Library Directions: Volume 12, No. 1 a newsletter of the Autumn 2001 University of Washington Libraries 1 Letter from the Director Library Directions is produced three times a year by UW Libraries staff. Inquiries concerning content should be sent to: The events of September 11 and their aftermath made us thirst Library Directions University of Washington Libraries for information. We were riveted to the television eager for the Box 352900 Seattle, WA 98195-2900 latest breaking news. We scoured the newspapers looking for in- (206) 543-1760 ([email protected]) depth analysis. We stood in line for Jere Bacharach’s “Introduction Gordon Aamot, Managing Editor Susan Kemp, Editor, Photographer to Islam” hoping to deepen our understanding. It was standing Diana Johnson, Mark Kelly, Mary Mathiason, Anita Smith, Mary Whiting, Copy Editors room only for the students who came to the Libraries’ session Library Directions is available online at “Rumors, Scams, and Urban Legends Related to September 11th: www.lib.washington.edu/about/libdirections/current/. Several sources are used for mailing labels. Please pass How to Avoid Being Duped, Faked-out, and Misled by Stories on the multiple copies on to others or return the labels of the unwanted copies to Library Directions. Addresses Web” during the Day of Refl ection and Engagement. We longed to extract meaning and containing UW campus box numbers were obtained from the HEPPS database and corrections should wisdom from the overwhelming swirl of information. be sent to your departmental payroll coordinator. President Richard McCormick reminds us “the work each of us does at the University In This Issue: of Washington is now more important than ever. We can take some consolation from Letter from the Director.......................p. 1 the conviction that the preservation, advancement and dissemination of knowledge are Information Resources: Transforming Discovery, Access and Delivery...........p. 2 powerful means of striving for a world in which despicable acts of terrorism do not take By Joyce Ogburn, Associate Director of Re- source and Collection Management Services place.” In this new context, the UW Libraries’ mission to “enrich the quality of life and advance Peter McCracken: Librarian as Entrepreneur........................................p. 3 intellectual discovery by connecting people with knowledge” has taken on heightened By Norman Oder. Reprinted with permission of Library Journal, copyright 2001. meaning and renewed importance. The Libraries and the Journal.............p. 7 By Mel DeSart, Head, Engineering Library Library Directions is one way that the Libraries connects you with knowledge. With its new Awards & Recognition.........................p. 9 expanded format, Library Directions focuses on a deeper examination of issues and trends News and Events................................p. 10 Suzzallo Renovation in the scholarly communication and information exchange. In this issue, you will read about Over Halfway Completed..................p. 11 the changes underway and what it means for you and the role you play in creating a preferred future where wisdom is shared and preserved, not lost in unexamined knowledge On the Cover: and information. One of several large murals in the Smith Room of Suzzallo Library, painted in 1935 by Paul M. Gustin and John T. Jacobsen. The murals represent the history and exploration of the Northwest, and include maps, topographical details and various indigenous fl owers. Although the Smith Room is not open to visitors now, renovation will allow the space to be shared more widely. (See more about Suzzallo renovation on the back cover.) Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? This photograph from the Todd collection, 1935, Where is the knowledge we have lost in information? is held in Manuscripts, Special Collections, University Archives. UW neg #1760 T.S. Eliot, The Rock (1934) 2 Information Resources: Transforming Discovery, Access and Delivery Joyce Ogburn, Associate Director, Resource and to this title online,” click on that line to take you right to the resource. Many of our Collection Management Services journal titles are now online and you get ready and easy access to them directly As mentioned in previous articles in Library Directions, from the catalog. At some point in the future we hope to have the funding to add the Libraries is going down a path of transformation tables of contents for books, thereby greatly enhancing the information that helps to provide you with enhanced services and access to you select the ones you want. information resources at any time and from any place. You also have access to Cascade, an online catalog of library holdings at the UW, This kind of library has a digital foundation that WSU, Evergreen State, Western, Central and Eastern Washington University(s). includes online collections, but also has a suite of Through this catalog you can fi nd and request delivery of a title from another campus. tools that allow you to discover, access and get to It will be sent to the UW Libraries for you to pick up at any circulation desk. To get to collections in whatever format we have. the Cascade catalog, start in the UW Libraries Catalog and look for the buttons that There is a popular myth that everything ever published direct you to searching Cascade or go directly to cascade.lib.washington.edu/. is now available free on the Internet. This is far from Another catalog that provides informa- true. Information on the Internet is a mix of free and Information and services tion on materials we can get for you is commercial information and by no means replicates that of the Center for Research Libraries the published record. The Internet has also been can transcend constraints (CRL). As a member, the Libraries called a library with the books spilled all over the can borrow any of their materials for fl oor in a completely random order. It’s amazing you of time and space. your use. Located in Chicago, CRL has can fi nd anything you need. Much of the research- a collection of 5 million items, with quality information is hidden in databases, not particularly strong holdings of foreign indexed by search engines and not available for free to dissertations, foreign and domestic newspapers, foreign government documents, the general public. Through the Libraries, however, you secondary education textbooks, publications of the Russian Academy of Sciences, can gain access to many journals, newspapers, books and and large microform sets that include governmental papers. CRL also fi lms materials, images that we have acquired on your behalf. primarily foreign newspapers, not otherwise available to libraries in the U.S. Materials Online catalogs and gateways requested are delivered quickly for long-term use through interlibrary loan. The CRL catalog and other information can be found at crlcatalog.uchicago.edu/. Our catalog is an integral tool for finding infor- mation you need, regardless of whether it is in For an even broader search, the OCLC WorldCat is a meta catalog of holdings of print, microfilm, video, online, or other format libraries around the globe. WorldCat consists of over 30 million catalog records for (catalog.lib.washington.edu/search~/). In a Web- books, journals, maps, sound recordings and other media. Increasingly Web sites are based catalog fi nding what you want is much simpler being added to this already expansive catalog. WorldCat will even tell you whether than moving between cabinets of cards—the choices the UW owns a title. If you fi nd something you would like that we of access points are readily apparent and all do not own at the UW, you can acquire it through together in one place. In the Web-based interlibrary loan. Look for OCLC WorldCat in catalog, there are built-in links to other our list of top 20 databases. records or search points. You can Online catalogs are just one of even get directly to resources the tools that help you fi nd on the Internet. Next time what you need. The Libra- you are in the catalog, ries Information Gateway pay attention to the blue (www.lib.washington.edu/) highlighted lines in provides pages of lists the records, such as that include many of author, call number the journals, databases and subjects. Try and services that we clicking one of offer by subject these to fi nd or format. You can similar also sign up to resources. If you receive alerts fi nd a record that about new ad- says “Connect ditions to the continued on p. 5 3 Peter McCracken: Librarian as Entrepreneur By Norman Oder, Library Journal After college, working as a fi le clerk at a law Rapidly emerging Serials Solutions, which offers fi rm, McCracken started thinking about what librarians a reliable way to track full-text, electronic- might suit his interests. His father, a professor format journals, was the buzz of the show fl oor at at UW, helped connect him to library school the American Library Association (ALA) annual faculty there for advice. McCracken then conference in June. chose library school at the University of North Carolina (UNC), Chapel Hill. “They had an Founded last year, Serials Solutions has grown excellent balance of traditional librarianship quickly, with ten full-time employees, plus part- and cutting-edge technology.” timers. During that time the company has hit some impressive targets: it has no debt, with its expansion Now at UW, he says, “I love being a librarian. I financed out of revenues—in the neighborhood do not see myself quitting my job. I really love of $60,000 a month and growing; it has forged reference work, I like helping people fi gure out relationships with most of the main aggregators; and it how they can fi nd their own information. I like now counts some 162 libraries as customers.