
repositories and the documentary heritage
to be found there. As
noted by George Bain, this year's theme is
"Celebrating Education in Ohio"
scheduled for October 17-23, 1999.
MEMBERSHIP
DUES INCREASE
We think ALAO is one of the best
bargains in town. For only $12 a year, we
have been offering you quality conferences
and workshops, new ways of communicating
via the ALAO Web site and Listserv, in
addition to a topnotch Newsletter. We have
broadened our horizons and made
legislative advocacy a priority. We have
been able to offer research grants,
continuing education support and
scholarships and have supported other
worthwhile endeavors such as Leadership
2000. Based on our membership survey this
year, you want us to continue these fine
efforts. You have also indicated that you
would like ALAO to offer additional
scholarships and conference waivers and
extend our outreach and collaboration in
the legislative arena, and with ACRL and
other organizations. Your top priority is
to maintain the quality programming we
have been offering through our annual
conference and interest group workshops
throughout the year.
Our current budget, which is based on
membership dues will be unable to handle
these activities without additional
support. The Executive Board has been
discussing a new dues structure and will
be making its decision during the annual
Board leadership in June. Recommendations
have included a stratified dues structure
or an across the board increase, ranging
from $15 to $20 which could net us an
additional $4,000 in the budget. Even at
$20 a year, we think ALAO will remain one
of the best bargains in town. The increase
in membership dues would not go into
effect until January of 2000 when the new
membership year begins. Stay tuned for
further information.
SILVER JUBILEE
CONFERENCE UPDATE
Jerome Conley
1999-20 President - Ohio Univeristy
The Program Committee and I continue to
work on the Silver Jubilee Conference, to
be held November 12, 1999. We are proud to
announce our Web site. Visit http://www.uakron.edu/scilib/alao/
regularly for breaking news, ongoing
updates and general conference
information.
Tentative Schedule: All conferees will
begin their day with an expert panel. This
panel will discuss the future of
Information Technology. We have confirmed
two dynamic panelists and are waiting for
confirmation from additional panelists.
Participants will be able to stay for
further discussion after the panel or
choose from three different tracks or
themes. The tracks include:
1. You and your job: Presentations in
this track will discuss the changing roles
and positions in the library
profession.
2. Technobattle: This track will
discuss issues surrounding the impact of
technology and how individuals are using
it in their jobs or libraries.
3. It is the 21st century: Do You Know
Where Your Users Are?: This track will
focus on the impact of distance education
and learning.
The committee is also working with the
Support Staff Interest Group to bring in a
speaker to deliver a talk during the
Support Staff I.G. Business Meeting. Final
plans are being worked out. More details
will follow in the September
newsletter.
In addition, we have examined the
evaluations from the past five conferences
and are attempting to build upon the
positive comments and hoping to eliminate
the negative ones. We have met with
representatives from the Fawcett Center
and they are working with us to host a
successful conference.
Finally, I assume the Presidency of
ALAO on June 15th at the Annual Leadership
Retreat. I promise to work very hard to
build upon the wonderful foundation that
has been established by ALAO's fantastic
membership and my predecessors. During its
25 years of existence, ALAO has been and
continues to be open to all staff members.
I will work hard to build upon that
tradition and to institute news ones.
Thank you for your continued
support.
ALAO MEMBERS
PARTICIPATE IN ALA'S NATIONAL LIBRARY
LEGISLATIVE DAY
Stan Planton - Ohio
University-Chillicothe
ALAO Legislative Advocate
Filtering, funding, government
publications, digital record-keeping,
copyright, the Internet, LSTA, ESEA, DMCA,
E-rate, Higher Education Act, the 2000
Budget -- these were among the topics
assigned by ALA's Washington Office staff
to amateur lobbyists Patricia Walker and
Stanley Planton during the 25th Annual
National Library Legislative Day in
Washington, D.C.
Monday, May 3, was spent in intensive
background briefings; hundreds of
librarians, representing a wide range of
institutions, organizational affiliations
and regions, met at the Holiday Inn on the
Hill to learn as much as possible about
the issues we were expected to discuss
with legislators the next day. With 500
librarians present, 250 of them attending
Legislative Day for the first time, the
logistics of bringing everyone up to speed
on library legislative issues at the
national level were challenging in
themselves. Session followed session,
and an ACRL-sponsored lunch for academic
librarians to discuss intellectual
property and copyright offered a break in
locale, if not in intensity. Throughout
the day, participants could be seen
clutching sheaves of brightly-colored
briefing papers, shuffling through the
stack to find the appropriate
documentation for each session topic ("now
look at the
orange/teal/purple/yellow… sheet" was
a typical instruction to session
participants). The day began to resemble
a massive study session before an exam, as
librarians compared notes and reviewed
discussion strategies ("what will you say
if he/she asks...?"). The Monday warm-up
was certainly impressive, with a nearly
overwhelming range of detail presented,
but the final exam -- the interviews with
our assigned legislators -- was
Tuesday.
Our Ohio delegation met early Tuesday
morning for a final strategy session over
breakfast. Pat Walker and I were told
that Senator Mike Dewine would be holding
a coffee meeting with constituents in a
Senate office building, so we joined other
Ohio librarians to hike over and pay him a
visit. We were well received by Senator
Dewine and his staff and did a bit of
ad-hoc lobbying on behalf of library
causes. This courteous reception served
to encourage us for our later scheduled
meetings with other legislators.
My 12:30 p.m. appointment with
Representative Ted Strickland became a
lunch meeting including Congressional
staff members Carol Steele and John
Haseley. Over lunch in a Capital Hill
dining room we discussed libraries,
educational funding, distance education,
copyright, filtering, and the Internet. I
presented Ms. Steele with the package of
handouts that had been given to me for
distribution to Congressional aides.
Following lunch, we walked back to the
Cannon building so I could meet more of
Representative Strickland's staff.
Meanwhile, Pat Walker was having very
productive meetings with members and staff
from two congressional offices;
Representative Dave Hobson, Ohio 7th
District, and Representative Tony Hall,
Ohio 3rd District. Database protection
legislation and support for the Federal
Depository Library Program were dominant
themes in both discussions. After library
business was concluded, it was a special
treat for Pat to discuss with Hall his
recent trip to Macedonia and his views of
the Kosovo crisis.
After farewells, it was time to pack up
suitcases, get on the Metro to the
airport, and catch the plane back to Ohio.
Two busy, exciting, and rewarding days
being an amateur lobbyist were ending.
Would I go to Washington, D.C. again for
Library Legislative Day? Of course! My
only regret is that our time in Washington
was so brief.
ACRL GOES TO
DETROIT: REPORT ON THE 9TH NATIONAL
CONFERENCE
Record numbers of librarians from
across the country braved the erratic
spring weather of Detroit to attend
ACRL's
9th National Conference, Racing Toward
Tomorrow, April 8-11. Speakers and
panelists focused on the challenges in our
future posed by changes in academic
publishing and scholarly communication, by
the growth of distance education and its
impact on higher education, and by the
need to strengthen efforts to integrate
information literacy and technology into
the curriculum. Underlying many of these
issues is the special challenge involved
in attempts to update copyright law for
the digital age, a subject that provided a
lively kick-off for the conference.
A spectacular hotel fire in Windsor,
directly across the river from the
convention center, provided an unintended
prelude to the opening event, a debate
over copyright and fair use between James
Neal of Johns Hopkins University and Pat
Schroeder of the Association of American
Publishers. Though lively at times, the
debate did not approach the fire in terms
of heat and light. While Schroeder
worried about librarians digitizing
everything in sight and putting it on the
Internet with free access for all, Neal
firmly emphasized that users have fair use
rights in a digital environment as they do
in the print world. While it seemed as
though the debaters were not in the same
game, let alone the same playing field, it
did seem clear that librarians were ready
to accept Schroeder's invitation to engage
in further discussions with publishers for
their mutual benefit.
Michael Rosenzweig, editor of Evolutionary
Ecology Research offered the
keynote session at the closing of the
conference. His emotionally charged talk,
Reclaiming
What We Own: Expanding Competition in
Scholarly Publishing was
enthusiastically received as hundreds of
listeners rose as one in an extended
standing ovation. Particularly noteworthy
was Prof. Rosenzweig's plea that
librarians "get the word out"
[regarding SPARC
and other publishing alternatives] to
editors of print journals owned by
commercial publishers, and an exhortation
to SPARC
to provide support to those editors unable
to envision a means to change.
Conference offerings included a
"conference within a conference" where
librarians and other educators came
together to develop an action plan to
enhance student learning. Another
innovation, very popular with vendors, was
the setting of poster sessions with
refreshments among the exhibits. Invited
speakers included a university president
(Manual Pacheco, University of Missouri)
discussing the fundamental changes in
higher education, Clifford Lynch
discussing the role of the research
library in the changing environment of
scholarly communication, and Leigh
Estabrook (University of Illinois)
describing innovative approaches to
distance education. Notable among ALAO
attendees were board members Beth Burns,
Alison Ricker, and Carolyn Radcliff who
all gave presentations at the
conference.
A web broadcast of the debate,
abstracts, and full text of the invited
papers are available at the ACRL
Web site . ACRL's next national
conference will be held in Denver, March
15-18, 2001. See you there!
Patricia O. Walker -- ACRL Liaison
(Wright State University)
CELEBRATE
EDUCATION DURING ARCHIVES WEEK
1999
George Bain - Ohio University
The theme for Archives Week in 1999 is
Celebrating Education in Ohio. The
week will be held October 17-23 this
year.
The Society
of Ohio Archivists (SOA) hopes all
colleges and university libraries across
Ohio will participate in 1999. The focus
of activities will be on the entire
spectrum of education from K-12 all the
way to lifelong learning. It may be easier
for institutions employing an archivist to
observe the week, but even those schools
without an archivist have materials that
are archival in quality (records of
enduring value). How about using older
bulletins, yearbooks, student newspapers,
and photographs for an exhibit? And all
institutions surely have materials
documenting their history from the
earliest years; even a few decades ago to
the present that will be informative for
students and current faculty and
staff.
SOA plans as usual to have a poster for
Archives Week, supported this year with a
gift of $200 from ALAO. We hope you will
request one and include it with an exhibit
on your institution. For further
information, contact George Bain, chair of
the Archives Week Committee, at
740-593-2710 gbain1@ohiou.edu.
Web site maintained by
ALAO Web Committee.
Please
send comments to
us.
updated 9/9/99
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