News from the Field

University of Florida

People: Appointments, Departures, Promotions

Naomi Young accepted the position of Serials Cataloger in the Acquisitions Section of the Resource Services Department. Naomi previously served as Periodicals and Microforms Librarian in the Fondren Library at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas. She received an M.S. in Library Science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1994 and a B.A. Ed. in Special Education from Central Washington University in Ellensburg, Washington.

Mary Gallant was appointed to the position of Operations Librarian in the Latin American Collection effective November 1, 1999. Mary previously served as Coordinator for the Collection. She received her BA from Florida State University and holds a subject M.A. from Rollins College and an M.L.S. from the University of South Florida. Her research interests include cross-cultural influences between the southeastern United States and Latin America, particularly the Caribbean.

Mimi Pappas was appointed Reference Librarian in Humanities and Social Sciences Services after having served as intern and visiting librarian since 1998. Mimi has an MS in Library and Information Studies, and an MA and BA in English from Florida State University.

Susan Constantineau was appointed Visiting Librarian in connection with her cataloging work on the United States Agricultural Information Network grant. Susan was formerly cataloger for Florida's United States Newspaper Project grant.

People: Papers, Publications, Presentations

Carol Drum, Chair of the Marston Science Library, and John Ashcraft, Electronic Formats Librarian for the Marston Science Library, published "Chemist Doing Library Research - AD 2000", Journal of Chemical Education, 77:1 (2000): 23.

Alena Aissing, Bibliographer for Germanic and Slavic Studies, was a Roundtable Participant for "The Digital Filing Cabinet: Using Database Technology for Individual Research and Instruction in Slavic Studies," held at the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies 31st National Convention, St. Louis, Missouri, November 18-21, 1999.

Rita Smith, Curator of the Baldwin Library of Historical Children's Literature, published "Randolph Caldecott: 1846-1886," The Newbery and Caldecott Awards: A Guide to the Medal and Honor Books, Chicago: ALA Editions, 2000. Caldecott was a noted 19th century children's illustrator, and the Caldecott Medal memorializes his work. The Medal is awarded each year by the Association of Library Service to Children, a division of ALA, to the artist of the most distinguished American picture book for children published in the United States during the preceding year.

Pam Cenzer, Assistant Chair of the Marston Science Library, Vernon Kisling, Coordinator of Science Collections, and Stephanie Haas, Environmental Sciences Librarian, presented their paper, Last Copy Depository: Cooperative Collection Management Centers in the Electronic Age at the Center for Research Libraries Conference commemorating CRL's 50th anniversary, Atlanta, Georgia, November 12-14, 1999.

David Hickey, Chair of the Access Services Department, published "Serials 'Derelegation' from Remote Storage," Collection Building, 18:4 (1999): 153-160.

News from the Field: Acquisitions, Programs, Services

Florida's United States Newspaper Program grant was completed in December 1999. Funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities and administered by the University of Florida since 1993, the grant was part of a national program enabling each state to survey, collect, catalog and microfilm many of its most valuable - and fragile - primary resources, the unique newspapers. Through the project 3000 newspaper titles were cataloged and 171 filmed including 122 of the most significant and extensive titles in the University of Miami's Cuban Exile Newspaper collection. These 122 newspapers (337 reels, and almost 125,000 exposures of microfilm) represent approximately 70% of all the papers filmed in the grant. A total of 204 Cuban exile newspaper titles were cataloged from the collection into the OCLC database, making these very special resources better known to researchers worldwide. Current and former library staff credited with the success of the project include Dolores Jenkins, Robert Dowd, Cecilia Botero, Erich Kesse, Susan Constantineau, Cathleen Mook, Gus Clifton, and Martha Hruska in addition to many supporters from around the state. The project's Web site is located at http://www.uflib.ufl.edu/flnews/

Jeffrey Barr, Rare Books Librarian, has collaborated with the Biblioteca Universitat de Barcelona to make available images and bibliographic information about printers' devices, the Marques d'impressors. For more information, see http://web.uflib.ufl.edu/spec/rarebook/barcelona.htm.

Smathers Libraries received the "longevity prize" for e-mail reference according to "My Patron Wrote Me a Letter: The Joy of E-Mail Reference," American Libraries, 31:1 (2000): 96. "Yet e-mail reference has been around for as long as libraries have had e-mail addresses and patrons could find them. The longevity prize goes to the George A. Smathers Libraries at the University of Florida/Gainesville, which first initiated an e-mail reference service in the fall of 1989, ..." Kudos go to Razia Nanji and other members of Humanities and Social Sciences Services.

The Marston Science Library was featured in C&RL News, 60:8 (1999): 612. Geeksquad to the Rescue! describes the library's computer troubleshooting team, "The Geeksquad," which responds to SOS calls from staff and furnishes "geeksheets" for common computer maintenance activities.