PROJECT UPDATE

 

Posted By:   Jane Holmquist, Astrophysics Librarian, Princeton University
Post Topic:   Please read books!
 
I sincerely hope that college students will use RCL to go beyond required textbook readings to discover and enjoy the wonderful range of astronomy books published in recent years! I am looking forward to sharing my RCL list with my fellow astronomy librarians at the annual SLA meeting in Baltimore, MD and the LISA V (Library and Information Services in Astronomy) conference in Cambridge, MA in June 2006.
Posted By:   Jenifer Flaxbart, Head, Reference and Information Services, University of Texas at Austin
Post Topic:   Public Relations/Selectivity
 
Books for College Libraries, 3rd edition, includes exactly six titles for the Public Relations area, which is listed as “HM 261-263 Public Opinion. Public Relations. Propaganda.” None of those titles is specific to Public Relations so I had carte blanche in selecting resources for the new RCL project. Ultimately I remained very selective, but it was interesting to see how the subject area has grown and taken shape over the past decades. As others have indicated, this was certainly a great way for me to become more aware of resources in the UT Austin collection as well as those we could (and will) add.
Posted By:   Leanne Strum, Business Librarian, Regent University
Post Topic:   A Rewarding Experience
 
Participating in this project was a wonderful and worthwhile experience. Regent University recently established a School of Undergraduate Studies. Over the past year we have been busy selecting and building our undergraduate collection and have used the Books for College Libraries publication extensively. I know that the online version of this product will be an invaluable resource. Thank you for the opportunity to participate.
Posted By:   Adam Siegel, Bibliographer, UC Davis
Post Topic:   Thoughts on the process
 
Selecting titles for Native American Studies/Languages & Linguistics was one of the usual paradoxes: easier and harder than I expected. The actual review of in-print or significant out-of-print titles was surprisingly easy, once I learned how to compare lists generated in BiP, Blackwells, YBP, and our own UCD and UC-wide OPACs; the hard part was stripping these lists down to their bases, in line with the scope of RCL. Then it became a sort of "What essential titles in Native American Languages & Linguistics would you want on a desert island?"
Posted By:   Lori Mestre, Digital Learning Librarian, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Post Topic:   Community and School and Educational Anthropology
 
I was excited to participate in this project. As a past education librarian I had used the previous resource for collection development and for reference interactions. This was a well needed update and am pleased that it might once again offer valuable input for other librarians.
Posted By:   Becky Smith, Head, Business & Economics Lib, UIUC
Post Topic:   Marketing Resources on RCL
 
I am hoping that those who plan to use RCL for CD purposes will find some of the marketing resources I listed useful. My favorite section is customer relations!
Posted By:   Sharon Ladenson, Gender Studies and Communications Librarian, Michigan State University
Post Topic:   Telecommunications
 
Completing the Telecommunications portion of the “Journalism and Communications” section was a rewarding and challenging experience. As Darby Orcutt pointed out, the communication studies literature has grown and changed by leaps and bounds! Critical resources in telecommunication studies include new interdisciplinary texts focusing on the social, historical, and political impact of telecommunications technology. The interdisciplinary nature of communication studies presented significant selection challenges, but again, this was a very rewarding project!
Posted By:   Alice Crosetto, Acquisitions Librarian, University of Toledo
Post Topic:   Old English/Anglo-Saxon Literature
 
What an experience! I was quite surprised in researching my area. Old English, Anglo-Saxon Literature in general, is still holding its own in research and activity on college campuses. However, the availability of resources is a challenge. Classic works, long standing experts - so many are OP.
I thought that it was the time period, but in working on the Rossetti Family, I realized that literature as a whole might be suffering.
There are great websites; but we must maintain our tradition - a website cannot replace the classic resources, only enhance.
My vision is that RCL will assist all individuals who need to know the classics, the standards. Librarians, faculty designing courses & programs - all will benefit from this updated tool.

Posted By:   Joan E. Broome, Information Services, Librarian
Post Topic:   Interdisciplinary topics and controversy
 
As the Subject Editor for Environmental Studies, I discovered a host of books devoted to serious environmental themes but they were poised to sell in the marketplace by bearing what I would call "inflamatory" titles like "Kill the cowboy: a battle of mythology in the new West." This title was actually a fairly balanced look at range management issues in the American West often cast by the media as the new range war--Ranchers vs. Environmentalists.
Reflecting even agonizing about such titles involved a good measure of time that I had not anticipated in the selection process. I suspect this is par for the course when dealing with interdiscipliary topics that cross over into the public policy arena for heated debate. But it made developing a list doubly intersting to me!
Posted By:   Darby Orcutt, Senior Collection Manager for Humanities & Soc Sci, NCSU Libraries
Post Topic:   Re-envisioning Communications
 
As a bibliographer for the "Journalism & Communications" subject area, I welcomed the opportunity to review the core literature of the field. While I expected that the core had shifted considerably, I was surprised at how much. Given the pace of technological and theoretical change in mass media studies, our new list of critical resources is largely different from that of the last edition of BCL. I’d be curious to know whether other subject areas experienced such a sea change.
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