The JoMC library and its director continue to play an expanding role in the School's research and educational mission. The librarian, in addition to her principle duties associated with management of the School's information services and collections, serves as a teacher, researcher, archivist and Internet coach to both students, faculty and staff.
The library actively participates in preparing our students to play significant roles in mass communication in the 21st century. To do its job well, the library must fully support the School as it creates a quality program including the finest traditional educational methods, the best advanced technologies with the most valuable research collections.
Nearly 260 titles in journalism and mass communication were added to the book collection this year. Cataloging software, Sydney Plus from International Library Services, Inc. purchased in Spring 1992, is permitting the library to create a subject catalog of texts, reference books, research reports and videotapes. With the assistance of a graduate student in library and information science working 10 hours per weekk, over 1,000 titles have been cataloged to date. We expect the cataloging pace to increase so that we can complete the backlog of nearly 4,000 titles within the next four to five years. Before the Fall 1995 semester begins, the library will have a computer terminal designated exclusively for searching our in-house online catalog.
Our major goal is to catalog books in such a way as to permit students and faculty to search the collection by any relevant subject term. That means that we are creating our own subject thesaurus (currently numbering over 2,400 subject terms and cross references) as well as designing a unique book classification scheme appropriate for mass communication studies. As such, it will offer much more precise subject access than the limited Library of Congress subject headings and classification. In time this online catalog will have the capability of generating reports as needed according to title, author, series and subject.
Cataloging of the graduate student papers and honor's essays continues. As of April 1995, over 400 of these papers have been bound and cataloged as a part of our permanent collection. As with the books, this special collection has its own thesaurus and classification scheme.
Serial subscription rates continue to escalate. These increased costs are straining the library's budget. Reduction in the number of newspaper and magazine titles began in 1992 continues in order to control costs. Although scholarly journals also increased in cost at a similar rate, these titles were not reduced. The more popular titles have been eliminated. It was reasoned that these periodicals could be obtained from other libraries on the UNC-CH campus. Generally, the library has kept within its budgetary allowances except in this area.
Instruction in Internet services begins with helping students acquire their unique e-mail addresses. Subsequently they are introduced to telnet and ftp functions, gopher servers and wide world web browsers. Many of our student are online subscribers to Internet mailing lists especially attractive to journalism and mass communication majors.
In addition to helping students navigate the Internet, the library director has developed a her own "home page" on the web. It is linked to the School's home page and offers Netscape browsers information about the North Carolina newspapers the library subscribes to, the scholarly periodicals that are bound and library "pathfinders" created for each sequence. This home page is still in development and will, in time, serve the needs not only of students currently enrolled in the School, but future applicants as well.
Online database services have increased. An estimated number of 3,000 online searches were done by library staff, students and faculty in 1994-95. Compared to the 2,400 online searches in 1993- 94, growth in use is obvious.
In addition to Nexis/Lexis, DataTimes and Dialog, the library has remote access to several scholarly bibliographic databases such as Academic Index, Business Index and Index to Newspapers and Periodicals offered on the UNC-CH Online Library Catalog menu. Featured among these is the CARL UnCover database and document delivery system from Colorado which offers subject/author access (and occasionally brief abstracts) to the tables of contents of nearly 20,000 journals, over 200 of which are central to mass communication research. Full text of such Government Printing Offices' publications such as bill texts, federal regulations and laws is now available. Expanded access and use of the UNC-CH's IRSS polling data and the North Carolina Statistical Database is particularly valuable to our students.
Most of our graduate and undergraduate students in all of our sequences have used these databases to conduct literature searches, follow legislation, track polls, collect statistics and focus on events in newspaper, broadcast and magazine stories. This computer- assisted research is reflected in their course assignments, honor's essays, MA theses, and doctoral dissertations.
With funding from an IBM special grant, the library was able to acquire in January 1995 a multimedia PC computer with a CD-ROM drive, an optical disk drive, a large capacity hard disk and a high-speed modem. Plans are under way to create a "visual" catalog of the library's collection videocassettes. As soon as authoring software and a video display board arrive, the project will be launched.
Library instructional services continued with the Database Journalism course, JoMC 191.1, taught in the Spring semester. A PhD student and the School's network manager collaborated in teaching the course. This is the fifth year this course has been offered. Special features of the course include training in spreadsheet programs, elementary statistics, DOS, geographical information systems, the Internet and database marketing as well as online database searching. Student projects demonstrated their grasp of online search strategies and access to computerized government data.
Additional activities in teaching and promoting reference and
research skills related to the JoMC undergraduate curriculum. In
the Fall '94 and Spring '95 semesters the librarian made
presentations in 13 classes with nearly 280 students. These
presentations focused on:
Conducting group/class instruction and demonstrations using
computer-assisted research
Distributing special reference guides and course/project-
specific pathfinders
Offering instruction in using UNC Data Network and e-mail on
Internet
Providing instruction and demonstrations using state
government databases and Carolina Polls
Providing instruction and access to commercial online
databases (full-text, abstracts, directories and national polling
data)
Other instructional projects included:
Offering computer tutorials for spelling, grammar and database
protocols
Offering individual reference/research consultations
(conducting literature searches)
Continuing networking with campus libraries to promote and
establish user-friendly student access to the rich (but not always
easy to find) resources for class projects; conducting tours,
collecting and distributing campus libraries' handouts
Developing special JoMC reference collections in such areas as
media law, polls and polling, visual communications, broadcasting,
public relations, advertising, writing and journalism history
Updating the JoMC student papers database of dissertations,
theses and honors essays
Expanding the JoMC computerized book/reports/AV catalog to
provide subject access to the entire collection (including
reference materials, reserved and recommended readings)
Collecting mass communication bibliographies
A substantive effort is underway by the librarian to determine the space needs for the JoMC library in the 1990's and into the 21st century. Basic considerations and projections of library staff, student and faculty information needs and the continued growth and sophistication of technological advancement of library collections and services are included. Current library space limitations are documented. Estimates of library use are offered and space allocations proposed for the anticipated move to Carroll Hall in three years. The report and accompanying floorplan is available upon request.
Semonche was featured in the Summer 1995 UNC Journalist article on technology. She was also selected by the Special Libraries Association as a Fellow of SLA. She was further honored by the News Division for meritorious lifetime achievement with the presentation of Joseph F. Kwapil Award at the annual conference in Montreal, Canada. During 1994-95 she served on the NC Chapter of SLA board of directors.
She also served on two faculty committees: the search committee for the media futurist and the planning committee for Journalism and Mass Communication Days.
The library director was involved in several Internet seminars. One in late Spring was designed for North Carolina school superintendents. The other in mid-November was created for North Carolina newspaper reporters. Semonche, John Conway and Ranjeev Singh collaborated on the day-long workshop. Both events were held in the Friday Center.
Respectfully submitted by:
Barbara P. Semonche
Director, JoMC Library
May 15, 1995