The Eleventh Off-Campus Library Services Conference Proceedings (review)

This collection of papers represents research that was presented at the Eleventh Off-Campus Library Services Conference in Scottsdale, Arizona in 2004. Though other conferences are offered on various aspects of distance learning, including teaching, the use of new technologies, and digital resources, this conference concentrates on topics of interest to librarians who are providing services to nontraditional faculty and students who do not have access to a traditional academic library. The conference, sponsored by Central Michigan University, has a British counterpart in the Libraries Without Walls Conference hosted by Manchester Metropolitan University. The conference program advisory board employs a juried abstracts process to review the papers submitted for consideration. Researchers who presented at the conference are well known in the field and come from institutions across the United States, Canada, and the West Indies.

Several contributors discuss various forms of collaboration to enhance distance information services. Especially relevant is the article by Robin Lockerby et al. that describes working with faculty who are remote from campus. The paper by Anne Marie Casey et al. describes the collaboration between a librarian, a faculty member, and a technician to develop a Web-based research readiness assessment tool.

Another theme of the papers addresses the importance of needs assessment, especially in serving various types of students (for example, non-affiliated, the disabled, Native American, and those enrolled in off-campus programs). These papers describe the obstacles faced by various groups of students and suggest solutions that may serve as models for others to follow. Two articles focus on questionnaire design. The first is by Lynn M. McMain and Judy Ann Jerabek, and the second is by Evadne McLean and Stephen H. Dew. This is a subject of great importance to librarians who may have a limited knowledge about developing effective assessment tools.

Various administrative issues, including strategic planning, marketing, and institutional issues are the topics of several papers. Marianne A. Buehler's article about inserting the library into course management software is especially important for distance learners because such a link may provide the only a gateway to library services and collections for these users.

Articles about student support services provide practical approaches to the services that are important to distant learners: electronic books, electronic reserves, document delivery, instruction, and virtual reference or chat. Naturally, these same articles describe how technologies (especially CD-ROM, Web, multimedia, and videoconferencing) are used to provide services and to raise awareness of their availability. For example, Tina Adams talks about educating educators to the importance of library services and resources for their distance learning students.

This is a very useful publication for anyone interested in innovative solutions to current problems in distance learning library services. The contributors' index provides a list of active researchers for others who may be seeking research partners. The index provides a list of topics and the institutions where the research was undertaken. The exclusion of Siva Vaidhyanathan's keynote address, "Copyright as an Instrument of Censorship," is regretted. It would have been a valuable addition to the proceedings because of widespread interest in copyright issues across the academy. An excellent complement for locating related current and historical research is Alexander L. Slade's standard work, Library Services for Distance Learning: The Fourth Bibliography, http://uviclib.uvic.ca/dls/bibliography4.html.