ACRL News Issue (B) of College & Research Libraries In this issue: R e s e a rc h L ib r a r ie s in 2030 ........................297 A C R L S eeks V o lu n te e rs ............................. 300 C o m m itte e V o lu n te e r F o rm ...................... 303 C o n tin u in g E d u c a tio n O p p o r tu n itie s ..............................................304 C o n tin u in g E d u c a tio n — X VIII ................... 304 E v a lu a tiv e C h ec k list fo r C ollege L i b r a r y P ro g ra m s ...............* ....3 0 5 M ission o f a n U n d e r g r a d u a te L ib r a r y ...........................317 Bylaws o f W e s te r n E u ro p e a n L a n g u a g e S pecialists S ection ................ 322 N ew s fro m th e F ie ld .....................................328 P eo p le ............................................................... 329 P u b lications ..................................................... 337 Classified A dv ertisin g ................................... 341 ISSN 0099-0086 COLLEGE & RESEARCH LIBR n AR ew IES s NO. 10 • NOVEMBER 1979 R esearch Libraries in the Year 2030 Major university libraries can anticipate a lower growth rate, a wider variety of formats for infor­ m ation, and heavy use d ire c tly from hom es, offices, and laboratories in the next half century, says David W eber, Stanford University Libraries director. W eber made his forecast in an address to the University of Oklahoma’s School of Library Science on Septem ber 8. W eber said the largest university library may reach 20 million to 25 million volumes by the year A.D. 2030. This compares with about 10 million at present. Huge collections of film, fiche, videodiscs, and data sets will supplem ent books, journals, and reports. T hese new formats will provide important new dimensions to library ser­ vices, but most will be additions rather than re­ placements for printed works. In central university research libraries, staff size will remain nearly static, and suprainstitu­ tional organizations like the Research Libraries Group will be of growing importance. But the basic concerns of academic libraries will remain much as they are today: finances, standards, bib­ liographic instruction, systems, interlibrary ser­ vices, and collection development. Extensive col­ lections of published materials on specific topics will remain the heart of the academic library. “Library budgets as a proportion of university teaching and research expenditures are likely to decrease only slightly,” W eber said. In recent years, library acquisitions costs have been iden­ tified as one of the fastest-growing segments of university expense, but efforts are under way at Stanford and elsewhere to reduce the rate of in­ crease, which now runs about 15 percent annu­ ally. W eber predicted that many lecture courses will be routinely videotaped for subsequent library access. As many as half of the major reference works will b e available on-line, and th e book forms of indexing and abstracting services and li­ brary catalogs will ten d to disappear. In many technical fields students and faculty will be able to select citations by on-line com­ p uter access outside the library—in offices, labo­ ratories, and residence halls. Direct office deliv­ ery of photocopies of library articles and reports will be customary for faculty and research staff, and the long-distance facsimile transm ission of materials will be common. The cost of publications, W eber said, will move closer to the Consum er Price Index than was the case in the 1970s. The discovery of an economic substitute for paper will help hold down price in­ creases for p rin te d publications, and up to 90 percent of library acquisition purchase orders will be transmitted to North American and European vendors electronically rather than by postal ser­ vice or cable. W eber m ade clear th at his forecast differed both from a simple extrapolation of past trends and from technological “blue sky” scenarios. Li­ braries could not look forward to getting a larger p ro p o rtio n of th e gross national p ro d u c t or a larger share of university resources, as they had been able to do in the recent past. On the other hand, the library of the future will not be so dif­ ferent from the library of today as to be unrecog­ nizable. Despite many changes, W eber concluded, li­ braries today still share a great many similarities in theory, operation, and a host of particular problem s with those of the 1930s. Fifty years hence libraries still are apt to have quiet reading places for students to absorb and integrate their classroom and laboratory studies with printed in­ formation in a variety of formats. ■■ News issue (A) of College & Research Libraries, vol. 40, no. 6 298 COMMUNITY COLLEGE LIBRARIES PO L L E D ON MATERIALS BUDGETS Expenditures for books kept ahead of inflation during the past year at seventeen of twenty-seven community college libraries polled by ACRL, but expenditures for periodicals, audiovisual m ate­ rials, microforms, and binding lagged behind. T his p ic tu re e m e rg es from th e re su lts of an ACRL survey on materials budgets at community college libraries. We asked the community college libraries that are participating in the ACRL 100 Libraries Proj­ ect to report their 1978 and 1979 (budgeted) ex­ penditures for five categories of library materials: books, periodicals, audiovisual m aterials, m i­ croforms, and binding. Twenty-seven libraries re ­ turned the survey forms. B o o k s T he tw enty-seven libraries re p o rte d average increases of 15.9 p e rc e n t in e x p en d itu re s for books betw een 1978 and 1979. The median in­ crease was 17 percent. We don’t know how fast book prices climbed during that period, but we do know that the average price of hardcover books (costing less than $81) rose about 4 percent dur­ ing the previous year (see Publishers W eekly, S e p te m b e r 3, 1979). If we assum e th a t book prices continued to rise at an annual rate of 4 percent between 1978 and 1979, then seventeen of the twenty-seven libraries in our sample would have increased their book budgets by sufficient amounts (4 percent or more) to stay abreast or even get ahead of the rise in book prices. P e r i o d i c a l s The picture for periodicals is not as bright. The average increase in expenditures for periodicals among the twenty-seven libraries was 5 percent. The median increase was 4 percent. The Sep­ tem ber issue of the Library Journal reports that the average price for journal subscriptions rose 10.1 percent betw een 1978 and 1979. Only five of the tw enty-seven libraries in our survey group increased their outlays for periodicals by 10 p e r­ cent or more. The conclusion is that most of the twenty-seven libraries lost ground to inflation in expenditures for periodicals. A u d io v is u a l M a t e r ia l s Among the community college libraries return­ ing th e su rv e y th e a v era g e o u tla y for a u ­ diovisual materials went up by 20.5 percent from 1978 to 1979. This average figure, however, was skewed by two very large individual increases of 200 pe rce n t and 644 p ercent. The m edian in ­ crease was zero. Only ten libraries actually man­ aged to increase their audiovisual budgets, ten cut their expenditures, and seven kept them the same. Overall, the audiovisual outlays of most of the sample libraries probably lost ground to infla­ tion. M i c r o f o r m s The results of the survey show an average in­ crease in expenditures of 16.9 p ercent for mi­ croforms among the libraries polled, b u t once again, the average was pulled up by two large in­ creases (of 95 percent and 275 percent). The me­ dian increase was zero. More than half of the sam ple lib ra rie s (se v en te en ) s p e n t th e sam e amount or less on microforms than they had the year before. B i n d i n g Twelve libraries in th e sam ple group spent more on binding in 1979 than in 1978, twelve spent the same, and three spent less. The aver­ age increase was 39 percent because of three very large increases (of 129 percent, 245 percent, and 525 percent). The median increase was zero. In short, a few libraries increased their expenditures for binding significantly, b ut most spent about what they had the year before. Overall, the results of the survey suggest that the book budgets of the libraries surveyed made a b etter showing against inflation than the other categories of expenditures. Moreover, books con­ tinued to take the lion’s share of the materials budgets of most institutions. On the average, the twenty-seven libraries budgeted 51.7 percent for books this year, 21.3 percent for periodicals, 20.6 percent for audiovisual materials, 5.1 percent for microforms, and 1.3 percent for binding. ■■ College & Research Libraries News is published by the As­ sociation of College and Research Libraries, a division of the American Library Association, as 11 monthly (combining July-August) issues, at 50 E. Huron St., Chicago, IL 60611. Annual subscription: $5; or to members of the division, $2.50, included in dues. Single copies and back issues, $2 each. Second-class postage applied for at Chicago, Illinois, and at additional mailing offices. Editor: Jeffrey T. Schwedes, ACRL/ALA, 50 E. Huron St., Chicago, IL 60611; (312) 944-6780, Ext. 286. President, ACRL: LeMoyne W. Anderson. Executive Secretary, ACRL: Julie A. Carroll Virgo. Production and circulation office: 50 E. Huron St., Chicago, IL 60611. Display advertising should be sent to Leona Swiech, Advertising Traffic Coordinator, ALA, at above address. Send classified ads to ACRL. Change of address and subscription orders should be addressed to College & Research Libraries News, for receipt at the above address at least two months be­ fore the publication date of the effective issue. Inclusion of an article or advertisement in C&RL News does not constitute official endorsement by ACRL or ALA. A partial list of the services indexing or abstracting the con­ tents of C&RL News includes: Current Contents: Social & Be­ havioral Sciences; Current Index to Journals in Education‚ In­ formation Science Abstracts; Library & Information Science Abstracts; Library Literature; and Social Sciences Citation In­ dex. ©American Library Association 1979. All material in this journal subject to copyright by the American Library Associa­ tion may be photocopied for the noncommercial purpose of scientific or educational advancement. Here are 3 good reasons w h y librarians and th e ir patrons w ill fin d th e Index to Book Reviews in the Sciences™(IB R S ™), ISI's new in d e x to current s c ie n tific book reviews, a valuable and useful to o l. 1. IB R S is m u ltid is c ip lin a ry and in d e x ­ p ria te books fo r lecture prepa­ es nearly 3 5 ,0 0 0 b o o k reviews fro m ra tio n and classroom use. all o f the m a jo r s c ie n tific disciplines. • Assist students w h o w ish to lo ­ The m a jo r areas o f coverage are: cate supplem ental reading on b io m e d icin e , physical and chem ical specific to p ics. sciences, a g ric u ltu re , b io lo g y , en­ 3. E ntries in IB R S are easy to scan viro n m e n ta l sciences, engineering, and are arranged a lp h a b e tic a lly by te c h n o lo g y and behavioral sciences. a u th o r o r e d ito r o f the b o o k . F o l­ lo w in g the name o f each a u th o r or 2. IB R S is published m o n th ly and p ro ­ e d ito r is a co m p le te b ib lio g ra p h ic vides c u rre n t access to b o o k reviews. e n try fo r th e b o o k reviewed, f o l­ These tim e ly b o o k reviews help y o u : low ed by th e reviewer's name, the • Evaluate p u b lic a tio n s fo r acquisi­ title o f the jo u rn a l in w h ic h the tio n and c o lle c tio n d e velopm ent. review appeared, and a com plete • Assist researchers in keeping up- c ita tio n . In a d d itio n searchers have to -date on specialized research subject access to c u rre n t b o o k re­ published in books. views th ro u g h th e Permuterm® Sub­ • H elp professors choose a p p ro ­ ject Index to Book Titles. T o learn m ore a b o u t w h a t IB R S can do fo r y o u , send fo r o u r new le a fle t w h ich describes th e index in detail and provides sample entries fro m each in d e x section. □ Please send me th e new le a fle t describing ISI's Index to Book Reviews in the SciencesTM the m u ltid is c ip lin a ry in d e x to current s c ie n tific b o o k reviews to be published in 1980.