ACRL New England Chapter News Online

ISSN 1527-0106

Spring 2004, Number 102

In This Issue (Home):

President's Letter

Election Results

C.E. Committee Chair Needed

Librarian of the Year Award

Annual Conference Reports

National Legislative Day Report

Interest Group Reports:
Access Services (ASIG)
Information Technology (ITIG)
Instruction (NELIG)
Online Course Info. (LOCI)
Women's Studies

Annual Reports

Board Meeting Minutes, February 11th, 2004 (.pdf)

Calendar Listings

2004 ACRL/NEC Annual Conference Report

Colleen Anderson, President-Elect
Bryant College

On April 23, two hundred librarians gathered at the new George E. Bello Center for Information and Technology at Bryant College in Smithfield, Rhode Island to attend the ACRL/NEC conference. Discussion on the conference topic, Defining the Library's Role in the Changing Academic Organization, was initiated by a keynote address delivered by Norman Fainstein, President of Connecticut College. The President's message Out of the Box: Can We Re-Imagine Library and Information Services, posed five questions to librarians:

• Why do librarians continue purchasing endless numbers of books despite the fact that college libraries are running out of storage space?
• Why do undergraduate college libraries keep attempting to duplicate the collections of large research libraries despite differences in the needs of their clientele?
• How much has really changed as a result of the combined library/IT model of delivering information services?
• Why do libraries being built today really differ so little from those of the past despite the addition of digital capabilities, classrooms, and cafes?
• What would we do if we could really get library services out of the box?

President Fainstein suggested we would take essential functions library and IT professionals perform (preservation & storage, student and faculty research, instruction, recreation, exhibition…) and distribute those functions to logical places on campus where they are both needed and already taking place (e.g., writing centers, student centers, fitness centers, and close to faculty offices). There would still be a need for a central "place" to hold reserves, archives and special collections, etc., but colleges would pay research libraries for access to their collections. President Fainstein acknowledged such changes would also require changes in requirements for faculty tenure.

The President's talk was followed by a panel discussion addressing and responding to his main points. Panel members included Terry Metz (Wheaton College), Susan Perry (Mellon Foundation/CLIR), Joanne Schneider (Saint Michael's College), and Merrily Taylor (Brown University). Six breakout sessions were presented in the afternoon:

• Charge for Printing: How to Handle the Printing Question by Norma Gahl and others
• Human Resources Role in Managing Change by Linda Lulli
• Ongoing Training for Reference Librarians: What's Really Happening? by Judith Pinnolis (see report)
• Marketing Library Services by Kathy Dempsey
• Managing the Library and IT Cultures by Claudia Morner
• Library Budgets by Diane Frake (see report)

A video of the conference keynote, panel discussion and some of the interest groups will be available for circulation to interested ACRL librarians. Contact Colleen Anderson at canderso@bryant.edu.