ACRL News Issue (B) of College & Research Libraries C&RL News ■ M ay 2002 / 341 LEARNING C O M M U N ITIE S FOR EXCELLENCE Invitation to the ACRL President’s Program in Atlanta The top five reasons you need to be there by Lee C. Van Orsdel A LA’s Annual Conference in Atlanta, on Ju n e 13-19, 2002, offers an overw helm ­ ing num ber of opportunities to look and learn, to netw ork and engage, to consider new ideas and challenge old ones. Some of those o p ­ portunities— the best of them — will enlarge the ways you think and act as an academ ic librarian. T he ACRL P re sid e n t’s Program , “T ransform ational L earning C om m unities: Claiming O ur Future,” prom ises to be such an opportunity. For those w h o n e e d to be persuaded, here are the top five reasons you n e e d to b e there: R ea so n #5: You’ll experience ACRL in one of its m ost effective and necessary roles: fos­ tering learning comm unities. As m em bers of ACRL, w e are part o f a learning comm unity. Som ething w onderful h a p p e n s w h e n w e gather to learn from each other and from experts w h o have know ledge that is relevant to our professional d ev elo p ­ m ent. The ACRL President’s Program is our annual convocation— a time w h e n w e gather to celebrate some of our best people and some of our best ideas; a time to w restle with is­ sues that affect the w ay w e lead on our cam ­ puses a n d in our libraries. The President’s Program is always a g ood place to b e o n the Monday afternoon of ALA Annual Conference. R e a so n #4: You’ll get to see h o w a d ozen or m ore of your forw ard-thinking colleagues put the concepts of learning communities into action. If the devil is in the details, then the poster session that follows the keynote address and panel responses should expand the learning e x p e rien c e for participants by connectin g theory to practice. Librarians from 15 to 20 in­ stitutions will be on hand to talk about their experiences with learning communities on their campuses. Handouts will be available, so you can take the best ideas hom e with you. R e a so n #3: The Reactor Panel (a.k.a. li­ brarians w h o respond to the keynote address) consists of three outstanding colleagues you w ill w a n t to hear: T h e re sa Byrd, R andy Hensley, and Jo a n Lippincott. Theresa S. Byrd is director of libraries at O hio W esleyan University and a m em ber of the ACRL Board. An enthusiastic cham pion of inform ation literacy, Byrd has a g ood per- spective on learning com m unities in smaller ac ad e m ic institu tio n s. H er e x p e rie n c e in About the a u th o r | Lee C. Van Orsdel is dean o f libraries a t Eastern Kentucky University, e-mail: lee.vanorsdel@eku.edu mailto:lee.vanorsdel@eku.edu 342 / C&RL News ■ M ay 2002 Top f iv e reaso n s y o u s h o u ld a tte n d th e President's Program #5. You’ll experience ACRL in one of its most effective a n d necessary roles: fos­ tering learning communities. #4. You’ll get to see how a d ozen or m ore of your forward-thinking colleagues put the concepts of learning communities into action. #3. The Reactor Panel (a.k.a. librarians w ho respond to the keynote address) con­ sists of three outstanding colleagues you will w ant to hear: Theresa Byrd, Randy Hensley and Joan Lippincott. #2. Barbara Leigh Smith (a.k.a. tire Key­ note Speaker) is one of the m ost impor­ tant voices in the nation on learning com­ munities, and she’s coming to help us learn about their potential for reforming higher education. #1. You d o n ’t w ant to ignore an issue that has so many implications for the ways w e teach and learn on our cam puses, in our libraries, and in our professional or­ ganizations. higher education includes a stint with com ­ m unity colleges in Virginia, various leader­ ship roles on her campus and in professional organizations, and extensive w ork with con­ sortia. She currently serves on the OhioLINK Board. Randy Burke Hensley hails from the Univer­ sity of Hawaii at Manoa (UHM), where he is head of public services. Hensley’s passion for teaching and learning earned him the Miriam Dudley In­ struction Librarian Award in 2002 and the UHM Library Innovation in Instruction Award in 2001. He is a regular faculty m em ber of the ACRL Institute for Information Literacy Im­ m ersion Program. He has published and pre ­ sented extensively on learning communities and on learning styles. Joan Lippincott, an experienced librarian and associate executive director of the Coali­ tion for Networked Information (CNI), u n ­ derstands the impact of technology on teach­ ing and learning, particularly in collaborative environm ents, better than most. She was in­ strumental in establishing CNI’s New Learn­ ing Communities program to identify and m odel innovative uses of netw orked infor­ m ation and collaborative teaching and learn­ ing practices. In the March issue of C&RL News, Lippincott speaks powerfully in favor of librarians as participants in, not just ad­ juncts to, teaching and learning communities on college cam puses.1 R eason #2: Barbara Leigh Smith (a.k.a. the Keynote Speaker) is one of the m ost im­ portant voices in the nation on learning com ­ munities, and sh e ’s coming to help us learn about their potential for reforming higher edu­ cation. Smith could well be called an icon in the field of learning communities in the United States. In the 1980s, Smith was the provost and vice president for academ ic affairs at Ev­ ergreen State College, an innovative consor­ tium of 48 colleges and universities in the state of Washington. While there, she founded the W ashington Center for Im proving the Quality of Undergraduate Education, out of which grew the learning community models that have spread across the nation. Smith is currently codirector of the National Learning Community Project, funded by the Pew Chari­ table Trust. Her experiences in higher educa­ tion administration, in curriculum innovation, and in the development of collaborative teach­ ing a n d learning m ethods are impressive. Smith’s perspectives on the emergent use of learning communities in higher education will be stimulating and challenging. R eason #1: You d o n ’t w ant to ignore an issue that has so m any implications for the ways w e teach and learn on our campuses, in o ur libraries, and in our professional orga­ nizations. The learning communities m ovem ent is one of the most powerful ideas in higher edu­ cation today. It is a concept with m any appli­ cations, b u t it is strongly associated with (co n tin u ed on page 377) The President's Program w ill be held in A tla n ta on M onday, June 17, 2002, fro m 2:00-5:00 p.m . Visit th e President's Page a t h ttp ://w w w .a la .o rg /a c rl/ prespage.htm l. http://www.ala.org/acrl/ C&RL News ■ M ay 2002 / 377 stagecoaches in California from 1856 to 1900. Richly illustrated with mug shots o f the crimi­ nals and the law m en w ho n abbed them, this w ell-researched rogue’s gallery provides a glimpse of the reality behind the W estern myth. Included is the fa­ m ous C harles “Black B a r t” B o w le s , w h o r o b b e d 28 sta g e s in eight years and posed as a gentleman miner in San Francisco betw een holdups; Bill Miner, the legendary train-robbing “Grey Fox,” w ho spent m uch of his life in vari­ ous prisons; Jo h n and C harley R uggles, w h o w e re ly n c h e d in Redding in 1892 after a botched and bloody robbery; and the Tom Bell gang, w ho engi­ neered the first stagecoach holdup in Califor­ nia in 1856. Secrest intersperses all this his­ tory with interesting sidebars on the parts of an 1840s Concord coach, famous stage driv­ ers, how to drive a stagecoach, the types of guns used in robberies, and the books and songs of the era. $15.95- W ord Dancer Press, 8386 N. Madsen, Clovis, CA 93611. ISBN 1- 884995-24-1. Resting Places, by Scott Wilson (432 pages, November 2001), identifies the grave site or other final disposal of the remains of 7,182 fa­ mous persons, primarily Americans and Euro­ peans. The exact cemetery plot or area where the ashes were scattered is given if known, along with gravestone inscriptions, monument details, and other circumstances of burial. Wil­ son takes three full pages to list all of his ac­ knowledgments, but he singles out reference librarians for special praise because they “have taken up the search through old newspaper microfilm or county cemetery records, with an increasing interest of their ow n in where the subject of each particular search was or was not interred.” An index of place names identi­ fies the fam ous in each locality. $85.00. McFarland. ISBN 0-7864-1014-0. A related title is Suicide in the Entertain­ m ent Industry, by David K. Frasier (428 pages, February 2002), which offers the details of 840 suicides by p e o p le in show business (vaudeville, film, theater, dance, and music) from 1905 to 2000. A macabre yet fascinating catalog, this book makes one w onder whether self-inflicted death is an occupational hazard in the entertainm ent industry. Both famous (Kurt Cobain, Brian Keith, Inger Stevens, and Gig Young) and m inor figures (Rusty Hamer, w ho played Danny Thom as’s son in the TV sitcom M ake Room f o r Daddy; Chief Long Lance, an actor-writer w h o claimed to be a Blackfoot Indian but w ho 50 years after his death was revealed as an African-American from North Carolina; and Clara Blandick, w ho played Auntie Em in The W izard o f O f) are profiled. A few questionable suicides are listed, including Marilyn M onroe, George Reeves, and Alan Ladd. $65.00. McFarland. ISBN 0-7864-1038-8. Skulls a n d Skeletons: H u m a n Bone Col­ lections a n d A ccum ulations, by Christine Quigley (263 pages, October 2001), completes this trio of postm ortem publications. Quigley describes catacombs, ossuaries, mass graves, prehistoric excavations, private collections, and institutions that have preserved hum an skeletal remains, and looks at why these col­ lections are important scientifically and his­ torically. $39-95. McFarland. ISBN 0-7864- 1068-X. ■ ( “Invitation to . . contin u ed fr o m p a g e 342) campus efforts to retain students and to in­ crease their success. For academic libraries, the concept has trem endous potential to “en­ sure the library’s relevance to [our institutions’] educational and research program s,” as ACRL President Mary Reichel declared w hen she announced her presidential them e.2 Indeed, the idea of learning communities gives form, structure, and language to our desire for continuous learning, for creative connectivity, and for diversity on our cam­ puses, in our libraries, and in our professional associations. Sounds like an idea worth show­ ing up for. Notes 1. Joan K. Lippincott, “Developing collabo­ rative relationships,” College & Research Li­ braries News (3, 3 (2002): 191. 2. Mary Reichel, “ACRL: The learning com ­ munity for excellence in academ ic libraries,” College & Research Libraries News 62, 8 (2001): 820. ■