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NEWS FROM THE FIELD

C&RL News, September 2005
Vol. 66, No. 8

by Stephanie Orphan

ACRL and AASL launch information literacy discussion list
ACRL and the American Association of School Librarians (AASL) have launched INFOLIT, an electronic discussion list for information literacy. INFOLIT, an initiative of the AASL/ACRL Interdivisional Committee on Information Literacy, is a forum for school, academic, and public librarians to exchange ideas on information literacy programs and experiences that demonstrate a collaborative relationship between K–12 and higher education institutions.

To subscribe to the INFOLIT list, send a blank e-mail message to subscribe-infolit@ala.org, including your first name and last name as the subject.

^{2004–05 ACRL President Frances J. Maloy (right)
presented Richard K. Gardner (left) with a Special
Presidential Recognition Award from ACRL at the
2005 ALA Annual Conference. The award was
given in recognition of Gardner’s contributions
to the association and the library
profession during his career.}

Oregon State links to Google Scholar using WebBridge
Oregon State University has begun using Innovative’s WebBridge to provide linkage from Google Scholar to electronic resources in its collection. The library provides access to nearly 18,000 unique e-journal titles across 150 information packages. The library’s users already had the ability to link from most of the library’s index and abstract databases to library holdings through the WebBridge smart-linking tool. With the new Google Scholar integration, citations presented to Google users will include direct links to the library’s resources. The same coverage database that informs WebBridge will inform Google Scholar, and because WebBridge will assess the coverage database every 24 hours, the Innovative system will provide users of Google Scholar with the most up-to-date information available.

ebrary partners with five international publishers
ebrary has partnered with five new international publishers to make hundreds of full-text books and other authoritative content available through its Dynamic Content Platform, which combines patent-pending research software with databases of authoritative content from leading publishers. The partnerships with Oxford University Press, Brill Academic Publishers, Manchester University Press, SAGE Publications, and Artech House benefit libraries by providing an affordable way to provide students with valuable content and unique technology, while providing new revenue streams for ebrary’s publishing partners.

UNC-Chapel Hill and Duke offer file management tutorial
A three-year project, Managing the Digital University Desktop, has resulted in the creation of an online tutorial by researchers at the University of North Carolina (UNC)-Chapel Hill and Duke University on how to manage e-mail and computer files. The project involved studying ways that employees at Duke and all 16 UNC campuses deal with the deluge of e-mail and other electronic information that comes their way.

In addition to the tutorial, the researchers have posted presentations online that can be used for instruction. The Web site also includes an extensive bibliography, links to associated resources, and a list of frequently asked questions regarding e-mail and file management. A free public workshop on the management tools will be held on September 23 in UNC’s Wilson Library. The Managing the Digital University Desktop Web site, with links to the tutorial and other resources, can be found online at www.ils.unc.edu/digitaldesktop.

SPARC sponsorship guide available
SPARC (the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition) has released Sponsorships for nonprofit scholarly and scientific journals: A guide to defining and negotiating successful sponsorship, which is available free-of-charge on the Web. This new guide helps nonprofit publishers evaluate the viability of implementing a corporate sponsorship program and describes ways to develop a sponsorship program as a component of the journal’s income stream. The guide includes chapters on evaluating the potential for journal sponsorships, planning the journal’s sponsorships program, developing sponsorship guidelines to protect a journal’s editorial independence and integrity, and negotiating sponsorships. The guide is available at www.arl.org/sparc/resources/pubres.html.

Wilson adds Education Index to Retrospective Collection
The latest addition to H. W. Wilson’s Wilson Retrospective Collection of periodicals databases is Education Index Retrospective: 1929–1983. This is the online equivalent to 33 Education Index print annuals, with records for more than 830,000 articles from more than 600 leading periodicals. Antiquated subject headings were reviewed and revised by Wilson’s librarians and subject specialists, so that information can be found using contemporary terms. Original subject headings remain for insight into the way issues of the day were framed. Education Index Retrospective is offered exclusively on WilsonWeb.

Emory renames special collections
Emory University has renamed its Special Collections and Archives as Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Books Library (MARBL). Plans for the construction of a new building dedicated to housing and supporting the use of Emory’s rare and unique research collections called for a new name to better reflect the nature of the collections and the range of work that the division supports. With more than a thousand distinct manuscript collections and well over 100,000 rare books in a wide range of fields, MARBL serves more than 700 researchers each year.

ACRL/CHOICE appoints Resources for College Libraries editorial board
ACRL and its publishing unit, CHOICE, have appointed the members of the Resources for College Libraries (RCL) Editorial Board. RCL, an online and print product whose coverage will include both books and electronic resources, will be copublished by ACRL/CHOICE and R. R. Bowker, with a target publication date of September 2006. The product is the successor to Books for College Libraries, 3rd edition.

The chair of the newly appointed Board is Carolyn A. Sheehy, Clare and Lucy Oesterle director of library services at North Central College. Other Board members are Joan Ellen Broome, Georgia Southern University; Barbara Burd, Colgate University; Brian E. Coutts, Western Kentucky University; Bradford Lee Eden, University of Nevada-Las Vegas; Stacey Marien, American University; and Richard Shaw, Technical College of the Lowcountry. The new Board, which will begin its deliberations online, will hold its first formal meeting at the ALA Midwinter Meeting in San Antonio.

Nature archive expanded
The latest installment of the Nature archive went live in early August, adding a decade of scientific information. Users can now search back to January 1970. The addition of all content published between January 1970 and December 1979 includes approximately 37,405 articles from 510 issues. Nature is currently digitizing its archive back to 1950. Content will be released in installments of ten years until completion in 2006. The archive is available at www.nature.com/nature/archive.

IEEE journals lead in citations
IEEE publishes 18 of the top 20 journals in the field of electrical and electronics engineering, according to the recently published 2004 ISI Journal Citation Reports (JCR).  IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence was ranked as the top journal in the category, moving up from the number three position in 2003.  The report also shows that the top six journals in telecommunications are published by IEEE. JCR ranks journals by their impact factor, defined as the average number of times articles published in a specific journal in the previous two years were cited in a particular year. 

ARL publishes salary survey
The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) has published the ARL Annual Salary Survey 2004–2005. The report analyzes salary data for all professional staff working in the 123 ARL libraries during 2004–05. Data were reported for 9,487 professional staff in the 113 university libraries and for 3,946 professional staff members at the 10 nonuniversity libraries at ARL member institutions. The data show that librarians’ salaries substantially outperformed inflation. The combined median salary for U.S. and Canadian universities was $55,250, an increase of 4.2 percent over last year. For more information on the salary survey, visit www.arl.org/stats/salary/index.html.

100th community college signs on for Chronicle campuswide access
The recent purchase of Chronicle Campuswide by Heartland Community College of Normal, Illinois, brings the number of community colleges in the United States and Canada subscribing to the service to 100. The service, provides access to the Chronicle of Higher Education ’s Web site, including premium content normally reserved for subscribers, to everyone on a campus. Launched a year ago, the service has recently become available to four-year institutions, as well. Subscription information is online at www.chronicle.com/campuswide.

Texas Digital Library established
The libraries of Texas Tech University, University of Texas, Texas A & M University, Rice University, and University of Houston have entered into an agreement to establish the Texas Digital Library (TDL). TDL seeks to assemble and provide the combined technological advances and cultural and creative resources of the four major research university systems in Texas. Headquartered at the University of Texas-Austin, TDL will operate in close cooperation with the campuses of all the university systems involved in the project. TDL seeks to deliver information that will benefit a variety of communities, including K–12 students and their parents, university researchers, and corporations doing business within the state and interacting with its institutions of higher education. The TDL Web site will be launched later this year.

ACRL’s  information literacy Expert Locator to be updated
with Peer Consultants DatabaseThe Institute for Information Literacy (IIL) Executive Committee is currently working to update and enhance ACRL’s Information Literacy Web site located at www.acrl.org/infolit. Over the next year, the committee will be adding additional content, updating the site, and revising its organization. The popular Experts Locator directory is receiving immediate attention.