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Graphic novel collection and use has beome a popular topic in the library community; most of the literature has focused on collecting in school and public libraries. The number of academic libraries that carry graphic novels has increased, but those collections and the few articles addressing graphic novels in academic librarianship have focused on serving the recreational reader or the pop culture historian. Meanwhile, the education community has begun to embrace graphic novels as a way to reach reluctant readers; engage visual learners; and improve comprehension and interpretation of themes, literary devices, and social issues, among other topics. As graphic novels are increasingly used in the classroom, students majoring in elementary and secondary education should have access to these materials as they prepare for their future careers. Making graphic novels a specific part of the curriculum and instruction collection supports the academic library’s mission to meet the research and training needs of the faculty, staff, and students.

While there has been a much greater focus on graphic novels in the library literature over the last decade, most coverage has been limited to school media centers and public libraries. Published research about graphic novel collections in academic libraries has been limited to investigating the genre as either recreational reading for busy college students or as part of the cultural and historical record. There is still resistance to the genre in some circles; combining text and images is considered fine for children’s books, but children are expected to “grow out of it” and start reading “real books.”¹ The experienced graphic novel enthusiast will use both text and image in their reading, cognition, and translation of the work, but those unfamiliar with the format and how it is read will more likely skim the novel, focus more on the images themselves than the context of those images, and misinterpret the intent of the artist and author. This leads to complaints about portrayals of violence, sex, misogyny, antiauthoritarianism, and other controversial or sensitive topics, as well as concern about underage patrons’ access to such.² There also is the assumption that graphic novels are too “easy,” or that pictures detract from what the authors could have expressed in words alone.³

However, graphic novels today are being used increasingly by educators to engage reluctant readers, reach out to visual learners, and illustrate social and cultural themes and topics. Districts are now seeing the benefits of these tools: The New York City Department of Education began promoting and supporting graphic novel use in their classrooms in spring 2008 by training hundreds of the city’s school media specialists. The in-service sessions focused on selection, lesson plans, and graphic novels as a tool to draw students to the library.⁴ Part of the academic library’s mission is to provide materials and resources for future educators. Academic libraries should carry graphic novels in their collections for pleasure reading by students and faculty, to serve as examples of modern art and graphic design, and for historical value; but they also should be included in subject-specific curriculum and instruction collections for education majors preparing for practicum and developing lesson plans.

Literature Review

A review of the library and information science literature indicates that not much has been published in regards to graphic novels in academic libraries outside of the occasional book review or highlight of a special collection. There are a few notable exceptions: O’English, Matthews, and Lindsay provide an overview that covers several subtopics and issues, including graphic novels as literature, their increasing popularity in libraries, endorsement of the format as pleasure reading for students and faculty, collection development, cataloging and classification, and promotion and outreach in academia. There is one section devoted to outreach to preservice teachers, which encourages marketing the format to education departments and colleges. It states that graphic novels appeal to the visually literate and the reluctant reader, and are useful in illustrating story structure in writing exercises.⁵

A short piece published in Indiana Libraries describes a collaborative research project between Avon (Ind.) High School’s library media specialist Robyn Young and the library school at Indiana University–Indianapolis. Young wanted to see if reading graphic novels improved “overall academic achievement and reading comprehension,” which might lead to higher overall scores on the Indiana Statewide Testing for Educational Progress (ISTEP), the statewide standardized exit exam.⁶ She teamed with a faculty member from her former SLIS program to conduct a study with special education students. While the article is not about collections in an academic library, it does illustrate the value of partnerships between the academic and school library community.

More recently, Williams and Peterson conducted a content analysis, examining the collections of academic institutions that supported National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education and American Library Association–accredited programs. The authors checked for works appearing in the 2007 and 2008 “Great Graphic Novels for Teens” list released annually by the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA). They also looked for variations in the collections by geography, collection size, and Carnegie institution classification. Their study showed that larger institutions on average held more graphic novels on the YALSA lists and that graphic novels were more likely to be in the holdings of doctoral and research universities, schools with library science programs, or institutions located in the western United States. However, it also revealed that a considerable number of institutions supporting library science or education programs aren’t actively collecting graphic novels for teens. While the parameters of the study did not include older titles not appearing on the YALSA lists, the results illustrate the need for those libraries to evaluate their current holdings.⁷

Most of the library literature that addresses graphic novels appears in journals whose primary audience is school media center, young adult, and children’s services librarians. An additional assessment of the primary and secondary education and curriculum literature produced many more results dealing with the use of graphic novels in K–12 classrooms. In these articles, some distinct themes came to the surface: the concept of “visual literacy,” the use of graphic novels in reading comprehension, the graphic novel as a comparative tool paired with traditional texts, and the graphic novel as a lens to examine topics of conflict, culture, and prejudice. Many examples of these themes, including specific descriptions of how graphic novels have been utilized in lesson planning, are detailed further in this article.

Why Graphic Novels in Curriculum?

There are several arguments for introducing graphic novels into the classroom. Teachers can use them as stand-alone texts or as part of a larger curriculum by connecting the themes and ideas in graphic novels to bigger topics and making those connections more effective.⁸ The graphic novel itself has educational value as a pop culture medium. Schwarz writes, “In any subject area, studying a graphic novel can bring media literacy into the curriculum as students examine the medium itself. Students can explore such questions as how color affects emotions, how pictures can stereotype people, how angles of viewing affect perception, and how realism or the lack of it plays into the message of a work.”⁹ In a broader sense, writes Allender, “popular culture has affective and academic value. It should be used in a variety of ways as one would use texts generally in a constructivist, cultural studies classroom concerned with student achievement and transformative learning.”¹⁰ More specifically, graphic novels are useful tools in classrooms where students are primarily visual learners. They illustrate cognitive and literary concepts resulting in stronger comprehension of the materials. They also have a social use, introducing students to diverse peoples and cultures they might otherwise not encounter. Ultimately, the main goal is to grow a literate populace by using inventive methods to promote a lifetime reading habit.¹¹

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A content analysis of 298 statements describing books included in the University of Oklahoma Books That Inspire exhibit was conducted to identify the reasons members of the academic community found particular books inspiring. Twenty-six recurrent themes in seven concept clusters were identified. Books from the exhibit that have been challenged or censored were examined to compare the perceptions of exhibit contributors and book challengers in the context of those themes. These responses often focused on very different aspects of literary works; however, some relationships did emerge between the reasons books were found variously inspiring and offensive. Findings are analyzed in the context of the academic mission and the role of academic librarians in promoting leisure reading.

The Books That Inspire (BTI) exhibit began at the University of Oklahoma in 2001 and has continued as an annual event ever since. The exhibit invites members of the university community to celebrate “books that have enlightened, inspired, or influenced the lives and careers of the readers.” Its purpose is threefold: to observe National Library Week (during which the exhibit opens), to promote reading, and to call “attention to [books’] power to change and influence lives.”¹ The books are displayed for several weeks in the main library on campus (Bizzell Memorial Library) accompanied by short statements from their contributors that explain why they were found meaningful.

The contributed titles represent a wide variety of genres. It is not surprising to find that literary classics are included—great literature, by definition, addresses important themes in texts that are memorable and inspiring and that shape the way people think and feel. It is a bit more surprising to note that a substantial number of the titles are classified as nonfiction, which one might think of as useful and informative, but not necessarily inspiring. However, unexpected definitions of “inspiring” are part of the exhibit’s appeal and central to this study’s first question: What is a book that inspires? How did contributors interpret the idea of inspiration? The second part of this study focused particular attention on those selections that have been challenged or censored, exploring the idea that some of the reasons the books were celebrated might be thematically related to the reasons they were challenged.

Literature Review

Budd opens his insightful discussion of the purpose of higher education by addressing liberal education, which he defines in the classic sense:

Liberal education is directed at a full appreciation of art, literature, society, and science—first for their connections to us as rational-emotional beings, and then for their contribution to everything we do as humans. In a sense, higher education … intends those within the institution to explore, communicate, and experience reality to grow most fully as individuals.²

Academic librarians have long recognized the important role that reading plays in contributing to that academic mission. In particular, leisure reading fosters learners who carry the habits of thoughtful reflection and active participation with them throughout their lives, prompting recent discussion of the ability of academic libraries to support and encourage this enriching activity.³

Students’ Reading Habits

Several surveys have reported a decline in reading among college-age individuals. Hendel and Harrold found that undergraduates in 2001 devoted less time to leisure reading than in the previous three decades, spending far more time with e-mail or on the Internet than reading books.⁴ In Reading at Risk, the National Endowment for the Arts expresses concern for declining levels of literary reading in all age groups, but particularly young people ages 18–24, citing a negative effect on civic and cultural participation. The 2004 report notes, however, that education is the primary predictive factor, with 74 percent of those with a graduate school education reading literary works as compared to only 14 percent of adults with a grade school education.⁵ Quite unexpectedly, the NEA’s 2009 Reading on the Rise reports that the decline in reading among adults has reversed, with the first rise in adult reading since 1982. The strongest gain is among young adults, who showed a 21 percent increase over the earlier survey.⁶

For college students, the single greatest barrier to leisure reading may be lack of time, not lack of interest. Although the heading “The Lost Art of Literature” in a 2007 article in the Chronicle of Higher Education implies that a “new generation of well-wired multitaskers” do not read, nine of the ten student respondents reported having read a book for pleasure within the past year, with four reporting having last finished a book over the summer.⁷ Burak found that the majority of college students read for pleasure, most frequently during summers and other breaks.⁸ This pattern tends to reinforce Von Sprecken and Krashen’s finding that children do not lose interest in reading as they age; there are just more competing activities.⁹

Why People Read

Typically, when people are asked why they read, they say it is for escape, for stimulation, or for greater understanding of themselves or the world around them. Further, research from a number of disciplines suggests that leisure reading has physiological, psychological, social, and cognitive effects on people.¹⁰ Recent work in readers’ advisory emphasizes the value of reading as a means of “incidental” or “accidental” learning and notes the importance of nonfiction, particularly narrative nonfiction, in meeting the needs of leisure readers.¹¹

Many authors have examined motivations for reading. Ross gives a cogent summary of the reasons people read:

Over and over, in published studies and in the interviews with readers in my own study, readers say: books give me comfort, make me feel better about myself, reassure me that I am normal and not a freak because characters in books have feelings like mine. Books provide confirmation that others have gone through similar experiences and survived. Books help me clarify my feelings, change my way of thinking about things, help me think through problems in my own life, help me make a decision, and give me the strength and courage to make some major changes in my own life. They give me a sense of mastery and control, give me courage to fight on, make me think that if the hero(ine) can overcome obstacles, then so can I, give me the hope to rebuild my life, and help me accept things I cannot change. They put me in touch with a larger more spacious world. In summary, books provide a special kind of pleasure that cannot be achieved in any other way.¹²

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Using a scoring rubric based on RUSA’s “Guidelines for Behavioral Performance of Reference and Information Service Providers” (RUSA Guidelines), librarians’ performance in 106 chat reference transcripts in which a patron was determined to be acting inappropriately were compared to 90 randomly chosen transcripts from the same time period in which no inappropriate behavior was identified. Librarians serving appropriately behaving patrons scored significantly better on two of five major dimensions of the RUSA Guidelines. Recommendations for librarians serving inappropriately behaving patrons and for improving the two affected dimensions are given.

It is possible that library patrons have always misbehaved. From disruptions to damaged property, librarians have for decades sought to cope with the occasional patron who becomes rude, abusive, destructive, or irrational. As library collections and services have changed in format and availability, patron misbehavior has changed. From the tearing of pages to the systematic downloading of journal issues, from loud conversations to prank virtual reference calls, new behaviors necessitate new standards for professional conduct.

While most professional standards are not directed solely at preventing or mitigating inappropriate behavior, it is certainly incumbent upon librarians to follow guidelines of professional conduct in such situations. One of the most cited is RUSA’s “Guidelines for Behavioral Performance of Reference and Information Service Providers” (RUSA Guidelines), originally published in 1996 and revised in 2004 to be applicable to remote forms of reference, such as e-mail and chat services.¹ These guidelines continue to be widely accepted and referenced in professional literature. While adherence to these guidelines cannot prevent or mitigate all encounters with inappropriately behaving patrons (nor was it explicitly intended to), it can perhaps achieve success in some cases. The RUSA Guidelines themselves recognize that “the positive or negative behavior of the reference staff member (as observed by the patron) becomes a significant factor in perceived success or failure.” Librarians providing chat reference would best serve their patrons by being aware of and practicing the RUSA Guidelines as much as possible.

This study examines librarians’ adherence to the RUSA Guidelines when dealing with patrons behaving appropriately as compared with librarians serving patrons displaying some level of inappropriate behavior, as determined in a previous study.² The study seeks to determine if adherence to RUSA Guidelines definitions of positive behavior helps mitigate rude or inappropriate patron behavior in chat reference, or if other recommendations are necessary. The intent is to help shape librarians’ concept of what positive behavior is in online reference environments, particularly chat reference.

Literature Review

This literature review focuses on providing an overview of recent assessments of virtual reference services. Virtual reference assessment literature tends to gravitate toward one of the following camps: (1) description of institutions’ innovative applications of virtual reference assessment; (2) identification of patron and service demographics; (3) comparison with regular reference; or (4) virtual reference transcript analysis. Examples of recent literature describing applications of virtual reference assessment include descriptions of the use of virtual reference assessment data as part of the budget cycle, descriptions of virtual reference assessment at an integrated academic and public library, or specific training strategies developed after as a result of identified training gaps.³

A recent notable example of patron and service demographics analysis is Houlson, McCready, and Pfahl’s work at the University of Minnesota–Twin City campus.⁴ Such analysis also could focus on specific populations, such as Walter and Mediavilla’s description of the differences between teen and adult communication skills or Shachaf and Snyder’s analysis of differing user needs for racially diverse populations.⁵ Fennewald’s analysis of the different types of questions asked by virtual and in-person users and Moyo’s analysis of the rate and nature of instruction in virtual and in-person transactions are examples of literature that compares virtual reference with regular reference.⁶ Examples of transcript analysis include Pomerantz, Luo, and McClure’s description of evaluating North Carolina’s NCKnows transcripts and Lee’s comparison of Australian e-mail and chat reference transcripts.⁷

Recent transcript analysis literature includes a few articles that specifically used the RUSA Guidelines as part of the analysis. Ward’s account describes use of the searching section of the RUSA Guidelines to develop criteria that was used in evaluating the completeness of seventy-two University of Illinois reference transactions.⁸ Zhuo, Love, Norwood, and Massia describe the use of modified RUSA Guidelines to assess one hundred instant message transactions at Central Missouri State University.⁹ Ronan, Reakes, and Ochoa report on using the RUSA Guidelines to evaluate the reference interview of fifty reference transactions from a random sample of virtual reference services across the United States.¹⁰ Perhaps most pertinent to this study is the work conducted by Kwon and Gregory, as well as that by Shachaf and Horowitz, which correlate various dimensions in the RUSA Guidelines to patron satisfaction.¹¹

None of the literature, however, specifically applies adherence to the RUSA Guidelines to situations where patrons behave inappropriately.

AskCoLorado and Inappropriate Use

All transcripts evaluated in this study were provided by AskColorado, a statewide virtual reference service that at the time of the study was maintained by service from thirty-nine public library systems, twelve college and university libraries, eleven school districts, and six specialized libraries.¹² The service averaged four thousand questions per month in 2007, more than doubling the monthly averages since its inception in September 2003.¹³ Approximately 350 librarians staffed the service, usually between 2 and 8 simultaneously.¹⁴

Evaluating the quality of AskColorado’s virtual reference service has been a concern since it began. It was recognized at inception that reference librarians encounter extra challenges during a chat reference transaction that may not be as apparent in face-to-face transactions. Many times in a solely text-based environment, absence of body language and gestures make it harder to understand the information need of a patron. Marie Radford, a preeminent scholar in virtual reference communication, indicates that more research needs to be completed to understand, improve, and evaluate the quality of a virtual reference transaction.¹⁵

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This paper explores ways in which academic libraries can partner with colleges of education to prepare teachers who can apply research to their practice. Federal mandates such as No Child Left Behind (2001) and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (2004) require teachers to implement evidence-based practices in their classrooms, which presents a challenge to teacher preparation programs and raises important questions about the nature of evidence in education. We believe that information literacy (IL) skills are critical in preparing teachers who can thoughtfully, critically, and ethically implement evidence-based practices. We report the results of a study into the effectiveness of infusing IL throughout the coursework of a teacher preparation program at the University of New Mexico. We describe the collaboration between library and education faculty, the development of an instrument designed to measure IL skills, and results that revealed a statistically significant difference between the pre and posttest scores of teacher preparation cohorts. We conclude that the integration of IL into coursework is a key element for teacher preparation programs.

The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) of 2001 and the 2004 reauthorization of the Individuals with Disabilities Act (IDEA) increased expectations for academic achievement for all students.¹ One of the major guiding principles of NCLB and IDEA is scientifically based intervention, also known as evidence-based practice. This principle states, “Highly qualified teachers will use research-based curricula and instructional methods.”² Under IDEA, this principle extends to the evaluation as well as the instruction of students. Complying with the federal mandates based on this principle presents a significant challenge to teacher preparation programs.³ We believe colleges of education (COEs) must go beyond an attitude of compliance or noncompliance with these mandates. We must prepare teachers who can design and implement evidence-based practices and who can also thoughtfully and ethically articulate and justify these practices. To achieve this purpose, COEs must improve their students’ information literacy (IL) skills. We believe this provides an impetus and opportunity for increased collaboration between COE and University Libraries faculty. This article will describe the ways in which COE and University Libraries faculty have worked together at the University of New Mexico (UNM). We will report research documenting our progress toward addressing the challenge of preparing teachers who can bridge the research-to-practice gap through the infusion of IL skills throughout the coursework of the Special Education Dual License Teacher Preparation Program.

Evidence-Based Practice

IDEA identifies two major barriers to improving educational outcomes for students with disabilities. The first is low expectations and the second is “an insufficient focus on applying replicable research on proven methods of teaching and learning for student with disabilities.”⁴ In the 2004 reauthorization, IDEA was brought into alignment with NCLB by including the same requirements for scientifically based interventions.⁵ IDEA (2004) defines “scientifically based research” as research that:

1. employs systematic, empirical methods that draw on observation or experiment;
2. involves rigorous data analyses that are adequate to test the stated hypotheses and justify the general conclusions drawn;
3. relies on measurements or observational methods that provide reliable and valid data across evaluators and observers, across multiple measurements and observations, and across studies by the same or different investigators;
4. is evaluated using experimental or quasi-experimental designs in which individuals, entities, programs, or activities are assigned to different conditions and with appropriate controls to evaluate the effects of the condition of interest, with a preference for random-assignment experiments, or other designs to the extent that those designs contain within-condition or across-condition controls;
5. ensures that experimental studies are presented in sufficient detail and clarity to allow for replication or, at a minimum, offer the opportunity to build systematically on their findings; and
6. has been accepted by a peer-reviewed journal or approved by a panel of independent experts through a comparably rigorous, objective, and scientific review.⁶

While teachers need to understand the requirements of federal legislation, they also need to be able to address the question “what is evidence?” in a thoughtful and critical manner. This currently is a major area of debate in the field of education and constitutes a large part of the context within which IL skills must be developed.

Educational Research

In response to the mandates of NCLB and IDEA, many questions have been raised as to the nature of research and the meaning of evidence-based practice in the discipline of education.⁷ There are concerns about special education in particular.⁸ One of the major criticisms of the federal definition of evidence-based practices is that the concept is too narrowly defined as only including experimental research. Erickson and Gutierrez state that “within the executive and legislative branches of the federal government a leap of faith has been taken toward belief in the unmixed blessings of hard science-causal analysis by means of experiment as the only way to improve educational research.”⁹ With regard to special education in particular, Danforth laments that the U.S. Department of Education “has taken a ‘hard science’ stance on what counts as knowledge, calling for experimental designs that are more common to medical research than to educational inquiry.”¹⁰ For example, the National Research Council (NRC) report took up the challenge of what constitutes scientific research within the field of education.¹¹ The NRC report acknowledged the importance of multiple methods in educational research, but Lather and Moss are representative of many educational researchers who expressed concern about “the kinds of research that appeared to be ignored or relegated to the margins of the debate as not scientific and about the effects of these choices.”¹² Other critics of this report believe that the authors failed to take into account the complexity of educational research.¹³ Another criticism is that the report fails to address the challenges represented by research in effective practices for students with exceptionalities.¹⁴

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Illinois State University’s Milner Library conducted focus groups in the summer and fall of 2007 as part of its user-centered approach to implementing a federated search engine. The feedback supplemented the comments from usability testing conducted in the summer of 2006. The purpose of the focus groups was to learn about students’ use of and satisfaction with the federated search engine and to gather their ideas on how to incorporate it into the library website. The focus groups provided qualitative information that Milner Library used to guide decisions regarding website design and federated searching instruction. A list of best practices from the user perspective is also drawn from the findings. The unique aspects of this article include the use of focus groups to gather feedback on federated searching and the discussion of incorporating a federated search engine into a library website. This article is based on preliminary findings presented at the Internet Librarian 2007 conference in Monterey, California.

For more than a decade, federated searching—the ability to simultaneously search multiple online library databases or Web resources—has been one component in the arsenal of information retrieval tools available to libraries. Since its inception, several thousand libraries across the United States have started providing some form of federated searching on their websites.¹ In April 2005, after nearly two years of review of the leading federated search solutions, the statewide consortium to which Milner Library at Illinois State University (ISU) belongs announced its decision to select WebFeat as its federated search provider.² The consortial package available to member libraries presented an opportunity as well as a dilemma for our library. Illinois state budget shortfalls forced drastic cutbacks throughout all areas of the university. We canceled print subscriptions to periodicals and evaluated databases for redundancies. We were hesitant to invest limited funds and precious staff time implementing a federated search tool we were unsure patrons would use or find useful for their research, even if it was offered at a reduced rate.

By 2005, much had already been written about libraries grappling with federated searching. Case studies reported the challenges libraries faced as they implemented and customized federated search interfaces. Despite these challenges we decided to take advantage of federated searching benefits. We proceeded with the expectation that we could mitigate perceived shortfalls by customizing the product to meet our patrons’ needs. User-centered assessment was one way to determine if the product’s expense was justified.

We dedicated considerable time and energy in customizing the federated search engine, which we branded Search It. In June 2006, Search It moved off the development site onto the library homepage for a soft rollout of the tool, as seen in figure 1.

In our first attempt to assess use of Search It by students at ISU, we scheduled usability testing in August 2006. The purpose of the testing was to study ease of use for new users. Participants were first asked to perform five research scenarios and then asked six open-ended follow-up questions on their search experience.³ User comments were useful in identifying problems with descriptive language, search content and search options, and navigation from the federated searching interface to the native interfaces. Highlights from student feedback revealed that none of the participants realized the Quick Search option searched only twelve resources. To correct this confusion, we inserted the number twelve into the Quick Search subheading so it would read, “Search 12 Selected Library Resources Simultaneously.” In the usability testing, none of the participants chose to search the library catalog using the Advanced Search option. In a concerted attempt to promote the use of books in the collection and to take advantage of simultaneous searching in a variety of sources, we chose to automatically include the library catalog into most subject categories in the Advanced Search option. Some participants had difficulty finding and understanding the sort feature in the results display. We adjusted the alignment and the wording in the dropdown menu to better represent the sort options.

Revisions to the search interface and results page would be the first changes made to our customizations. Through the fall and spring semesters, use data revealed students were using the new tool, but we were interested in supplementing quantitative data with qualitative feedback from students. Following a year of use, we planned to assess the tool in focus groups.

In the summer and fall of 2007, Milner Library conducted focus groups consisting of students who identified themselves as users of Search It. Students were asked to provide feedback on their use of and satisfaction with Search It. We also gathered their ideas regarding Search It’s placement on our website.

The user-centered feedback convinced us that federated searching was a beneficial tool for student research and that it deserved a more prominent location on our website. The qualitative feedback we gathered from our focus groups fills a gap in existing research on federated searching. It supplements existing literature from federated searching usability testing that typically focuses on navigation of federated search engines. Unlike other studies, our research offers in-depth user input from focus groups on the value of this tool.

Literature Review

Most articles about federated searching in academic libraries have one of three focuses: why an academic library should offer federated searching, how federated searching has been introduced by academic libraries, and what users and librarians think of the tool. Much of the user satisfaction data is based on conversations with research participants in controlled settings rather than with actual users. Feedback from users has been based on surveys rather than in-depth dialogue. While numerous studies have focused on interface design and navigation, none has addressed broader questions of where and how users expect to find federated searching on university websites.

Roy Tennant’s 2001 Library Journal article was one of the first to describe the possibilities of federated searching for simplifying academic research by eliminating the need for researchers to familiarize themselves with multiple databases. While acknowledging technical challenges posed by federated searching, Tennant identifies promising early implementations, including Searchlight and WebFeat.⁴ In a 2003 Library Journal column, Tennant declared that federated search tools are “the correct solution for unifying access to a variety of information resources,” while recognizing challenges in designing such a tool. Chief among them were providing results in a manner that would not overwhelm or underwhelm, finding a way to display results in relevance order, and providing users ready access to full-text publications.⁵

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Each year the Business Reference Sources Committee of BRASS selects the outstanding business reference sources published since May of the previous year. The committee reviewed thirty-seven entries; three were designated as “outstanding,” and seven were placed into the other noteworthy titles category. These works cover a variety of topics, including the business of sports, investing, global business, international marketing, energy, finance, product management, the history of business, popular business books, and economic globalization. To qualify for the award the title must meet the conventional definition of reference: a work compiled specifically to supply information on a certain subject or group of subjects in a form that will facilitate its ease of use. The works are examined for the following: authority and reputation of the publisher, author, or editor; accuracy; appropriate bibliography; organization; comprehensiveness; value of the content; currency; unique addition; ease of use for the intended purpose; quality and accuracy of index; and quality and usefulness of graphics and illustrations. Each year more electronic reference titles are published. Additional criteria for electronic reference titles are accuracy of links, search features, stability of content, and graphic design. Works selected must be suitable for medium- to large-sized academic and public libraries.

Outstanding Titles

The Business of Sports. Ed. Brad R. Humphreys and Dennis R. Howard. Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2008. 3 vols. alkaline $300 (ISBN 978-0-275-99340-5).

The sports industry is the setting for this three-volume set of thirty-three intriguing articles written by well-known experts, including Andrew Zimbalist. The broad scope of the industry is explained by editor Brad Humphreys, economics professor, University of Alberta, in the first chapter; then the focus is on the major economic issues facing spectator sports in the United States. Its greatest strengths are the background and succinct overviews of these contemporary issues, as well as the inclusion of numerous tables (some adapted from proprietary sources).

Interesting topics among the thirty-three chapters include salary caps, franchise relocations and expansions, stadium financing, and the Bowl Championship Series (BCS) in college football. Tables with detailed statistics assist the reader with the information needed to formulate a well-reasoned position or action plan. These tables include, for example, expansion fees for major league franchises (since 1960); public subsidies for major league sports facilities (by decade); ticket sales, revenues, and number of visitors to the Olympic Games (1984–2004); and college football postseason bowl revenues and expenses.

The effect of “mega-events” (such as the Super Bowl and the Olympic Games) on local and regional economies is one of the most compelling chapters. The author notes that many estimates are “wildly optimistic” about the number of visitors and their spending habits at such events, and also explains why the economic effect may be overstated. Other chapters include the economic reasons why rich teams fail to win championship after championship (the Coase theorem) as well as why so many NFL stadiums have luxury boxes (most of the revenue is typically listed as concession revenue, which is not shared with other teams).

There is some overlap with two recent titles. The Handbook on the Economics of Sport (Elgar, 2006) contains eighty-six chapters and includes many international sports (e.g., British horse racing, soccer in Spain). The Economics of Sport (Elgar, 2001), edited by Andrew Zimbalist, contains seventy-two chapters with themes similar to The Business of Sport. While eight are focused on college sports, they are narrow topics (though nonetheless interesting, such as the chapter “An Estimate of the Rent Generated by a Premium College Football Player”).

With so many teams and issues covered, some index omissions and errors are understandable. Still, it is surprising that “Florida State University” is an entry in the index to volume 1, yet the text notes “South Florida,” a different university. And to find the discussion of the “Larry Bird rule,” one has to search for “Bird, Larry” in the index to volume 2. A combined three-volume index would have been useful.

Ideal for students and informed general readers seeking background information and statistics on major economic issues in professional and amateur sports, The Business of Sports is highly recommended for most collections.—Patricia Kenly, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia

Encyclopedia of Alternative Investments. Ed. Greg N. Gregoriou. Boca Raton, Fla.: Chapman & Hall/CRC, 2008. 249.95 (ISBN 978-1-4200-6488-9).

Interest in “alternative investments” is not a recent phenomenon. Economic Selection of Alternative Risk Investments, by J. M. English and R. H. Haase, was published by the Ft. Belvoir Defense Technical Information Center in 1963. More recently, the online journal, Alternative Investment News, began publication in 2000. Drastic changes in the economy and the downward spiral that has affected retirement savings have led to renewed interest in managing investment risks, and the Encyclopedia of Alternative Investments provides a valuable starting point for individuals who desire a better understanding of the key concepts. According to the introduction, this reference source is meant to be the “most authoritative source … for academics, students, professionals, and practitioners … on hedge funds, managed futures, commodities, and venture capital.”

The encyclopedia contains 545 entries, covering topics traditionally found in this field as well as topics unfamiliar to many novice investors until recently, such as “Collateralized debt obligation (CDO).” Compared to other investment-related encyclopedias, this work seems to contain a broader and more diverse set of concepts. The one-to-two page entries are thorough, concise, and informative without being too complicated. Each has a list of print and online references at the end for further research. Many have interesting illustrative examples. Each entry also has a brief bibliography, many of which are reasonably up-to-date, referring to works published in 2006 and 2007. There is a table of contents and a twenty-page index with practical cross-references. The entry for “Emerging markets,” for example, contains a cross-reference to “Developing countries.”

Greg N. Gregoriou, the editor, is professor of finance in the School of Business and Economics at the State University of New York, Plattsburgh. He has published extensively in the finance world and serves as the hedge fund editor for the Journal of Derivatives and Hedge Funds as well as an editorial board member of the Journal of Wealth Management and the Journal of Risk Management in Financial Institutions. Members of the editorial board have academic affiliations, and there are more than 120 contributors from Europe and North America, from both academic institutions and finance and investment professions.

The Encyclopedia of Alternative Investments is an excellent ready reference source for business and related social science reference collections. It is more thorough than the 2007 resource, Concise Encyclopedia of Investing, by D. W. Oglesby, which provides definitions for a small subset of the most common investment terms but also benefits by providing an examples section for each term defined. The Encyclopedia of Alternative Investments also is available as an e-book on the ECHO and EBL platforms.—Gene Hayworth, University of Colorado, Boulder

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Book groups, whether library-sponsored or privately hosted, continue to grow in popularity. Perhaps the opportunity to connect to others face-to-face in what is an increasingly virtual world motivates people to come together to talk about their reading. Or perhaps it is the food. In any case, reader interest in book discussions offers libraries a lot of opportunities to interact with their reading community and is a chance for libraries to reinforce their value to the community, a useful thing in unsettled economic times.

In 2008, the RUSA CODES Readers’ Advisory Committee surveyed book group participants across the country. Among the most interesting of the survey results was the discovery of a common set of problems that book groups seem to face no matter where they are or how long they have been meeting. Here, Megan McArdle explores these ongoing book group issues and offers suggestions that libraries can use when working with their local groups. These suggestions also will be useful for book group members seeking to improve the quality of their book group experience.

Megan McArdle is the Manager for Collection Development and Technical Services at the Berkeley (Calif.) Public Library. Active in ALA and the Public Library Association, she is the past chair of the RUSA’s Readers’ Advisory Committee and is on the Advisory Committee for H.W. Wilson’s Fiction Catalog.—Editor

At the far end of a dimly lit hallway, in a mostly unoccupied office building, there’s a plain, unassuming door with the words “Book Group Therapist” hand-lettered on the glass. As you gingerly open the door and enter the office, a cool-eyed blond with an authoritarian air gestures to the enormous couch that stretches across the far wall of the room. “Ah! You must be my ten o’clock clients. Come in and have a seat.” Your book group dutifully files into the office and jostles for position on the couch, while the therapist slowly looks you over. “In this room I require absolute honesty if we are to get at the root of your group’s dysfunctional issues.” She makes eye contact with each member, pausing over those members fussing with cell phones or furtively looking for the coffee. “Shall we begin? Let’s start by talking about your childhood reading …”

Oh, if only this kind of therapy was a reality for a troubled book group! Whether brand new or long-established, book groups can run into problems. These can range from the benign (a book falls flat) to the group-killing (unpleasant meetings filled with bickering that leave members intimidated and afraid to return). Learning what some of the most commonly occurring problems are with book groups, what some of the most successful books discussed in their groups are, and what members would most like to change about their groups are just some of the useful results that came out of a 2008 survey conducted by the RUSA CODES Readers’ Advisory Committee. A review of the survey findings should help all those working with book groups to get ideas on how to provide some therapy, or at least some therapeutically good reads.

In late 2007, the Readers’ Advisory Committee was planning for a program at the 2008 ALA Annual Conference in Anaheim, California, called “Book Group Therapy: How to Repair, Revamp, and Revitalize Your Book Group.” This program was intended to help librarians who host library book groups or work with community book groups. The committee members had all experienced and heard from our peers that there were some common issues that book groups run into, and we wanted to provide some strategies to help solve these problems. As research for the program we decided to conduct a survey of book groups to try and find out more about what makes them tick. We put together some questions that we found interesting, let it loose on the Web (via the wonderful SurveyMonkey application), told people we thought would be interested (through posts to blogs, discussion lists, and newsletters), and slowly watched the responses come in. We were hoping to learn more about who is in book groups, how they function, and what works well—and not so well—in their book groups. Starting in January 2008, the committee collected data from the survey. We received more than 1,400 responses from book groups all over the country. What we discovered was that a successful book group is like a successful relationship. It requires compromise, humor, and compatibility. Any group of more than two people has the added complication of group dynamics: alliances can be formed, struggles for dominance occur, and sometimes members end up looking around them wondering “what am I doing in a musty library basement with people I don’t know talking about books I don’t even want to read.” To help prevent that moment of terror, let’s look at some of the most commonly reported problems from the 750 respondents who answered the question, “If there was one thing that you would change about your book group, what would it be?”

1. I Wish We Could Discuss This Book!

People join a book discussion group to discuss books, don’t they? More than 10 percent of the people who answered this question complained that their group spent too little time talking about the book and too much time on other things. The other things varied from group to group: maybe it was one member who wants to show home movies of her trip to Italy (even though your book was set in depression-era Kansas), or another who wanted to show off how her pet ferret learned how to use a computer, or maybe it was most of the group who wanted to move on to the chocolate portion of the evening before they got past chapter 1. They key to this problem is that a five-minute book discussion followed by fifty-five minutes of home movies, pet tricks, or face-stuffing does not have to be a bad thing. If everyone in the group is happy with this arrangement, they will never end up on the book therapist’s couch. It is when you have stumbled into a group where you thought you would be sharing insights into themes and characters and you end up talking about recipes and daycare issues that you might need to find a new group. The key to this issue is having a common goal. When starting a new group, consider having a frank discussion about what you all want to get out of the experience. And when joining a group that has been around for awhile, don’t be afraid to bow out if it is not a good fit. If everyone else is looking for a retreat from their daily grind where they can gossip and share a cocktail, but you want an intellectually challenging Socratic debate about literature, they are not the problem—you are. Find a group that is more compatible with your own views of what a book group should be.

2. I Want Some Rules!

A related complaint that manifested itself in many different ways on the survey was that members wanted some established ground rules. We all know that there are people who prefer rules and procedures and get antsy when things are left too loose. It could be as simple a complaint as wanting to have a system for choosing titles or rotating the moderator duties. Or perhaps someone wants to have a rule to ensure that everyone speaks by going around in a circle. Do you need to set a limit to how long members have the floor? Does the moderator change every month? Is he or she responsible for choosing the next title? If not, does the group choose titles in advance? Do you use a nomination process? Do members vote? When groups are first formed, these are some of the crucial procedures to work out. Once ground rules are agreed upon, it also can be helpful to make sure everyone agrees on the format your discussion will take. Many survey respondents said that they wanted a more formal discussion: discussion of the author, themes, and written questions that members try to address. Luckily there are many tools to help facilitate this kind of discussion. Book group editions of popular titles often come with questions and background for those who want help with finding good discussion fodder. There also are many websites with resources for book groups, such as www.readinggroupchoices.com and www.readinggroupguides.com. Publisher websites are another great place to get author information and discussion ideas. Have the tools that can soothe the structure-loving soul. You can have a book group without using prepared questions, but these resources can lead readers to deeper levels of discussion than they might have gone to on their own. Only your group can decide how formal your discussion will be. Try to find a meeting format that meets the needs of all members.

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Jenny Emanuel is passionate about the user search experience. She is young (well, younger than me) and her experience growing up with networked libraries informs her views. She doesn’t rest on generalizing from herself or reading what Millennials want; she conducts usability studies and talks with a range of users to better understand which changes to library interfaces are improvements and which are just change. I asked her to set her views and research findings to paper after many conversations over our cubicle wall.—Editor

For the past several years, there has been much discussion about the future of libraries in the digital age. Most of this discussion involves librarians’ fears that we are falling behind technologically in meeting our patrons’ information needs. As a result we’ve begun work to transform libraries. We have built elaborate websites incorporating electronic resources, tutorials, and social media such as blogs. We have begun to digitize collections to make them more accessible to users at a distance. We have moved from print indexes and paper journals to a system of electronic resources, giving us instant access to a plethora of both scholarly and popular media with only a few mouse clicks. Although no one can argue that these systems are perfect and will not continue to evolve in the future, one library system has continued to remain relatively unchanged from the past decade: the Online Public Access Catalog (OPAC). Or to use the language of our library users: the catalog. When I started library school seven years ago, no one questioned the library catalog and its status in the library; it was ubiquitous. I grew up with the catalog being networked in some capacity, and my visits to the library usually started with a text search on dumb terminal. There was no mouse and no navigating a fancy user interface; I navigated using a series of text commands to get to the proper menu to search for what I needed. Today that seems so simple, and as I look back, I liked how simple it was. But information needs and expectations change, and by the end of high school I was online and searching for information in an entirely different manner. Websites such as Yahoo!, Amazon, and later Google, changed how I found information. Search engines replaced the reference librarians who previously seemed almost godlike at finding obscure pieces of information. I could find book summaries and tables of contents from Amazon that before I’d have to make a trip to the library to access. My information needs were evolving— because I both transitioned to college and spent an increasingly larger amount of my time on the Internet. When I started library school, I knew I wanted to be a librarian who focused on technology and how libraries will change as more of their resources go online. By then, most libraries had a Web-based catalog that basically displayed the same data in a similar manner to the earlier text-based online catalog. The difference was that this new online catalog allowed for hyperlinking between different records and had a shiny, colorful interface that made the library appear to be on par with the rest of the Internet world.

However, there were definitely grumblings about the online catalog in some library circles. It did not take long for librarians to realize that search engines such as Google and Amazon were getting better at meeting information needs while the library catalog remained static. Librarians assumed that the catalog could not change because of the underlying data; the complexity of a system that usually included acquisitions, catalog, and circulation modules; and the tangible and intangible costs associated with ongoing development. As an added bonus, library catalog vendors, knowing that they had no outside competition, continued implementing systems that were static at the time of installation and would remain static until the next major installation, which could be years in the future. Librarians did not like this system, but there was little that could be changed, since no library had the resources to develop its own online catalog. Nor did they have the resources to compete with the online retailers and search engines that were revolutionizing the way people searched and found information—leaving libraries behind.

The Next Generation Catalog Arrives

Then, in 2006, North Carolina State University announced a partnership with a commercial search corporation, Endeca, to develop a new catalog interface to overlay on top of their current catalog data. The Endeca project made libraries realize that yes, the current catalog systems are not user friendly, and yes, we can do something about it. It also made library vendors worry about outside competition and set them on a course to develop their own competing systems.

These systems were quickly dubbed “next-generation” or “nextgen” catalogs. They allowed the online catalog to break free of the rest of the library system and enabled libraries to make customizations to the catalog interface and make the search for library materials easier on users. However, these systems are not the end all to library catalogs. They are not Amazon, and libraries are still burdened by the template of the MARC record, which may not have all of the data patrons want to see about an item and may constrain the useful display of the data. Nextgen catalogs are a solution that libraries can use to make their materials easier to access and also to create some flexibility to improve the catalog in the future.

In the four years since NC State’s Endeca Project, many major library vendors have come out with their own version of a nextgen catalog interface: SirsiDynix’s Enterprise, Ex Libris’s Primo, Innovative Interfaces’ Encore, VTLS’ Visualizer, and Serials Solutions’ Aquabrowser. There are also several open-source initiatives as well, including VuFind, Scriblio, Blacklight, and the eXtensible Catalog Project. OCLC also has developed WorldCat into a local catalog and is using WorldCatLocal as a launching point to a new integrated library system. Most of these interfaces used not only a new user interface, but bring in streams of data to supplement the MARC record information, as well as integrate social media functions.

Long Live the OPAC

These new products are simply catalog interfaces. They are not integrated systems and therefore rely on antiquated back-end systems for functions such as acquisitions and cataloging. Therefore they still have many of the same issues online catalogs have had for years, but display the data differently. I cannot help but be especially critical of the nextgen catalogs provided by the major OPAC vendors because they are distributed as an additional product that libraries must purchase on top of their current system. I believe that vendors should be supplying these new interfaces as an upgrade to their current systems. However, because nearly all libraries already have an integrated catalog system that works for them and are not in a position to adopt a new system, nextgen interfaces have become an income stream for vendors.

Because libraries must pay to adopt a nextgen interface, not all library users have access to a catalog that is user friendly. I am beginning to see nextgen interfaces as a new digital divide between libraries. Ten years ago this divide was between automated and nonautomated libraries, and five years ago the divide was between online graphical OPACs and text-based OPACs. In the next several years, there will be a bigger divide between libraries with usable online catalogs and catalogs with outdated, clunky interfaces. Open-source nextgen catalogs may appear on the surface to bridge this widening divide, but it is important to note that open-source does not mean free; rather, open-source implementations can involve many personnel and large amounts of hardware that could near the cost of purchasing a commercial product.

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I was born on November 4. I am an election baby. I was born on a Wednesday, but in the year I was born, there was not a U.S. general election. Those only happen on the Tuesday after the first Monday of November from November 2 through November 8 in even-numbered years.¹ I was born in an odd year. Since the turn of the twenty-first century, the U.S. general election has fallen on my birthday twice already. I cannot think of elections without thinking of my birthday.

As a child, one form of free and educational entertainment in which my family engaged, when my birthday was on election day, was watching the election returns come in at the Huron County (Ohio) Courthouse. We did this after a celebratory birthday dinner at Kentucky Fried Chicken. The courthouse is a majestic building with an imposing bell tower that sits right in the center of downtown Norwalk, Ohio. You can see for yourself in Wikipedia or just Google it to look at other courthouse images.² We climbed the imposing steps to the second floor to watch the flurry of activity surrounding the elections. It was all very exciting—all this fuss just for my birthday. I remember the election board officials handed out small patriotic tokens like Ohio flags to children and the party officials gave out leftover buttons and rulers with their party’s campaign slogans. I still have a wooden ruler from the 1960 election. I also seem to remember donuts—and cider—even though I really associate those with the Halloween parade a few days before. Maybe they were just leftover, too.

When I was young, I wanted to be a senator. Instead, I am proud to say I became the president of RUSA. There was an election involved. I have both a bachelor’s and master’s degree in political science—all because I was born in the first week of November. It’s funny how when you were born affects who you become. I am a Scorpio. According to one astrological website, “the curiosity of Scorpios is immeasurable, which may be why they are such adept investigators. These folks love to probe and know how to get to the bottom of things.”³

Ah, so this is why I became a reference librarian. It also is probably why it takes me so long to write these columns— curiosity gets the best of me and the Web provides so many fascinating distractions. Case in point: For this editorial, I actually looked up the biography of the architect of the Huron County Courthouse, Vernon Redding, to discover that he also built a number of Carnegie Libraries in Ohio.⁴ I digress.

So, as you can see, elections and voting have always been very important to me. This issue of RUSQ will come out just before the 2010 ALA elections. So I want to take this opportunity to encourage you to vote. One of the privileges and, yes, responsibilities of membership in RUSA is to vote. Effective governance of associations requires the participation of its members. Voting provides us with the opportunity to shape our association. Even if you are not able to participate on RUSA committees or attend conferences, our election is one place where you can actively participate and make a difference. Your vote does count. I can’t tell you how many elections I have seen in RUSA where elections were won or lost by just one vote, much to the amazement, incredulity, and disappointment of the candidates. In the 2009 RUSA elections, there were three very tight races. One candidate won by one vote for a memberat-large position. Two chair positions were won by less than a 3 percent margin. This illustrates that the two candidates were well matched, but it also demonstrates that each vote is important. Our electoral participation rate as a division is 23.9 percent. This is comparable to ALA’s participation rate of 23.4 percent.⁵ See table 1 to see how our members vote in each of our division’s sections.

The point is, I expect you to vote in the next election. You will select members to represent your views and opinions. You will select the leadership of RUSA and its sections. An election is one of the most important participatory events in any association, so vote and let your voice be heard. Participation is what this is all about!

I am going to quickly describe the candidate selection process in case you are unfamiliar with it. One of the first things one does as the president-elect or as a section vice-chair is to appoint the next Nominating Committee chair. This process is completed by November. The Nominating Committees recruit a slate of candidates for each open elective position. The slates are finalized at the ALA Annual Conference and the nominees submitted to the RUSA office by September 15 for the spring election. Candidates are asked to submit biographical information, including data about their education and professional positions, as well as to describe their ALA activities and accomplishments. The candidates also are asked to provide a statement about their professional concerns.

Voting in ALA elections can be time consuming and even intimidating to the new voter. I am a member of two ALA divisions, all six RUSA sections, and a roundtable, so it takes me awhile. I love the new electronic voting, which lets me go vote for one position at a time without having to complete the entire ballot when I am inevitably interrupted.

What kind of voter are you? Are you intimidated by the lengthy ALA ballots? Are you the voter who quickly zeros in on your choice, makes your selection, saves them and exits out of there as fast as you can, perhaps seldom reading the candidate’s biography and statement of concerns? Or are you the voter who simply must learn where the candidate is from, where they worked, and what committees they have served on? Do you want to discover whether you have worked with the person, or perhaps know someone who has worked with the person, or ever lived in the same state—you see what I mean? Guess which type of voter I am? Yes! I openly admit it—I love to read everything about each candidate!

You can learn a lot about a person and how they think by reading their statements. You can find out what the candidate values about our association, what they believe the association should be doing, how they think RUSA can best help meet members’ needs, and what they think are the most important benefits the association offers its members. What are the important issues facing the profession, the association, and their specialized section? What is important to the candidate? How do they perceive the needs of our specialties in our profession? What has their participation in RUSA meant to them?

For the last few years I have been selectively collecting RUSA candidate’s statements at election time, not quite knowing just what I would be doing with them, but thinking they would be interesting to analyze.⁶ So, this is the first of two columns examining the statement of concerns from 105 candidates who have run for an elected position in RUSA in the past three years (2007–09). Since 2007, 109 members have run for an elective office. These include every candidate for RUSA president, board of directors, councilor, chair, secretary, and member at large. Of the 109 candidates, 105 (96.3 percent) completed the statement of concern portion of the ballot. In the future I hope all the candidates will think that it is important to provide this information.

September 30, 2009

To the Editor:

I read “Developing a Model for Reference Research Statistics” by Harry C. Meserve, et al., (volume 48, number 3) with interest. The article dealt with the Warner model of classifying reference questions, and using it to develop triaged reference service.

My criticism of the article’s conclusions is that it misses the issue of the general decline in reference questions that followed adoption of the policy. Looking at the data provided in the article, in the eight months that followed the practice of paraprofessionals being the first point of patron contact, the library experienced a drop of 20 percent in the number of questions received. (Compared to the same months in the previous year.) The next year, 2006, saw another 7 percent drop. This drop occurred across the board, as the number of higher level questions fell by 32 percent. The fact that the professional librarians spent less time answering directional and skill-based questions does not justify a policy that leads to a dramatic drop in the number of people who choose to come to the reference desk.

Why the drop? I think there may be two reasons. First, professional librarians no longer conducted the reference interview, so that in many cases, patrons real questions were not answered. For example, recently I had a reader ask for books on Da Vinci. It turned out she wanted material on how to paint with oils. Without a reference interview, someone would have showed her the biography section.

The second reason is an affective one: simple questions, answered gracefully and elegantly, build a relationship of trust and care. If we ignore those human needs in the name of efficiency, patrons will not return to ask another.

This observation is supported by “Paraprofessionals at the Reference Desk” by Murfin and Bunge, (Journal of Academic Librarianship, March 1988). Murfin and Bunge studied patron satisfaction with paraprofessional reference in twenty different libraries, and found that in all twenty patrons reported “significantly less” overall satisfaction. Patrons specifically named trouble in communicating with the employee, dissatisfaction with the explanations and help they received, and being guided to inappropriate materials.

Quality of service cannot be measured by statistics, nor by the number and level of questions answered. Still, a drop of such size is a sure sign that something is amiss. Even though I disagree with their conclusion, I thank Mr. Meserve and the staff of the MLK Library for publishing this article and including their data, and for their efforts to improve our profession.

Sincerely,

Tony Greiner, Portland, Oregon