Scholarship, Instruction and Libraries at the Turn of the Century: : Results from the Five Task Forces Appointed by the American Council of Learned Societies and the Council on Library and Information Resources

Citation

Premkamolnetr, N. (1999), "Scholarship, Instruction and Libraries at the Turn of the Century: : Results from the Five Task Forces Appointed by the American Council of Learned Societies and the Council on Library and Information Resources", Asian Libraries, Vol. 8 No. 8, pp. 297-298. https://doi.org/10.1108/al.1999.8.8.297.1

Digital technology is currently having a great impact on ways of teaching, learning and researching; however,“neither a synthesis nor an overview of digital developments has yet emerged in the fields of higher education and research” (p. 1). Furthermore, few attempts have been made to assess on a national scale what directions might be taken to ensure that librarians and scholars continue to work well with one another.

The American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) and the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) combined to “consider changes in the process of scholarship and instruction that will result from the use of digital technology and to make recommendations to ensure that libraries continue to serve the research needs of scholars” (p. 1). ACLS and CLIR appointed 36 people ‐ scholars, librarians and leaders of various academic enterprises ‐ to five task forces, each of which examined a single type of scholarly resource: area studies, audio materials, manuscript materials, monographs and journals, visual materials. Each task force met separately in the 1997‐1998 academic year and then gathered as a plenary task force for a day in June 1998 “to consider threats to, and opportunities in, amassing, providing access to, and preserving collections for current and future generations of scholars, students, and citizens” (p. 1).

This report presents the results drawn from each task force, which included a range of concerns, as well as recommendations for specific actions to be taken by library professionals and possible ACLS‐CLIR programme initiatives. A list of participants, all recommendations made by the five task forces, ACLS‐CLIR programme initiatives, and other ACLS‐CLIR projects are separately reported in Appendixes A‐D.

I recommend this report to librarians and other information professionals, specifically those who work in academic and research institutions. As librarians still have concerns about how to manage and operate their resources and services to best serve the academic community in the electronic age, this report is well worth reading for possible solutions that might be adopted in specific settings.