ACRL News Issue (B) of College & Research Libraries


201

News from the Field
ACQUISITIONS

•  The Amherst College Library has obtained 
a major addition to its theater collection from M. 
Abbott Van Nostrand, a mem ber of the Amherst 
College Class of 1934, who founded the collec­
tion. The additions to the collection include a 
complete bound run of Lacy’s Acting Editions; a 
set of various series (amounting to more than 500 
items) published by Samuel French, Inc., the 
play publisher; more than 2,000 plays published 
by other British publishing firms that were taken 
o ver by F re n c h ; n in e te e n th - and tw e n tie th - 
century playscripts; and photographs, operetta 
scores, playbills, theater account books, and other 
research material.

•  The Johns H opkins University’s Milton S. 
Eisenhow er Library is the recipient of a major 
collection of Byron works. The new collection, 
m ade possible th ro u g h  th e  ge n ero sity  of the 
Friends of the Library, complements the existing 
c o llectio n  of Byron m aterial a ccum ulated by 
Thomas Dickey in the last century. It contains 
457 titles brought together by C. Kohler and rep­
resents an effort to obtain an in-depth collection 
of Byron materials for scholars.

The Dickey collection, housed in the library’s 
special collections and consisting of approximately 
200 volumes, focuses on first editions of works by 
Byron. The Kohler collection will be an excellent 
supplement, adding depth to the existing collec­
tion and making the Eisenhower Library the loca­
tion of one of the foremost Byron collections in 
the world.

The Friends of the Library will celebrate its 
fiftieth anniversary in early 1981; this gift marks 
its golden a n n iv e rsa ry  in a tru ly  significant 
way.—Susan K. Martin.

•  Rice U niversity’s Fondren Library has ac­
quired a large body of the papers of the late Sir 
Julian Sorell Huxley (1887-1975). The collection, 
about seventy cubic feet in size and spanning 
three-quarters of a century, includes manuscripts 
and typescripts of Huxley’s published and unpub­
lish ed  works; d ia rie s a nd tra v e l notebooks; 
sketches, slides, and photographs; pam phlets; 
periodicals, review s, and clippings; and more 
than 25,000 pieces of correspondence.

GRANTS
•  C atholic U niversity’s G raduate D e p art­

m ent of L ibrary and Inform ation Science has 
been awarded a two-year $269,348 contract by 
the National Science Foundation to offer a short­
term, nondegree training program to strengthen 
the skills of Egyptian scientific and technical in­
formation specialists.

•  D alhousie University, Halifax, Nova Sco­
tia, is th e  re c ip ie n t of a Social Sciences and 
H um anities Research Council grant of $35,000 
that will be used to augment the Killam Library’s 
African Studies collection. The library will use 
the grant to acquire additional newspaper and 
periodical back files and to fill in government 
document holdings for English-speaking African 
nations.

•  H arvard University received a $1 million 
pledge from Roy E. Larsen, prior to his death 
last fall, to endow the position of the librarian of 
Harvard College. W hen the position is funded, 
Y. T. Feng will become the first Roy E. Larsen 
Librarian of Harvard College. Harvard has also 
received an anonymous gift of $1,554,000 for the 
renovation of the exterior of W idener Library.

•  Radcliffe C ollege is the recipient of a 
$7,500 grant from the Blanchard Foundation of 
Boston for the support of the Black Women Oral 
History Project at the Schlesinger Library. The 
oral history project, which began in 1976, has re­
corded on tape interviews with more than seven­
ty American black women, almost all of whom are 
seventy years of age or older. The grant will sup­
port the transcription and processing of the inter­
views so that they can be made available to stu­
dents and scholars at the Schlesinger Library and 
at nearly tw enty o th e r college and university 
libraries and oral history offices nationwide.

•  Sarah Lawrence College’s Esther Raushen- 
bush Library has received a grant from the Gan­
nett Foundation to purchase back runs of news­
papers on microfilm. The estate of William Seely, 
former editor of the M t. Vernon Argus and hus­
band of Elizabeth Caven Seely, librarian at Sarah 
Lawrence College from 1964-74, has also notified 
the college of a bequest to the library. This be­
quest, coupled with the G annett grant, will be 
used to build a strong collection of back news­
paper files.

NEWS NOTES

•  Governors State U niversity Library, Park 
Forest, Illinois, has installed the Library Comput­
er System, an on-line circulation system with a 
capacity to support on-line, known-item searching

Classified Ads

With the Septem ber issue of C&RL News, 
the rates for regular classified ads will go up 
from $1.80 to $2.25 per line for ACRL mem­
bers and from $2.25 to $2.80 per line for non- 
ACRL members.



of shelflist information. First developed at Ohio 
State and modified further before it became oper­
ational at the University of Illinois, the Library 
Com puter System is now being tested as a pro­
totype system for a statewide computer-based re­
source sharing netw ork in Illinois. As the first 
phase of the project the Library C om puter Sys­
tem is being installed in fourteen academic librar­
ies in Illinois, including th e  G overnor’s State 
University Library. A telecommunications system 
will link the fourteen libraries into a network.

•  The Library of C ongress has decided not to 
a dopt th e  pinyin system  of C h in ese  language 
romanization in January, 1981. The library had 
announced in June 1979 a tentative decision to 
switch from the Wade-Giles system to pinyin, but 
strong opposition to the change em erged in the 
research library community.

•  The Northwestern University Library has 
begun a full-scale test of its new on-line catalog. 
The library expects the on-line catalog to be fully 
operational for public use in 1980 and anticipates 
th a t th e  ex istin g  m anual card catalog will be 
closed in 1981. Patrons will be able to consult the 
com puter catalog by means of cathode ray tube 
te rm in a ls lo ca ted  in th e  lib ra ry  b u ild in g  and 
possibly at other points on campus.

N orthwestern’s on-line catalog will build on a 
data base of nearly 400,000 records accumulated 
in the ten years of operation of the Northwestern 
autom ated cataloging system, NOTIS.

•  OCLC, INC., citing the uncertainty of cur­
rent national economic conditions, has decided to 
e nd talks w ith G eac C o m p u te r Corporation of 
Toronto about the possibility that OCLC would 
become the sole U.S. distributor of Geac’s auto­
m ated circulation system . “ Because of record- 
high interest rates,” says OCLC s treasurer, Jack 
Vincent, “OCLC could not resell or remotely in­
stall th e s e  circulation system s to the financial 
benefit of OCLC or its users. The decision to 
d is c o n tin u e  d isc u ssio n s w ith  G eac was not, 
according to OCLC, in any way related to the 
quality or cost-effectiveness of the Geac system.

•  The Research L ibraries G roup (RLG) now 
has seventeen m em bers and expects to be self- 
sufficient by 1985. New York University was the 
sixteenth major research institution to join RLG, 
and N o rth w e ste rn  U n iv e rsity  was th e  se v e n ­
te e n th . N o rth w e s te rn  will m ake a v ailable to 
RLIN, RLG s network arm, a data base of nearly 
400,000 records accumulated in the ten years of 
operation of the N orthw estern autom ated catalog­
ing system, NOTIS.

•  The San Antonio College Library for the 
second year in a row has conducted the Air Force 
Library Technology Program. Thirty-nine library 
te c h n ic ia n s from Air F o rc e  bases a ro u n d  the 
world w ent to San Antonio for a w eek’s crash 
course in library technology. Six m em bers of the 
San Antonio College Library stall, led by J. O. 
Wallace, plus two staff m em bers from the San

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The lazy MawNHa transliterates to “mashina1' 
person’s

(machine) and cmctema transliterates 
to “ sistema ” (system).

guide to the
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Antonio Public L ibrary, p a rtic ip a te d  in the 
instruction.

•  The State U niversity of New York has 
awarded Chancellor’s Awards for Excellence in 
Librarianship to six librarians. Receiving awards 
were Dorothy E. Christiansen, association librar­
ian, University C enter at Albany; Meredith A. 
Butler, head of public services, College at Brock­
port; B. Anne Commerton, librarian, College at 
Oswego; Elizabeth Elkins, associate librarian, 
College of Environmental Science and Forestry 
in Syracuse; and Sylvia J. M oran, assistant 
professor/librarian, E rie Com m unity College, 
Williamsville.

•  Union Theological Seminary Library will 
undertake a full-scale renovation of its physical 
plant during 1980-81. The renovation is funded 
in part by a grant from the National Endowment 
for the Humanities. Construction is due to begin 
in May 1980 and is expected to be completed by 
September 1981. Although the library intends to 
remain in service during this period, access to 
certain collections will be disrupted, some ser­
vices may have to be curtailed, and reading space 
will be limited. Researchers expecting to make 
use of the library during this period should write 
or call in advance regarding the availability of 
particular materials, services, and study facilities. 
Inquiries should be addressed to Richard D. 
Spoor, director, Union Theological Seminary Li-

brarv, 3041 Broadwav at Reinhold Niebuhr Place, 
New York, NY 10027; (212) 662-7100.

•  The U niversity of Kansas, Law rence’s 
W atson L ibrary is undergoing a $6.2 million 
renovation. ■■

EVAN FARBER 
NAMED ACADEMIC

LIBRARIAN OF THE YEAR

One of the nation’s leading college librarians, 
Evan Ira F arber, has been awarded the 1980 
Academic Librarian of the Year Award by ACRL 
and the Baker & Taylor
Com pany. The award 
was formally presented 
to Mr. Farber on July 1 
at the ACRL reception 
during the ALA Annual 
Conference. At the pre­
se ntation cerem ony 
Farber received a cita­
tion and a check for 
$2,000.

The citation lauded 
Farber, who is librarian 
at Earlham College in
Richmond, Indiana, for his work in improving li­
brary service and library instruction. “ By the 
methods of quiet persuasion that are characteris­
tic of his approach to life, ’’ the citation said, “Far­
ber was able to bring together faculty members 
and librarians to make library instruction an in­
tegral part of the educational program at Earl­
ham. By the same methods of precept and exam­
ple, he has helped to disseminate the ideals of 
bibliographic instruction in ever-widening circles 
beyond the gates of the college. ”

Farber was also cited for his contributions to 
librarianship as a consultant, writer, speaker, and 
spokesperson for the profession. He is the author 
of the fourth and fifth editions of the Classified 
List o f Periodicals fo r  the College Library, and its 
m onthly supplem ent, “ Periodicals for College 
Libraries, ’ published in Choice magazine since 
S e p tem b e r 1974. A past p re s id e n t of ACRL 
(1978-79), he currently serves as the ACRL rep­
resentative to the ALA Council.

Farber began his library career in 1951 as an 
assistant in the Documents D epartm ent at the 
U niversity of N orth Carolina Library, Chapel 
Hill. From 1953 to 1955 he was librarian of the 
State Teachers College in Livingston, Alabama. 
In 1955 he moved to the Emory University Li­
brary in Atlanta, Georgia, where he served as chief 
of the Serials and Binding Division until his 
appointment as librarian of Earlham in 1962. He 
earned A.B. and M.A. degrees in political science 
and a B.S. degree in library science from the 
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. ■■

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