ACRL News Issue (B) of College & Research Libraries


328

stead of having a separate study team for this 
purpose, it was decided to have the study con­
ducted by a pre-existing Library Joint Committee 
which had been formed to provide liaison b e ­
tween various staff levels. As members of this 
com mittee are elected to rep resen t th eir con­
stituent groups, this arrangement has helped se­
cure support for the organization development 
program at all levels. It also should provide a use­

ful mechanism for reassessment of the work of 
the present study team and for further study in 
future years because m em bers of th e Library 
Joint Committee are selected annually.

1E. R. Johnson & S. H. Mann, Organization 
Development fo r  Academic Libraries; an Evalua­
tion o f the M anagement Review and Analysis 
Program. W estport, C onn., Greenwood Press, 
1980.

W A S H I N G T O N  H O T L I N E by Carol Henderson 
ALA Washington Office

An analysis of the fourth round of Higher Education Act Title II-C re­
search library awards indicates that more institutions are receiving grants than 
ever before in the program’s history. The thirty grants this year include three 
joint projects, bringing the number of libraries receiving funds to 41 institu­
tions in 25 states. Almost half of the grantees have not previously partici­
pated in the program.

Dissatisfaction within the library community about the small number of 
grants awarded (previously about 23 per year), congressional criticism, and 
slight changes in the regulations for II-C have all played a part in enlarging 
the number of participants.

Some potential grantees complained to congressional funding committees 
with the unfortunate result that in FY 1981 the House refused to go along with 
the $1 million increase requested by the Carter Administration, and funding for 
II-C remained at $6 million. More constructively, concerns were voiced to the 
congressional authorizing committees which have the power to make changes in 
the workings of the program. When the Higher Education Act was extended last 
year in PL 96-374, no statutory changes were made in II-C, but the Senate Labor 
and Human Resources Committee report (S. Rept. 96-733) on the legislation in­
dicated the committee believed that at least 50 grants should be made and that 
the same small number of institutions should not continue to receive grants 
year after year.

The one substantive change in the “interim” final regulations for II-C 
published last December was a change in the selection criteria to conform with 
the Education Division General Administrative Regulations (EDGAR). The EDGAR 
criteria shifted the point balance from the previous 60 points for significance 
as a major research library and 50 points for the nature of the project, to 48 
points for eligibility and 62 points for the project itself. Since then, the 
II-C regulations have undergone further review, and a new set of proposed re­
vised regulations will be published soon for public comment.

These combined influences have called for a larger number of grants, and 
this year's results (funds received by 41 institutions compared with last 
year's 27 on the same amount of funds— $6 million) indicate that the Education 
Department has been responsive.

Academic and research librarians should watch for the new regulations 
which will be published in the Federal Register, and comment on their effec­
tiveness and the degree to which they implement the purposes of the program. 
Those purposes are to assist the nation's major research libraries "in main­
taining and strengthening their collections, and in making their holdings 
available to other libraries whose users have need for research materials."