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Africana Libraries Newsletter |
ALC/CAMP NEWS
OTHER LIBRARY NEWS
RESEARCH ON LIBRARIES & INFORMATION SCIENCE
REFERENCE SOURCES
NOTES ON MATERIALS & VENDORS
For a variety of reasons (an ongoing, hopefully-temporary reduction in staff in the MSU Libraries, the editor's preference for cataloging, etc.), there was no July ALN. The cancellation of the Spring meeting (due to unexpected death of the host librarian) makes this less of a problem than usual. Hopefully, the quarterly schedule can resume with this double number.
Contributions from Ruby Bell-Gam, Phyllis Bischof, Moore Crossey, David Easterbrook, Tony Olden, Nancy Schmidt, Mette Shayne and others helped in the creation of this issue.
The January issue carried a survey questionnaire and some comments on the results are owed to those who replied. In the first survey in at least 10 years, I asked recipients to indicate whether they wished to continue receiving ALN and what changes they might propose. A total of 190 (105 United States and 85 other) responses were received (to date), including about 6 who asked to be taken off the list. Since academic libraries, ALC regulars, and those added to the list since 1994 were not required to return the survey in order to stay on the mailing list, it is not useful to cite a response rate.
There were positive results from the exercise. Many addresses were corrected. The total number of addresses was reduced from 639 (388 in the United State and 251 other) to 469 (260 U.S. and 208 other, including 149 addresses in Africa). About two dozen had specific comments on possible changes. Suggestions included: more about internet web sites, more critical reviews, more discussion of vendors, more editor's comments, more on library conferences in Africa, more on books and articles about librarianship, more bibliographies, and more Africana titles of any kind. Mostly good ideas, even when not possible with the present staff; and appreciated.
I was surprised by the interest in new web sites. I had thought that the web users would be finding these by themselves, without benefit of print sources. I will continue this feature.
RESEARCH ON LIBRARIES & INFORMATION SCIENCE
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