Journalism
and Mass Communication Library
Live
From the Internet: Distance Education
Member
News/Library News
Russian
Irregular Periodicals and Newspapers
LAUNC-CH
Spring Conference Highlights
You can find the JoMC Library in Howell Hall on the UNC-CH campus, telephone (919) 962-1204. This address will change by late 1999 at which time the library anticipates moving into renovated quarters in Carroll Hall.
During the Fall and Spring semesters the library is staffed during these hours:
The students and faculty of the School of Journalism and Mass Communication are the JoMC Library's primary clients. Next, are the School's alumni, followed by other UNC-CH faculty and students, the citizens of North Carolina, and the mass communication professionals in the US and throughout the world. The library's collections and services are selected and designed to meet these clients' information needs.
Staff: Barbara Semonche, MLS 1976 UNC-CH, SILS, is the director of the library. Students assist with cataloging and other library activities, staff the library on evenings and weekends, direct students to reserve materials and keep the computer labs open.
Collections: The Library has approximately 5,000 books on such subjects as: media law, advertising, public relations, global journalism, writing and editing, mass communication theory, photojournalism, graphic design, broadcasting, polling, computer-assisted research and reporting, online search strategies, and journalism history.
The Library subscribes to nearly 240 serials and scholarly journals plus 50 North Carolina newspapers. About two to three weeks of the current newspaper issues are kept. For a complete listing of North Carolina newspapers subscribed to by the library and where to find access to back issues go to http://sunsite.unc.edu/journalism/welcome.html
The Library has over 700 JoMC student dissertations, theses and honor's essays (Complete listings available at http://sunsite.unc.edu/journalism/stupapers.html). Dissertations and theses may also be found in Davis Library, and the archival copy is in the North Carolina Collection. The Spearman Collection of over 500 volumes includes works published by JoMC faculty and alumni. Over 500 videocassettes, audio tapes, slides, and photographs on mass communication topics are included in the library's audio/visual collection.
Borrowing: While this library is indeed open to all students and scholars on this campus, all of the library's material is restricted to building use exclusively. A photocopier is available which requires the use of UNC-CH One Cards; the photocopier does not accept coins or bills.
Services: Barbara is the list owner of NewsLib (an international mailing list for news librarians). This list for news research is set up to provide an electronic place where news librarians, cybrarians, online researchers, media archivists, mass media bibliographers, reporters and journalism educators can "meet" and discuss topics relevant, to our professions. This list was started in September 1993. See http://sunsite.unc.edu/ journalism/newslib.html for more information.
Reference assistance via phone, fax, or email and consultation on special research projects is available.
Future Plans: New quarters in 1999! A move to Carroll Hall for the School will permit the library to expand its space from 1,100 square feet to 4,700 square feet. That translates into more room for more computers, CD-ROMs, GIS, Multimedia, image archiving as well as enlarging special collections, increasing student study/research space, and expanding our School's telecommunications speed and capacity. More details about the forthcoming "Park Library" can be found at http://sunsite.unc.edu/journalism/parklibrary.html
--Barbara Semonche and Geneva Holliday
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Live From the Internet: Distance Education Resources
Distance or distributed education is the hottest topic on college campuses. Faculties are working to put their courses on the web and libraries are working out details on providing services to off-campus students. The following is a list of distance education sites that librarians will find very useful!
Dr. E's Eclectic Compendium of Electronic Resources for Adult/Distance Education http://www.oak-ridge.com/ierdrep1.html
How to offer a course over the Internet
http://www.edgorg.com/course.htm
The Internet in Higher Education (an online journal)
http://www2.gdi.net/~hidakota/ISSUE_1.HTM
WWWVirtual Library: Distance Education
http://www.cisnet.com/~cattales/Deducation.html
Distance Education Clearinghouse
http://www.uwex.edu/disted/home.html
Copyright issues related to distance education and multimedia development
http://www.lib.siu.edu/regional/copyright.html
Journal of Library Services for Distance Education (online journal)
http://www.westga.edu/library/jlsde/
--Lynn Eades
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Frieda Rosenberg and Janet Flowers attended the Seventh Annual North Carolina Serials Conference on March 5th and 6th at the Friday Center.
Janet Flowers also attended the ARL Workshop on License Review and Negotiation which was held at the Friday Center on March 19th and 20th.
John Rutledge will be a participating member of ICON, the International Coalition on Newspapers. This is a working group that will (1) develop an action plan describing how the research library community can increase access to global newspapers, and (2) establish a coalition to provide an ongoing framework for international cooperation. Milton Wolf of the Center convened the Working Group for Research Libraries (and formerly of UNC-CH). A Mellon Grant will support travel expenses for a series of planning meetings in D.C. at ARL headquarters and in New York. If you have concerns about third-world newspapers, please let John have your thoughts.
Nadia Zilper attended the 36th Annual meeting of the Southern Conference for Slavic Studies held March 19-21 in Durham and Chapel Hill, NC. Nadia served on the Local Arrangements Committee and, in conjunction with the conference, mounted an exhibit entitled Russian Irregular Periodicals in the display cases in the main entrance of Davis Library.
James A. Curtis became the Associate Director for Administrative Services effective March 2, 1998.
Martha A. Bedard became the Associate Director for Library Services effective March 2, 1998.
Brynn E. Mays has accepted the position of Reference Librarian in the Health Sciences Library effective March 1, 1998. She was formerly Systems Librarian at HSL.
Bridget Loven will be leaving the Health Sciences Library in April to move to Charlotte with her husband.
Marguerite Most and Carol Nicholson attended the Southeastern Chapter of the American Association of Law Libraries in New Orleans. Carol moderated the COSELL Technical Services Round Table. Carol served on the planning committee and attended the North Carolina Serials Conference.
Several UNC Law Librarians made presentations at the annual Festival of Legal Learning at the Friday Center. Tom French spoke on federal government resources on the Internet. Marguerite Most and Robert Vreelan presented Internet resources for the general practitioner. Martha Barefoot and Steven Melamut gave a program on Internet medical resources for attorneys. Lolly Gasaway spoke about legal issues in cyberspace.
Neil Fulghum installed a new case exhibit on Cornelia Phillips Spencer. The exhibit highlights Ms. Spencer's activism involving UNC-Chapel Hill, including her efforts to bring about the reopening of the University after it closed during Reconstruction. Work is continuing on the conservation of several Audubon prints. Four newly conserved prints were returned to the Gallery by paper conservator Jane Sugarman in late February, and the next set of prints are on their way to her lab. Tours included several school groups and visitors from Japan.
Russian Irregular Periodicals
In conjunction with the 36th Annual meeting of the Southern Conference for Slavic Studies Nadia Zilper, Academic Affairs Library Bibliographer for Slavic and East European resources, mounted the exhibit Russian Irregular Periodicals. Many fine examples of the Library's holdings in this difficult-to-collect area are on display in the glass cases in the main entrance to Davis Library through March 31.
"What is an irregular periodical?" you might ask. Whereas a periodical is a magazine or other publication which issues volumes at stated or generally regular intervals--usually more frequently than annually, an irregular periodical appears sporadically. Although publication intervals are usually stated, an irregular periodical may not conform to that schedule.
Irregular periodicals are a collection development nightmare. In Russia they are often produced by inexperienced publishers who do not have sufficient investment capital to sustain the expense of regular printing schedules. Publications cease and frequently resume at a later date when money again becomes available. Collecting Russian irregular periodicals is made even more difficult by the common practice of renaming the periodical when printing resumes. This type of publication is virtually impossible to collect without having a dealer with a close relationship to the publishers.
Nadia's buying trips to the Soviet Union and Russia, during which she purchased many otherwise hard-to-come-by periodicals, have resulted in an outstanding collection of these materials for the Academic Affairs Library. Subject areas in the exhibit include Archival Science, Art History, History, Linguistics, Literary, Local and Regional History, Social Sciences, Studies of Russian Culture, and Theological Studies.
Currently, Davis Library holds almost four hundred Russian irregular periodicals titles. A list of these titles is available on the Web (http://www.unc.edu/~slavlib/serials.html). The Slavic and East European Resources Section of the Academic Affairs Library has also created a Web page designed to assist patrons in learning about the resources found at both UNC-CH and on the World Wide Web (http://www.unc.edu/~slavlib/html/SEERPAG1.HTM).
Russian Newspapers
The UNC-CH Library is the first in the world to acquire a customized database of Russian newspapers (http://news.eastview.com/ groups/cst/csta.html) from East View Publications in Minneapolis Minnesota. There are many advantages to purchasing this newspaper database rather than collecting the physical pieces. The purchase of this database solved the collection management problems of poor print quality, irregular and expensive delivery, missing issues, and storage. The Library has the flexibility to discontinue a newspaper or subscribe to yet another one. The dealer gave the Library a discount on the purchase of microfilms of the newspapers included in the database, and these microfilms provide a preservation copy of the Russian newspapers for archival purposes.
One of the most significant advantages to electronic access to these Russian newspapers is that rather than waiting weeks for the arrival of print copies, all the newspapers included in the database are available on the day they are published. The newspaper database lives on the dealer's server in Minneapolis. The dealer receives the data from Russia, which is eight hours ahead of U.S. Eastern Standard time. Consequently, in some cases those who access the database from the U.S. can read the early morning news the night before.
The Russian newspaper database is searchable using computers with Cyrillic keyboard software. Keyword searches of the database can include all newspaper titles dating back to the beginning of the database in 1996, as well as searches narrowed to issues within a single title, or to one issue of a title. The database can be accessed on the Internet from computers with campus addresses but not those with Hospital addresses. Terminals five and six in the Reference Department are equipped with the Cyrillic keyboard software that enables patrons to search the database in Russian. If you would like more information about these outstanding resources, contact Nadia Zilper (nadia_zilper@unc.edu or 962-3740).
--Lucinda Thompson and Nadia Zilper
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The 1998 LAUNC-CH Conference held March 16, 1998 was resounding success, as two hundred one attendees gathered from across the state to consider the theme of the day: "From Virtual to Reality: A Question of Balance." Of those present, one hundred forty-six attendees were from universities, twenty-four from public libraries, eleven from medical centers/AHECs, twelve from various types of special libraries, and eight from community colleges. All attendees were treated to a day of interesting and exciting presentations on a variety of topics.
Peter Young, a dynamic and entertaining speaker, delighted and educated his attentive audience with his keynote address, "Balancing the Postmodern Library." Mr. Young contrasted post-modern, holistic, integrated, and networked library systems against traditional, fixed, permanent, and centralized library collections. With slightly fewer overhead slides than minutes allotted for his remarks, Young moved swiftly through a dazzling array of dichotomies contrasting the modern/traditional library to the post-modern library with an ultimate goal of making the listener unsettled and uncertain about just how to achieve a balance between the two. His summary remarks soothed troubled minds with the idea that striking a balance will indeed be difficult, but that by increasing one's tolerance to ambiguity and becoming responsive rather than remaining perfectionistic, librarians can more effectively meet the policy, technical, economic, and social challenges that accompany the transition from a traditional to a post-modern library. In the digital environment, the new power brokers are knowledge navigators and the cyberspace organizers as opposed to the MLS and professionals and the support staff. These groups must work together. As Mr. Young pointed out, "No one wins in a circular firing squad."
Concurrent sessions in the morning and in the afternoon provided everyone with the opportunity to participate in multiple sessions and discussions. The able and informed presenters were: Winston Atkins, Jean Blackwell, John Ericson, Donna Flake, Paul Gilster, Dan Horne, Gabe Rios, and William Spivey.
In the wake the exciting keynote address given by Peter Young, if there were any doubts about either his energy or his ability to generate innovative solutions, they were quickly dispelled by the fact that he spontaneously created a panel of the session presenters to assist him in the closing remarks. The panel shared with the attendees the three most important ideas each presenters wished participants would take away from their sessions, and Mr. Young continued to elicit and extract concerns and observations from attendees about their thoughts and reactions to the day's events.
The interest and excitement generated by the conference have already sparked discussions on the topic for 1999. Requests for copies of speakers handouts and overheads have prompted the LAUNC-CH Committee to provide them as soon as they are available at the conference Web site (http://www.lib.unc.edu/launcch/archives/conf98.htm). Hopefully, the energy generated at this year's conference will be a resource to draw upon in the search for creative ways to balance needs of the future with the ways of the past.
--Lucinda Thompson and Sue Pierson
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