ENY/ACRL Newsletter, Spring 1996
ENY/ACRL Newsletter, Spring 1996
Table of Contents:
+ Ice Cream Social in NYC
1996 Librarian of the Y ear Award
.
.
New York Gateway Group
New York State Library Publications on the Web
Minutes of the 1996 Business Meeting
Spotlight on Libraries -
e Michael Engle and the ENY/ACRL Web Site
e Volunteer Needed!
.
Spring Conference Report
From the Editor's Desk
.
Ice Cream Social in NY C
There will be an ice cream social for the three New Y ork chapters of ACRL during this summer's American Library
Association Conference in New Y ork City. The date is set for Monday, July 8th, from 5:30-7:30pm at the McGraw-
Hill Headquarters building on 6th Ave.
All current members of ENY/ACRL will receive invitations in the mail during May. Please respond quickly, as an.
accurate number is necessary for the preparations.
McGraw- Hill is graciously sponsoring this complimentary event, and their location is a short, safe walk from a
conference hotel.
This will be a wonderful opportunity to meet members from the ACRL/NY Metro, and Westem NY /Ontario Chapters
of ACRL and strengthen our connections, as well as a fun event for the ALA-attending members of ENY/ACRL.
1996 Librarian of the Year Award
Elaine Coppola, Social Sciences Reference/Bibliographer at Syracuse University Library, was named ENY/ACRL.
Librarian of the Y ear for 1996. She was awarded $250 and a plaque commemorating the award.
Elaine is eminently qualified to receive the award because of her longstanding commitment to the Chapter, to ACRL at
the national level, and to the profession of librarianship. She is noted as a "backstage" worker, one who presses
forward with tasks that are necessary but not necessarily glamorous. A few examples of her contributions include her
work on the revision of the Chapter's Officers' Handbook; her assistance with nominations, even when this was not
part of her official responsibilities; her compliation of the law bibliography for ACRL's Law & Political Science
Instruction Committee; and her work on the Guide to Reference Books_ project for which she wrote the annotations
for the Political Science subsection and coordinated the submissions from SU for several subsections of the Social
Science section.
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ENY/ACRL Newsletter, Spring 1996
ENY/ACRL has benefited from Elaine's professionalism for more than 10 years. She served as an institutional liaison,
as a member of the local arrangements committee, as Secretary, and through the progression of Program Committee
Chair/Vice President, President and Past President. Elaine also has contributed her time and effort at the national level,
as Secretary of the ACRL Chapters Council; as a member of the Chapters Council Nominations Committee, the
Professional Liaison Committee and the Govemment Relations Committee.
A brief summary of Elaine's qualities as the Librarian of the Y ear show that she works quietly and very competently;
she serves, encourages and embodies the qualities needed in a superb role model for other librarians. She is truly an
excellent librarian.
by Carla List, SUNY Plattsburgh
New York Gateway Group
The libraries at Clarkson University, Colgate University, Hamilton College, and St. Lawrence University have formed
a consortium to provide library suers with customized gateway access to CARL UnCover, a database of tables of
contents of over 17,000 joumals. Each joumal title or article citation in the database displays joumal holdings
information for an individual library, or for the consortium. East library has set up its own policies for document
delivery for its users, and users are blocked from ordering journal articles which are available at their own institution.
The gateway also provides access to CARL Reveal Alert, a current awareness e-mail service, in which user-defined
searches by author, subject, or joumal title can be automatically run against the UnCover database on a weekly basis.
The NY GG service became available in January 1996. For more information, please contact either Sharon Britton,
Emily Hutton, Melissa Jadlos, or Natalia Stahl
New York State Library Publications on the Web
County lists of New Y ork State newspapers on microfilm at the State Library are now available through the State
Library gopher. From the gopher main menu, click on "Full Texts of Publications of the New Y ork State Library", then
click on "New Y ork State Newspapers on Microfilm Available from the New Y ork State Library."
There are 62 text files in all--one per county--and each is arranged alphabetically by city, then title. Each entry
includes title, OCLC# location code, and detailed holdings. At the end of each file the user will find instructions on
how to read the information and how to obtain the material through interlibrary loan. The State Library loans all of its
New Y ork State microfilmed newspapers except for the New Y ork Times.
The State Library Publications can be found at:
wv: 70/11 /nysh S.
Minutes of the 1996 Business Meeting
EASTERN NEW YORK CHAPTER
ASSOCIATION OF COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES
MEETING OF THE MEMBERSHIP
March 8, 1996
Syracuse, New Y ork
The meeting was called to order by President Eileen Allen.
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Treasurer's Report
Treasurer Pat Adams reported the following:
Checking account balance - $7173.79
Janice Graham Newkirk Research Award Fund - $8500.
She noted that she was completing her service as treasurer and appreciated the opportunities participation in the chapter
provided.
Membership Chair
Sharon Britton reported that an experiment to print membership forms in the newsletter to save on mailing costs had
not worked. Membership was significantly lower than in the past. She has contacted campus liaisons to assist in
reaching those who did not renew. The printing of the directory has been delayed because of this situation. Directories
will be mailed.
Government Relations C hair
Barbara Walton noted that she was leaving the Board and that her work on the Board had been rewarding. She directed
the members’ attention to a handout - a petition sponsored by ALA to promote the Equity on the Information Highway
campaign.
Eileen Allen commented that Patricia Breivik, ACRL President, had spoken at Chapters Council about Chapters taking
amore active role in this area.
Communications C hair
Eileen Allen reported for Kristin Strohmeyer who could not be present. The writer for the "Spotlight on Libraries" has
retired from doing the column. The Chapter would like a volunteer to continue this useful feature. Parts of the
newsletter are also available on the Chapter's Web page.
Web Site
"Web Master’ Michael Engle reported that the home page was up. Bookmarks with the URL are available. It is hoped.
that this will facilitate networking, leaming, and communication. Included are links to homepages for ENY /ACRL.
libraries and to the Metro chapter's home page. M. Engle reported that he would make an effort to keep the home page
up to date.
Vice President / Program Chair
Barbara Dumiak thanked the Program Committee and local arrangements people for the hard work that went in to
making this conference possible. She said that a site was still needed for the Fall 1996 conference. The Spring 1997
conference will be a joint conference with the Metro Chapter to be held at SUNY New Paltz on March 21, 1997.
President
Eileen Allen reported on three joint projects that have been undertaken with the Metro Chapter. She noted the initiation
of a Web homepage described by Michael Engle and the joint conference planned for Spring 1997 described by
Barbara Dumiak. In addition to these two, she described an ice cream social to be held at the ALA conference in New
York city in July 1996. It is being sponsored by McGraw- Hill and will be held at their building. It will be by invitation
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ENY/ACRL Newsletter, Spring 1996
only for members of the three New Y ork ACRL chapter.
Eileen Allen also reported on the Janice Graham Newkirk Research Award. Administrative procedures are near
completion. They will be published in the newsletter when done. She urged members to be considering research
projects. It is expected that the first award will be made in March 1997. Members of the Award Committee are Barbara
Via, Catherine Dwyer, and Sean Maloney.
Past President / Nominations C hair
Carla List thanked all those who agreed to have their names placed on the ballot. She announced the following election
results:
By-laws change to administer the Janice Graham Newkirk Research Fund - Passed.
Vice President/Program Chair - Lynne King
Treasurer - Susan Zappen
Membership Gee fea Jane Subramanian
Govemment Relations - Karen Ingeman
Librarian of the Y ear Award
Carla List presented the Librarian of the Y ear Award to Elaine Coppola of Syracuse University. In making the
presentation her comments included among others: Elaine's longstanding commitment to the chapter and ACRL at the
national level; specific contributions made to the work of the chapter, her work on an edition of the Guide to Reference
Books. Carla concluded her presentation with a summary of Elaine's qualities; "..she works quietly and very
competently; she serves, encourages, and embodies the qualities needed in a superb role model for other librarians."
Drawing for Students
Eileen Allen and Lynne King drew the names of students for the winners of the free registration to the next chapter
conference. The winners are: Manal Al-Shakhs, Mary Beth Portley, Sarah Bums, and Gary Strubel.
The meeting was adjoumed by President Eileen Allen.
Submitted by Rebecca Thompson, SUNY Potsdam
Michael Engle and the ENY /ACRL Web Site
The Construction of the ENY /ACRL Web Site.
As I prepared to write a Web site for our chapter, I needed to answer four basic questions:
+ What will the home page be like?
+ What additional Web pages will I need to write?
+ What extemal sites will I link to?
+ How will the whole Web site be organized?
To get going, I looked at the New Y ork Metro Chapter's home page. I wanted users to know, up front, what was
available on the site, so I decided a simple list would do. I wanted the site to support leaming and networking. My first
ideas were a contact list of officers with mailto links for sending comments, links to ACRL, ALA, and other chapter
Web pages, and a link to the Spring Conference Web site at Syracuse. A look at the chapter newsletter yielded two
other possible items for the site--the President's Letter and News from the Field.
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I constructed the home page in an evening at home ona Macintosh 7500/100 using BBEdit Lite 3.5 editing software,
Netscape 1.1, and a SLIP connection to the Intemet. I needed the SLIP connection to access the NY Metro site and
copy the URLs for the Metro, ALA, and ACRL sites.
Once I set up the page with the framing tags and title in BBEdit, I constructed a list, installed the links for the extemal
sites, and inserted the text for the links to the pages I expected to construct later. BBEdit makes short work of linking
to extemal sites. I type in the text for each link, highlight it, go to the sites I want to link to, copy the URL into the
Anchor extension and click OK. The editing software enters the tags, placing them around the text for each link. I used
DIR tags to indent each list item so I could insert sphere icons [greyball.gif] in front of them.
I decided to use a simple gray and silver color scheme. Stes He CRA aC ee ad Lee Seen rey a
silver spheres at several icon sites [fora currently active icon site, see widomaker.co!
browse the Y ahoo icon list at http ://www.yahoo.com/Computers/World | Wide > Web/Programming/Icons/]. Te always
wanted to use the Byzantine-style line GIF I had seen on several icon sites, so I decided to put it at the page top and
use table tags to make a frame around ENY/ACRL. The frame gives the ENY/ACRL letters a nice raised-platform
effect that looks like a logo.
To make up the contacts page, I typed in the information from the newsletter, tagged it, added the header and footer
and linked to the document from the home page. The entire site had now been constructed and checked on my hard
disk at home. When I was satisfied with the html documents and had tested the links, I copied the documents onto a
diskette.
The next moming, I carried the diskette to work, copied the html documents into the server folder in my office Power
Mac, and e-mailed the URL to Eileen Allen. The URL for the home page became the Intemet address of my office
computer [http://urislib.library.comell.edu] plus the document name [acrlhome.html]. ENY-ACRL had a Web site.
A few days later, after some discussions on e-mail, Kristin Strohmeyer sent me the text of the News from the Field
section from the newsletter already marked up with html tags. It took about fifteen or twenty minutes to copy the
marked text into a new page, add the header and footer, and link it to the home page. Then she sent me the marked up
text for Member's Library Home Pages, and I edited and loaded it in the same way.
I have tried to be mindful of good Web page and site design, using consistent footers, retums, and headers, and html
style in the chapter Web site. I'm working on the Web design committee that reviews Comell's library sites, and I
consider user feedback a very important part of constructing a functional site. Won't you send me your comments at
moel@comell.edu? Y our questions, contributions, and criticisms are always welcome. How can our Web site further
our work and communication?
To access the ENY/ACRL Web site, point your browser to http://Auislib library.comell.edu/acdhome.html
by Michael Engle
Volunteer Needed!
Spotlight on Libraries
Mary Jane Brustman has retired from doing the ‘Spotlight on Libraries’ colunmn in this newsletter after many years of
wonderful service. I would like to thank Mary Jane for all her work, and for her help with the newsletter during my
tenure as editor.
I would like to continue the column, which focuses on one or two libraries and their programs or experiences, but need.
some help. Would you, or someone you know, like to volunteer to coordinate this column? The newsletter is published
three times yearly, so the committment is small, but does include deadlines and spell-checkers!
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ENY/ACRL Newsletter, Spring 1996
If you are interested, please contact me at either of the following addresses:
Kristin Strohmeyer
Hamilton College Library, 198 College Hill Road, Clinton, New Y ork 13323
Spring C onference Report
Although several registrants were ultimately unable to make it to Syracuse University's E.S. Bird Library on March
8th, 61 people braved the snowstorm to attend the Spring Conference, entitled "Theory into Practice: Educational
Pathways for Librarians." The conference, which was co-sponsored by the Upstate Chapter of the Special Libraries
Association and the Central NY Library Resources Council, focused on professional development opportunities
available to librarians in the course of their careers.
Keynote speaker Ray von Dran, Dean of the School of Information Studies at Syracuse University, gave the audience
much food for thought with his presentation "Competencies for Librarians in the Information Age." He first outlined
the stages of change:
1. Destabilization/loss of focus
2. Minimization of impact
3. Questioning of self-worth
4. Letting go of the past
5. Testing new situations
6. Searching for meaning
7. Integrating the experience
and then offered strategies for dealing with change. Some of the competencies discussed. were confidence in problem-
solving, adaptability, proactive professional behaviors, development of process skills (methodologies), technical
comfortability, and value-based education based on intellectual honesty.
The "Guideposts to the Hiring Process: Selecting and Interviewing the Successful Candidate" panelists offered tips on
all aspects of the hiring process, from writing job ads to structuring search committees to conducting interviews. In the
aftemoon breakout sessions, attendees chose one session from the three offerings. One session explored library
intemships from the perspectives of both a librarian who has been a mentor and from a MLS graduate who recently
completed an intemship, a second focused on sabbaticals, and the third presentation, on entrepreneurship, was by Liz
Liddy, PhD and Associate Professor, IST at Syracuse University and President/CEO of TextWise, Inc. On the
evaluation forms, one attendee summed up the prevailing mood at the conference with the comment "Great in spite of
the weather. This is always a good conference. Even weather can't dampen it."
Many people helped to pull this conference together. Special thanks should be given to the program committee for
brainstonning its way to a theme and for coming up with suggestions for dynamite speakers, to Sue Price of SLA, who
gamered our vendor support, Jeannette Smithee at CLRC, who posted conference announcements and registration
forms on about 20 listservs, to the staff at CLRC who handled registration mailings, to Janet Pease of Syracuse
University for assisting with local arrangements, and to Nancy Herrington, local arrangements chair, whose attention
to detail and calm reassurance regarding the weather helped to make the conference a success.
As always, the program committee welcomes ideas for forthcoming programs. If you have any ideas, or are interested.
in joining the program committee, contact Lynne King, Program Chair, at 518-270-3106.
From the Editor's Desk
Hopefully, by the time you receive this issue, Spring will truly have sprung! It seems as though Winter has lasted.
thirteen months this year!
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I don't know about the rest of you, but to me, the World Wide Web is, at the same time, both intimidating and
exciting. I hope that by putting information and links on the ENY/ACRL Web Site, we can help to introduce web
‘newbies’ to this new and fascinating tool.
Let us know what you think about the web site. One of the wonderful things about the Web is that it can be updated,
and changed. As Michael says in his article, what do you like? What do you want to see changed? Let us know.
Also, I hope to see many of you in New Y ork this summer. I am quite excited about the Ice Cream Social with the
other New Y ork chapters of ACRL. As we are doing a joint conference with the Metro chapter next Spring, this is the
perfect opportunity to meet some people beforehand. I'll be easy to spot: I'll be the one with the biggest bowl of ice
cream and hot chocolate sauce available!
Take care, and I'll see you soon,
Kaistin Strohmeyer
kstrohme@hamilton.edu
Retum to ENY/ACRL Home Page
created by Kristin Strohmeyer
Last modified April 9, 1996
Eastem New Y ork Chapter
Association of College and Research Libraries
URL: http://urislib library.comell edu/newsletter. html
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CC BY-NC-SA 4.0