News from the Chair

It is astounding how quickly a year can pass! Last year at this time our Section was in
its initial stages of organization. EALS members were full of ideas for activities,
ready to push on as soon as a structure was in place.

And push on we have! In the process of developing a strategic plan for the Section, the
Planning Committee drew up a list of our current and proposed activities. Those of you
who are EALSL subscribers saw a draft of this listing shorting after the Midwinter
Meeting. What I find impressive is not only the length of the list, but also the extent
to which we have moved ahead to make many of these ideas a reality.

A year ago our only means of communication between meetings was the two annual issues
of the newsletter. With the limited space available each year, it has often been a
challenge to decide which was the most important sixteen pages worth of information to
communicate to our entire membership.

Now we have two electronic tools to greatly expand our communication. The Section's
electronic listserv (LES-L) was established last summer. After some experimentation with
an unmoderated format, we found that subscribers were being overwhelmed with messages of
the "who's your favorite author" variety. In order to maintain the list's focus on EALS
business and issues in librarianship, the Executive Committee decided to switch to a
moderated format. Scott Stebelman, who had set up the list at George Washington
University, agreed to serve as moderator, and the EALS membership ratified the decision
in January. Since then, EALSL has become an effective way for EALS members and other
literature librarians to share ideas and information.

The Section's World Wide Web site is currently under development. Like EALS, our Web site
will have as its primary functions to provide information on the Section and to serve as
an information resource on literary librarianship. Unlike the Web sites of some other
ACRL sections, ours will not attempt to serve as a gateway to all Internet resources on
literatures in English; we felt that the field was already well-covered, and that we
should at most point to a few of the most important "meta-sites."

Naturally, outreach and recruitment are important emphases during our early stages as a
section. Our Membership and Publications Committees have collaborated to produce a
Section brochure which we hope will be ready for distribution at the annual
conference in July. And in keeping with our commitment to a diverse membership, we are
extending our outreach to a number of groups that have been underrepresented in
EALS.

While we are trying through electronic means to meet the needs of members who are often
unable to attend annual and midwinter meetings, programming and discussion at those
meetings remains a major aspect of our activities as a Section. Our New York program, to
be held in Lincoln Center, promises to be one of our most exciting ever. Playwright
Edward Albee, actress Marion Seldes, and other key figures in the New York theater scene
will share their experiences as active library users, and will describe the partnerships
they have forged with librarians in their creative pursuits. The New York session is
itself an example of a successful partnership involving EALS and two other groups: the
ACRL Arts Section and the Theatre Library Association. As 's and ACRL's programming
resources become scarcer, our ability to provide quality programs that reflect the needs
of our membership will depend increasingly on real partnerships such as this, involving
active participation by each of the groups rather than a mere co-sponsorship "in name
only."

Looking ahead to 1997, a committee is already planning for the San Francisco conference,
with a tentative proposal to co-sponsor a program on the history of the book with
another ACRL section. And an informal task force is putting together an exciting
proposal for a session on electronic texts for the 1997 ACRL National Conference in
Nashville. Plans for a monograph on literary librarianship in the electronic age are
well underway; Marcia Pankake and Betty Day have agreed to serve as co-editors, and a
list of topics and potential authors for the essays is nearing completion.

I want to close by thanking everyone who has helped make the past year such a successful
one is EALS. In particular, thanks are due to the officers, committee chairs, and
committee members who have been so eager to work for the Section; their enthusiasm and
dedication have made my year as Section Chair a truly pleasurable experience.

See you in New York!

Timothy Shipe

Information about the New York Program

The English and American Literatures Section, in cooperation with the Theatre Library
Association and the ACRL Arts Section, will be holding the New York `96 program
"Beyond the Stage Door..." on Monday, July 8, 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. The New York Public
Library Performing Arts Library, housed in Lincoln Center, is providing their 212-seat
auditorium.

The program focuses on how theatre professionals use library collections, particularly
theatre libraries. Our speakers include actress Marian Seldes, stage designer Ming Cho
Lee, lighting designer Jules Fisher, and playwright Edward Albee. Our respondents will
be Robert Taylor, Curator from the Billy Rose Collection, who will discuss theatre
library collections, and Susan Peters from Emory University, who will discuss theatre
material in libraries that do not have special theatre collections.

Because seating is extremely limited, reservations to attend this session are an absolute
MUST. You may send your reservation requests between now and May 31st to Susan Peters,
at Emory University, by any of the following forms:

e-mail: libslp@unix.emory.cc.edu



telephone: (404) 727-0117


fax: (404) 727-0053


snail mail:


Emory University


Woodruff Library, Collection Management


Atlanta, GA 30322-2870

PLEASE INDICATE IF YOU ARE A MEMBER OF TLA, EALS, OR ARTS.

Please include your e-mail address (if you have one), telephone number, and snail mail
address. You will be notified if you have a reservation or if you are on the wait list.
Members of EALS, Arts, and TLA have first opportunity to reserve.

See you on the 8th of July!

Susan L. Peters, Ph.D.
Coordinator for Language and Literature
Emory
University, Woodruff Library
Department of Collection Management
(404)
727-0117
libslp@unix.cc.emory.edu

English and American Literature Collection Development in a Team Environment

Traditionally, the day-to-day responsibilities of a bibliographer for a subject area have
been vested in and carried out by individuals who work independently of other subject
bibliographers in the Library. Although most bibliographers are part of a Collection
Development Department, the consultation that takes place concerning subject focus
occurs with faculty and graduate students within academic departments. In addition, the
typical responsibilities of the bibliographer vary by the size and scope of the Library
where they work. This article attempts to describe the changes in collecting that have
occurred at the University of California, Irvine, as part of a recently completed
Organizational Review and Design Project (quickly abbreviated to OR&DP by all
Library staff), and focuses in particular on the impact this has had on the area of
collecting materials in English and American Literature. Prior to the changes brought
about by OR&DP, the organization of Collection Development at UCI followed a
departmental model, although there was not, nor is there now, a Collection Development
department as part of the UCI's organizational chart. The Assistant University Librarian
for Collections was and is a member of the Library's administrative department and also
served as the department head for Collections with responsibility for the budget and
overall management of collections-related activities. Although the numbers varied
slightly over the years, a core group of approximately 25 individuals with collection
development responsibilities were part of the Bibliographers Group which met monthly.
During these meetings, information concerning the status of budget negotiations and
decisions was distributed, projects were described and assigned, and information of
interest to those involved in Collection Development was disseminated. At UCI, almost
all bibliographers have split assignments. This was true prior to OR&DP and is still
true after reorganization. The most typical model is that of the Reference
Librarian/Bibliographer. This means that the librarian is a member of the former
Reference, now Research and Instruction, Department, and also has responsibility for a
subject area.

My position falls into this category. I am a member of the Main Library (Arts, Humanities
and Social Sciences) Research and Instruction Department and I am the bibliographer for
English, Comparative Literature and Classics. Due to the departure of a colleague, I
recently became the Main Library General Reference bibliographer in addition to my other
duties.

Other models at UCI are Bibliographer/Member of a Library Department other than Research
and Instruction, such as Special Collections or Women's Studies, or
Bibliographer/Responsible for a Library function such as Publications or Preservation.
There are a few librarians in the Research and Instruction Departments who do not have
bibliographer responsibilities and only two full-time bibliographers with specialized
areas of responsibility such as the East Asian collection or the Southeast Asian
Archive.

As a bibliographer, my primary responsibilities are to select materials in my subject
areas, to perform liaison services for the English and Comparative Literature Department
(35 faculty and 200 graduate students) and the Classics Department (6 faculty and 10
graduate students), and to provide specialized bibliographic instruction and reference
services upon faculty request. Again, OR&DP has not changed this aspect of my
position.

For selecting materials, I depend primarily upon approval plans. I preview approximately
40-60 titles per week in hard copy and select another 10-20/week from form selections. I
am more aggressive in placing firm orders for fiction and poetry than in other areas, as
we have steadily whittled away at our budget in recent years and my selection in this
area must be quite targeted to those materials which are truly of local interest. UCI
has a highly ranked creative writing program, and it is important to provide a range of
materials which allow students and faculty to keep up with new developments in this
area. Declining budgets and shifts in faculty's research interests have changed my
selecting patterns, but the OR&DP has not.

One change that has occurred in collection development at UCI which is not result of
OR&DP is the manner in which the collections budget is structured. Over the last
three years, we have created individual budgets covering monographs (including materials
received through approval plans and those firm ordered), continuations and serials for
each bibliographer. Previously, each bibliographer had a small fund to use for firm
ordering retrospective materials; all other expenditures, such as books received on
approval and serials were covered by library-wide funds.

Before I describe the changes brought about by OR&DP and the new collections budget
structure, I will describe the impetus for it. There were three primary factors. The
University Librarian, Joanne Euster and the Assistant University Librarian for
Collections, Judith Paquette were both new to their jobs. In addition, the new Science
Library on campus was opened. The Science Library consolidated the collections of three
small branch libraries (Physical Sciences, Biological Sciences, and Bio-Medical) as well
as science collections which had formerly been housed in the Main Library. The opening
of the new building shifted staff as well as collections.

The Organizational Review and Design Project brought about major changes in the
organization of Collection Development. The scope of the Assistant University Librarian
for Collection's responsibility was extended to include Access Services (Circulation and
Interlibrary Loan which was renamed Document Access and Delivery) which had formerly
been a part of Public Service. The Bibliographers Group remained, but individuals were
organized into smaller groups according to subject responsibilities. These smaller
groups function as teams and are know as "Pods" in our organization. There are three
pods; the Arts and Humanities Pod (AH's), the Social Science Pod (SS's) and the
Engineering, Medicine and Science Pod (EMS's). Each Pod has a team leader who by virtue
of that position is a member of the Collections Coordinating Council which is made up of
the three Pod leaders and the Assistant University Librarian for Collections and Access.
The Collections Coordinating Council meets weekly for two hours, each Pod meets once
every two weeks for two hours, and the Bibliographer's Group meets once every six weeks
for two hours. The position of Pod leader is rotating; the current Pod leaders are at
the end of their two year term and new leaders will soon be selected. In tandem with
this, we used the capabilities of our local Innovative Interfaces system to code and
track materials expenditures by bibliographers.

As the first Pod leader for Arts and Humanities I feel that I have a unique perspective
on how becoming a member of a collection development team has affected my behavior as a
bibliographer. The Arts and Humanities Pod has nine members which is, by the way, rather
large for a "work team" according to the current management literature. Their positions
are the English, Comparative Literature, Classics and Main Library General Reference
Bibliographer (me), the Fine Arts Librarian, the Women's Studies Librarian (also a
member of the Social Sciences Pod), the History and Film Studies Librarian, the German
Language and Literature Bibliographer, the Spanish and Portuguese Librarian, the East
Asian Librarian, and the Critical Theory, French and Italian, and Philosophy
Bibliographer. In addition, the Government Publications Librarian responsible for
microforms is a member of our group.

As part of the OR&DP, and the decision to use the team concept as an organizing
principle, each member of the library staff participated in team training sessions led
by an outside consultant. This team training led to a better understanding of how to
work more efficiently and effectively in groups. Rather than using the Bibliographers
Group meetings as discussion forum to voice opinions about issues with no mechanism for
implementing projects or following up on ideas, the Collections Coordinating Council has
worked very hard to use it as a forum to set priorities and organize projects.

If projects are library-wide, such as distribution of funds to individual bibliographers
or fund coding of serials titles, information dissemination occurs in the Bibliographers
Group and much of the actual work is done in the Pods or by individual bibliographers as
before, depending on the nature of the project.

If there are projects which affect one Pod and not the others, most of the work of
organizing the project occurs at the Pod level with some reporting on progress through
the Bibliographers Group. The move to the Science Library was an example of this as it
affected primarily the Science bibliographers. Pods have the option of meeting and
working together on projects if it makes sense to do so. The Main Library is due for
renovation in 1996. The Social Sciences Pod and the Arts and Humanities Pod have already
begun working on a number of collections-related activities having to do with the
renovation.

As you can see, organizing into teams has made planning and implementing projects more
efficient and effective. The groups working on projects are smaller and more focussed.
It may not be obvious from individual projects, but overall the management of UCI's
collection will benefit as small work groups take on responsibility for completing
specific tasks. Better collection management allows better service to all the Library's
users.

In addition to better project management, what has been the benefit of the team
environment for English and American literature specifically? The major benefit is a
mechanism for communicating the needs and interests of academic programs to others whose
programs may overlap with my own. Because there is more individual control over the
collections budget than in the past, the Arts and Humanities Pod created an Arts and
Humanities General Fund which is used to purchase expensive items such as sets or media
which do not fall neatly into one discipline or another. In addition to acquiring the
item, the Pod members benefit by the discussion and explanation as to why this material
is requested and what purpose it serves.

Perhaps it is the academic buzz word of the nineties or maybe it merely reflects reality,
but UCI seems to have preponderance of interdisciplinary programs and areas of research.
Meeting with a group of humanities bibliographers on a regular basis allows for a
regular exchange of information on developments such as new faculty interests or new
activity in areas which impact other bibliographers. It also facilitates decision-making
about the acquisition of individual items.

I realize that many of the activities described above are routine to bibliographers at
some institutions, but want to remind my readers that at UCI prior to OR&DP they
were only engaged in sporadically or on an ad hoc basis due to the loose structure of
the Collection Development function.

My individual assessment of collection development in a team environment is that it not
changed what I do, but it has changed how I do it. I feel that the process of selecting
materials in the area of English and Comparative Literature particularly has become more
consultative because I can now depend on meeting with a peer group of like-minded
individuals on a regular basis. Before the creation of the Arts and Humanities Pod, the
only peer group relationship I felt I had was with the other English and American
Literature Bibliographers I met at the °ÄÃÅÁùºÏ²Ê¿ª½±app Conferences.
Although the other members of the AH's may not do exactly what I do, they are much more
accessible and attuned to the needs of the UCI community than my colleagues!

Catherine Palmer, Humanities Librarian
University of California, Irvine

cpalmer@uci.edu

Home Pages Advance Research

Home pages can be a useful resource for listing classes offered by the library, links to
literary sites, connections to online databases, and background information about a
librarian's interests and education. In an attempt to provide models for other English
and American Literature librarians, the Editor posted a message to EALSL, encouraging
subscribers who had developed home pages to share their URLs. Below is a list of those
people who responded. If you want to have your's included in future editions of
Biblio-Notes, and on our Section's Web site, send a message to the Editor.

Recent Studies of Interest to English and American Literature Librarians
by Scott
Stebelman

Citations are limited to the period 1995-96. 1995 citations listed in the Fall 1994 issue
of Biblio-Notes are omitted.