224 ALA Annual Conference - - 1995

Stormy Night needs more context. Small children find it too hard to understand. The happy ending is out of place. Looks like a "cute" story but it is not. Wait for several reviews on young adult material. Read all of them, then select. Be careful what you put on paper. Panelists found that the older kids liked Spite Fences. The younger ones were not ready, but they would not deny the book to them.

The panel was asked a final question: what was their advice to librarians on issues of intellectu- al freedom. Be honest with yourself. Say I don't think children should read this particular rifle. Respect the quality of the material. Don't buy multicultural books just because they are the current trend. Buy good books. Don't conspire with the censor. Buy for the readers. Reviews give you the defense you need. We will lead the fight, but we are only human. Our job is to help.

PII S0364-6408(96)00019-1 Diane Kachmar Florida Atlantic University

S.E. Wimberly Library Boca Raton, FL 33431

lnternet: kachmar@acc.fau.edu

Who Are We Buying This for Anyway? The Users" Point of Vww

The RASD Collection Development and Evaluation Section and the ALCTS Acquisitions Section co-sponsored this session held Sunday, June 25 from 2:00 to 4:00 p.m. Four speakers were invited to present their opinions on how librarians and users can influence the develop- ment of reference resources.

Harold Platt, Professor, Department of History at Loyola University, began the presentation. In the last 20 years there have been three major changes in libraries. In the 1970s inflation forced a shift from acquisition of material to access. In the 1980s, libraries redefined themselves from the traditional depository of books to a service center. Now we are in the middle of a computer revolu- tion. Libraries should remain the cornerstone of democratic society by providing free access to information. This also requires a renewed emphasis on libraries' service mission. In the past, stu- dents would turn to the catalog to do library research and would then go to the shelves to look at sources. Today they print out lists of sources from the computer and never actually look at the actual book or journal volume. A new array of learning tools are needed to help students process data into meaningful information. Just because a book is put onto a disk or put into digitized form does not mean it is a new tool for learning. Librarians need to continue to encourage publishers to provide these new learning tools so that we can move from access to interaction. Given our current culture, which seems to be focused on passive learning, we have our work cut out for us.

Tam Dalrymple, from OCLC's Reference Services Marketing Division, spoke on "Users' Contribution to Product Development: the Case of FirstSearch." From its very inception FirstSearch has used users' input. As a new product is developed, market forces must fn'st be con- sidered. For the FirstSearch product, such forces as the proliferation of microcomputers, better telecommunications services, and the fact that CD-ROM has popularized end-user access influ- enced its development. In addition, end-users forced new pricing models to be developed. During preliminary design, screens were designed that were tailored to end-users, accessibility had to be provided for T r Y devices as the lowest common denominator, and costs were held to a minimum. It was decided that in searching, no plurals would be allowed, the default operator would be adja- cency, and the Online Union Catalog (OLUC) was divided into two files.

ALA Annual Conference - - 1995 225

At this point, FirstSearch was taken to OCLC's Usability Lab where volunteer end-users were introduced to the system. A variety of interfaces were tested and the result was a greatly reduced design time. Field testing of the product took place in 16 libraries and online surveys were used to get input from end-users. As a result, they found that the OLUC should not be split into two files, screens needed to be simplified, plurals needed to be allowed, the default operator should be changed to "and," and the "or" search needed to be added. Also, it was decided that the OLUC should be given the name WorldCat.

Significant input was gathered about pricing so that OCLC did not offer pricing based on the clock but instead charged by the search. Market research was done to f'md the right price to charge. Because of strong demand, a subscription model was also introduced so that libraries could better control costs. In addition, a combined model will also be offered so that different pricing models can be used for different databases as determined by each library. Additional input was gathered from the database providers.

Now that initial product development is f'mished, OCLC is still undertaking ongoing product enhancements based on user input. Input is gathered from Users Council, the Reference Services Advisory Committee, OCLC provider network members, sales staff, and online surveys. Enhancements that have been implemented in response to users suggestions include: provide FirstSearch via the Intemet, enable libraries to block selected databases and the "bye" command, don't count no hit searches, add holdings information, add document ordering, and add a Prism ILL link.

Deborah Loeding, H.W. Wilson, spoke on "User Input to H.W. Wilson's Product Development: Case Studies." Wilson is currently undergoing major changes, including the production of eight new electronic products. Feedback from customers is essential to tell ff the company is on the right track. Indexes and abstracts have traditionally been evaluated by the CODES committee, wilson representatives attend 140 conferences annually where feedback is gathered. Representatives talk- ing to individual libraries garner suggestions. In addition, input is gathered from various Internet listserv groups, wilson is currently forming advisory committees of librarians to evaluate their new products. The voting lists that have been sent to subscribers about which journals should be indexed have not had very high return rates; so new ways of gathering this information are being developed, wilson relies on librarians to pass on the comments they hear from the end-users. All input from librarians is welcomed by the company.

Jesse Sheidlower, the in-house editor of the Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang, presented a paper written by the author of the Dictionary, I.E. Lighter. Lighter's paper men- tioned many specific libraries and related experiences he had while gathering material for the book. Without libraries and librarians his book would not be possible.

There were many good questions raised by the audience after the formal presentations. One person asked about how long it takes to implement users' suggestions. Dalrymple answered that it depends on the difficulty level of the new feature. For example, to add the "or" operator was easy after costs were determined. However, some changes require a full version release to make the change that takes much longer to test and implement.

Sheidlower was asked about the author's use of the Intemet as a source of slang. Lighter is not an Internet user, however, Sheidlower will forward new discoveries to him. The Internet is more useful to him as a place for discussion among other researchers of slang and language. The Dictionary will probably be put on CD-ROM when it is completely finished, but a multimedia version will probably not work due to copyright problems.

Platt was asked to elaborate on a point made during his talk about publishers approaching acad- emics. When a publisher has a series on a topic, academics in that subject area are approached to fill out the series. Often the academic editor and the publisher will work together to recruit'poten- tial authors of these volumes. Also, publishers will approach academics to update textbooks.

226 ALA Annual Conference -- 1995

Sheidlower added that an editor that works for a publisher is responsible for thinking of new book ideas and soliciting appropriate authors.

After a question from the audience, Loeding stated that the cessation of Wilson Library Bulletin was not because of Will Manley! The company decided to focus on the indexing services, which are its strength, and publishing a library journal was out-of-scope.

Overall, the presentation was an informative one that was made even more enjoyable by the presenters' willingness to listen to user input in developing their respective products. Input from librarians is welcome and we should continue to make our opinions known.

PII S0364-6408(96)00031-2 Kathy Schraidt Periodicals Librarian

Murphy Library University of Wisconsin-La Crosse

La Crosse, W154601 lnternet: kathy_schmidt@post.uwlax.edu

European Connections: Electronic Resources for Western Europe: A Program Sponsored by the A CRL Western European Specialists Section

A room in McCormick Place Convention Center offered space for panelists, a large audience, and refreshments provided by 14 European and American publishers and vendors. James Marchand, a scholar of medieval literature at the University of Illinois, gave a presentation entitled "The Philologist and the Intemet." His framework was a seven-page bibliography of net tools and web sites that he distributed to the audience, providing many useful URLs. Characteristic of his inex- orable delivery was his prefatory remark: "When you go on the Internet you cannot s t o p . . , so I will not stop." While describing or citing many textual and visual medieval sources (he referred to himself as 'the official announcer' on MEDTEXT-L'), he gave special attention to guides and search engines. Online databases worthy of special note included the Gesamtindex mittelalterlicher Handschriflenkataloge, the Biblioth~que Nationale's online catalog and, at http://www.brf.fr/eniu- minures/accueil.shtm, some remarkable images from the BN's manuscript collection. In answer to a question, Marchand confidently asserted that despite his inveterate netsurfmg, the new technologies and, electronic text had enabled him to do his work more quickly. As examples, he cited his radio- logical enhancement of the Codex Argentinus and the useful information gained from a quick search of the computerized Patrologia Latina that St. Jerome had been one of those (though per- haps not the first) who wrote: "Cursed be he who said what we said before we said it."

The second speaker was James Campbell, a librarian at the University of Virginia and coordina- tor of WESSWeb, the web site of ACRL's Western European Specialists Section that was under construction at http://www.lib.virginia.edu/wess. Campbell's theme was "The Politics of the Electronic Text." Campbell argued that in the early stages of electronic text, key individuals, whom he called "electronic Uebermenschen," had provided the impetus for successful projects to mount and organize digitized text. Now, on the other hand, the standardization and marketing of technolo- gy are placing constraints on such activities. He drew here the analogy to a passage in Musil's Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften. After a truck plowed into a crowd of people, a person asking what had happened felt oddly "comforted" when informed that the cause was the truck's inordinate braking distance; a human issue had been turned into a question of impersonal technology. European telecommunication networks' resistance to full Internet connections is breaking down because "the