CODES Report

CODES Liaison with Users Committee

It is good to report that after two long years of work, the CODES Liaison with Users Committee program “The Plowman and the Rancher Should be Friends: A Comparison and discussion of Liaison Duties in Public and Academic Libraries” went off with nary a hitch at ALA Annual 2008 in Anaheim, California.  The panel comprised of LWU current and former members Donna Colamatteo, Elisabeth Leonard, and Peter Larsen moderated by Bruce Reid addressed results of a survey conducted in 2006 pertaining to specifics of liaison work, governance, institutional dynamics; internal and external customer relations and various perceptions thereof.    Panelist Ridie Wilson Ghezzi from Baker-Berry Library at Dartmouth College described the program they designed to provide training and guidelines for library liaisons to academic departments throughout the college.

Further investigation of the presentation in its PowerPoint format should be found on the ALA Conference wiki, or please contact either Bruce Reid or Donna Colamatteo if you are interested in more information. Attendance was strong, over 160 chairs were occupied, few people left, and we had a number of good questions at 5:30 pm. Current committee members plan to build on this work and obvious interest in the topic and offer a workshop along the lines of “Library Liaison Work 101” with both a public and academic twist.

Our committee meeting on Sunday, June 29th drew six members, three of these new to our work who attended the program on Saturday and came to the table with good ideas and enthusiasm, welcome ingredients indeed.

Looking forward to a good year and time invested on our current goal: examination and revision of our Committee Guidelines.

Submitted by Donna Colamatteo, Liaison with Users Co-Chair

CODES Reference Publishing Advisory Committee

The Reference Publishing Advisory Committee of ALA/RUSA/CODES is currently planning to host at the 2009 ALA Midwinter Meeting a discussion forum on the topic of Web 2.0 and reference publishing.  The focus of the forum will be publishers’ perspectives on the topic.  Representatives from several reference publishers will be invited to speak.  The event will be held on Jan. 26, 2009, 10:30 – 12:00.  The room location is not yet determined.

Cooperative Collection Development Committee, CODES/STARS

The committee began planning for future forums and programs. We hope to have a forum on database licensing language for ILL and collection development librarians at ALA Annual 2009 and a forum on current models for shared storage of print collections at Midwinter 2009. Several other interesting ideas including subject-based cooperative collection development schemes and shared purchase of various formats were also discussed. One of these topics may be developed into a formal program at Annual 2010. The committee also hopes to develop best-practice clearinghouses for some of these topics using the committee’s wiki.