Tag Archives: Cornell

A discussion with Karen Calhoun

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Tomorrow during class, Karen Calhoun, Associate University Librarian for Technical Services at Cornell, will be a guest to discuss the report she authored for the Library of Congress, entitled “The Changing Nature of the Catalog and its Integration with Other Discovery Tools.” I am really thankful that Karen so graciously agreed to meet online with my students and others from the UIUC GSLIS community and this final class session is one I have been anticipating with excitement for a long time. Karen’s report was part of required reading for class and the themes and issues it contains have cropped up time and again throughout this entire semester. I remember, for instance, with what passion the UIUC technical services librarians who met with the class on the first day discussed the report and its implications. This made a big impression on the class.

I have no idea how many people will tune in to join the online discussion but I suspect it will be quite a few, perhaps as many as 40 or 50 people. The report and Karen’s visit to the class tomorrow have generated a lot of interest among other faculty in the school as well as from other parts of the extended GSLIS community. Mark Lindner will do his sterling job as usual in terms of broadcasting the session and I know that he, too, is really looking forward to it.

Ross Atkinson dies

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Yesterday I was saddened by the news that Ross Atkinson, Associate University Librarian at Cornell, had died. I never met him but I’ve read many of his writings, so my view of him is definitely second hand at best. My opinion is that Ross was one of the most important thinkers regarding libraries, collections, and acquisitions of the past several decades. I thoroughly enjoyed his writing style, his deep and sometimes provocative thoughts, and his perspectives on important issues. One of his articles (Toward a Redefinition of Library Services” (In Virtually Yours. Chicago, ALA, 1999; p. 3-21)Find in My Library) is a required introductory reading to the course I teach and it invariably sparks a lot of discussion. Other articles or writings of his are also part of the course. If you don’t know much about him or are interested in his writings, I highly recommend that you find a copy of Community, Collaboration, and Collections: the Writings of Ross Atkinson published in 2005 by the American Library Association. Here is the complete citation in Chicago Manual of Style format:

Atkinson, Ross, Robert Alan, and Bonnie MacEwan. Community, Collaboration, and Collections : The Writings of Ross Atkinson. Chicago: Association for Library Collections & Technical Services, 2005.Find in My Library