The papers of the late Diane Blair will be opened to researchers on Tuesday, March 9, at the University of Arkansas Libraries in Fayetteville, Arkansas. The collection comprises 113.5 linear feet and includes biographical materials, correspondence, newspaper clippings, research materials, notes, primary and secondary source documents, manuscripts, memorabilia, photographs, VHS recorded programs, audio interviews, and electronic data and databases. The materials are divided into five series: personal and family materials, professional materials, Bill and Hillary Clinton materials, general political materials, and photographs and audio materials.

Diane Blair was born Oct. 25, 1938, in Washington, D.C., and received a Bachelor of Arts in government from Cornell University in 1959. Blair earned her Master of Arts in political science at the University of Arkansas in 1967 and became a part-time lecturer for the university the following year. Arkansas Gov. Dale Bumpers appointed her chair of the Governor's Commission on the Status of Women in 1971, and on Feb. 14, 1975, Blair debated the Equal Rights Amendment in the Arkansas General Assembly against nationally known conservative Phyllis Schlafly. In 1976, Gov. David Pryor appointed her to chair a Commission on Public Employee Rights.

She was named University of Arkansas Outstanding Faculty Member by students in 1976 and 1978 and was promoted to assistant professor in 1979. She received the J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences Master Teacher Award in 1982. Blair published two books: Silent Hattie Speaks: The Personal Journal of Senator Hattie Caraway (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1979), about an Arkansan and the first woman to be elected U.S. Senator, and Arkansas Politics and Government: Do the People Rule? (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1988, reprinted 2005), for which she earned the Virginia Ledbetter Award in 1991, given for the best book published about Arkansas history or culture. She authored or co-authored 12 essays appearing in books, 21 professional journal articles, and many book reviews.

After Bill Clinton and Hillary Rodham moved to Fayetteville in 1974, Blair became their close friend and active promoter. Gov. Clinton appointed Blair to the Commission for the Arkansas Educational Television Network in 1980, a position she held until 1993. Taking leaves from the university, Blair served as senior researcher in the 1992 Clinton presidential campaign and as senior adviser in the 1996 re-election campaign. During the 1992 Clinton presidential campaign, Blair gathered audio interviews of staff members involved in the campaign. Sixty-five of the interviews, for which the Libraries have obtained ownership, are included in the Blair Papers. As president, Clinton appointed her twice, in 1993 and 1997, to the Board of Directors of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, on which she served as chair from 1996-2000. In 2003, the board named its new boardroom in her honor.

Blair was guest scholar at the Brookings Institution in Washington in 1993. Blair was awarded the honorary Doctor of Laws by the University of Arkansas in 2000. She died on June 26, 2000.

CHICAGO—The Association for Library Collections & Technical Services (ALCTS) is announcing that Olivia Marie A. Madison, dean of the library, Iowa State University, is the recipient of the 2010 Margaret Mann Citation presented by its Cataloging and Classification Section (CCS).

The award will be presented on Sunday, June 27, at the ALCTS Awards Ceremony during the 2010 American Library Association (ALA) Annual Conference in Washington, D.C.  The Mann Citation, recognizing outstanding professional achievement in cataloging or classification, includes a $2,000 scholarship donated in the recipient’s honor by OCLC, Inc. to the library school of the winner’s choice. Ms. Madison has chosen the University of Missouri School of Information Science & Learning Technologies, Library Science Graduate Program to be the recipient of this year’s scholarship award.

Madison is recognized for having exercised decisive leadership in the development and management of cataloging throughout a long and distinguished career. She has served as both secretary and chair of the Committee on Cataloging: Description and Access (CC:DA), where she played a key role in the ongoing development of the Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules. As a long-standing member of IFLA’s Standing Committee of the Section on Cataloguing, Olivia served two two-year terms as chair of the Study Group on Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records. (These terms were interrupted by a two-year term as chair of the Standing Committee of the Section of Cataloging.) The work of this group has been broadly influential in shaping the development of several international cataloging codes including Resource Description and Access (RDA). More recently, Ms. Madison served as co-chair of the Library of Congress’s Working Group on the Future of Bibliographic Control. The conclusions of this diversely constituted group are likely to have widespread effects on the future of cataloging at the Library of Congress, nationally and internationally. The Margaret Mann Citation Jury is pleased to honor Ms. Madison for her dedication, persistence and exemplary cataloging expertise that has helped direct high-level groups with difficult charges toward extremely productive outcomes.

The Association for Library Collections & Technical Services (ALCTS) is the national association for information providers who work in collections and technical services, such as acquisitions, cataloging, collection development, preservation and continuing resources in digital and print formats.

ALCTS is a division of the American Library Association.

http://www.ala.org/ala/newspresscenter/news/pressreleases2010/march2010/mann_alcts.cfm

Emeryville, CA—SkyRiver announced on 1/5/2010 that it is extending an offer to the Greater Western Library Alliance (GWLA) to offer SkyRiver services to its member community. Joni Blake, Executive Director of GWLA, states, “We are very pleased to offer our members the opportunity to save thousands of dollars in cataloging costs through SkyRiver..”

Leslie Straus, President of SkyRiver notes, “GWLA's membership includes many research libraries in the western U.S. and we're particularly pleased with the prospect of offering our services to this community known for strong library leadership.”

SkyRiver services include an easy-to-use cataloging client for searching, editing, and adding records to the library's local catalog. Features include a powerful search engine with facets and tags, automatic record request notification, one-click downloading of bibliographic and authority file records, and shelf-ready support. SkyRiver is right for all types of libraries and integrates with any local library system. SkyRiver's services are now fully operational in selected libraries with a market-wide launch planned for January, 2010.

About Greater Western Library Alliance

The Greater Western Library Alliance (GWLA) (www.gwla.org) is a consortium of 32 research libraries located across 17 Midwestern & Western states with common interests in programs related to scholarly communication, interlibrary loan, shared electronic resources, cooperative collection development, digital libraries, staff development and continuing education. Twenty-five GWLA libraries are also members of the Association of Research Libraries (ARL). The staff offices of the consortium are located in Kansas City, Missouri; Phoenix, Arizona; and Salt Lake City, Utah.

About SkyRiver
SkyRiver (www.theskyriver.com) announced its new bibliographic utility service on October 6, 2009. SkyRiver is dedicated to the development and deployment of efficient, economical cataloging services for libraries.

  If you would like to view the December 17th 2009 presentation by Tiah Edmunson-Morton regarding the Oregon State University's
  FlickR Commons project, go to the Wimba login:

  http://67.202.209.36/index.html.pl?launcherlink=1&credential_2=&channel=GWLA_DCC&presenterOnLoad=0&clear_login_cookie=1

• Login as "Participant" (you don't need a userid/password to join)
  

            If you haven't setup the "Wimba Wizard" before, you'll need to go through a five-step check before logging in.

• After logging in, click the `Lobby' tab (lower right-side index)
• At the top of the `Lobby' page, click the `Archive' tab
  
• Scroll down to "Greater Western Library Alliance Digital Collections Committee, 12/17/2009 16:01"
  
• Click the link and the opening page will introduce "The FlickR Commons Experience"
  

• Please `Exit' (lower rt.) at the conclusion of the presentation.

  If you have questions, please contact jim@gwla.org

DataONE (Observation Network for Earth) Project at UNM Receives $20 Million Award

The DataONE office, based within both the Office of the Vice President of Research and University Libraries at the University of New Mexico, has been awarded $20 million by the National Science Foundation (NSF) to support its scientific research activities for the next five years. The project is under the direction of William Michener, professor and director of e-science initiatives at University Libraries.

Researchers at UNM have partnered with dozens of other universities and agencies to create DataONE, a global data access and preservation network for earth and environmental scientists that will support breakthroughs in environmental research.

DataONE is designed to provide universal access to data about life on Earth and the environment that sustains it. The underlying technologies will provide open, persistent, robust, and secure access to well-described and easily discovered Earth observational data.

Expected users include scientists, educators, librarians, resource managers, and the public. By providing easy and open access to a broad range of science data, as well as tools for managing, analyzing, and visualizing data, DataONE will be transformative in the speed with which researchers will be able to assemble and analyze data sets and in the types of problems they will be able to address.

Dr. Michener spoke at the Spring 2009 GWLA Membership Meeting in Houston, TX.

For further information, please go to: http://www.unm.edu/~market/cgi-bin/archives/004536.html

The University of Oklahoma's 27th Annual Conference will be held on March 4th and 5th, 2010 in Oklahoma City.
For speaker, program and registration information, please see: http://libraries.ou.edu/conferences/conf2010/
or contact Rhonda Cannon at rhondacannon@ou.edu

The GWLA program on "Reinventing Reference" is now available for viewing at http://mulibraries.missouri.edu/media/gwla.htm. We thank our excellent panel of speakers and Jim Cogswell and the team at MU Libraries who made the webcast possible.

Birmingham, Ala., – Sept. 18, 2009 –EBSCO and a number of library consortia are working together to help consortia members reduce the cost and burden of processing e-journal package renewals by using EBSCO’s  RapidRenewal® service, available via EBSCONET®. As libraries face the most dramatic budget conditions in history, they are often losing staff necessary to handle administrative tasks. EBSCO's RapidRenewal, an online tool for managing the renewal of licensed e-journal collections, is designed to ease the administrative burdens associated with renewing e-journal packages. By partnering with consortia, EBSCO is able to provide an e-package renewal tool to more customers for managing contract data at a consortial level.

Library consortia have been able to negotiate large content deals successfully with major publishers and offer membership terms and conditions that are unique to their respective consortium. RapidRenewal, developed in cooperation with many of the major STM publishers, enables libraries to process these licensed deals in a more efficient manner by incorporating consortial contract terms and limitations, title detail and custom pricing into a single online interface. “Our members are extremely busy and are always looking for ways to streamline the serials renewal process," said Ed McBride, chief of member engagement at Lyrasis. "We are happy to provide them with a tool like EBSCO’s RapidRenewal that can help them do just that.”

Executive Director of SCELC Rick Burke said: “Many of our libraries are EBSCO subscription service clients. Consequently, we chose to promote to our member libraries the option to utilize EBSCO’s RapidRenewal services. Our offer bundles discount options that reduce our members’ operating cost for processing and maintaining their e-journal packages.”

The RapidRenewal interface provides a single portal for processing the renewal of multiple packages while eliminating the cumbersome exchange of spreadsheets, e-mail and other communication. The library can modify and approve package title lists as the system enforces the terms of the consortial contract and ensures that renewals are handled correctly each year. Authority levels allow renewals to be approved at the consortial or library level, depending on the preferred process of the consortium or publisher.

As a result of using RapidRenewal, libraries within a consortium can take advantage of the negotiated terms and conditions, easily renew their collections according to their contract terms, and have the title-by-title analysis that is often needed in today’s shrinking budget environment. "Attempting to identify creative ways in reducing technical services administrative costs while also trying to reduce workloads can be a difficult task, said Anne E. McKee, MLS, program officer for resource sharing at GWLA. "EBSCO’s Rapid Renewal system is a well-designed solution that will help meet both of those needs in e-journal renewal processing.  GWLA is pleased to work with EBSCO in this effort.”

“We are looking forward to working with consortia in providing their EBSCO members with a tool that reduces the time spent processing package renewals from weeks to a few hours in many cases," said Rebecca Day, manager of e-resources development at EBSCO.  "Our libraries that are using RapidRenewal have indicated the tool allows them to have better control and more efficient renewals of e-packages. We are delighted to be able to offer a tool that has been proven to reduce the library’s workload, particularly given current staffing and budget situations in many libraries.”

About EBSCO:

EBSCO is the world’s premier full-service provider of information, offering a portfolio of services that spans the realm of print and electronic subscription access and management, research databases and more. The company’s e-resource renewal and management tools help librarians accomplish in hours what once took weeks. For more information, please visit www.ebsco.com.

EBSCO Partners with Key Consortia to Simplify Renewal of E-Journal Packages

 

Birmingham, Ala., – Sept. 18, 2009 –EBSCO and a number of library consortia are working together to help consortia members reduce the cost and burden of processing e-journal package renewals by using EBSCO’s  RapidRenewal® service, available via EBSCONET®. As libraries face the most dramatic budget conditions in history, they are often losing staff necessary to handle administrative tasks. EBSCO's RapidRenewal, an online tool for managing the renewal of licensed e-journal collections, is designed to ease the administrative burdens associated with renewing e-journal packages. By partnering with consortia, EBSCO is able to provide an e-package renewal tool to more customers for managing contract data at a consortial level.

 

Library consortia have been able to negotiate large content deals successfully with major publishers and offer membership terms and conditions that are unique to their respective consortium. RapidRenewal, developed in cooperation with many of the major STM publishers, enables libraries to process these licensed deals in a more efficient manner by incorporating consortial contract terms and limitations, title detail and custom pricing into a single online interface. “Our members are extremely busy and are always looking for ways to streamline the serials renewal process," said Ed McBride, chief of member engagement at Lyrasis. "We are happy to provide them with a tool like EBSCO’s RapidRenewal that can help them do just that.”

 

Executive Director of SCELC Rick Burke said: “Many of our libraries are EBSCO subscription service clients. Consequently, we chose to promote to our member libraries the option to utilize EBSCO’s RapidRenewal services. Our offer bundles discount options that reduce our members’ operating cost for processing and maintaining their e-journal packages.”

 

The RapidRenewal interface provides a single portal for processing the renewal of multiple packages while eliminating the cumbersome exchange of spreadsheets, e-mail and other communication. The library can modify and approve package title lists as the system enforces the terms of the consortial contract and ensures that renewals are handled correctly each year. Authority levels allow renewals to be approved at the consortial or library level, depending on the preferred process of the consortium or publisher.

 

As a result of using RapidRenewal, libraries within a consortium can take advantage of the negotiated terms and conditions, easily renew their collections according to their contract terms, and have the title-by-title analysis that is often needed in today’s shrinking budget environment. "Attempting to identify creative ways in reducing technical services administrative costs while also trying to reduce workloads can be a difficult task, said Anne E. McKee, MLS, program officer for resource sharing at GWLA. "EBSCO’s Rapid Renewal system is a well-designed solution that will help meet both of those needs in e-journal renewal processing.  GWLA is pleased to work with EBSCO in this effort.”

 

“We are looking forward to working with consortia in providing their EBSCO members with a tool that reduces the time spent processing package renewals from weeks to a few hours in many cases," said Rebecca Day, manager of e-resources development at EBSCO.  "Our libraries that are using RapidRenewal have indicated the tool allows them to have better control and more efficient renewals of e-packages. We are delighted to be able to offer a tool that has been proven to reduce the library’s workload, particularly given current staffing and budget situations in many libraries.”

 

About GWLA:

The Greater Western Library Alliance (GWLA) is a consortium of 32 research libraries located across 17 Midwestern & Western states with common interests in programs related to scholarly communication, interlibrary loan, shared electronic resources, cooperative collection development, digital libraries, staff development and continuing education.

 

About SCELC:

The Statewide California Electronic Library Consortium (SCELC) was established in 1986 to develop resource-sharing relationships among the 95 libraries of private academic institutions in California.

 

About Lyrasis:

Lyrasis is created from the merger of PALINET and SOLINET, two of the strongest and most successful library networks. Lyrasis provides a regional base and national scope to expand the collaboration and services you value, while adding important new initiatives to shape our future together. Lyrasis members now include over 4,000 member libraries and cultural heritage institutions across the U.S. and beyond.

 

About EBSCO:

EBSCO is the world’s premier full-service provider of information, offering a portfolio of services that spans the realm of print and electronic subscription access and management, research databases and more. The company’s e-resource renewal and management tools help librarians accomplish in hours what once took weeks. For more information, please visit www.ebsco.com.