1. ARL Membership Meets With CARL in Toronto

A. Highlights of the Membership Meeting/Evaluation Form
B. Highlights of the Business Meeting/Program Review Survey
C. Board Actions

1.  ARL Membership Meets with CARL in Toronto
A. Highlights of the Membership Meeting

One hundred and four member institutions were represented at ARL's 138th Membership Meeting, "Creating the Digital Future," held in Toronto on May 23-25. The meeting was held in conjunction with the Canadian Association of Research Libraries and was hosted by the University of Toronto Libraries.  Chaired by ARL President Shirley Baker (Washington University, St. Louis) the programs focused on how research institutions are developing the infrastructure and expertise necessary to support the processes of scholarly publishing and to operate programs that embrace access to born digital and digitized primary source materials.

The first day was highlighted by a luncheon presentation by Deb deBruijn on the Canadian National Site Licensing Project.  That evening the University of Toronto Libraries hosted the opening reception at the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library of the University of Toronto.  Vice President and Provost Adel Sedra, Chief Librarian
Carole Moore, and University Press President and Publisher George Meadows welcomed participants and celebrated the 100th anniversary of the University of Toronto Press and its partnership with the Library.

Thursday morning, Kate Wittenberg, Columbia University Press, described how Columbia University's electronic publishing and digital library initiatives have enriched the content and functionality of "publications" and how new relationships among scholarly communication players have evolved.  In the second session, Research
Libraries21, four directors of research libraries ( William Gosling, Michigan; Ernie Ingles, Alberta; Carol Mandel, NYU; and Ann Wolpert, MIT) led a plenary and small group discussions of institutional responses to four sets of strategic challenges that confront research libraries as they create a digital future. The four issues discussed
were: Managing IT as a Strategic Asset; Recruiting, Retaining, and Motivating Human Resources; Defining an Institutional Strategy for Digital Preservation; and Redefining Intellectual Access and Expanding the Boundaries of Collections for Library Users.

At the Federal Relations lunch, speakers addressed three timely topics.  Marnie Swanson, University of Victoria, spoke on a recently released and controversial report on distance education in Canada. Winston Tabb outlined plans for the very recent Library of Congress National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program. Roch Carrier described the work of the National Library of Canada's
Council on Access to Information for Print Disabled Canadians.

Program Session III presented two innovators, Brewster Kahle (Internet Archives) and Will Thomas (Virginia Center for Digital History) who are each using the Web and digital technologies to expand access to an array of digital materials of value for teaching and research.   Following the afternoon ARL Business Meeting (see below), an evening reception was held at the Royal Ontario Museum.

On Friday morning, Professor Jean-Claude Guèdon (Université de Montréal) stimulated a lively discussion following his remarks "In Oldenburg's Long Shadow: Forging a New Alliance between Librarians and Research Scientists."  Narrowing the focus to a single discipline, the final program session featured Heather Joseph (BioOne) and Warren Holder (University of Toronto Libraries). Both speakers examined (and demonstrated) the kinds of transformations that are well underway in scholarly communications in the biosciences and generated discussion around the role of libraries in encouraging this transformation. (For example, see item 6 below.)

Salutes and Welcomes

Two new member libraries were acknowledged and their representatives welcomed at this meeting. Last October, the membership voted to invite Boston College to join the membership. In Toronto, Jerome Yavarkowsky, University Librarian, was welcomed as the representative of Boston College.  At the reception following the Business Meeting vote on the invitation to the Université de Montréal, Jean-Pierre Côté, Directeur Général, was introduced as the representative of ARL's newest member library. This Membership Meeting also offered tangible evidence of the predicted waves of retirements in the library profession.  Seven library directors were saluted by their colleagues on their retirement (Scott Bennett, Yale; Ellen Hoffman, York; David Kohl, Cincinnati; Sue Martin, Georgetown; Charles Osburn, Alabama; Elaine Sloan, Columbia; and Dale Cluff, Texas Tech) and five directors were introduced and welcomed as directors new to the ARL community (Tom Leonard, UC-Berkeley; Richard Lucier, Dartmouth; Mark Weber, Kent State; Betsy Wilson, Washington; and Sandra Yee, Wayne State).

Speaker Papers/Slides

All speakers have promised that their papers or slides will be made available to ARL. As they are received, they will be posted to the ARL website.  We will alert you as this resource develops.

Evaluation of the Meeting

Not quite twenty paper evaluation forms that were completed and returned on site ranked the meeting very positively (ratings were all 9 or 10 on a scale of 10).  The evaluation form is on the ARL website and you are encouraged to use it to provide feedback that will be used for planning future meetings <http://db.arl.org/eval/>.
 

B. Highlights of the ARL Business Meeting

At the Business Meeting on May 24th, several reports were given and action was taken on two items.

+ ARL President Shirley Baker reported on Board actions and discussions (see below).
+  ARL member representatives voted to invite the Université de Montréal Library to be an ARL member. (See item 2 below.)
+  Committee reports:

- Preservation:  Nancy Gwinn (Smithsonian) alerted members about the new Action Plan for the ARL Committee on the Preservation of Research Library Materials that had been approved by the committee and urged the full membership to review it. (A copy of the Preservation Action Plan is available on request from Charmaine McClarty.) She also reported on the discussion of the issues raised in the Nicholson Baker book.  The Committee is working on a Question and Answer document to address many of the issues raised by Baker. (See item 12 below.)

- Scholars Portal:  Brian Schottlaender (UC-San Diego) reported on the work of the Scholars Portal Working Group to develop a suite of discovery tools and services for academic users of the Internet. He described a series of meetings now underway between members of the Working Group and potential partners (commercial and not-for-profit) to determine what kind of relationship(s) would best produce the initial search engine that is envisioned.  He called members attention to the Working Group Report, released at the meeting and now available on the web <http://www.arl.org/access/scholarsportal/>.
(See item 9 below.)

+ Survey of Membership for ARL Program Review:  Jaia Barrett (ARL)
introduced a survey instrument that will gather information from member representatives for the ARL Board's Program Review.  Member representatives were asked to complete the survey form online at the ARL website by June 15.  [Note: a separate email was sent from Jaia to all library directors on May 30th with a reminder about this survey and a request to respond by June 15.]

+  ARL Bylaws. Member representatives voted to approve the proposed
changes in the ARL Bylaws that bring them into conformance with current association practice.

+  Jaia Barrett gave the Executive Director's Report due to the illness of Duane Webster.  She presented a summary of ARL's financial status including the highlights of the audit for 2000.  The audit reports revenue of $4,557,440 and expenditures of $4,470,850 including a contribution of $40,000 plus interest to the Board Permanent Reserve.  A copy of the financial summary is available on request. (See item 18 below.)

C. Board Actions

The ARL Board of Directors met twice during the week. At their meetings the Board:

a) approved the Program Review Survey with minor edits;

b) approved the Membership Committee's recommendation to propose to
Members that an invitation be extended to the Université de Montréal
Library to become a member of ARL;

c) approved the minutes of the February 2001 Board Meeting (to be
distributed separately);

d) accepted the 2000 audit;

e) met with representatives of CARL (Frances Groen, McGill; Frank Winter, Saskatchewan; and Tim Mark, CARL Executive Director) to discuss the CARL/ABRC-ARL Federal Relations Partnership Program. There was agreement that the new CARL Government Policies and Legislation Committee would collaborate with the ARL Information Policies Committee, CARL's Tim Mark, and ARL staff to advance the program.

f) agreed that the Executive Committee should work with the Scholarly
Communications Committee to consider all the implications of an ARL
response to the Public Library of Science petition, and bring a recommendation to the Board in July. (See item 6 below.); and

h) met with Susan Martin (Georgetown) and Jack Siggins (George Washington), ARL representatives in the ALA Ad Hoc Task Force on External Accreditation to discuss a wide range of issues surrounding library education, the impact of the accreditation process, and the needs of research libraries for graduates of accredited programs.  Last February the Board had declined to signal support for a proposal to change the current accreditation process that came from the Ad Hoc Task Force.  The Board decided to continue the discussion of an ARL response to this proposal at the July Board meeting.

2. Université de Montréal Joins ARL

At its Membership Meeting in Toronto, the ARL membership voted to invite the Université de Montréal to join as the 123rd member of the Association.  Located in Montreal, the University and its affiliated schools (of business and engineering) are one of the two premier French-language comprehensive research universities in Canada.  Jean-Pierre Côté is the Library Director General.

The Université de Montréal, founded in 1878, and its two affiliated schools today enroll approximately 48,400 students organized into thirteen faculties, more than sixty departments, and four teaching hospitals.  The University is a comprehensive research university, ranked among the top research universities in Canada, in which all major disciplines and professions are represented.  Its School of Library and Information Sciences is the only French-language institution in North American accredited by the American Library Association.  The University library system is among the largest in Canada and the French-speaking academic world.  The Libraries'
holdings of monographs, serials, rare books, and special collections are particularly strong.  More information about the Université de Montréal may be found at <http://www.umontreal.ca>.

3. ARL and SPARC at ALA

There are a number of ARL and SPARC sponsored events held in conjunction with the upcoming American Library Association Conference in San Francisco. In addition to these meetings, don't forget to stop by the ARL and SPARC booth #1040 in the Moscone Center.

Friday, June 15

9:00 am - 12 noon
ARL Directors Forum on Managing ILL/DD Services
Westin St. Francis Hotel, Georgian Room

1:00 pm -3:00 pm
ARL E-Metrics Meeting Project Participants Meeting
Hyatt Regency Hotel, Seacliff A Room

3:30 pm - 5:30 pm
ARL Survey Coordinators Meeting
Hyatt Regency Hotel, Seacliff A Room

5:00 pm - 7:00 pm
ARL Leadership and Career Development Program Organizing Meeting
Argent Hotel, Metropolitan I

5:30 pm - 7:30 pm
ARL German Resources Project Steering Committee Meeting
Marriott Hotel, Salon 13

7:30 pm - 8:30 pm
ARL German Resources Project Open Membership Meeting
Marriott Hotel, Walnut Room

Saturday, June 16,

9:30 am-12:30 pm
ARL LibQUAL+ Participants Meeting
Argent Hotel, City Room

11:00 am - 12:30 pm
SPARC/ACRL Forum
Sir Francis Drake Hotel, Empire Ballroom

4:00 pm - 5:30 pm
ARL German Resources Project Coll. Dev. Working Group
Hyatt Regency Hotel, Pacific Concourse B/C

4:00 pm - 5:00 pm
ARL New Survey Coordinators Meeting
Westin St. Francis, Mayfair Room

Monday, June 18

2:00 pm - 3:00 pm
ARL German Resources Project DocDel Work Group
Marriott Hotel, Jackson Suite

4. LCD Program Seeks Mentors by June 8

The 2001-2002 Leadership and Career Development Program is officially
underway. Twenty-one participants have been selected and are preparing to meet for the first time at an Organizing Meeting in San Francisco, CA. We would like to identify twenty-one ARL directors who are interested in working with one of these participants as a mentor.

Mentors contribute in these ways:

+ Attend the LCD Program Organizing Meeting on Friday, June 15, 2001,
from 5:00 to 7:00 pm at the Argent Hotel, Metropolitan I Room, on 50
Third Street in San Francisco, CA.  Participants and mentors alike
gain from connecting in-person early in the Program.

+ Work with your protégé to shape his/her research project. A list of
participants and research project topics will be shared with
potential mentors. ARL's DeEtta Jones will match mentors with
proteges based on expressed interest, so let her know if you are
interested in working with a particular participant.

+ Connect once a month with your protégés, either by telephone,
electronic chat, or in-person meeting, for substantive interaction;

+ Share your biographical statement or curriculum vita with
participants via the LCD Program website. Participants ask for and
are interested in learning about the career paths of library leaders.

+ Attend the Closing Ceremony at the ALA Conference, Summer 2002.

Please contact DeEtta Jones by June 8 if you are interested in being a mentor for this class of LCD Program participants.

5. U.S. DoJ Approves Reed Elsevier Purchase of Harcourt General

On May 7, the U.S. Department of Justice approved the sale of Harcourt to Reed Elsevier.  ARL representatives and attorneys met with DoJ staff on April 27 at their behest to once again convey our concerns. In response to the DoJ's final decision, ARL issued a statement <http://www.cni.org/Hforums/arl-announce/2001/0035.html> indicating our intent to "monitor closely developments in pricing that follow this merger, and document any erosion of libraries' ability to provide information resources for their constituencies." In the UK, the Competition Commission has concluded its study of the merger and forwarded its recommendations to the Secretary of State at the Department of Trade and Industry. The Secretary of State has indicated, however, that it will not be publishing any of the decisions on mergers until after the U.K. general election.

6. Public Library of Science Continues to Gain Momentum

Over 23,600 life-scientists from 164 countries have now signed on to the Public Library of Science (PLoS) initiative. These scientists have signed an open letter that states that as of September 1, 2001, they will publish in, review and edit for, and subscribe to only those journals that agree to make the contents of their titles available for free on a publicly accessible server, like PubMed Central, within six months of publication.

There are two fundamental precepts to the PLoS: 1) a belief that the results of publicly funded research should be freely available to the public; and 2) a belief that centralized archives in standardized formats allow the development of a rich array of sophisticated searching software and linked resources. The PLoS initiative was founded by a small group of leading biomedical scientists concerned with access to the research they and their colleagues were producing.

Discussion in the recent ARL Scholarly Communication Committee in Toronto revolved around possible actions that libraries could pursue to support the efforts of the PloS, including the development of infrastructure to support alternative publishing venues and/or an agreement by the library community to continue to subscribe to society titles that support the PLoS goals.

Subsequent membership discussion on these strategies ranged widely.
Most supported the spirit behind the PLoS petition and agreed it would be desirable to define a way for libraries to support this grassroots effort. All felt, however, there was a need for the idea of PLoS support to be more fully developed in the overall context of ARL's positions on copyright, author's rights, encouragement of innovative publishing, and the ultimate objective of a robust and economically sustainable system of publishing scientific findings.

The ARL Board has asked ARL staff to provide a summary analysis of the Public Library of Science and the implications of the discussion around ideas to support it. That will be coming shortly. In the meantime, the Board and Scholarly Communication Committee welcome additional member comment. Please send comments to Mary Case who will coordinate the analysis.

As a reminder, Pat Brown, one of the founding members of the Public
Library of Science and a distinguished life scientist at Stanford, will be one of the speakers at the SPARC-ACRL Forum on Saturday, June 16, from 11:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at the Sir Francis Drake Hotel, Empire Ballroom, San Francisco.

7. SPARC-ACRL Forum at ALA

The next SPARC-ACRL Forum, "Outward Bound: Effecting Change in Scholarly Communication from Outside the Library," will be held on Saturday, June 16, 2001 from 11:00 am - 12:30 pm at the Sir Frances Drake Hotel (Empire Ballroom), San Francisco. Attendees will interact with speakers whose commitment to change in scholarly communication takes place outside of the library context. A provost, a medical researcher and an economist will suggest ways for librarians to reach out to those communities and build constituencies. Speakers include Provost David Shulenberger (University of Kansas), Dr. Pat O. Brown (Public Library of Science/Stanford University) and Professor Ted Bergstrom (Dept. of Economics, University of California, Santa Barbara). Please join us for a stimulating session. No reservations for the Forum are necessary. SPARC will be located in the exhibit hall at booth 1040.

8. ARL Directors Forum to Focus on Accessing Digital Resources and
Linking ILL/DD Ordering Capabilities into CDRS

Directors and senior staff of ARL member institutions are invited to attend the ARL Directors Forum on Managing ILL/DD Operations on Friday, June 15, 2001 from 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 noon.  The Forum will be held at the Westin St. Francis Hotel, Georgian Room.

Brewster Kahle, Executive Director of the Internet Archive and President and CEO of Alexa Internet (located in the Presidio in San Francisco) will describe the Internet Archive and its goal of offering permanent access for researchers, historians, and scholars to historical collections that exist in digital format.  Brewster would like to explore with librarians in research libraries the legal framework of connecting library users with digital resources included in the Internet Archives and other repositories.

Christopher Wright, Chief of the Loan Division at the Library of Congress, will lead a discussion of a document delivery project within the Cooperative Digital Reference Service (CDRS).  The project seeks to define how a patron, receiving a bibliographic citation as part of an answer to a question submitted within the CDRS framework, could transfer that citation into an electronic interlibrary loan request for submission at the patron's local library. For additional information, and to register, please contact Mary Jackson.

9. Scholars Portal Working Group Issues Report

At the recent ARL Membership Meeting the ARL Scholars Portal Working
Group issued a report and briefed members on plans to develop a suite of web-based tools and services that will connect the higher education community as directly as possible with quality information resources.  The Working Group defines Phase I of the project as development of a search engine capable of searching across locally licensed and publicly accessible quality electronic resources and databases to retrieve and integrate the results into a single presentation.  The strategy adopted by the Working Group is to identify interest from within the broad community of software
developers (non-profit and commercial) who might partner with ARL in the construction of such a discovery tool.  Such conversations are now underway.  The report from the Scholars Portal Working Group is available on the ARL website <http://www.arl.org/access/scholarsportal/>.  Additional information is available from Jaia Barrett.

10. CNI Update

CNI Executive Director Clifford Lynch has just published "The Battle to Define the Future of the Book in the Digital World" in First Monday <http://www.firstmonday.dk/>, a peer-reviewed journal on the Internet. The article provides a comprehensive survey and analysis of the technological, legal, economic, and intellectual challenges associated with publishing in the digital age. This is an important article assessing the prospects of the e-book and we recommend it to you highly.

Clifford will also deliver several talks at the upcoming ALA meeting in San Francisco. On June 15 he will speak at the LITA preconference, "E-Books and E-Book Devices: reading Reinvented and the Implications for Libraries and their Patrons." On June 17 he will be part of a panel discussing "Top Tech Trends," and on June 18 he will speak on the topic of "Quantum Leaps by the Decade: Forty Years of Science Librarianship" at the ACRL's Science and Technology session.

11. Developing an ARL Agenda for Special Collections

ARL has just published "Special Collections in ARL Libraries," an analysis of the findings of the 1998 survey of special collections in research libraries, sponsored by the ARL Research Collections Committee. The response rate to the survey, the first such effort since 1979, was close to 100%. The data from the survey can provide information for local decision making about special collections and serve as a foundation for collective action. The author of this important analysis is Judith M. Panitch, Research and Special
Projects Librarian at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.

The report is especially timely in light of the symposium planned for June 27-29 at Brown University, "Building on Strength: Developing an ARL Agenda for Special Collections." This working meeting will bring together library directors and special collections librarians for presentations and small-group discussion of the status of special collections, the potential of these collections for enhancing research and education, and the means of realizing this potential.

A complimentary copy of the report was sent on May 31st to the director of each ARL member institution and to other individuals participating in the upcoming symposium. The 123 page book is alsoavailable for sale through the ARL publications distribution center for $44+$6 shipping and handling for ARL members ($100+$6 shipping and handling for non-members). For more information, contact pubs@arl.org.

12. Preservation Committee Addresses Nicholson Baker Issues

At its meeting on May 23rd, the Preservation Committee reviewed the
repercussions of Nicholson Baker's book, Double Fold.  The Committee
decided to develop, over the next several months, a statement that
would articulate research libraries' responsibility for preservation,
taking into account the need to balance preservation with access and
resource constraints.  In addition, the Committee reviewed a Question
and Answer document intended to address some of the key issues raised
by Baker.

The Baker page on the ARL website continues to be updated.  Recently
added documents include a letter from Sid Verba to the Harvard community in response to several inquiries Verba had received about Baker's book.  In his letter, Verba notes:  "While I believe that the book raises significant issues, Baker's portrait of preservation activities in American libraries is in many ways a distortion that may harm serious efforts to preserve the historical record."  Also added to the site is a paper presented by Karin Wittenborg at the University of London "Do We Want to Keep our Newspapers?" Conference, March 12-13, 2001.  Wittenborg agrees that the library and scholarly communities must do a better job of preserving original newspapers and argues for a "coordinated effort to put in place a distributed mechanism for selecting and preserving the artifact."  We appreciate your keeping us posted about local discussions or actions on Baker's book and on news stories you may encounter.  Please send information to Mary Case.  The address for the Baker page on the ARL website is <http://www.arl.org/preserv/baker.html>.

13. LibQUAL+ Project Invites Participation for 2002

To participate in the spring 2002 LibQUAL+ survey administration, please complete the sign-up form by August 1. Visit the LibQUAL+ homepage at <http://www.libqual.org/> and follow the link in the upper right-hand corner to sign up for the spring 2002 survey.  Note that there will be a participation fee of $2,000 due in the spring of 2002.  Initial results of the spring 2001 LibQUAL+ implementation will be presented to current participants at the ALA annual conference in San Francisco; results will be presented publicly at the 4th Northumbria International Conference, 12-16 August, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania <http://www.arl.org/stats/north/>, and the Library Research Seminar II, 2-3 November, College Park, Maryland
<http://www.dpo.uab.edu/~folive/LRSII/>.  For more information, contact Kaylyn Hipps.

14. E-Metrics Project Completing Field-Testing for Phase II

The ARL E-Metrics Project has completed field-testing of key library statistics as well as selected vendor statistical reporting practices.  Using the information from the inventory in Phase I, participating institutions have worked to refine and understand better the processes needed to collect statistics related to networked information resources. Results will be shared with project participants at their ALA meeting and discussion will be held about the field test. Draft papers were presented to project participants in the spring as well as to attendees of the CNI Task Force meeting.  Site visits are being made to some project participant libraries to
gather information on the relationships between institutional outcomes and library outcomes. Current information on the progress of the ARL E-Metrics Project is available at <http://www.arl.org/stats/newmeas/emetrics/index.html>.

15. Preliminary Program Available for 4th Northumbria International
Conference on Performance Measurement in Libraries & Information
Services

The 4th Northumbria International Conference on Performance Measurement in Libraries & Information Services will be held as an IFLA satellite preconference, sponsored by the IFLA Section on Statistics. The program is titled "Meaningful Measures for Emerging Realities" and will take place this August 12-16 in Pittsburgh.  A preliminary program including speakers is now available on the ARL website <http://www.arl.org/stats/north/index.html>.

With 14 parallel sessions and a poster session, attendees will have the opportunity to learn about a wide variety of assessment and measurement projects being conducted in libraries and other information organizations around the world. The 4th Northumbria International Conference is organized and sponsored by ARL, the Oakland Library Consortium, National Commission on Libraries and Information Science (NCLIS), the University of Arizona Library, Arizona State University Library, and Texas A&M University Sterling C. Evans Library. The conference registration form is at
<http://db.arl.org/n4/>.

16.  Statistics and Measurement Program Update

(a) ARL is currently collecting data for the following surveys:
 

+ ARL Statistics 1999-2000.  Status: complete; final tables are available at: <ftp://www.arl.org/stat/statspub-xls>.  Printed publication is in production.

+ ARL Academic Law Library Statistics 1999-2000: Data verification underway

+ ARL Medical Library Statistics 1999-2000: Data verification underway

+ ARL Supplementary Statistics 1999-2000: In production

+ ARL Preservation Statistics 1999-2000 (received 90 responses)

(b) Published on the ARL Website:

+ "Library Expenditures as a Percent of University Expenditures,1997-98 and 1998-99 are now available at:
<http://www.arl.org/stats/eg/>.

+ ARL Preservation Statistics 1997-98 are available at <http://www.arl.org/stats/pres/>.  Printed copies of the publication were mailed to Directors of ARL libraries.

+ ARL Academic Law and Medical Library Statistics 1998-99

+ ARL Preservation Statistics 1998-99

If you need data and files that are not yet publicly available, contact
Martha Kyrillidou.

17. ARL Publications Issued in May

+  ARL Bimonthly Report #215 (April 2001). This issue features
articles about the Big Twelve Plus Libraries Consortium meeting with
23 provosts on how to "live" the Tempe Principles; a report on how
economics faculty are creating change in scholarly publishing; and a
review of the issues raised at the ARL symposium on measuring library
service quality.  See <http://www.arl.org/newsltr/215/index.html>.

+  ARL Preservation Statistics 1997-98: A Compilation of Statistics
from the Members of the Association of Research Libraries. Julia C.
Blixrud, Kaylyn Hipps, Martha Kyrillidou, and Michael O'Connor,
comps.  66 pp.  ISSN 1050-7442.

+  Developing Indicators for Academic Library Performance: Ratios
from the ARL Statistics 1996-97 and 1997-98. Martha Kyrillidou, comp.
194 pp.  ISSN 1084-9459.

+  Developing Indicators for Academic Library Performance: Ratios
from the ARL Statistics 1997-98 and 1998-99. Martha Kyrillidou, comp.
188 pp.  ISSN 1084-9459.

+  Special Collections in ARL Libraries: Results of the 1998 Survey
Sponsored by the ARL Research Collections Committee. Judith M.
Panitch.  123 pp.  ISBN 0-918006-47-3.

18. Material Distributed at the 138th ARL Membership Meeting

A number of documents were made available to members at the recent
Membership Meeting. To receive a copy of any document listed below
that is not available on the web, contact ARL's Charmaine McClarty
<charmaine@arl.org>.

+ 138th ARL Membership Meeting Attendance List

+ ARL Program Plan 2001. March 2001. <http://www.arl.org/arl/pp2001/index.html>

+ At a Slight Angle to the Universe: The University in a Digitized,
Commercialized Age, by William G. Bowen.  ARL Bimonthly Report #216 -
June 2001.  [To be mailed to all member libraries the week of June 4.]

+ LibQUAL+  [Brochure]

+ Upcoming ARL Learning Events in Library Assessment Evaluation [1 page flyer]

+ ARL Scholars Portal Working Group Report - May 2001
<http://www.arl.org/access/scholarsportal/>

+ Action Plan for the ARL Committee on the Preservation of Research
Library Materials. May 23, 2001.

+ Principles of Membership in the Association of Research Libraries
(endorsed by the ARL Board of Directors, February 2001).
<http://www.arl.org/stats/principles.html>

+ Whither Competition? A SPARC Whitepaper - May 2001 (by Rick Johnson)

+ A Library View of the SPARC Initiative. Against the Grain, April
2001. (by Carla Stoffle) <http://www.against-the-grain.com>

+ NEWS - THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS  -  January 12, 2001  - "Library to
Lead National Effort to Develop Digital Information Infrastructure
and Preservation Program"

+ Bibliographic Control of Web Resources:  A Library of Congress
Action Plan (by Beacher J. Wiggins, May 18, 2001)
<http://www.loc.gov/catdir/bibcontrol/draftplan.html>

+ Survey of ARL Member Representatives [Available on request to Jaia
Barrett.]

+ ARL - Overview of Audited Financial Statement for 2000

19.  ARL Transitions

+  Florida State: Althea Jenkins was named Director of the Florida
State University Library effective August 1.  She is presently the
Executive Director of the Association of College and Research
Libraries, ALA.

+  National Agricultural Library: Eleanor G. Frierson was named the
Acting Director of NAL.

+  Washington State: Virginia Steel was named Director of Libraries
effective no later than September 1.  She is currently Associate
Director for Public Services at MIT.

+  York University: Cynthia Archer, currently Associate University
Librarian at Windsor, was appointed University Librarian at York
effective August 1.

20. ARL Staff Changes

+  Alison Buckholtz, SPARC Assistant Director, Communications, has
been named Associate Enterprise Director of SPARC.  Alison may be
reached at <alison@arl.org>.

+  Consuella Askew Waller has joined ARL as the New Measures Projects
Assistant.  She was previously Reference Librarian/Distance Learning
Librarian at Howard University Library. Consuella may be reached at
<consuella@arl.org>.

21. Other Transitions

+ National Endowment for the Humanities: The White House advised NEH
of President Bush's intent to nominate art historian Bruce Cole of Indiana University to serve as the next chairman of the NEH. Mr. Cole is Distinguished Professor of Fine Arts and Professor of Comparative Literature in the Hope School of Fine Arts at Indiana. He was appointed to the National Council on the Humanities by George Bush, Sr. in 1991 and served on the council until 1999. The present NEH chair William R. Ferris has served since November 1997 and is scheduled to complete his term in November of this year.

+  Special Libraries Association: Roberta I. Shaffer was named as Executive Director of the SLA effective September 4, 2001.  She is presently Dean and Professor of the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at the University of Texas at Austin.

22.  Honors

Joseph Branin (Ohio State), Frances Groen (McGill), and Suzanne Thorin (Indiana) are the recipients of the ALCTS Blackwell's Scholarship Award for their article "The Changing Nature of Collection Management in Research Libraries."  The award cites that the article "cogently outlines important economic and cultural drivers that are shaping the future of collection management activities." The paper was originally prepared by the authors for the ARL Research Collections Committee and subsequently was published in Library Resources and Technical Services, 44 (11): 23-32.

June 4, 2001
JB

   G. Jaia Barrett, Deputy Executive Director
   Association of Research Libraries
   21 Dupont Circle, N.W.
   Washington, D.C.   20036
      (202) 296-2296
      FAX: (202) 872-0884
      Internet:  jaia@arl.org