1. Welcome: Sarah Thomas
   Sarah announced that Jean Pajerek has a new assignment as Head of Technical Services for the Law Library. Congratulations, Jean.

2. Gordon Law, Chair, CUL Committee on Distributed Learning
   Gordon presented a humorous and succinct summary of the Committee's charge, composition, methodology, conclusions and recommendations. He drew our attention to the differences between mainline education and Ecornell and suggested that CUL needs involvement in both and explained the importance of establishing, at least in the short term (3-5 years) a Coordinator of Distance Learning within CUL. For the full text of the report go to: http://www.library.cornell.edu/staffweb/CouncilLibs/Distributedreport080900.html. In particular, Appendix E should be of great interest. Thanks to Gordon and members of this committee for drawing our attention to both the opportunities and challenges that distributed learning will offer the CUL community and our users.

3. "The Catalog as a Portal to the Internet"
   Sarah Thomas presented an abbreviated version of her paper "The Catalog as a Portal to the Internet" which she presented at the Library of Congress early in November. Beginning with a librarian's fashion guide to what's hot and what's not, Sarah summarized the virtues and downfalls of both the traditional library catalog and the concept of an internet 'portal.' Our challenge is to work toward an online, information-seeking portal which combines the efficacy of trustworthiness of the traditional catalog with the diversity, timeliness and pizzazz of the portal. Sarah suggested ways in which Cornell and other libraries can work toward quality one-top shopping for our researchers. Since this summary cannot do justice to the paper, please visit http://lcweb.loc.gov/catdir/bibcontrol/thomas_paper.html for the full-text.

4. "Redesign of Library Workflows: Experimental Models for Electronic Resource Description"
   Karen Calhoun's elegant presentation of her paper "Redesign of Library Workflows: Experimental Models for Electronic Resource Description" drew our attention to the possibly outmoded functional organizational model inherent to most research libraries. In fact, two separate functional areas, technical services and reference, are providing two separate ways for patrons to access the world of potential resources. Most research libraries present users with web lists (produced and described by reference services) to full-text and bibliographic utilities and access to library resources via the library's catalog (produced and described by technical services). Karen called for a new model for distributed resource description which would reflect what is already happening but would facilitate the process across traditional functional lines. For the full-text of her incisive and thought-provoking paper, go to http://lcweb.loc.gov/catdir/bibcontrol/calhoun_paper.html.

Audience reaction:  Ed Weissman suggested that we look at OCLC's strategy for the future of WorldCat at http://www.oclc.org/strategy/ since the same themes and trends that all 3 speakers discussed are also reflected in OCLC's thinking.

Sarah Thomas reminded staff of the Holiday Party to take place on December 18. ****NO SINGING BY MEMBERS OF THE LIBRARY MANAGEMENT TEAM will be permitted.****

Lorna Knight, Secretary
Academic Assembly Steering Committee
(Marty Kurth, Deb Lamb-Deans, Lynn Brown, Tom Turner)

StaffWeb Index | Back to Committee Index | Back to Academic Assembly Index

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