ALCTS Network News v14n01 (July 17, 1997)
URL = http://hegel.lib.ncsu.edu/stacks/serials/ann/ann-v14n01

ISSN: 1056-6694

ALCTS NETWORK NEWS

An electronic publication of the
Association for Library Collections & Technical Services

Volume 14, Number 1
July 17, 1997

In this issue

JANET SWAN HILL NEW ALCTS PRESIDENT
ALCTS SEEKS LRTS YEAR'S WORK EDITOR AND BOOK REVIEW EDITOR
ALA COUNCIL PASSES FILTERING RESOLUTION
UK PROJECT TARGETS SURVEY METHODS FOR ASSESSING PRESERVATION NEEDS

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JANET SWAN HILL NEW ALCTS PRESIDENT

Janet Swan Hill, associate director for technical services, at the
University of Colorado at Boulder Libraries, is the new president of
ALCTS. She assumed office at the conclusion of the ALA Annual
Conference, June 26-July 3 in San Francisco.

Hill was head, catalog department, Northwestern University Library in
Illinois before assuming her present position. She is a member of ALA
Council and has been member and chair of a number of ALA and ALCTS
committees. Hill served as chair of the Melvil Dewey Medal Jury;
secretary of the Cataloging and Classification Section's CC:DA; chair
of the ALCTS Catalog Form and Function Committee; and chair of ALCTS
CCS Task Force on Education and Recruitment for Cataloging Committee
and the ALCTS CCS Margaret Mann Citation Committee.

She is a member of the Association for Library and Information
Science Education, Mountain Plains Library Association, and the
Colorado Library Association.

Hill has a masters degree from Denver University Graduate School of
Librarianship. She is the author of "Wearing Our Own Clothes:
Librarians as Faculty," (Journal of Academic Librarianship, May,
1994).

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ALCTS SEEKS LRTS YEAR'S WORK EDITOR AND BOOK REVIEW EDITOR

ALCTS is seeking two editors for its journal, Library Resources &
Technical Services (LRTS). Both positions are available immediately
and appointment by September 1 is highly desirable.

With volume 42 (1998), the Year's Work articles will return to
publication in LRTS. Most recently, several excellent bibliographic
essays on resources in technical and collections services appeared in
New Directions in Technical Services: Trends and Sources (1993-1995)
published in 1997 in continuation of the articles last published in
LRTS in 1993.

Bibliographic essays and review articles identify, analyze and
discuss significant resources and trends in areas of collection,
preservation and technical services. Although these articles have
previously focused on the literature of a single year, the new editor
will be invited to consider this approach in the context of today's
needs. The goal remains to present the best bibliographic essays
relating to the work of ALCTS members: acquisitions, collection
management, cataloging, preservation and serials.

Toward this end, LRTS is in search of an editor to develop and edit
the Year's Work articles. In consultation with the editor and
assistant editors for the sections, the Year's Work editor determines
the topics, selects the authors, and edits the articles for
publication in the July (n3) issue.

The Year's Work Editor is one of 8 assistant editors and a member of
the LRTS Editorial Board. 

LRTS is also in search of a new book review editor. "Gregory Leazer,
whose term ended with the Annual Conference, has left the LRTS
Editorial Board, with many thanks and much appreciation for the
outstanding book reviews contributed to LRTS," said Jennifer Younger,
LRTS Editor.

Book reviews play an important role in professional communication,
creating an awareness of new resources and providing an assessment of
the contents. Information comes in many formats and reviews can be of
web sites and CD-ROMs as well, although books have been the
predominant form.

The book review editor selects the books (or other resources) to be
reviewed, solicits reviewers and edits the reviews. The editor
receives books from some presses and institutions, such as Scarecrow,
Greenwood, Academic, Haworth, and schools of library and information
science, but can (and does) select from the broadest range of
sources.

The book review editor is one of 8 assistant editors and a member of
the LRTS Editorial Board.

LRTS is an official quarterly publication of ALCTS. It contains
refereed articles in the fields of cataloging and classification,
acquisitions, collection management, reproduction of library
materials, serials, preservation of library materials and general
technical services.

Statements of interest should be sent to:  Jennifer Younger, Editor,
LRTS, 1858 Neil Ave. Mall, Columbus, OH 43210; E-mail: 
younger.6@osu.edu; Phone:  614-292-6151.

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ALA COUNCIL PASSES FILTERING RESOLUTION

Following is the resolution passed by ALA Council in San Francisco.
It is also available on the web site at www.ala.org/oif.html.


RESOLUTION ON THE USE OF FILTERING SOFTWARE IN LIBRARIES

WHEREAS, On June 26, 1997, the United States Supreme Court issued a
sweeping re-affirmation of core First Amendment principles and held
that communications over the Internet deserve the highest level of
Constitutional protection; and

WHEREAS, The Court's most fundamental holding is that communications
on the Internet deserve the same level of Constitutional protection
as books, magazines, newspapers, and speakers on a street corner
soapbox. The Court found that the Internet "constitutes a vast
platform from which to address and hear from a world-wide audience of
millions of readers, viewers, researchers, and buyers," and that "any
person with a phone line can become a town crier with a voice that
resonates farther than it could from any soapbox"; and

WHEREAS, For libraries, the most critical holding of the Supreme
Court is that libraries that make content available on the Internet
can continue to do so with the same Constitutional protections that
apply to the books on libraries' shelves; and

WHEREAS, The Court's conclusion that "the vast democratic fora of the
Internet" merit full constitutional protection will also serve to
protect libraries that provide their patrons with access to the
Internet; and

WHEREAS, The Court recognized the importance of enabling individuals
to receive speech from the entire world and to speak to the entire
world. Libraries provide those opportunities to many who would not
otherwise have them; and

WHEREAS, The Supreme Court's decision will protect that access; and

WHEREAS, The use in libraries of software filters which block
Constitutionally protected speech is inconsistent with the United
States Constitution and federal law and may lead to legal exposure
for the library and its governing authorities; now, therefore, be it 

RESOLVED, That the American Library Association affirms that the use
of filtering software by libraries to block access to
constitutionally protected speech violates the Library Bill of
Rights.

Adopted by the ALA Council, July 2, 1997

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UK PROJECT TARGETS SURVEY METHODS FOR ASSESSING PRESERVATION NEEDS

A national preservation policy cannot be determined without accurate
information about the  preservation needs of library and archive
collections. Individual libraries and archives cannot develop
preservation policies without similar information about their own
collections. A standard method of surveying collections will provide
reliable and comparable data on the nature and scale of national
preservation needs, and enable national and organisational priorities
to be established.
     
This research project has been initiated by the National Preservation
Office (NPO) in collaboration with the British Library Research and
Innovation Centre (BLRIC). The NPO's remit includes the development
of a national preservation policy, and the preservation of library
and archive materials is one of BLRIC's priority research areas for
1997/98.

The Centre has awarded a grant of 51,136 to Graham Matthews,
Lecturer, and Paul Eden, Research Fellow, in the Department of
Information and Library Studies, Loughborough University, and Nancy
Bell, Senior Conservator, Oxford Conservation Consortium, to develop
a standard method. The project runs from May 1997 to August 1998.

The project will identify and evaluate recent and current survey
methods and packages for assessing preservation needs in individual
libraries and archives; conduct interviews with individuals and
organisations who have carried out collection surveys; produce a
draft survey method to test in a variety of libraries and archives;
analyse the results of the trials and amend the methodology to
produce a final version of the survey method.

If you would like further information about this project please
contact Naomi Dungworth at the address below. We would also like to
hear from you if you have conducted, or are about to conduct a 
survey to assess your organisation's preservation needs.

--Naomi Dungworth, Research Assistant
Department of Information and Library Studies, Loughborough
University
Tel: 01509 223074;  Fax: 01509 223053; Email:
N.M.Dungworth@lboro.ac.uk

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ALCTS NETWORK NEWS (ISSN 1056-6694) is published irregularly by the
Association for Library Collections & Technical Services, a division
of the American Library Association. Editorial offices: ALCTS, 50 E.
Huron St., Chicago, IL 60611; Janet Swan Hill, President; Karen
Muller, Executive Director. Editor: Karen Whittlesey
(kwhittlesey@ala.org); Editorial Assistance: Karen Muller, Shonda
Russell.

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