ACRL New England Chapter News Online

ISSN 1527-0106

Spring 2007, Number 111

In This Issue (Home):

President's Letter

Chapter Professional Development Scholarships Available

Board Election Results

Happy Centennial!!

ACRL Legislative Network Report

Student Conference Summary

Board Minutes, June 18th Retreat
Calendar Listings

Student Conference Summary

Talia Resendes
GSLIS Student, University of Rhode Island

After a warm welcome by Chief University Librarian at Brandeis University, Sue Wawrzaszek and ACRL/NEC President, Christine Turner, the morning session began with a plenary forum. First up was Paul Gherman, University Librarian at Vanderbilt University, who gave a talk on the North American Storage Trust. The North American Storage Trust, or NAST, is a collection of research libraries with a common goal of sharing research collections that are housed in off-site storage facilities. As Paul stated, NAST’s ability to achieve success relies on the following principles: 1. Participating libraries will pledge not to weed, 2. libraries will maintain preservation-quality environments, and 3. OCLC will identify and maintain records in WorldCat. With some figures from OCLC to support his case, Paul made a convincing argument for a shared storage trust. For more information, check out RLG/OCLC’s NAST webpage ( http://www.rlg.org/en/page.php?Page_ID=21019) for more information.

After a short coffee break, the morning plenary discussion continued with Brian Lavoie, a consulting research scientist at OCLC. Brian gave a talk on the issue of space, collections, the network and the library “long tail”. The idea of aggregate collections lends credence to the theory of the long tail, an idea that was introduced in Chris Anderson’s book “The Long Tail”. Basically, the theory of the library long tail comes from the assumption that 80& of the library book uses come from 20& of the library’s collection, or the library’s most popular books. However, Brian ascertained that the remaining 80& of the library’s less popular books, or the long tail, are in demand in large networked environments. As the service population expands so does their diverse needs. As last speaker in the morning plenary discussion, Anne Sauer, Director of Digital Collections and Archives at Tufts University, summarized the previous presentations and also added her own archivist perspective.

After a brief ACRL/NEC business meeting presided over by the new ACRL/NEC president, Judith Pinnolis, the afternoon sessions commenced. The collection development panel consisted of Pat Adams (Sales Director-Blackwell Book Services), Leslie Button (Associate Director for Collection Services-UMASS Amherst), Steve Hyndman (Regional Manager-YBP Library Services), Barbara Preece (Executive Director-Boston Library Consortium) and Darwin Scott (Executive Director for Research and Instruction-Brandeis University). Panelists discussed ways of utilizing consortia for collection development and the importance of collaborating with vendors beforehand. Additionally, Steve from YBP and Pat from Blackwell Books gave a vendor perspective on the issue of collection development at the consortia level.

The day wrapped with presentations on digital space solutions. Speakers Dr. Robert Chaves (Manager-Tufts Digital Repository Program) and Suzanne Wones (Head of Access & Research Services-Kennedy School of Government) discussed issues and projects concerning digital space. Specifically mentioned were the Perseus Digital Library (http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/) project and the Guttenberg Book project (http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page), both of which focus on the digitization of books made available online. The issues of cost and availability were also discussed.