BCC99/Auth/5
ALCTS Media Resources Committee
ALA Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA
ALCTS-MRC (formerly ALCTS-AV, for those of you who track these initialisms) sponsored a
program session at the Annual Meeting, titled "Acquiring minds want to know : the
acquisitions process and collection development of videos and CD-ROMs." The first
speaker, Sally Mason Robinson (National Video Resources, a not-for-profit established by
the Rockefeller Foundation), reminded the audience that "media", here defined as
videos and CD-ROMs, needs to be viewed as a mainstream collection activity for libraries
that pursue the goal of offering users the most appropriate medium for information and for
learning. She offered the cautionary tale of videocassettes and libraries; slow to catch
on with library patrons, videos exploded in popularity around 1985. Some libraries were
completely unprepared, and made matters worse by adopting a distinction between
"real" and "video" users of libraries. She stressed the need for a
collection development policy, particularly when considering the addition of a new format
(e.g. DVD) to the collection. Some of the considerations she offered for this latter: who
has the equipment? What is it good for? (Faulkner works best from a book; instructions for
hanging wallpaper can be effectively conveyed on video) Is its cost proportional to its
potential for use? Is it truly in demand?
Is the supply adequate? Mason Robinson touched on issues of organization of a collection,
pointing out challenges (inconsistency of information provided by producers, reissues in
different formats) that sometimes lead to shortcuts in cataloging that can make the item
invisible to the catalog user. She strongly advocated classification of videos and
CD-ROMs, made all the more important as libraries have moved past feature films to buy
materials in all subject areas; to not classify to the same level as print materials, she
said, suggested a lack of seriousness about the format. Several of the handouts from Ms.
Mason Robinson's presentation are available at http://www.nvr.org/nvr/SMRlibraryindex.html
.
Merle Slyhoff (Univ. of Pennsylvania Law Library) spoke to the task of actually finding
and acquiring videos and CD-ROMs. She presented an extensive bibliography of resources for
these tasks, with comments. She pointed out that older sources should not be discounted -
not every topic is time-sensitive, though the possibility with dealing with an outmoded
format has to be considered. Persons interested in seeing this list should contact Merle
at University of Pennsylvania, Biddle Law Library, 3460 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, PA
19104-3406 ( mslyhoff@oyez.law.upenn.edu
).
Acquiring materials and adding them to a collection is not the end of the road,
particularly in media formats. Julia Gammon (Univ. of Akron) directed her presentation to
issues of copyright, licenses, and negotiating license agreements. She brought 35 years'
worth of examples from her institution to illustrate the ambiguities and pitfalls of such
issues, and their renewed relevance in the consortial age (Akron is part of Ohiolink, the
statewide library consortium which includes loaning of video materials). She reminded
listeners that licenses are contracts; whomever signs off on a license should be someone
in the institution who has the authority to deal with the terms. She provided a handout
with principles for licensing electronic resources, found on the ARL Web site at http://www.arl.org/scomm/licensing/principles.html
, and outlined procedures to follow from the initial point of order and the license
negotiations period through cataloging and processing.
ALCTS-MRC also held its regular complement of meetings. The first, on Sunday morning,
dealt mainly with housekeeping issues, though it did feature a report from Martha Yee
(UCLA) about the 0.24 Task Force's work (see the CC:DA report for more information). The
Tuesday meeting featured liaison and subcommittee reports; the former are more thoroughly
covered in other MLA liaisons' reports. The Producer/Distributor-Library Relations
Subcommittee reported continued work on its "Are you media-savvy" brochures. The
Standards Subcommittee is still trying to steer its Draft Standards for Packaging of Media
Resources through to completion and adoption by NISO. ALCTS-MRC Chair Ann Caldwell (Brown
Univ.) reported on MLA member and ALCTS-MRC member Lowell Ashley's (Smithsonian Inst.)
receipt of the MLA Special Achievement Award; Lowell is also the
Vice-President/President-Elect of OLAC (whose next meeting is Oct. 12-16, 2000, in
Seattle). The two major items of business had to do with the 0.24 Task Force interim
report (cf. the CC:DA report) and recommendations from the PCC Core Bibliographic Record
for Audiovisual Materials Task Group to address problems with defining core-record
standards for these materials. Group member Eric Childress (OCLC) addressed the status of
these recommendations, most of which had been dealt with. The meeting concluded with
announcements of changes in personnel and recognition of those who were concluding their
service to the committee, most notably chair Ann Caldwell.
Submitted by Mark Scharff
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Last updated April 18, 2000