| Summary: | March/April, 1991 FLICKERTALE ELECTRONIC UNION CATALOG A MCLEAN-MERCER REALITY Communities in McLean and Mercer counties are rural. Libraries are small. Librarians have dreamed of resource sharing since the McLean-Mercer Library was founded in 1959. Now the eight branches of the system have moved dramatically closer to fulfilling that dream: they have built a working union catalog of local book holdings. The libraries in Turtle Lake, Hazen, and Underwood, with guidance from the State Library, have taken the lead in converting their book holding records into electronic databases. Using Library Works 2.6, an automated library management system, the librarians have taken advantage of the program's ability to export author, title, call number and location information. Source Works 1.2 combines the exported information into an electronic union catalog which runs on a PC at the libraries' headquarters in Riverdaie. In response to an inquiry from a branch librarian or a patron, Riverdaie Librarian Roberta Steckler simply sits down at her terminal and constructs a search. In a matter of minutes she can tell if the book is owned by a branch library. After locating the book, Roberta can have Source Works automatically generate an electronic (EASYLINK) or printed ILL request. This simple search and request process speeds books into the hands of patrons. An in-WATS (800#) system to further increase patron access is now being considered. Updated quarterly, the McLean-Mercer catalog presently provides patrons with access to over 24,000 records of locally-owned books. Public libraries in Max and Beulah will add location records to the catalog this summer. A similar catalog at the State Library provides locations for 52,000 books in other smaller libraries across the state. When the McLean-Mercer branches finish adding location records, the catalog will provide patrons with access to over 89,000 book titles — a shared resource, forming the foundation of an informed central North Dakota. GOVERNOR APPOINTS NEW COUNCIL MEMBERS The Governor's Advisory Council on Libraries, established by the Governor to oversee the distribution of federal Library Services and Construction Act grant funds, held their February 21-22, 1991 meeting at the State Library in Bismarck. Officers elected for the coming year are: Jerry Lamb, Fargo, reelected Council chair, and Helen Jacobs, St. Michael, vice-chair. Newly appointed by Governor Sinner to fill expired terms on the Council are: Judy Ringgenberg, Baldwin, representing institutional libraries; Harry Middaugh, Lansford, representing citizens users; and Margaret Kroll, Belcourt, also representing citizen users. Members whose terms have expired are: Bev Quamme, Fargo; Claryce Erickson, Minot; and Sheila Cofer, Devils Lake. The Council meets quarterly. The next meeting will be held in Bismarck April 28-30 to consider grant applications for 1991-92 LSCA funds. DRIS RECEIVES BREMER GRANT Dakota Radio Information Service is the recipient of one of two Bremer Nonprofit Internship grants awarded in North Dakota. The grant will provide for a college intern to work on a paid, full-time, ten-week project for DRIS during the summer of 1991. The Bremer Nonprofit Internship Program was established by the Otto Bremer Foundation to introduce students to, or make them better informed about, the nonprofit sector and to benefit the sponsoring organization and the community from the work performed by the students. The student hired by DRIS will assist in taping one or two books over the ten-week period and broadcasting portions of them each day, and in designing and implementing a survey of DRIS listeners to discover what changes they would like made in programming and scheduling. DRIS, a radio reading program for persons who can't read standard print, is carried on a Prairie Public Radio subcarrier.
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