Deborah Jakubs

Staffing for Collection Development in the Electronic Environment: Toward a New Definition of Roles and Responsibilities.

Like most jobs in research libraries, the position of collection development librarian-bibliographer, resource specialist, subject specialist, whichever term is usedhas undergone a dramatic change in the past two decades. Once almost exclusively focused on materials selection, the responsibilities of the librarian engaged in collection development now extend to the creation and maintenance of Web sites, intensive faculty outreach, teaching, specialized reference service, fund-raising, and other tasks. And yet, although the nature of the work we call ‘‘collection development’’ has changed, the image of the bibliographer and of the complexity of his or her work has generally not. This is due in large part to the continued compartmentalization of library work, at least in our minds, and to the persistence of traditional organizational categories. Our structures have not kept pace with our functions. Even when libraries have been restructured and divisions have been given new names, the work is still perceived as belonging either to technical services, public services, or collection development. In fact, collection development is hybrid work, incorporating both technical and public service. Positions that blur the lines among these organizational units are difficult to define and to evaluate.

Out of the Gray Times: Leading Libraries into the Digital Future

ABSTRACT Past practices, policies, and staffing patterns have served as a solid foundation for research libraries. New challenges require a fresh—and very different—look at much of what we have taken for granted over decades. This presentation will discuss the changes in philosophy, organizational models, and recruitment that are needed to reposition libraries for the digital future.

Trust me: the keys to success in cooperative collections ventures

Purpose – Cooperation among research libraries is a venerable pursuit with a long history. The purpose of this paper is to examine three collaborative tools and programs ranging from the late 1970s to the present to identify the promise of each as well as the challenges, the factors that both facilitate and interfere with true cooperation, highlighting the lessons learned. Design/methodology/approach – The author analyzes the development and functions of the Conspectus of the Research Libraries Group, the Global Resources Program of the Association of Research Libraries, and the Triangle Research Libraries Network in the state of North Carolina, USA. Findings – While the goals of collaborative collections initiatives are laudable, it is often difficult to accomplish true, balanced, and lasting cooperation that results in both expanded access and financial reallocation. Originality/value – The study is a first-hand, inside look at the methods and mechanisms of cooperative collection development that offers...

Becoming Irlandes: Private Narratives of the Irish Emigration to Argentina (1844-1912)

It would be easy, but facile, to dismiss emigration from Ireland to Argentina as a minor aberration in the history of both countries. Fewer than 50,000 of Ireland’s eight million emigrants between 1830 and 1930 made for Argentina, forming a tiny fraction of that country’s small ingles (English-speaking) minority during an era of post-colonial wars, nation-building, and rapid economic development. This was the only non-Anglophone country to attract more than a trickle of Irish emigrants, though Argentina’s exoticism was mitigated by its close political and economic ties with Britain. In contrast to the stereotypical emigrant experience in Britain or the United States, the Irish in Argentina quickly won a deserved reputation for success in the risky but potentially rewarding business of taming the pampas, and of buying and selling land and livestock on a scale unimaginable in rural Ireland. Unlike the mass of emigrants heading from the rural West and South to the industrial cities of Britain and the United States, the Irish in Argentina came predominantly from three relatively prosperous counties (Westmeath, Wexford, and Longford). Strong and enduring chains of migration developed from extended family networks clustered in a handful of parishes, as successful settlers induced relatives and neighbours to follow their example and often to join their business enterprises in Argentina. The settlers were sufficiently endogamous to foster a self-replicating and selfconsciously Irish community, distinguishable within the broader English-speaking population by its adherence to an increasingly Irish version of Roman Catholicism (often at odds with the local hierarchy and aggressively fostered by the Irish missionary priest, Anthony Fahy). Yet the Irish were so closely aligned in politics and business with the Anglophone élite that few Argentinians or continental immigrants distinguished between those of British and Irish nationality. The Irish in Argentina were therefore too few, too comfortable in their origins, too successful, too respectable, and too British in their culture to fit any conventional stereotype of the Irish emigrant. Until the 1970s, the predominance of reductive models of Irish emigration ensured that the Argentinian strand would be dismissed as an insignificant if diverting footnote to the master narrative of exile, poverty at home and abroad, discrimination, resistance, lingering resentment, and eventual triumph against the odds.

The AAU/ARL Global Resources Program: The View from a Crossroads

ABSTRACT The Global Resources Program was created in 1996 to address problems of access to international research materials, the “crisis in foreign acquisitions.” A joint endeavor of the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) and the Association of American Universities (AAU), the program capitalizes on technological advances to expand the array of resources available to scholars. The paper reviews the programs accomplishments, evaluates progress on the original goals, and speculates on areas of future emphasis, within the context of cooperative collection development strategies.