ACQNET v2n090 (September 20, 1992) URL = http://www.infomotions.com/serials/acqnet/acq-v2n090 ISSN: 1057-5308 *************** ACQNET, Vol. 2, No. 90, September 20, 1992 ========================================== (1) FROM: Eleanor Cook SUBJECT: ALCTS reorganization (17 lines) (2) FROM: Marsha Hamilton SUBJECT: ALCTS reorganization (43 lines) (3) FROM: Christian Boissonnas SUBJECT: Another kind of conference (40 lines) (4) FROM: Richard Jasper SUBJECT: Mapping the Future of Publishing Workshops (14 lines) (5) FROM: Jeanne-Elizabeth Combs SUBJECT: Conference announcement (15 lines) (6) FROM: Bonnie MacEwan SUBJECT: Conference announcement (30 lines) (1) ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 14 Sep 1992 20:45 EDT From: ELEANOR COOK (Appalachian State University) Subject: Joe Barker's vision of ALCTS Joe Barker has spoken for many of us. I agree with most of what he says. ALCTS is constipated. It has many excellent individuals working in it, but they cannot affect excellence because of the present structure. I am relatively new to the internal workings of ALCTS. Back when RTSD was floundering, I heard the rumblings of discontent. None of this is new. I feel privileged to be invited into the inner circle, yet am afraid to criticize. I want to do a good job, but feel frustrated by the bureaucracy. I say this with all good intent, yet wonder what will happen if sections are disbanded. I am worried about ALCTS, and want to see it continue with renewed purpose. Thanks Joe Barker, for speaking eloquently for many of us. (2) ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 16 Sep 92 16:12 EDT From: Marsha Hamilton (Ohio State University) Subject: ALCTS Reorganization To continue the discussion of ALCTS reorganization, lets look at the points already raised dealing with apathy, change and the future, and empowerment. 1). Apathy is greatly underrated. (Do you listen to all those awful campaign speeches?) Having a large bureaucratic organization attempt to reorganize itself isn't cause for most of us to sit home on Friday night waiting for the details. Those most interested and those most closely involved, i.e. those sitting on ALCTS committees are following the discussion. Others, including the self-labelled disenfranchised are probably skeptical about the whole process. 2). We all want to prepare for the future but it is a receding target. The future is a combination of people of vision who create a future to match their vision, and an accretion of small decisions made to respond to events and needs in the here and now. We see ourselves as existing in the later but feel drawn theoretically to the former. The future is always upon us. We do not have to envision the future and force a structure to it, rather we can either decide what we want the future to be or we can wait for it. Time is our current adversary. I know of a project that took 4 years to complete (1 to do, 3 to approve). How can one envision the future when the present responds so slowly it is actually dealing with the past. 3). Empowering those closer to the bottom is the only way to bring the needs of the future to the forefront. This is true in our own work and in any organization. Just in time, do it now, get it in and get it out, these are buzz words in business but are valid ideas for libraries. Discussion groups have great timely topics. More time is spent trying to suppress programs in discussion groups than in empowering them to find a hot topic, present a panel within 6 months and move on. Other professional organizations are not run this way. My subject area organizations aren't told by their officers how they are allowed to structure a meeting. Members wouldn't put up with it! It is a question not only of micro-management but control. ALCTS is trying to control its structure from the top to make it more responsive to the needs of the future and its members. Has anyone ever considered removing restrictions and seeing how the organization itself evolves in response to its members and the forces that shape the future? (3) ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: September 20, 1992 From: Christian Boissonnas (Cornell University) Subject: Another kind of conference These issues are late but I have an excuse: Last Wednesday and Thursday I was in Boston attending a seminar on _Shaping Our Future_ sponsored by the Society for Scholarly Publishing. What a refreshing experience it was! About 50 people, one third of whom were librarians, one third publishers, and one third vendors and subscription agents. I have never before been in one room with so many publishers. My usual experience is to be at some meeting where everybody is concerned with prices (always sky-rocketing) and bashes on the lone sacrificial lamb in attendance from Elsevier, Pergamon, or Springer. Not this time. We listened to a few presentation dealing with the Big Issues of the day (budgets and pricing, ownership vs. access, and document delivery), then we sat down in seven working groups and kicked ideas around. That was the best part. My group included someone from the University of Chicago Press, the American Mathematical Society, the Copyright Clearance Center, Heinemann Educational Books, Yankee Book Peddler, and Elsevier. Can you imagine anything more diverse? And none of those people was afraid to talk! At the end of the meeting, this group of people, on that day, decided that talking was fine but just wasn't enough. Four people volunteered to develop an action statement. This is the second time this year that I have attended a meeting which resulted in an action agenda. The first was the Aqueduct meeting last February. Like it or not, the Aqueduct Agenda has generated a whole lot of talk which, in our business, is the prerequisite to action. So, I hope, will this meeting. I have purposefully not said much about the program itself. It will be written up, I believe, in the _Newsletter on Serial Pricing Issues_, and I urge you to read it when it comes out. My purpose here was to demonstrate that important things can be accomplished with almost no structure. The main point of Aqueduct and, I think, of this SSP meeting as well, is to prove that we can profitably take individual action, or act in very small groups and have an impact. Perhaps the people who are disaffected from and frustrated by ALCTS might think that they, too, could make a difference if they wanted. ALCTS is by no means the only game in town. (4) ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 17 Sep 92 14:55:21 EDT From: RICHARD P. JASPER (Emory University) Subject: MAPPING THE FUTURE OF PUBLISHING I just read a copy of _Future Mapping_, the annual "Future of Publishing" update published by Northeast Consulting Resources Inc. Has anyone ever attended one of NCRI's "Mapping the Future of Publishing" workshops? The next two are scheduled for November 9-10 in San Francisco and November 16-17 in Cambridge, Mass. The newsletter (?) trots out a number of interesting ideas regarding tele- publishing, modular publishing, etc. Thanks in advance for your feedback. (5) ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 18 Sep 1992 16:09:08 EDT From: Jeanne-Elizabeth Combs (PALINET) Subject: Acquisitions User Group Meeting Sept. 22 The PALINET Acquisitions User Group Fall Meeting will be held on Tuesday, September 22, 1992, at the College of Information Studies, Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA. Coffee and tea will be available at 9:30 a.m. The session will begin at 10:00 a.m. and conclude by 12:30 p.m. There is no charge for attendance or group membership at this time. Quarterly meetings are planned. The focus of this meeting will be library- vendor relations. For further information, contact Jeanne-Elizabeth Combs, PALINET 215-382-7031 or PALINET@SHRSYS.HSLC.ORG. (6) ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 16 Sep 1992 08:26 EST From: Bonnie MacEwan Subject: Notice of a Collection Management and Development Institute ALCTS and the Canadian Library Association will present a regional institute entitled "Good Management for Hard Times: Collection Management for the 1990s" in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, October 22-25, 1992. Registration will be accepted until October 9, 1992 and will be limited to 120 persons. The institute, planned and presented jointly by the ALCTS Collection Management and Development Section and the Canadian Library Association, is the first jointly sponsored program by these two organizations. The program is directed toward practicing librarians in public and academic libraries who deal with collection management issues. The objectives are to provide an overview of major issues and to provide up-to-date and practical training in the planning and management of library collections. Emphasis will be placed on the Canadian context in terms of resource sharing, Canadiana selection, and censorship. Speakers will include Basil Stuart-Stubbs, University of British Columbia; Gayle Garlock, University of Toronto; Les Fowlie, Toronto Public Library; Holly Melanson, Dalhousie University (Halifax, N.S.); Sam Demas, Cornell University; and Judith McAnanama, Hamilton (Ont.) Public Library. Registration fees are $225 US for American Library Association members, $260 CDN for Canadian Library Association members, $265 US for Americans who are not ALA members, and $315 CDN for Canadians who are not CLA members. For further information, contact Yvonne McLean at ALA, telephone 800-545-2433, ext. 5032, or Terry Tomchyshyn at CLA, telephone 613-232-9625. ******* END OF FILE ****** ACQNET, Vol. 2, No. 90 ****** END OF FILE *******