ACRL News Issue (B) of College & Research Libraries C onference C ircu it 2 4 / C&RL News CNI: O ptim izing public and p rivate interests By T om Kirk Keep up with CNI electronically T he Coalition for Netw orked Information (CNI) held its eighth semiannual meeting on November 18-19, 1993, in the Washington, D.C., area. In the past, C&RL News has p u b ­ lished reports on the content of the individual m eetings and in the course o f those reports provided background on the coalition and its purposes and activities. Those unfamiliar with the coalition should refer to these reports for background: C&RL News June 1991, page 385; Septem ber 1991, pages 751-53; January 1992, pages 10-11; February 1992, pages 98-99; June 1992, pages 399-401; and January 1993, page 18. With an expansion in the areas of interest and the increased num ber of synergy, project briefing, and w orking group sessions, it is no longer possible to give a full report on the con­ tent of a CNI meeting. Fortunately, there is another way to learn about CNI and to keep up with its activities. CNI has a gopher which is accessible from other g o p h ers such as con su ltan t.m icro .u m n .ed u , uxl.cso.uiuc.edu, and gopher.m su.edu, as well as m any o th er gophers across the network. Once the CNI gopher has been reached the user has access to many docum ents produced by CNI over the past three and half years. In addition, there is a full-text database accessible using BRS/Search for such electronic archives as the CNI Copyright and Intellectual Property Forum , th e C o alitio n ’s T opN o d e D irectory Project, the Public-Access Computing Systems Forum, the InterNIC net-happenings mailing list, NETTRAIN: BITNET/Internet Trainers Fo­ rum, and Current Cities, a monthly publication of UC-Berkeley. CNI docum ents identified through the go­ p h er can also be retrieved using the anony­ mous FTP to FTP.CNI.ORG. To use the CNI gopher and anonym ous FTP it is helpful to rem em ber that CNI has several w orking groups (WG) which act as the focal points of CNI activity. The WGs cover the fol­ lowing topics: • Transformation of scholarly comm unica­ tion; • Legislation, codes, policies, and practices; • Modernization o f scholarly comm unica­ tion; • Management and professional develop­ ment; • Directories and resource information ser­ vices; • Teaching and learning; • Architecture and standards; • Access to publication information. These working groups do not do programs but they identify topics and activities in the field, facilitate dissem ination o f inform ation, and stimulate discussion of the issues. The WGs often highlight activities or projects of coali­ tion members and others which are in the WG’s area of interest. WGs also seek to sponsor cer­ tain kinds o f projects. The sp o n so rsh ip of projects is usually the result o f a call for ex­ pressions o f interest in the project area. These calls as well as o th er an nouncem ents about CNI are d istrib u te d via CNI’s ANNOUNCE service w hich is a ‘broadcast’ service from CNI. (To subscribe send the m essage “subscribe CNĬ-ANNOUNCE first nam e last nam e” in the body o f an e-mail m essage to LISTPROC@ CNI.ORG.) At the November m eeting of the Task Force o f CNI, all o f the WGs held sessions to explore issues and to report on their activities of the last six months. In addition, there w ere some 25 other briefing and synergy sessions at which Tom Kirk is college librarian a t Berea College, Berea, Kentucky; e-mail: Bertgk@ukpr.uky.edu consultant.micro.umn.edu uxl.cso.uiuc.edu gopher://gopher.msu.edu ftp://FTP.CNI.ORG CNI.ORG mailto:Bertgk@ukpr.uky.edu Ja n u a ry 1994 / 2 5 projects undertaken by CNI m em bers and is­ sues CNI m em bers are exploring w ere p re ­ sented and discussed. The m eeting schedule and a listing of the session topics and speakers is a v a ila b le fro m th e CNI FTP file s at F T P .C N I.O R G in d i r e c t o r i e s / p u b / C N I / tf. meetings. In addition to the project reports, WG m eet­ ings, and synergy sessions (which stimulate new ideas), the CNI m eeting contains several ple­ nary sessions w hich are focused around the meeting them e. This Novem ber’s them e was “Optimizing Public and Private Interests” and explored the relationships betw een the two and how each can w ork effectively in a netw orked environm ent w hile minimizing the negative impact of one o n the other. Three plenary sessions w ere held on 1) the role of government, not-for-profit, and for-profit sectors in optimizing public and private inter­ ests; 2) optimizing public and private interest in the m anagem ent o f intellectual p roperty w hich looked at copyright, contract law, and licensing developm ents; and 3) optimization of public and private interests in the last mile of the network. More detailed summaries than can be provided here will be available as a m eet­ ing report at FTP.CNI.ORG in directories / p u b / CNI/tf.meetings. There is probably no better summary of the w ork of CNI over the past three years than the w ords o f William Y. Arms (vice-president for com puting services, Carnegie Mellon Univer­ sity) near the conclusion of the meeting: “Three years ago everybody [computer cen­ te r p e o p le , lib rarian s, a d m in istrato rs, etc.] thought differently; today w e have a com m on vocabulary. “The Coalition for N etworked Information does n ot build the electronic library but has becom e a superb forum for those w ho do build and use it to m eet and w ork together.” A lthough this topic w as n ot directly ad ­ dressed, there w as a strong undercurrent of concern about the n eed to expand use of the netw ork to all sizes and types of libraries. Li­ braries of all sizes and constituencies are en ­ couraged to becom e active in managing and navigating the information world. The W ork­ ing Groups, for exam ple, often included pre­ sentations from libraries w hich only recently becam e involved with electronic resources, so it’s never too late to begin! The next m eeting o f the Task Force o f CNI will be April 5-6, 1994, in W ashington, D.C. ■ Letters Tenure is im po rtant To the Editor: I read with interest the essay by Beth Shapiro (N o v em b er 1993) in w h ic h sh e ad v o c a te s dum ping faculty status for librarians. A few years ago I w ould have agreed completely with her, b ut som e empirical study modified my opin­ ion. (See my article in Library Adm inistration & M anagem ent (Fall 1990): 184-93.) Faculty status w ithout ten u re is nothing. With tenure it is som ething of value, w hich I will here refer to simply as tenure. Note that tenure for general faculty is ubiquitous in four- year colleges and universities; it is not ubiqui­ tous among librarians. Without questioning why this dichotom y exists, Shapiro misses the point o f w hat faculty status for librarians represents. Answering questions about w hy tenure exists and [if] it should apply to librarians provides better rationale for a dum p faculty status deci­ sion than our anecdotal experience. Long justified as the w ay to secure academic freedom (the real myth), tenure exists prim a­ rily because it is the only quantitative m echa­ nism that monitors quality in academics. The tenure process delegates the hiring decision to the faculty w ho use this m echanism as a means to assure them selves o f quality am ong their peers. . . . At large research universities, the tenure process (i.e., faculty status for librarians) unfortunately im poses costs— in the form of diminished campuswide research productivity— w hich overw helm its benefits. Shapiro is right in regard to those places. At teaching-oriented institutions (i.e., four-year liberal arts colleges) tenure helps to insure som e level o f scholar­ ship, which makes it possible for faculty to teach better. . . . Therefore, it w orks to elevate qual­ ity. Fortunately librarians at teaching institu­ tions often have more opportunity to help su p ­ port the instructional program by w orking with faculty than they do at research institutions. And, tenure here helps elevate quality among librarians with positive return to the product of those schools. T hese differences in cam pus agendas taken together provide som e expla­ nation of w hy tenure is ubiquitous among teach­ ing faculty and not am ong librarians. A ppropriate action: dum p faculty status at Rice, k eep it at Trinity.— R ichard W. Meyer, director o f the library, Trinity University ■ ftp://FTP.CNI.ORG ftp://FTP.CNI.ORG