Publications and Bibliographies
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Publications and Bibliographies | |
American Library Association
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Preliminary Schedule of ANSS Meetings
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Thanks to all ANSS chairs and members who showed up in chilly Philadelphia
to do the section's work. Let me pass on news from ACRL Leadership Council.
ACRL is looking for mentors for minority library school students as part
of its Spectrum Scholarship program. ACRL is also launching a new program
to help academic and research libraries market themselves to the larger
university community. Visit the "marketing @ your library" page
on the ACRL site.
Thanks to everyone who came to executive meetings to share information.
Myra Appel, UC Davis, reported on The Council for the Preservation of
Anthropology Records' database, recently relocated to UC Davis, which
provides descriptions of the collections located in libraries and museums
around the world. Ms. Appel asked that anyone with collections they wish
to list in the database contact her (mlappel@ucdavis.edu). Several members
noted that the EBSS has tailored information literacy standards to their
specific subject areas. It was suggested that a task force be set up to
review the possibility of doing a similar service for anthropology, sociology
and criminal justice. If you are interested in volunteering, please contact
Royce Kurtz.
Cambridge Scientific Abstracts(CSA) kindly offered to sponsor our program
with a donation toward speakers' travel, lodging, and honoraria. I wish
to thank CSA for their generosity. I look forward to seeing everyone at
Toronto. There are exciting programs and discussion groups planned. Remember,
executive council meetings are open and provide an opportunity to share
information about what's going on in the profession and your libraries.
The committee welcomed three new members, Jose Aguinaga, JoEllen Broome, and Venta Silins. The chair described the charge of the committee to the new members. Meetings involved a discussion of Penny Whitten's review of Biological Abstracts, James Nalen's review of Chicano Database, and Valery King's review of AgeLine. The final editing of Penny's review of Biological Abstracts was completed by the committee. It will be published in the next edition of ANSS Currents (vol.18, no.1). The committee will continue to read through the first draft of Chicano Database and AgeLine at ALA Annual in Toronto. The committee members had a discussion of current databases for review. Members are looking into the following products as possible subjects for future reviews: Alternative Press Index, Art and Archaeology Technical Abstracts (AATA), Gender Index, and Web of Science.
The committee welcomed JoAnn Jacoby, the Anthropology & Sociology
subject specialist and Ast. Professor of Library Administration at the
Univ. of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, as a new member. Fowlkes & Weimer
attended the ACRL Program Planning Committee meeting to hear the '03-'04
President speak on his theme, "Partnerships & Con-nections: the
learning community as knowledge builder." This theme will be incorporated
into our program.
The group discussed the need to have a program with broad appeal. The
theme of "Florida: a crossroads of cultures," with plans to
include speakers on archaeology, immigration, race relations, tourist
trade, retiree communities, migrant communities, etc., was chosen and
announced at the Monday ANSS Executive Committee meeting. Immediately
following the Midwinter Meeting, the committee discussed a "new proposal"
focusing on Zora Neale Hurston's life, work and influence. She was an
ethnologist and novelist from Orlando. Topics under con-sideration include:
African American social history and ethnological research, history of
black townships, race relations, African American women scholars, Hurston's
attitudes about race, her influence on women's studies and race relations,
her papers and research, etc. Cospon-sorship will be sought from AFAS
and WSS. The com-mittee will put together a program on Zora Neale Hurston.
Liaison Committee
Sally Willson Weimer, Acting Chair
Sally Willson Weimer agreed to be Acting Chair. One of the committee's goals is to monitor activities and to develop networking activities between professional and scholarly associations and the section. Under old business, the research of studying use by scholars of the electronic, microfiche, and print versions of HRAF/Human Relations Area Files by Sandy Rose was discussed. There was interest in creating an "ask an anthropologist" email reference service, but this project was tabled. A suggestion to create a directory of specialists such as sociology and anthropology librarians was put forth; however, this project was also tabled as a lower priority.
One committee project is to update a list of about 50 professional/scholarly
organizations to which we send a copy of ANSS Currents. Another goal of
the committee is to act as a clearinghouse for communication to scholarly
groups. Suggestions included increasing committee membership, creating
official liaison roles, and establishing a scholarly publication award.
There was discussion of concern about the scholarly publications from
the American Sociological Association because the conference papers appear
to be gray literature (not published or available). Several members suggested
that educational institutions be encouraged to publish full text of these
materials online, and that an award program be initiated for the best
paper with the stipulation that it be published. We welcome ANSS members'
suggestions about projects and activities.
The committee discussed the Social on Friday night and agreed that Fridays
remained the best night for the ANSS Social. Committee members will try
to find a smaller, more intimate venue for the Social in Toronto. The
committee also reviewed the sign-in sheet distributed to the discussion
group conveners, which will identify non-members. The committee revised
the letter sent to all new members. The committee chairs will send letters
to interested attendants and to new members. This year the ACRL Membership
Committee requested volunteers to help staff the ACRL booth. Two ANSS
committee members volunteered and thought this served as a good avenue
to generate interest in ACRL and ANSS. Daix and Fowlkes reported on their
attendance at the ACRL Membership Committee meeting where statistics were
distributed.
The candidates for the 2003 ANSS elections are:
Vice-Chair/Chair-Elect:
Wade R. Kotter, Weber State University
Christine A. Whittington, Greensboro College
Secretary:
Susan Erickson, Vanderbilt University
Penny Whitten, University of Nevada, Las Vegas
Member-at-Large:
Mimmo Bonanni, Arizona State University
Brita Servaes, New York University
I want to thank the candidates for their willingness to run for office
and committee members, Fred Hay and Janet Steins.
Stephen MacLeod, ANSS-L Moderator, stated his intention of resigning from this position over a year ago. The committee issued a call for nominations and/or volunteers to assume this position. In December 2002, Westney received correspondence from Jim Haug regarding JoAnn Jacoby who had expressed interest. On January 2003, Jacoby and MacLeod began the process of transferring responsibility for the list. MacLeod suggested that ANSS ask ALA to host the list; this is now in place. The committee is grateful to ALA for assuming this responsibility. On behalf of the ANSS section, the Publications Committee extends its appreciation and gratitude to Stephen MacLeod for his years of dedicated service as Moderator of ANSS-L. The ANSS brochure needs to be revised, and Westney will revise and bring copies to ALA Annual in Toronto.
The committee has been focused during much of the past several years on revision of the ANSS Manual. At its meeting in Philadelphia, the committee continued to polish a draft prepared by Cathy Moore-Jansen. The final version will include a number of simple editorial changes/ clarifications as well as some added hyperlinks to take advantage of the Web environment. There are also some significant additions, including information on both the Subject & Bibliographic Access Committee and the Criminal Justice/Criminology Librarians Discussion Group, a checklist of responsibilities for the ANSS vice chair/chair-elect, and sample thank- you letters. Review & Planning is also adding archival guidelines for ANSS documents that were compiled by Wade Kotter and Sue Erickson. The guidelines will be integrated into the manual as well as appear as a separate Appendix. When a draft of the revised manual is ready this spring, an announcement will go out on ANSS-L to solicit feedback so that a vote by Executive Committee can take place at Annual in Toronto.
Information literacy standards have not been tailored to all disciplines yet. There is not yet a list of core competencies that would include, e.g. how to cite AAA style, how to find and keep up with the professional literature in the field, etc. This also raises the question of assessment. EBSS offers an example of subject specific guidelines at: http:// /www-personal.umich.edu/~karsendi/ ebss/swkcomp.html. An important component of information literacy work is raising the consciousness of faculty: they know what the students need to learn, but do not know what the library can offer. The best approach is an integrated one where literacy is directly connected to class topics (course integrated) and students are walked through research strategies for specific topics. A good example is Isabel Espinal's tutorials at: http://www.library.umass.edu/subject/anthro/.
Suzanne Calpestri talked about how she teaches a ten-hour course to graduate students in which they learn information literacy principles that they in turn can use in their own teaching; the focus is on becoming "independent learners." This course includes a discussion of publishers and how to critically look at websites. Generally, it was stressed that students need to learn how to evaluate information. The focus of instruction should be on concepts, not tools, for example, not so much about how a specific database works, but about the process of developing a search with Boolean logic, etc.
Another issue for information literacy is the interdisciplinary nature
of the field. It is important to make students aware of the organization
of knowledge, for example how to think about other academic field(s) that
might be interested in the topic they are researching. Students also need
to know the meaning of controlled vocabularies and how to use them. For
dealing with big classes, librarians should use electronic means such
as class listservs, Blackboard, etc. However, introducing oneself to a
class in person is always important in establishing a connection with
students and faculty. ANSS can take further steps by: Looking at the ACRL
Information Literacy initiative (http://www.ala.org/acrl/il/);
establishing an information literacy task force, and developing best practices
models. Possible discussion topics for Toronto include: Digitization,
Anthropology Plus by RLG or tracking Canadian anthropological literature.
"Criminal Justice Statistics - Just a Click Away: New Resources from the Bureau of Justice Statistics" was the theme of the presentation by Marianne Zawitz, Chief, Dissemination Unit, Bureau of Justice Statistics. Ms. Zawitz, the recent recipient of the Attorney General's award for Excellence for Information Technology, gave an overview of the BJS site. Highlights of enhancements include the new capability of analyzing and manipulating data directly online; the simplification of charts, such as "Key Facts at a Glance'; the inclusion of periodic publications in the Publications Section; and the addition of live links to related sites. Take an online tour at: http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/tour/intro.htm.
Attendees received the new January 2003 BJS CD-ROM of its Publications Collection. Ms. Zawitz is also actively seeking input from library professionals on the Sourcebook of Criminal Justice. If you are interested in offering feedback, contact her at: zawitzm@ojp.usdoj.gov.
We also heard a report from Lauris Olson, Univ. of Penn. on the 7th World
Criminal Justice Library Network meeting he attended in January in Canberra,
Australia. For his report, contact Lauris by email at: olson@pobox.upenn.edu.
Join us in Toronto on Saturday from 4:30-5:30 p.m. when our presentation
will be on Statistics Canada.
The Midwinter Meeting of the ANSS Sociology Librarians Discussion Group
centered on interface issues for Sociological Abstracts from three vendors:
Cambridge Scientific Abstracts, SilverPlatter/Ovid, and FirstSearch. The
discussion revealed some weaknesses of the interfaces and pointed up some
advances that have happened with recent upgrades to each. Setting money
aside, the group seemed to appreciate clean, easy to follow pages and
the existence of transparent linking to catalogs or full text. Many also
lauded the ability to search multiple databases at once or at least having
related databases on the same interface. We need to be diligent in communicating
our concerns and laudatory remarks to vendors. They want to hear from
us!
New ACRL Web site to launch in April
Features will include advanced searching options and an improved general
search feature, better navigability, and one-stop pages detailing ALA's
work. The site will remain accessible through www.ala.org/acrl and www.acrl.org,
but lower-level URLs will change. If you have any questions, please contact
Stephanie Orphan, sorphan@ala.org.
New Realities, New Relationships Across Borders:
ACRL/CACUL Joint Presidents' Program
Globalization and new information technologies present challenges to academic
and research communities. Ernie Ingles, Associate VP, Univ. of Alberta,
will provide a Canadian perspective, framing the issues. Dr. Freeman A.
Hrabowski, III, Pres., Univ. of Maryland, will explore the impact of rapid
and dramatic demographic and technological change on libraries and higher
education.
Please visit our ANSS-Website to learn more about officers, committees, discussion groups, programs, and publications.
To subscribe, send a message to listproc@ala.org. In the body of the message type "subscribe ANSS-L Firstname Lastname".
ANSS is seeking volunteers for several committee assignments. Committee appointments require attendance at ALA Midwinter and Annual Conferences. To volunteer, please print and fill out this form, and then return it to:
Dr. Wade Kotter, ANSS Vice Chair/Chair Elect
Social Sciences Librarian
Stewart Library
Weber State University
2901 University Circle
Ogden, UT 84408-2901
wkotter@weber.edu
Name, Title, Institution, Preferred Mailing Address:
___________________________________________
___________________________________________
___________________________________________
___________________________________________
Telephone: _______________
FAX: ______________
E-mail: _____________________________________
Number of Years as Member of ANSS _______
Academic Background (Institutions, Dates, Relevant Subject Areas):
_____________________________________________
_____________________________________________
_____________________________________________
_____________________________________________
Previous and current ALA or ACRL Committee Assignments:
______________________________________________
____________________________________________
____________________________________________
ALA or ACRL Offices Held:
______________________________________________
______________________________________________
______________________________________________
ANSS Experience (Committees, Offices):
_____________________________________________
_____________________________________________
____________________________________________
ANSS Committee Preferences (Be Specific):
______________________________________________
______________________________________________
______________________________________________
______________________________________________
Anthropology and Sociology Background/Interests/ Publications (include state, local, regional):
______________________________________________
______________________________________________
______________________________________________
Signature _______________________
Date: _________________________
ANSS Currents (ISSN 0888-5559) is published by the Anthropology and Sociology Section of the Association of College and Research Libraries, a division of the American Library Association, 50 East. Huron St., Chicago IL 60611; (800) 545-2433, ext. 2523. ©American Library Association, 2003.
Co-Editors: Shawn W. Nicholson, Michigan State University, 100 Library, East Lansing, MI 48824-1048, (517) 432-1749. nicho147@mail.lib.msu.edu
Mary M. Nofsinger, Holland/New Library, Washington State University,
Pullman, WA 99164-5610, (509) 335-8614. mnofsing@wsu.edu
ANSSWeb
http://www.lib.odu.edu/anss/
Production & Circulation Office: 50 East Huron St., Chicago IL 60611.
ANSS Currents is published semi-annually in May and November. Back issues
are available from ALA/ACRL, 50 East Huron St., Chicago IL 60611.
Chair, 2002-03: Royce Kurtz, J.D. Williams Library, University of Mississippi,
University, MS 38677-2944.
(662) 915-7985. ulkurtz@olemiss.edu
Vice-Chair/Chair-Elect, 2003-04: James D. Haug, Smithsonian Institution
Libraries, PO Box 37012,
NHB 331 MRC 112, Washington, DC 20013-7012.
(202) 357-1819. haugj@si.edu
_ Printed on recycled paper