New York was THE place to be from June 7-12. The weather (for the most part) was lovely, the restaurants were fabulous, the tourist attractions were breathtaking! But most important, the 94th Annual SLA Conference was great! Monday's keynote address by David McCullough was fascinating. He told us so many interesting stories about the lives of the great men he has chronicled, including a moving story about the young Theodore Roosevelt. He provided insights into the lives of the Founding Fathers, stressing how they thought of themselves as men cast in a great drama, and how they rose to the events of the day. Tuesday's theme was "Future Directions" and the keynoter was, appropriately, futurist Stuart Brand. He told us that, whereas the past is knowable and unchangeable, the future is unknowable and changeable. He urged us to take the long view, to think about the next 10,000 years as if it was next year. He asked, "What are our duties as librarians when the client is civilization?" And Wednesday's theme was "Globalization." Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright held us spellbound with her descriptions of issues of the day during the Clinton Administration and of the importance of technology and information sharing. She emphacized that the threat of terrorism cannot be used to shut down the flow of information, and she applauded information specialists for their role in encouraging the spread of information.
The Social Science Division had some excellent programs. Following are summaries of some of them.
Taming the Non-Paper Tiger shook the rafters on Tuesday morning with a great panel, full house, and a probing and energetic Q & A. Moderated by Terry Dean, Institute of Governmental Studies, UC Berkeley, the panel consisted of David Martin, Pomerantz Business Library, University of Iowa; Lyle Minter, Serials and Government Publications Division, Library of Congress [and a candidate for SLA Board of Directors (shameless plug)]; and, Iris Anderson and Karen Eggert, Joint World Bank/International Monetary Fund Library. Those attendees who felt they were up for the “Future Track stream/ Intermediate B Case Study”, were rewarded with an excellent and timely evaluation of several systems used to manage the proliferation of electronic journals.
But first - humor. David Martin shared some of his favorite typos from the University of Iowa’s Printing Dept.:
Muscle
spams
Gradual school
Head & nick surgery
Henry David Thorough
Paper clops
Shrink warp
Mr. Martin
also shared his success story in managing a collection of 5-6,000 online economics
and business titles using a combination of the library’s OPAC, an Ex Libris
product, SFX, including some aggregators, “InfoLink”, the library’s
brand name for their journal resolver, major publisher packages such as Elsevier
and Kluwer, and journal aggregators such as ABI, Ebsco, Factiva, BE Press and
others. Mr. Martin also discussed the issues that will determine decisions to
retain or discontinue print subscriptions in the increasing online user environment
he is experiencing - in-house usage dropping drastically, demand for fulltext
desktop delivery, and demand for remote access. He also discussed implications
for service delivery, staff time and physical logistics. For more information
on the Pomerantz Business Library’s e-journals’ management system,
contact David Martin, 319/335-3078,
j-martin@uiowa.edu.
Lyle Minter, Head, Newspaper and Current Periodical Room, Serial and Government Publications Division of the Library of Congress, and candidate for SLA Board of Directors [shameless plug], described early attempts at managing e-journals at the Library of Congress - an alphabetic list of journal titles on their gopher server and hyperlinks in the 856 MARC tag of the catalog record. However, current practice is a sophisticated use of aggregators including Project MUSE, ProQuest, Gale Group InfoTrac OneFile, and EBSCOhost, and the Library’s adaption of TDNet to provide current awareness and fulltext access. Mr. Minter also described access via two consortial partners, EZB (Elektronische Zeitschriften Bibliothek) and Lund University Directory of Open Access Journals. For more information on the Library of Congress’s e-journal management system, contact Lyle Minter [candidate for SLA Board of Directors] (another shameless plug), 202/707-5181, lmin@loc.gov.
Iris Anderson and Karen Eggert described the development of “E-TOCs” [e-table of contents service], the Joint World Bank-IMF Library’s electronic current awareness and delivery system for journal articles. After much investigation of commercial products the library decided it would build its own system to accommodate the several libraries in the Joint Fund/Bank network. The system needed to enhance former toc delivery and photocopy services, it needed to be web-based, and it needed to offer easy access with e-mail alert capabilities. With a team of 8 from across the IMF/Bank libraries working on the technical, content and delivery issues, “E-TOCs” was launched in Oct. 2002. “E-TOCs” successfully fulfills the requirements of managing e-journals contents by providing users with an efficient current awareness and article delivery service -- an easy-to-use web-based platform offering electronic full-text links to a broad subject array of journals, user self sufficiency and easy administrative maintenance. For more information on “E-TOCs” contact Iris Anderson, 202/623-6403, ianderson@imf.org or Karen Eggert, 202/623-6419, keggert@imf.org.
But before we leave, a few more typos courtesy of the U. of Iowa Printing Dept:
Cod of
federal regulations
Protect your skin from hun damage
Summer respiratory theater
Swelling may be reduced by icepicks
Discharge patiently by wheelchair
Time to update our ailing list
And, of course:
We’ve got to keep this think going!
Terry Dean and Iris W. Anderson
Another Successful One-Dot Shopping: Best International Business Websites Program – Focus on NAFTA , June 11, 2003
For those of you who were unable to attend the SLA Annual Conference in New York City this year, we wanted to share the valuable resources that were uncovered by our three expert researchers for this year’s presentations. For this program, we aimed to uncover the best and most useful, mostly free websites that meet high standards for accuracy, authority, currency, useability, and depth. All presentations and handouts are being posted to the Social Science Division’s website at SLA: http://www.sla.org/division/dsoc/
Congratulations to our presenters who did such an excellent job!
1.Covering the best international
business sites for Canada:
Greta Ober-Beauchesne,
Research Librarian, Joint World Bank-IMF Library, Washington, D.C.
2. Covering the best international
business sites for the United States:
Kerry Prendergast,
Manager, Information Resources, NBC Information Center, New York.
3. Covering the best international
business sites for Mexico:
Benita Weber Vassallo,
Chief of Library Services, Inter-American Development Bank, Washington, D.C.
Many thanks to our co-sponsor, the Business & Finance Division, and also to DIALOG for their program funding.
Iris W. Anderson
The program Spotlight: The Best of the Social Science Web Sites was held on Monday, June 9 from 11:30 to 1. Four speakers showed and described their Web collections on the following topics: Education Administration and Policy (Deborah Garson); Health Policy (Joann Donatiello); Criminal Justice (Cybele Merrick); and Philanthropy, Nonprofits and Grantmaking (Kief Schladweiler).
The Education Administration and Policy Web sites, which were compiled by Deborah Garson, are part of the Monroe C. Gutman Library Web Links page (http://www.gse.harvard.edu/~library/web-links.html). The Monroe Gutman Library serves the Harvard Garduate School of Education. The featured Web sites on this page include: the AACTE Education Policy and Clearinghouse (http://www.edpolicy.org/) which is organized geographically and has a good search engine; the Brown Center on Education Policy (http://www.brook.edu/dybdocroot/gs/brown/brown_hp.htm); the Education Policy Analysis Archives (http://epaa.asu.edu/epaa/) which has a good search engine and includes the full text and abstracts of articles; the Institute for Higher Education Policy (http://www.ihep.com/) which focuses on best practices; the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education (http://www.highereducation.org/) which has annotated Web sites and an archive of news releases; and the Organization of US Education (http://www.ed.gov/offices/OUS/international/USNEI/us/index.html).
Joan Donatiello, from the Rutgers Center for State Health Policy (http://www.cshp.rutgers.edu/) provided an in-depth look at five organizations’ sites that were selected based upon the following criteria: unique information; less obvious; current; contains full-text documents; state-oriented; analytical as well as factual; easily navigable with a good search function; and reputable in the field. The highlighted Web sites included: the Kaiser Family Foundation (www.kaisernetwork.org and www.kff.org), the National Conference of State Legislatures (www.ncsl.org), Assessing the New Federalism – Urban Institute (http://www.urban.org), the Commonwealth Fund (http://www.cmwf.org), and AcademyHealth (http://www.academyhealth.org). In addition, a list of “runners up” was provided, as well as instructions for accessing the CSHP Resources Web page which contains over 350 links to health policy Web sites.
Cybele Merrick, from the Vera Institute of Justice (http://www.vera.org) described her organization’s Web site and featured seven other Web sites on criminal justice. The National Criminal Justice Reference Service (http://www.ncjrs.org/) is a resource supported by federal agencies to provide justice and substance information. The Forum on Corrections Research (http://www.csc-scc.gc.ca/text/pblct/forum/index_e.shtml) is a full-text research publication of the Corrections Service of Canada. The State and Local Government on the Net (http://www.statelocalgov.net/) has links to the New York State Department of Criminal Justice Services (http://criminaljustice.state.ny.us/) and other state sites. Other sites include the Urban Institute Justice Policy Center (http://www.urban.org/content/PolicyCenters/Justice/Overview.htm), the Rand Web site on Civil and Criminal Justice (http://www.rand.org/justice_area/), the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime Crime Programme (http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/crime_cicp.html), and the European Sourcebook of Crime and Criminal Justice Statistics (http://www.europeansourcebook.org/esb/index.html).
The final presentation, on philanthropy Web sites, was given by Kief Schladweiler of the Foundation Center (http://www.fdncenter.org/). The presentation was divided into five parts: The Foundation Center’s Web Sites; Grantmaker Resources; Nonprofit Accountability; Corporate Giving Information; Government Funding Resources; Researching Individual Donors; Nonprofit News and Publications; and Miscellaneous Resources. The Foundation Center Web site has many online databases including Foundation Directory Online (subscription-based), Foundation Grants to Individuals Online (subscription-based), and the Foundation Finder (free). The Foundation Center also has online tools for obtaining Forms 990-PF (http://www.fdncenter.org/funders/grantsmart/index.html) which are the tax returns for foundations, an extensive list of foundation Web sites (http://fdncenter.org/funders/grantmaker/index.html), and a virtual classroom of online teaching and learning materials (http://fdncenter.org/learn/).
The four presentations contained a wealth of information and links to Web sites. The PowerPoint presentations will be linked from the Social Science Division Web site as they become available.
Karen Shaines
The Dollar$ and Sense of the Federal Budget program went a long way in explaining the ins and outs of how the budget and appropriations processes operate and the best sources for following these complicated procedures. Speakers Mary Bley and Justin Murray of the Congressional Research Service, with an illuminating slide show and voluminous handouts, demonstrated how the Congress manages each year (well, almost each year) to come up with a budget -- to set targets for themselves -- and then to pass the 13 appropriations bills that provide the money to run the federal government's programs. Did you know that two thirds of the funds in the budget are pre-determined, or mandatory, spending (including Social Security and Medicare)? That leaves one third that can be manipulated -- discretionary spending. One half of that usually goes to defense. This means that only one sixth of the total funds in the budget have to be spread around to cover education, agriculture, foreign aid, housing, environment, transportation, etc. So out of the $2 trillion budget, only $700 billion is debated.
When Congress doesn't manage to get all 13 of the bills passed by September 30, the end of the fiscal year, they pass a continuing resolution to provide temporary funds to keep the government in operation. Sometimes a number of these "CRs" are required before the appropriations bills are completed. Another tactic Congress uses is, rather than passing 13 individual bills, they roll several or many of them into one large "omnibus" or "consolidated" appropriations bill. These massive documents, with no pagination, make nightmares for those following the process.
Mary and Justin suggested a number of useful web sites. Among them was the Appropriations page on Thomas (http://thomas.loc.gov/home/approp/approplink.html). Here you can find links to the 13 bills appropriating money for the government's departments and agencies, the accompanying reports which detail the appropriations, the status of the bills, and votes in the House and Senate.
The House Rules Committee (http://www.house.gov/rules/) has appropriations/budget documents available before they appear in the Congressional Record. While you're there, you can check the many Congressional Research Service reports (some of which were included in the handouts) on the budget process (http://www.house.gov/rules/crs_reports.htm).
Something that everyone is concerned about are "earmarks"-- or money set aside for specific programs. They provide things like that highway in a Member of Congress's district, or funds to build a hospital or community center. They're a boon to some people, but others might consider them "porkbarrel spending." Citizens Against Government Waste keeps track of these earmarks. You can visit their site at http://www.cagw.org/site/PageServer.
Finally, Justin and Mary mentioned several paid sites that budget-and-appropriations followers might be interested in subscribing to. They included the Bureau of National Affairs' Daily Report for Executives (http://www.bna.com) and Congressional Quarterly's cq.com (http://www.cq.com)
A lively question and answer period followed the presentation. We all walked away with a much clearer picture of the labyrinthine budget and appropriations processes.
Heidi Yacker
And just in case you thought we were All Work and No Play:
Champagne, Sorbet, Internationalism, & Urban Oases
International Reception
Underwritten by the ever-generous sponsorship of Factiva, this year’s International Reception glittered on Sunday, June 8. The New York Marriott’s candlelit Astor Ballroom bustled with over 400 attendees, come to mingle with non-US Annual Conference registrants. While the assemblage sipped champagne and sampled grapefruit, coconut, mango, and lemon sorbet, SLA President Bill Fisher welcomed everyone. Others on the program included Transportation Division Chair Roberto Sarmiento introducing a group of EU transport librarians; LMD Chair Sylvia Piggot speaking about the International Information Exchange Caucus (KIIE); Washington, DC, Chapter International Relations Committee representative Eileen Rourke describing the Twinning Project; US Department of State Professional Development Officer Ann Holland presenting her party of US embassy librarians plus 10 Thai librarians; and members of the SLA Global Strategies Task Force. European Chapter President (and co-host with DSOC) Kate Arnold introduced Factiva CEO Clare Hart, who bestowed the 10th Annual European Special Librarian of the Year Award on Peter Clarke of Oliver Wyman (UK). DSOC member Terry Dean introduced Gale Group Special Library Sales Vice President Eleanor Michniewicz, who conferred the 2nd Biennial Gale Group Murray Wortzel Award on Mike Kolakowski of the US Library of Congress (see separate story). Terry also recognized the first recipient of the Wortzel Award, Roger Haley. In addition, a handout prepared by KIIE listing all SLA international-related conference activities was distributed.
Sculpture by Jim Dine, Jesús Bautista Morales, Isamu Noguchi; fountains; waterfalls; ginko, magnolia, and honey locust trees; pergolas; a section of the Berlin Wall; sunken terraces; courtyards; ivy; bamboo all greeted astonished Walking Tour ticketholders on the afternoon of Tuesday, June 10.
These
tiny sanctuaries, spliced between skyscrapers and constituting urban planning
for the soul, revealed a subtle aspect of midtown Manhattan's sparkle to the
70 hearty hikers. The 13 indoor and outdoor locations visited spanned the design
genius of William Hamby, Hideo Sasaki, Gordon Bunshaft, and Robert Lewis Zion.
“Providing some moments of serenity in this busy world”—as the legend on the exterior wall of Greenacre Park proclaims—vestpocket parks originated with 1966-74 New York City Mayor John V. Lindsay. Built on the site of the famous Stork Club, Samuel Paley Park was the first constructed and was featured on the tour’s itinerary.
St.
Bartholomew’s Episcopal Church, home of the Sallie Franklin Cheatham Memorial
Garden, also houses Café St. Barts, which provided a luscious snack for
all. Led by Ann Sweeney and Cybele Merrick, the Walking Tour provided a brief
pastoral respite from the technology-rich Annual Conference.
Ann
R. Sweeney, M. L. S.
Immediate
Past Chair
Social Science Division
