Hyperlinks are accurate as of May 1997

"Education Costs Money, But Then So Does Ignorance"

Trim and Tuck

The LRC has just finished an exercise in "cost-reduction." Like all departments, we are feeling the squeeze of inflation and the impact of moderate but real internal "taxing" of budgets. We are not dealing with major re-engineering but a series of tucks and snips.

Within the department we will save money next year by quelling our urge to feed people, denying requests to send interlibrary loans to people outside the Northwest and by not paying for maintenance contracts on some equipment.
We will also make changes that will be more noticeable:

We won't deliver audio visual equipment at Southeast Center;
We will simplify film/video scheduling so that it is a half-time, not a full-time position;
(We are investigating closing during low-traffic hours (early in the morning, late at night).
We will be working with campus administrators to refine our "trim and slim" plan. Please send us ideas and reactions.

Film/Video Scheduling Next Year

The LRC currently schedules and delivers films and videos for 2,667 classroom showings each year. Since 1993, the collection has been housed at Sylvania. One person has worked full-time scheduling use of this special collection.

Next year, most of the films/videos will be moved to campus LRCs and faculty will order and pick up films and videos from the campus LRC circulation desks. The LRC is investing in a special module to fit on the LRC Dynix catalog to make this campus-based system possible. It will allow faculty to request films from anywhere in the district just as all books are available for shipment to all campuses.

Why are we changing the film scheduling system?

1.We discovered that 66% of the bookings were for films used nine or fewer times each year. We currently track those programs with a labor-intensive system that delivers films by the hour to classes. We believe that if programs are used only nine times a year, we can control them with a less sophisticated system and release the full-time film scheduler for other duties.

2. We found that while use of the video collection grew 6% at Sylvania where the collection is housed, over the last two years it has dropped 45% at Cascade and 36% at Rock Creek. We hope that by moving parts of the collection each campus LRC we can increase its use throughout the district.

3. Only 108 films or videos are used more than 9 times per year. These "best-sellers" will be kept in a special collection at Sylvania and will continue to receive special handling to ensure their availability for classes. We plan to purchase, as budgets allow, more copies of the popular title further reduce our scheduling costs.

During the summer we will begin moving the collections to the campus LRCs and training LRC staff to use the new scheduling software. We have many questions about how the new system will work and are meeting to identify and solve problems. Please share your concerns with LRC staff.

Making Everything Easier

Change is inevitable and this one is gee-whiz cool! We've got another nifty WEB option for you to consider. Soon faculty and staff will be able to request new books, magazines, videos, CD-ROMs, and multimedia software via the LRC's WEB pages. A purchase request form will soon make its appearance, ready for you to fill out and submit to the LRC's collection development coordinator. Naturally all requests must be run through funding review, but we will strive to get the material you need as quickly as we can. Be sure to let us know if you have to have a title by a particular time.

Inventory In Progress

Perhaps you've noticed LRC staffers prowling the book stacks this year carrying a mysterious black box that beeps. If you guessed that the box was a flight recorder device on loan from the Aviation department (and who knows how they came by it), you'd be imaginative but wrong. But if you said to yourself, "that looks like an inventory thingamajig," you'd be imprecise but correct. Through one more magical process made possible by our integrated on-line library system, we are doing an inventory of our book collection.

Cascade LRC was the first to complete the task, and we have tentatively identified a 2% loss rate for that collection. Not bad, but not as good as we would like. Obviously we feel a strong sense of responsibility for keeping track of the resources we buy - for economic and for academic reasons, so we will continue to keep the collection as secure as we can and improve our shelving techniques so that every book is in its "spot" and counted.

If you have items that you've been meaning to return but haven't gotten around to it yet, now 's a good time to just do it! It will improve our loss rate and you'll feel good about having done the right thing.

PCC is participating in an interlibrary loan pilot project sponsored by the Oregon State Library as the final tier in its Oregon Information Highway Project begun in 1995. If the test is successful library users all over the state will be able to search a state-wide virtual library collection for research materials they need. The ORION pilot will run during June, July and August.

Many libraries across the state already have on-line catalogs, but users must connect with each one individually and do new searches with each connection. The ORION system automatically scans each participant's collection with a single search. Simple, smooth and easy. Now you know you won't be missing a thing.

Institutions participating in the test are the Oregon State Library, Oregon State University, Willamette University, Oregon State Health Sciences University, Portland State University, and PCC. In addition, four public libraries will take part in the pilot as borrowers only. They are Salem Public Library, Siuslaw Public Library, Baker Public Library, and Washington County Cooperative Library System.

Reverend John H. Jackson

The Cascade LRC recently added approximately 125 volumes from the library of Reverend John H. Jackson to its collection. The rest of Rev. Jackson's library forms the core of the new Cascade Campus Community History Center's archive collection. The Center sponsored a symposium on the history of African Americans in Portland earlier this year. Copies of the papers presented are in the reference areas at Cascade and Sylvania. (R 305.896079549 S96 1997)

We Salute Yvonne Williams

Yvonne Williams is retiring after thirty-three years working in the PCC libraries. She is one of the college's success stories; she began as a library assistant in 1964 and is retiring as a senior professional librarian at the Cascade Campus of PCC. She attended Clark College and worked full-time while completing both her Bachelor (University of Portland) and Master's (University of Oregon) degrees. Since 1986 she has represented the Cascade library on a council which plans for and manages the PCC district libraries. In 1995 she helped celebrate the opening of the new Cascade Campus library which she worked hard to plan.

She has held key volunteer positions within the college community. She served for three years on the Academic Advisory Committee which reviews all academic policies and curriculum changes in the college. Since 1991 she has spent many hours working for the faculty union as both a principal negotiator and on the contract administration team. She is currently active on the Cascade History Project.

Her full and respected working career with the college is only one way she has served her community. Since 1991, she has served on the Multnomah County Library Advisory Board. She has been active in the Oregon Trail Chapter of the American Red Cross, serving on its Board and chairing special groups for youth and minority outreach. She has been a leader in the Portland Chapter of Links, Inc., focusing again on working with young people. She is active in her church, the Urban League, Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, the NAACP, and the National Council of Negro Women. In 1993 she was awarded the White Rose by the March of Dimes for her outstanding contribution to the community.

Her plans for retirement are to care for family, continue her heavy schedule of civic involvement (she has just agreed to serve on the Board of the Fireside Theater) and to play, shop, sleep late, and travel.

We at PCC know Yvonne Williams as a calm and polite lady. She moves easily between all types of people. Her early ambition was to work in the fashion industry. Anyone familiar with Yvonne knows that she has brought great style to Portland Community College.

Learn By Doing: Hands-on Training Available

With help from Information Technology Services, LRC 212 at Sylvania has been transformed into a true electronic classroom. This room has always had an instructor's computer and a ceiling-mounted projector, but now 15 student computers have been added. This will allow librarians to demonstrate a system (online catalog, EBSCOhost periodicals index, PORTALS, World Wide Web) and then let students try it out. Please contact a reference librarian (ext. 4500) to set up a library instruction session tailored to your class needs.

BANNER training staff in HRM, Academic Services, Financial Services will also be using this room as will ITS as it brings up new systems. Scheduling will continue to be done by the LRC reference librarians (ext. 4500) for the first 5 weeks of each term and by Jeff Ward in Facilities (ext. 4543) for other times.

At Cascade (ext. 5269) and Rock Creek (ext. 7239) the LRC has added more computers to open lab areas so that reference staff can also provide hands-on learning. Because we only have one classroom on each of those campuses, we have not wanted to reduce flexibility by converting the classroom itself to a computer lab. We are, as always, interested in working with you to design relevant and timely learning experiences and can provide training and research sessions.

Focus Group Interviews With Faculty

Focus group interviews, held on each campus in late April and early May brought small groups of full-time faculty together to discuss the use of instructional technology at PCC. The interviews were planned and conducted by members of the Instructional Computing Advisory Committee to supplement an earlier survey by Steve Garrison.

Four sessions were held at different times and campus locations: two at Sylvania, one at Rock Creek and one at Cascade Campus. Susanne Christopher, Lorna Kern, Joel Magnuson and Sharon Smith developed the discussion questions. A focus group leader and note-taker met with each group. After the interviewers met to share notes and impressions, Susanne Christopher prepared an executive summary for the Instructional Technology consultant Jan Baltzer.

The focus group facilitators really enjoyed the whole process. Faculty provided thoughtful, articulate responses to the questions. Although the total number of participants was small, the range of perspectives and levels of expertise in the use of technology in the classroom was quite broad. Faculty whose curriculum includes or is dependent upon information technology (for example, CIS and Office Systems) have different expectations and frustrations associated with the use of classroom technology.

Login And Discover Your Options

If you haven't seen the LRC's web site lately, here are some new features to look for at http://www.pcc.edu/lrc

Audio-Visual pages. Includes a guide to AV services, details about the media production labs, a list of available equipment, and - what many of you have been asking for - a list of the LRC's films and videos grouped by curricular areas.

Web access to EBSCOhost, an index of articles in over 3,000 journals. Abstracts are provided for all articles, and full text is available for 1,000 of the journals. PCC staff and students can access this from off-campus but you must have an LRC barcode. To find EBSCOhost follow the links under "Electronic Resources" or "Periodicals." To get a barcode, bring your PCC ID card to your local LRC checkout desk. The process takes just a minute or two.

Look under "LRC & Internet Resources by Subject" to find a rich selection of links to Internet Reference Sources. Online dictionaries, Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, daily news, zip code lookup, Oregon Revised Statutes, Periodical Table of Elements, Currency Converter, and much more.

Coming features: Interlibrary Loan request form, Materials Purchase request form, Film Booking request form. Watch for them! Also be sure to check the links under "LRC News" for our latest developments. Contact Flora Lippert at ext. 4500 if you have any suggestions.

Where Did I Come From?

As summer approaches, many folks are looking forward to digging around in their gardens. However, you prefer to root around in your family tree. Find out just how eccentric Uncle Freddie came to be related to you and whether those twins are your second cousins or your first cousins once removed. Here are some sites to get you started.
http://cpcug.org/user/jlacombe/mark.html (a barrel of genealogy links)
http://www.genealogy.org/-ngs/ (National Genealogical Society)

Rock Creek Reference Books

Computer jargon is easy to understand using the Random House Personal Computer Dictionary (R004.1603 M37 1996). This volume, appropriate for both beginning and experienced computer users, defines nearly 2,000 terms. Entries contain extensive cross-references, and the introductory section organizes the list of terms into several broad subject areas. Similar titles are available at all LRCs.

Are you looking for general information about the performance of a major company? Are you wondering what trends will affect a particular industry in the near future? Standard and Poor's Industry Surveys (R332.678 S73) are currently in transition to a new expanded format. The surveys provide information about selected companies as well as industry-wide reviews and projections for more than 50 topics. Each campus LRC offers a variety of business information.

Notable Twentieth-Century Scientists (R 509.22 N68 1995) gives biographical information about the important scientists of this century, lists important publications by the scientist and includes citations of sources for additional information. At the front of each volume is a complete list of entries; the indexes in volume 4 contain the names of additional individuals in related areas.

The four-volume set of Modern Women Writers (R 809.8928709 M64 1996) offers excerpts of criticism on more than 570 20th-century women writers from around the world. This source is especially useful to anyone seeking critical reviews of authors not well known in the United States.

A Random Sampling of Useful Web Sites

Shopping for a used car? Want to know what yours is worth? The Kelley Blue Book people have gone online to provide you with the same access to prices for new and used cars, truck and vans, that you've come to rely on in those small blue books. Values are posted for 1982 to date, with many dating back to 1977. It's free, slick and quick. http://www.kbb.com

AMA Physician Select provides information on virtually every licensed physician in the United States and its possessions, including more than 650,000 doctors of medicine (MD) and doctors of osteopathy or osteopathic medicine (DO). Try this online doctor finder at http://www.ama-assn.org

If you're concerned about your health but want a less traditional approach to treatment, try the Alternative Medicine Homepage. Produced by the Falk Library at the University of Pittsburgh, this page is a "jumpstation for sources of information on unconventional, unorthodox, unproven, or alternative, complementary, innovative, integrative therapies. " http://www.pitt.edu/~cbw/altm.html

Is the print in your local phone directory giving you eye strain? Toss it to the puppy for a chew bone and look up phone numbers with www.555-1212.com instead. Enter a name or an address and get a phone number. You can even do reverse lookups and get a map of the location. Puppy will be ecstatic.