The University's long-awaited and much-needed William T Young Library was dedicated Friday April 3, in a ceremony in which the Reverend Theodore Hesburgh, President Emeritus of the University of Notre Dame, was the featured speaker. The $58 million facility replaces the Margaret I King Library as UK's main library. It occupies the center of a 30-acre site known as Clifton Park, south of Columbia Avenue, between Rose Street and Woodland Avenue.

The Library, which combines the humanities, social sciences, and life sciences collections, was designed by the Boston architectural firm of Kallmann McKinnell & Wood. The building, which has five stories and a basement, contains 365,000 square feet, has seating for 4,000, will house 1.2 million volumes, has 57 group study and seminar rooms, and provides 350 faculty study rooms. Young Library features state-of-the-art electronic infrastructure so that full advantage may be taken of today's and tomorrow's technology. The Young Library collection comprises materials not only from King Library but also from the agriculture, biological sciences, and medical center libraries. In conjunction with the move to the new facility, all monographs and journals that had retained Dewey call numbers were reclassified in the Library of Congress system, thus ending years of a split collection.

The booklet prepared for the dedication says of the striking building: "Those knowledgeable in such things will find in the architecture hints of inspiration from medieval monastic libraries and from the great library structures of North America and Europe. Its exterior reflects a Georgian architectural style, but it is a late 20th century contemporary building that delights and surprises both outside and in. ... It is highly symmetrical, roughly octagonal, its five stories topped by a large cupola in the tradition of the Library of Congress and other great libraries." The exterior is brick, cast-stone, and stucco.

In written comments about Young Library, UK President Charles Wethington observed that when he was appointed to that position in 1990 it was his intention "to not only plan for the university's short-term immediate needs, but to move forward in a way that would always keep UK in the vanguard of the educational community. Providing the very best educational tools to our faculty, staff and to the Commonwealth in which we live has been a guidepost for me. With that guiding principle always in mind, I set a goal of constructing a new library to meet critical needs for library and information services for Lexington, in all the community colleges throughout Kentucky, and to serve as a resource for other libraries throughout the state."

Extensive renovations are planned for King Library South and North, and they are to begin before the end of the year. King Library South, on whose top floor the School has been located since 1987, comprises the original 1931 building and a 1963 addition. Plans call for the 1931 building, which is the larger part of King South and the part closer to King North, to house special collections and archives, which now occupies much of King North. The 1963 addition to King South is to become a science and engineering library, comprising the collections from the chemistry-physics, engineering, geology, and math libraries.

King Library North was opened in 1974, and its first and second floors are to become the Lucille C Little Fine Arts Library, which will consist of the current art library, now located in a portion of the basement of King North, and other libraries within the College of Fine Arts. The top floor of King North is to become the home of the School of Library and Information Science. However, as many readers will recall, with the exception of restrooms and a staff lounge in one corner, the floor is entirely open, i.e., without internal walls. Before the School relocates, offices and classrooms will have to be constructed, which will require extensive and expensive changes to the space. At this time no date has been set for the work to begin on the third floor of King North, and thus there is no estimated date for the School's move to that location.

"One of the things a manager learns," Tim Sineath, the School's Director, recently told the NEWSLETTER, "is the importance of agenda, and another, related thing a manager learns is that he or she doesn't have complete control over the agenda. When I agreed to accept the Director's position, I had a short list of things that I thought were the most important for me to direct my attention and efforts to. A major fund-raising was not among them. However, that has changed, and it has changed not because I put it on my agenda, but rather because it was put on my agenda for me. Higher education is increasingly oriented to private fund-raising. UK is no exception, and it's clear to me the School will have to follow suit. A major focus of the School's early fund-raising efforts may be aimed at raising money to equip and furnish our new facilities, which are being planned by the University."

Tim explained he has not settled on the approach fund-raising will take, though he made it clear he has in mind something distinct from the annual phonathon (which this year is to be October 25-29). "We may decide to approach corporations and ask that they fund facilities in our new location. Things that come to mind are equipping a computer lab and outfitting a so-called 'smart' classroom. But whatever form the fund-raising takes, we will turn to our alumni for help in what will be a very important undertaking." As for timing, he said the University is planning a major, general fund-raising, which has not been announced publicly but which he anticipates will be announced soon. "I expect the University's schedule will determine the School's."

Dr. J. David Johnson is the new Dean of the College of Communications and Information Studies, succeeding Douglas Boyd in August. At the time of his selection, Dr. Johnson was Chair of the Department of Communication at Michigan State University, where he earned the Ph.D in 1978. He also held academic positions at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Arizona State University, and the State University of New York at Buffalo. He has served as media research analyst for the US Information Agency.

Dr. Johnson has written three books and three handbook chapters and has published more than 50 articles in refereed journals. He serves on several editorial boards and has been a consulting editor for 17 professional journals. He has received grants from the National Cancer Institute, Michigan Department of Public Health, Michigan Department of Transportation, and National Association of Broadcasters. He has worked extensively in an advisory capacity for various state and federal agencies in the field of health.

Gerry Benoit joined the faculty this fall, and his presence brings added strength to the School, particularly in information technology courses. Gerry, a native of Rhode Island, earned his BA at the University of California, Davis, with majors in French and Russian. He has an MS from Columbia University's School of Library Service, and he has taken courses in US colonial history at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville. He earned the PhD at UCLA. Concerning Professor Benoit, Director Tim Sineath said "I am delighted that we were able to recruit Gerry to the University. I am sure that he will make major contributions to the teaching and research mission of the School."

When Gina Tussey joined the staff in August, as the School's Administrative Assistant, she could be seen as returning. Gina had graduated in 1994 from the College of Communications and Information Studies, of which the School is a part. She received a BS in communications and graduated with departmental honors, and was elected to the communications honor society. Gina came to work at UK in April 1997 through the STEPS program, the University's in-house temporary service. The following month she was hired out of the STEPS program by the Sponsored Projects Office, where she did accounting and financial reporting. "We're very glad to have Gina with us," Tim Sineath told the NEWSLETTER. "She brings the intelligence and enthusiasm that are absolutely essential for the position."

Effective with students entering this fall, program requirements for the School's master's degree have been changed to include the addition of a technology course to the requirements. In order to satisfy the requirement, a student must complete at least one from a group of qualifying courses. They are: LIS636, Microcomputers in Libraries and Information Centers, LIS637, Information Technology, LIS638, Internet Technologies and Information Services, and LIS668, Information Systems Design. There is no increase in the number of credit-hours required to complete the program, which remains 36. The addition of a technology course requirement is formal recognition of the considerable and growing importance of technology in the rapidly changing field of library and information science.

For a number of years residents of several southern Ohio counties who were admitted to the School's master's program were able to take courses at Northern Kentucky University and pay in-state tuition, as the result of a tuition reciprocity agreement between Kentucky and Ohio. The School's Director, Timothy Sineath, recently announced that the agreement will cease as of the end of the summer 1999 term. According to the announcement, anyone currently enrolled, or who becomes enrolled under the existing agreement prior to its ending, will be allowed to complete the degree program and pay in-state tuition for courses taken at NKU, until the end of spring semester 2003, as long as continuous enrollment is maintained and the student continues to reside in the relevant part of southern Ohio.

In a ceremony June 27 at the Library of Congress' Jefferson building, Librarian of Congress Dr James Billington presided at a celebration marking 100 years of Library of Congress Subject Headings, the Big Red Book, which since its inception in 1898 has grown to five big red books. At the birthday celebration, Dr Billington cut the first slice from a "confectionary replica" of one of the volumes of LCSH.

In his remarks, Dr Billington noted "It's not only the five volumes we're celebrating but also the diligent work of catalogers at this Library and cooperating institutions, the Cataloging Policy and Support Office, and the Cataloging Distribution Service, which together are responsible for the publication of this monumental work."

To mark the occasion, LC's Cataloging Distribution Service produced a commemorative set of the Big Red Book. Associate Librarian for Library Services Winston Tabb presented commemorative sets, which had been signed by Dr Billington, to several people who have major involvement with LCSH, including SLIS Professor LOIS CHAN, author of the standard textbook on Library of Congress Subject Headings and the volume Library of Congress Subject Headings: Principles of Structure and Policies for Application.

Lois' article about the inception and evolution of LCSH, "Still Robust at 100: A Century of LC Subject Headings," appears in the August 1998 issue of The Library of Congress Information Bulletin.

An effort to attract area alumni paid off handsomely, and as a result there was a capacity gathering of students, graduates, families, faculty, and staff at the School's annual awards banquet, which was held Friday May 1 at Spindletop Hall. In a break with tradition, the speaker was from outside the field of library and information science; State Senator Ernesto Scorsone gave the Cobb Memorial Lecture. Shane Howard received the student organization's LISSO Leadership Award, and Tim Capehart was presented the faculty's Melody Trosper Award. Former Alumni Association President Judith Gibbons accepted the association's Outstanding Alumnus Award on behalf of John Collins III ('75), who was unable to attend. New members of Beta Phi Mu were initiated.

Members of the graduating class invited to membership in Beta Phi Mu are Micaela Ayers, Donna Barney, Elizabeth Butler, Tim Capehart, Peg Collins, Rhonda Dean, Steve Edscorn, Kristi Garrison, Gwen Green, Carolyn Holthaus, Ryan Hutson, Cynthia Reynolds, Phil Reynolds, Jennifer Riddle, Peter Rivard, Michael Rose, Susan Scheiberg, Eric Schwab, Rhonda Seabolt, Mark Shores, Regina Spurlock, Diane Stone, and MaryLynn Wagner.

John Collins, unable to attend the Awards Banquet to receive the Outstanding Alumnus Award, sent a letter to express his appreciation, and Judith Gibbons read the letter at the banquet:

I am deeply honored to have been chosen as the "Outstanding Alumnus for 1998". I would like to thank the Alumni Association, Tim Sineath and Dennis Carrigan for the opportunity to be recognized in this way. I am sorry that I can't be there with you to accept the award in person. (My wife is even more upset since her heart has always been in Bluegrass country.)

It seems like only a short time ago that Linda and I and our three-year old daughter, Hannah, loaded everything we owned into a U-Haul truck and headed to Lexington from Massachusetts. I went to school every day, Hannah went to day care, and Linda supported us working with the horses at Keeneland with trainer John Ward. It was a great time in our lives.

I found myself thoroughly engaged in my studies, working with a group of faculty that I still consider to be the best that I ever had. The University became a special place for me and my classmates. We'd see each other in and out of class. Regularly the faculty would be part of our extra-curricular education at evening events, dinner parties, or in after class discussions. They were always available.

The education that I received in library school prepared me well for the real world - and I'm not just talking about my first job. Even today I am benefiting from the education that I received at U.K. I'm very proud to be an alumnus. Thank you again for this wonderful award. It means a great deal to me.

The School received a grant from the US Department of Education, to fund four Fellowships in School Media Librarianship. The funding is provided under the Higher Education Act Title II-B. Among priority areas in library and information science education, the Secretary of Education identified training persons in specializations where there are shortages, such as school media and children's services. In its application, the School pointed out that the 1990 Kentucky Education Reform Act calls for improvements in school library services and that Kentucky faces a severe shortage of school library media specialists. Fellowships, in the amount of $14,000 plus tuition and fees, were awarded to Sara Garrison, Toni Moore, Rebecca Smith, and Rebecca Watson.

Robert Webb, who entered the School's master's program this fall, received a Graduate School Multi-Year Fellowship to pursue the MSLS degree. The Fellowship, one of only 10 awarded among all graduate programs, is for $15,000 plus tuition. Robert graduated from Transylvania University with a perfect 4.0 grade point average. He majored in computer science. Multi-Year Fellowships are designed to attract outstanding graduate students to UK.

Near the end of August we received an e-mail letter from SUSAN SCHEIBERG ('97), who, at the time, was a Reference/Collection Development Librarian at Doheny Library, which is the main graduate research library at the University of Southern California. Susan wrote:

Things are going well at USC. In fact, I have been offered and have accepted a promotion, and as of September 1st I will be the serials librarian for the university. Not the usual career track for a reference librarian, but this position will make good use of my experience in serials and acquisitions [at the University of Louisville], and I really do love the challenge (the horror! the horror!) that serials present. I'm eager to get up and going -- we have a lot of problems in serials control, holdings, and we are still not fully automated for serials (there hasn't been a serials librarian for about two years). I have also been given the duties of bibliographer and liaison for the Annenberg School of Communications, the Journalism school, and the psychology department, so I have a lot of work ahead of me. Things will heat up very soon, as I'm sure is the case at Kentucky.

One of my summer projects was to spearhead a weeding project in the Reference Center, and work with two other librarians in weeding their collections (Education and Social Work) to facilitate a merger of their libraries into this one. The collection development course mantras were on my mind constantly!

We thought it was about time for JOHN SIMS ('75) to check in, and sure enough, he filed this report:

I'm now Library Director for the VA's Southern California System of Clinics, and am responsible for our medical libraries in downtown LA and the San Fernando Valley, and for library services to our clinics as far away as Bakersfield and Santa Barbara. We are also in the process of integrating with the West Los Angeles VA facilities, so I expect more to do in the near future. On balance I'm happy with the challenges and rewards of life in Los Angeles, and enjoy tending my lemon tree and my collection of dark glasses.

On the personal side, I'm kind of a soccer mom, I guess. Daughter DeShana is now 12, and very active, as are all kids today, in as many things as possible. I mostly drive and write checks. I note with envy that many folks are retiring. No danger of that for me, since daughter's college graduation appears unlikely before 2008. I suspect that at that time they'll wheel me straight from the auditorium to the nursing home. If, however, that happy day finds me ambulatory, I hope to retire to my piney-woods 20 acres in the Tehachapi Mountains north of LA. Since the property is far away from the 'grid,' as they say, I expect to fool around with wind power and solar panels. Looking forward to it.

We also received a nice letter from JAMES LUTZ ('96), who is Computer Services Librarian, Mary Couts Burnett Library, Texas Christian University:

Time flies when you are having fun. Katherine is now 7 months old and we have been in our house for a year. I have just finished spending a $155,000 grant from TTI, Inc. to upgrade our library's computer lab. We had 21 90mhz pentiums of which 11 are in the new lab, we added 32 200mhz machines with 17inch monitors, and two 400mhz 17inch monitor workstations with Zip Drives, CD-ROM Recordable/Writable, Digital Video Cameras, and a flatbed scanner and photo/negative/slide scanner. We also purchased three laptops for checkout and use in the building. We may even take a trip to UK to see how you all are doing the laptop program at the William T Young Library.

I now have a full time staff position to manage and 14 student assistants. It is keeping me busy. Get to go to Access98 conference in October in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada. Will be going to visit my Sister-in-law in Australia over Christmas holiday. That's all the news from Texas for now.

In April, we received an interesting report from DANNY MCMILLION ('90), along with photocopies of newspaper articles which confirm that none of what she reported was only a bad dream:

In December 1996 I became director of the Raleigh County Public Library [Beckley, WV]. Within two weeks, the assistant director and her secretary quit. They had been responsible for the bookkeeping and finances of the library. I found $55,000 of unpaid, unopened bills on a table amidst all the junk mail in her office. I had to take over the job of bookkeeper until I found someone. Fortunately I found a wonderful accountant willing to work for what I could pay her. Things went along pretty good until June 1997. The library had been neglected for a long time, both the physical plant and the collection. June 1st I closed the library to rearrange the collection and clean and paint, etc.

We did very well, moved all the books, rearranged and washed shelves, etc. On Saturday at 6 pm the carpet cleaners had just left when the janitor noticed a funny sound coming from a closet. An eight-inch water main had broken and was dumping thousands of gallons of water a minute just beyond the concrete basement wall. By the time I got to the library we had inches of water in every room there. Called the water company and the person said "Sounds like you have a problem, but it is your problem. Call a plumber," which I said I had done. "Oh, well, your plumber will know what to do when he gets there."

By that time the fire alarms were going off because water pressure to the sprinkler system had dropped. The plumber broke through a secured door, and the security company responded. The fire department arrived with bells clanging. A neighbor swears he saw smoke coming from the roof. I gave the security alarm key to two men to turn off the damn security alarm. Ten minutes later I went back to see why the noise was still going on and discovered they had managed to unlock the box and were standing there blankly staring at the innards of the thing. I reached across their shoulders and said, as sweetly as I could manage, "Maybe if you just pull these two wires apart...." Blessed silence.

The fire department captain phoned the water company to come turn off the main under the street. I overheard him say some "magic words" that cannot be printed, and presto! the water company was there in 15 minutes. I'm going to have to learn those magic words even if they are decidedly unlady like. Next, the plumber told me the sump pump was overloaded. The water was six inches deep, and I was trying to get books, financial records, computers, supplies, etc up out of the water.

The fire department guys were wonderful; they brought machines and sucked up the water. My secretary notified the media of our emergency, and people showed up with wet/dry vacs. At 2:00 am things were looking pretty good. The water was out and fans were running. The computer was down, but Hewlett Packard assured us that if the machine stayed down until it dried out, it would be all right. So, I went home.

I went back to the library at 7:00 am to check on things and discovered that the sump pump had quit working and everything was flooded again. It took 14 long, hard hours to clean up the mess the second time. I even hired a man to baby-sit the sump pump that night. To top everything, the board said we had to open to the public Monday because "We have tried the patience of the public by being closed for cleaning last week." This, in spite of the fact there was no water in the building. It took a week to have water restored. We finally had a dowser locate the break in the water pipe under the library's lovely courtyard, after the water company had dug three holes and failed to find the break.

The fall of 1997, before the courtyard was completely restored, lightning struck the building, knocking out the power and frying three bar code readers and two backups. No long after that we had a monsoon, the flat roof of the library filled like a swimming pool and leaked like a sieve. It cost $30,000 for a new roof and another $3,000 to get the ceiling repaired.

One Sunday in January of this year I discovered police cars at the library and stepped through the plate glass window and called out to the officers who were searching the building. A thief had picked up the cigarette stubbing box out front and smashed the window, intending to steal the coin box at the copy machine. The coin box was strapped to the machine by a steel cable, and so he managed to wreck the copy machine without getting the coin box. He did make off with a donation box.

Later that month serious snow began to fall, and by the time it quit 24 hours later several buildings had collapsed in Beckley. The lovely wooden laminate beams in the library had had about all they could take and began to crack. We hastily called an engineer, who promptly closed and evacuated the building. An engineer from Kentucky, experienced in laminate beams, was called in to assess the damage and design a quick fix until a permanent fix could be designed and implemented.

I bet no graduate can top this.

When LINDA CANTARA ('98) entered the School's Master's program the fall semester 1996, she could have had no idea that in September 1998, one month after she finished the program, she would make a presentation at the Digital Resources in the Humanities Conference in Glasgow, Scotland. We asked Linda to tell NEWSLETTER readers what led to Glasgow and also to her decision to enter the master's program in English at UK:

Last summer [i.e., 1997], in anticipation of returning to SLIS in the fall, I was considering an independent study project in book preservation, but in the course of my internet research on the subject, I discovered Text Encoding Initiative (TEI), an application of Standard General Markup Language (SGML), the international standard for markup of electronic text. TEI was designed by and for humanities scholars to make it possible for scholars to share their electronic work with each other; so many encoding schemes were being used that it was almost impossible for them to do so until TEI. I was intrigued, and decided to do independent study on the digital preservation of primary resources in the humanities.

When I went looking for a faculty advisor, I discovered that TEI-SGML was so new that no one in the UK Library System felt s/he had the expertise to direct my project. Consequently, I gave up on the idea and had even registered for a full load of classes for spring semester when I ran into an English professor I had studied with as an undergraduate. I told her about my aborted project and she asked why I hadn't asked Kevin Kiernan, the editor of the Electronic Beowulf project. I replied that Professor Kiernan's project is image-focused, that I wanted to learn text encoding and I presumed he would not be interested. When she told me that he was going to open a research site for computing in the humanities at Young Library and that he might be in need of a research assistant, I decided to talk with him.

Professor Kiernan was very receptive to my ideas and recognized that I had already done quite a bit of research. He agreed to direct my project, but suggested that I work on something that he was also working on, and that's how I found myself working with digital images of damaged Old English manuscript fragments.

I have given two presentations on my research at UK, once for the Center for Computational Sciences and again for the College of Communications Graduate Student Symposium. I also gave a presentation at the 33rd International Congress on Medieval Studies at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo in May. And, in addition to presenting my work at the Digital Resources in the Humanities '98 Conference in Glasgow, Scotland, I will be giving a talk as part of the Research in Computing for Humanities (RCH) Lecture Series at UK in October.

In July I prepared a case study for the Text Encoding Summer School (TESS) at Oxford University based on my research in the extensibility of the TEI Guidelines for Electronic Text Encoding and Interchange to the encoding of damaged Old English manuscript fragments. My case study is now available via the 'participants' page of the Research in Computing for Humanities (RCH) webpage at http://www.rch.uky.edu/index.html.

What has all this to do with librarianship? Libraries are the keepers of the intellectual and cultural heritage of our civilization. As custodians of the books and manuscripts of the past, librarians have an obligation to insure that future generations will be able to access these works. Anglo-Saxon manuscripts provide a rare glimpse of an art form which preceded the invention of the printing press. In addition, books printed since the mid-nineteenth century, when inexpensive, acidic paper became available, are disintegrating at an alarming rate and the intellectual content of many of these books, particularly those by forgotten women who's works were not accepted into the canon of literature, will be lost forever if not converted to a different format. TEI-SGML provides a means of reformatting rare books and manuscripts into a form which can be accessed by thousands via electronic networks. Not only can they be saved, but they can be made available in a new and interactive form, creating new possibilities for research and study.

I am pursing an advanced degree in English with a concentration in humanities computing to supplement my MSLS degree in preparation for a career as a digital resources librarian, particularly in the humanities. This is a new and exciting field, combining traditional scholarly investigation of the literature of the past with the computer applications of the future. After completing an MA in English, I anticipate securing employment in an academic research library, where I can assist faculty and students in the creation of electronic documents, provide instruction in the methods and techniques necessary to do so, and continue my own research.

PATRICIA LARSEN ('69) is Dean and Director of the Library, California State University, Sacramento.

SUSAN CARPENTER ('73) is Assistant Librarian, Kentucky Christian College, Grayson, KY.

PAMELA GAITSKILL ('75) let us know she has been elected President of the Illinois Library Association for 1998-99. She continued: "I look forward to a very challenging and interesting year, given the explosion of telecommunications that has changed the traditional functions of the libraries. One of the major goals of the ILA is to bring this technology to every library in Illinois through grants and other means of funding that will allow each and every person in Illinois to be a part of that 'Information Highway.'"

After more than a decade as Director of the School of Information Resources and Library Science at the University of Arizona, CHARLIE HURT ('75) has left that position and has been appointed Associate Dean for Academic Affairs for the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences at Arizona.

JOHN SIMS ('75) is Library Director for the Veterans Administration Southern California System of Clinics.

While continuing in her position as Librarian II at Bull Run Regional Library, Prince William County Libraries, VA, Dr CONSTANCE GILMAN ('76) has begun a consulting company, Library and Information Management. Unfortunately, we can't make out the e-mail address that she sent.

HANNAH PICKWORTH ('77) is Lower School Librarian, Key School, an independent school in Annapolis, MD.

ANNE ABATE ('86) has been awarded the PhD by Nova Southeastern University, where she did her work in the School of Computer and Information Sciences.

BONNIE JEAN COX ('86) is an Electronic Texts Librarian, William T Young Library, University of Kentucky.

CAROLYN PARSONS ('86) shares a Bibliographic Instruction position in the reference department at Mary Washington College, Fredericksburg, VA. Carolyn added: "When I'm not at the library, my time is spent with husband, Brian, and children, Abby (5) and Collin (1 1/2). My job there includes everything from chef and chauffeur to great sandcastle builder. Their questions can top those on the reference desk most days!" We don't doubt it.

CANDY SHERRY ('87) has been appointed Reference/Cataloging Librarian at Northwestern College, St Paul, MN.

The peripatetic JEFF WEDDLE ('88) has moved from Mississippi to Maine, and now is Director of the Topsham Public Library. Our envy is considerable.

CARLA RACHEL RAMEY ('89) sent us a note a short while ago. She reported she had left the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County in May of this year and was "unemployed thereafter." And gainfully so, we trust.

MARIANNA WELLS ('90) has retired -- this time for good -- from the position Director of the Geology/Physics Library at the University of Cincinnati. Marianna, Associate Librarian Emerita, had returned to the University of Cincinnati Libraries on annual appointments to head the Geology/Physics Library.

REBECCA BUTLER ('91) is Assistant Professor, College of Education, Northern Illinois University.

MARK CAVE ('91) let us know he continues as Archivist at the Historic New Orleans Collection, where he has been for the past four years.

After seven years at the University of New Hampshire as Head of Acquisitions/Serials, TERRI-LEIGH HINKLE ('91) accepted the position Acquisitions Librarian at Simmons College Libraries, Boston. Terri-Leigh let Tim Sineath know she will teach part-time for our sister school at Simmons and plans to enroll in the Doctor of Arts in Library Science program.

MARIE ROBERTSON ('91) wrote to let us know she is still Cataloging Supervisor at BWI, "a growing children's specialist book vendor" here in Lexington.

After 29 years of service to Bracken County Schools, KY, SANDRA WOOD ('91) has retired. The last ten years she was Library Media Specialist at Taylor Elementary School.

LINDA GROMEN ('92) is Branch Supervisor of the Miami Township Branch of the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County.

VALERIE ESTES PERRY ('94) has joined the staff at the Agriculture Information Center, College of Agriculture, UK.

The National Digital Library Program of the Library of Congress has chosen 50 middle and high school librarians and teachers to participate in the 1998 American Memory Fellows Program. Among them is LYDIA DIMARTINO ('96), who is on the staff at Burgin Independent School, KY.

TOM FINLEY ('96) is Library Manager, Western Illinois University Regional Center Branch, Moline, IL. Tom wrote: "With a brand-new facility, my challenge has been to start up the branch library and it has been quite a ride the last nine months. This is exactly the type of position I had envisioned when I decided to go to grad school, and I'm VERY happy with my situation."

LORI CRIDER FULTZ ('96) is Corporate Librarian at Amos Press, Inc, Sidney, OH.

AL LANG ('96) is Technical Services Librarian and Archivist, Carson-Newman College, Jefferson City, TN.

TRICIA RACKE ('96) is a Client Support Representative at Gaylord Information Systems in Syracuse, NY.

MARGARET GROESCHEN ('97) has joined the library staff at Xavier University, Cincinnati.

SANDY KOONTZ ('97) has let us know she is employed by Sanad Support Technologies, a Maryland-based firm that won the contract to become the facility manager of the Scott Air Force Base library, in Illinois. Sandy is Head of Acquisitions and Cataloging.

We have it on good authority that MONTIE MANNING ('97) is head of a branch in the Louisville Free Public Library system.

PHIL REYNOLDS ('97), who was Assistant Director, East Texas Research Center, Stephen F Austin State University, has been promoted to Head of Access Services, Steen Library, at that institution. In his announcement of Phil's appointment, Library Director Alvin Cage said: "Mr Reynolds was selected for this position after a nationwide search. He has been serving admirably as Acting Campus Webmaster.... We are fortunate to have someone of his ability on hand to take over this important job."

SUSAN SCHEIBERG ('97) has been promoted to Serials Librarian for the University of Southern California. As Susan pointed out, an unusual career move for a reference librarian, but one that allows her to capitalize on experience.

FRAN ACREE is Librarian 1, Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County, assigned to the Sharonville Branch.

JENNIFER KAYE ARNOLD is Library Director at the Whitesburg Branch of Southeast Community College, KY.

SUE BROSS has joined the library staff at Mount Saint Joseph College, in Cincinnati.

LINDA CANTARA has entered the Master's program in English, University of Kentucky.

TIM CAPEHART accepted the position Head of Children's Services in the Leominster Public Library, MA.

ANNA CUMMINS is Library Media Specialist, Taylor Elementary School, Brooksville, KY.

CHERIE DOHERTY has joined the staff at the Campbell County Public Library, in northern Kentucky, as a Reference Librarian assigned to the Cold Spring branch.

STEVE EDSCORN accepted the position Reference and Instruction Librarian, Northwestern State University, Natchitoches, LA. Ever the reference librarian, Steve passed along two bits of relevant information. Natchitoches is pronounced "Nack a dish" (We assume accent on the Nack.); it is the oldest settlement in the Louisiana Purchase, settled in 1714.

SUSAN FOSTER-HARPER accepted the position Reference and Instruction Librarian at the Schoenbaum Library, University of Charleston, WV. Susan wrote: "Situated in the new Clay Tower, it is directly across from the State Capitol building on the banks of the Kanawha River. Visitors would be most welcome!"

HELEN CAINE FRANKLIN is Coordinator, Homebound Services, Louisville Free Public Library.

CARRIE HERRMANN is Assistant Branch Manager, Campbell County Public Library, Ft Thomas, KY.

CAROLYN HOLTHAUS BOLAND is working as a Programmer/Analyst at the College of Mount Saint Joseph, in Cincinnati. "The pay is good, the environment is great, and it's so very close to home." Seems to us it wants only free lunch to be perfection.

DEBORAH JONAS is on the staff of the Boyd County Public Library, Ashland, KY.

DENISE MCFARLIN is on the staff of the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County, Green Township Branch.

KURT METZMEIER is Coordinator of Information Systems and Services, College of Law Library, UK.

CANDACE NICKLES is Library Media Specialist, Beaver Creek Elementary School, Topmost, KY.

STACY OSBORNE is School Library Media Specialist, Grandview Elementary School, Bellevue, KY.

POLLY PRICE has joined the staff at the Louisville Free Public Library.

KEVIN PROFFITT is Chief Archivist, American Jewish Archives, Cincinnati.

JENNIFER RIDDLE is Director of the Whitley County Public Library, Williamsburg, KY.

BOB SAFFELL has joined the staff at Ovid Technologies, Inc, as a Quality Assurance Analyst, and he and his wife very much look forward to relocating to Utah.

MARK SHORES accepted a Reference Librarian position at the University of Arkansas at Monticello. A Minnesota native, Mark wrote: "Now that I've had a taste of humidity, I thought I'd go where it's even hotter! But you Minnesotans should call me in January and we'll compare temperatures."

ELIZABETH SMIGIELSKI is an Associate Fellow at the National Library of Medicine.

JENNIFER STROBEL is on the staff of the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County, at the Main Library.

PATTY SZUSZKIEWICZ is Youth Services Librarian, Bethel Branch, Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County.

MARY LYNN WAGNER is Library Administrator at the law firm Keating, Muethiny & Klekamp, Cincinnati.

PARIS WEBB is on the staff of the library at Ashland Community College, Ashland, KY.

TODD WILLIAMSON is YA Librarian, Williamsburg Regional Public Library, VA.