ACRL's Mission
The Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) provides leadership for development, promotion and improvement of academic and research library resources and services to facilitate learning, research, and scholarly communication process. ACRL promotes the highest level of professional excellence for librarians and library personnel in order to serve the users of academic and research libraries.

Every Librarian a Leader

Message from the President
Message from the Vice-President
Message from the Executive Director
Year in Review
Board of Directors
Executive Summary
Financial Report
ACRL Staff

Message from the President

Patricia Senn Breivik
ACRL's 57th President

The past year for ACRL was one in which a great many people worked very hard to accomplish a great deal. It was a good fast start toward achieving the goals of the ACRL Strategic Plan adopted by the ACRL Board of Directors at the Annual Conference in 1995.

In keeping with Goal 4, the ACRL Board and Executive Committee held telephone conference calls before each of their meetings in order to get things rolling at a fast clip, and operations were streamlined. The Planning Committee was eliminated. All other committees were challenged to rethink their changes in keeping with the new plan; the Membership and Professional Liaison Committees were completely restructured.

The Government Relations Committee and Chapters' Council worked together to develop a better process to monitor, respond to, and initiate actions on the national and state political scenes on issues of concern to the future of academic libraries. ACRL sections began rethinking their priorities and reporting on their activities as related to the Strategic Plan.

We also took seriously our membership's priority for quality continuing education as reflected in Goal 1. The President's Program, "Every Librarian a Leader," provided a three-part, in-depth workshop on leadership beyond library walls that ended in a standing ovation and proved that our membership will respond positively to different programming formats if we supply the quality.

Particularly promising, however, in regard to ACRL's being able to influence the higher education environment has been ACRL's increased networking with other higher education organizations through the new Council of Liaisons, the National Forum on Information Literacy, and especially through regional accrediting agencies projects which continue to emerge from the 1994 information literacy survey that was sent to every U.S. campus through their regional accrediting liaisons. These efforts and the higher education invitational summit already in the planning stage for 1997-98 will go a long way toward meeting the challenges of Goals 2 and 3.

My thanks and gratitude to the ACRL members and staff who helped to make this possible.

Message from the Vice-President

William Miller
Vice-President/President-Elect

During 1996-97, the association will be integrating the new Strategic Plan into all aspects of our operations. We have challenged ourselves to strike out in new areas such as working with other higher-education associations and influencing national information policy. New innovations such as our Legislative Network will be established during the course of this coming year, and our new Council of Liaisons will begin its work in earnest.

In order to improve our services, the Membership Committee will hold focus groups with both new and continuing members to find out how we can serve them better. The Leadership Retention Task Force will also hold focus group sessions with member leaders to discover how we can best serve them and, in turn, strengthen the association through their efforts.

Continuing and Distance Education will be major concerns for the Professional Development Committee, which will look at the delivery of high-quality programs through a variety of mechanisms to multiple or serial locations, in order to provide added opportunities for those who cannot attend one-time only, traditional conference programs. The Conference Streamlining Task Force will investigate ways to maximize the value of conference programming to our membership.

Over the past year, the Board has discussed how the relationship between ACRL and its chapters could be strengthened. This discussion has resulted in the development of a document called "ACRL and Its Chapters: Benefits and Challenges for the Future," which has been sent to a task force consisting of Board members, Budget and Finance Committee members, and chapter members for development and refinement.

The Professional Enhancement Committee will develop materials this year which will better enable us to tell the academic and research library story, both within ALA and outside of it. In a similar vein, the Institutional Priorities and Faculty Reward Task Force will work with other professional associations to come up with reward models that recognize professional activities other than the traditional publishing and research model.

The Board continues its concern with Goal 4 of the Strategic Plan--i.e., to run an efficient organization--and we are proud to be able to run the association again this year with the lowest dues of any ALA Division, despite the many programs and publications we offer. I ask for your continued support this coming year as we seek to further empower academic and research librarians to serve their constituents' needs in the coming century.

Letter from the Executive-Director

Althea H. Jenkins
Executive Director

Not long ago, the conventional role of the academic librarian was to work with the user who came to the library to define the information need. Together they would select appropriate resources and, if available in the library, retrieve them manually from the shelf. If the library didn't have the desired resources, the librarian arranged for interlibrary loans; if the resources were not available through interlibrary loan, the user often would go to the location where the item was held, or managed without the resource. In this period of significant and rapid change in the information environment, with national and state attention on the "Information Superhighway" and the potential for enhanced access to information, academic librarians, as managers of the largest bodies of information in their communities, have captured the interests of the general public. Higher education institutions need librarians who can manage the information transformation in their communities to an information and knowledge-based society and at the same time work with users.

ACRL President Patricia Senn Breivik said that "librarians need to initiate their campuses' aggressive exploration of how both library resources and the information management expertise of academic librarians can help ensure that the investment in state and national Information Superhighways pays off for their regions."

She believes that all librarians must become information industry leaders and take an active role as leaders on campus and in pertinent state and national ventures to advance information management principles and the transformation of learning initiatives.

Thus, librarians as leaders gained increasing prominence in our agenda this year. Several programs and activities were undertaken to focus librarians' attention on their leadership roles: a monthly column in this magazine, "Every Librarian a Leader," gave readers a number of excellent practical leadership strategies and examples of leadership roles for academic librarians; a discussion session at the 1996 ALA Midwinter Meeting explored leadership opportunities available to academic librarians in the wider academic community; and the President's Program provided a multifaceted learning opportunity for academic librarians attending the 1996 ALA Annual Conference.

ACRL has a long history of working with institutions and higher education and information-related organizations. This year, working to fulfill one of Breivik's priorities to effect change in the teaching/learning process by assuming a strong leadership role among higher education organizations and institutions and accrediting agencies, partnering activities with nine key higher education organizations were defined and initiated through the Council of Liaisons (staff and member liaison representatives to organizations). ACRL liaisons met with and participated in the programs of these organizations, exchanged publications, and shared information on priorities and strategic directions.

There was a great sense of urgency among ACRL Board members throughout the year. ACRL had a new Strategic Plan that was solidly based in its membership's priorities and provided a framework for the division's decision-making. The Board of Directors accepted with enthusiasm responsibility for the association's planning, and throughout the year worked to develop implementation policies, a plan, and criteria for measuring successful implementation of the Strategic Plan.

As with all annual reports, this one is only a snapshot of the activities the association undertook. I hope it gives you not only a look at the past, but a forecast of the many challenges ahead for ACRL. Accomplishments for the past year are presented in this report under two headings: Strategic Plan: New Directions and Strategic Plan: Continuing Programs. As always, we are appreciative of our member commitment that drives the association and brings the success that we can all celebrate. We are also deeply appreciative to our ACRL leaders, corporate sponsors, and dedicated staff for the support, enthusiasm, and creativity they brought to ACRL's programs and services.

The Year in Review

STRATEGIC PLAN
NEW DIRECTIONS

During this first year following adoption of a new Strategic Plan, the ACRL Board of Directors has directed most of its attention to charting a course for implementing the plan. Timelines, responsibilities, and criteria for assessing progress have been established. The Board identified priorities in areas that supported the goals of the plan and directed resources toward activities and programs aligned with the plan. ACRL sections and committees were asked to assess current and planned activities in relation to the plan. Many of the activities reported in the pages of this report under this heading are the result of the work of ACRL sections and committees.

GOAL 1. Provide development opportunities for academic and research librarians and other library personnel that enhance their ability to deliver superior services and resources.

In keeping with this ACRL goal as developer of people and practice, a number of activities were undertaken:

• The President's Program for the year focused on librarians as leaders and provided a multifaceted learning opportunity for librarians through a monthly column in C&RL News, a discussion group at the 1996 ALA Midwinter Meeting, and a three-day program track during the 1996 ALA Annual Conference that also highlighted a variety of programs supporting the theme and presented by ACRL and other ALA units. A special workbook that included general leadership information, self-assessment and other developmental tools, and a planning guide were prepared for program participants that was modified slightly following the conference for use by ACRL chapters and local libraries.
• At the 1996 ALA Annual Conference, ACRL sections and committees presented 17 program on a variety of topics from librarian leaders to solutions to technostress.
• Two ACRL preconferences were presented in New York prior to the ALA Annual Conference. ACRL's Rare Books and Manuscripts Section presented a three-day conference on the campus of Cornell University in Ithaca, July 2-5, 1996. The theme for the 37th preconference, "Getting There from Here: Setting the Agenda for Special Collections in the 21st Century," attracted more than 250 attendees.
• ACRL cooperated with the Coalition for Networked Information, EDUCOM, the American Association of Higher Education, and the U.S. Department of Education to hold a three-day New Learning Communities conference in Indianapolis, November 17-19, 1996, and a one-day preconference prior to the ALA Annual Conference in New York, July 5, 1996.
• During the past year, ACRL debuted its Leadership Center which serves as a clearinghouse for information on leadership and centralizes and coordinates activities and programs that focus on academic librarians as leaders. The College Libraries Section's (CLS) New Library Directors' Mentorship program is the center's first program. Two other mentor programs--research, and writers and authors--have been identified and the planning process has begun.
• ACRL's publications program provided opportunities for academic librarians to report on completed research, share results from surveys conducted, and share practical information on strategies and techniques for carrying out various library tasks.
• The Internet Resources series that appears in C&RL News maintained its popularity with the academic library community and eleven Internet Resources articles were published in 1995-96 (see sidebar for topics covered).
• ACRL's Instruction Section (IS) and the Coalition for Networked Information (CNI) cooperated to develop effective strategies for instructing users in the networked environment. Through a grant awarded to CNI from the U.S. Department of Education, ACRL and CNI awarded funding to Case Western Reserve University Library to develop the model virtual collection of exemplary Internet user education and training materials.
• The ACRL Standards and Accreditation Committee compiled a list of accreditation advisors who are available to assist libraries and librarians preparing for an accreditation self-study or team visit.

GOAL 2. Collaborate with other professional organizations and associations of higher education in order to promote mutual interests.

The Board redefined and restructured ACRL's partner role with institutions and organizations of higher education to effect change in the teaching/learning process. Nine key higher education organizations were identified and liaisons from the membership and staff were appointed to each to represent ACRL. Those nine people constitute the Council of Liaisons. ACRL sections were encouraged to identify discipline-based organizations with which they could partner. Several partnering activities took place during the year:

• Since 1994 ACRL has engaged in a major cooperative project with the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools, the Western Accrediting Commission for Senior Colleges and Universities, and the American Association of Higher Education to collect data for the purpose of documenting practices of schools in integrating information resources and technologies in higher education curricula across the United States.
• ACRL worked with Amy Lezberg of the New England Association of Schools and Colleges (NEASC) and ACRL members Thomas Abbott and Bessie Hahn to develop a proposal for conducting a follow-up workshop to the 1994 information literacy data collection at NEASC's Annual Conference in December 1996.
• ACRL executive director Althea Jenkins and past-president Patricia Breivik met with Steve Spangehl from the North Central Association and worked out an agreement for ACRL to present a program track consisting of three or four programs covering various topics at their annual conference in April 1997.
• At the request of the North Central Association, two short-term task forces were appointed and charged to draft guidelines on assessing library services to off-campus programs and develop tip sheets that could be shared with its members about libraries.
• "Revolution in the Library: Is Yours Under Way?" was the topic ACRL presenters Elaine Didier and Althea Jenkins discussed at the 1996 AAHE National Conference, March 17-20, 1996.
• During the past year ACRL subscribed each liaison organization to a complimentary C&RL News, shared ACRL's Strategic Plan, and introduced them to the ACRL representative appointed to their organization. Six of the nine liaison organizations were visited during their annual conferences by ACRL liaisons during the past year. Useful information from attendance at these conferences is shared in a column in C&RLNews called "ACRL: Partnering in Higher Education."
• ACRL, through its Western European Specialist Section (WESS) and College & Research Libraries (C&RL) journal, established an article exchange project with C&RL's German counterpart, Zeitschrift fr Bibliothekswesen und Bibliographie (ZfBB).

GOAL 3. Maintain at the national level a prominent role in planning and decision making for influencing information policy.

• ACRL's role as advocate uniquely blended with the major thrust for ALA Goal 2000. ACRL took steps during the past year to strengthen its ability to better influence information policy and legislative action. The division redefined and restructured its Government Relations Committee and developed a new framework for its legislative network to include representatives from each of the 41 chapters as a way of broadening its impact on the state and local levels.
• The ACRL Legislative Network was launched under a new structure in 1996. The ACRL Board charged the Chapters Council to develop the network and appoint a coordinator to provide a link to the Government Relations Committee. The network is comprised of members from each of the ACRL chapters and is responsible for transmitting information to academic librarians. Network representatives keep up-to-date on state and national legislative issues.
• Working with the ALA Washington Office and other library and information groups, ACRL's Government Relations Committee and staff has responded to numerous information policy and related legislation proposals:

a) Reviewed Universal Services Act draft documents from the ALA Washington Office and provided comments.
b) Reviewed written testimony on the NII Copyright Protection Act of 1995.
c) Responded to a proposal for the Government Printing Office Transition Plan.
d) Submitted statements on behalf of the Library of Congress FY 1997 budget.
e) Monitored the Telecommunications Act of 1996.
f) Monitored the activities of CONFU.
g) Monitored Library Services and Technology Act proposals.

• ACRL took an aggressive role in responding to a call from the U.S. Department of Education, Office for Educational Research and Improvement (OERI) for comments on its research priorities. More than 100 responses supporting the inclusion of libraries and information were received which resulted in the Department of Education giving a second review to the notion that more attention should be given to libraries and information within the research priorities.

GOAL 4. Ensure that ACRL's operating environment provides efficiency in its use of resources and effectiveness in the delivery of services to its members and constituent units.

As an effective user of resources, ACRL examined its governance structure, eliminated and restructured a number of committees.

• The Board asked each ACRL section, discussion group, and committee to examine its charge/purpose in relation to the new Strategic Plan to realign activities to better support the plan's strategic directions. During the past year, three committees (Professional Development, Professional Enhancement, and International Relations) submitted revised charges to the Board for approval. Three committees (Standards and Accreditation, Copyright, and Research) developed new plans for carrying out their charges. One discussion group (Journal Costs in Academic Libraries) determined that its purpose was more closely aligned with another ALA division.
• The ACRL Web site has been improved and expanded over the past six months. While more than twenty ACRL sections, chapters, and committees have linked their Web sites to ACRL, only three sites are maintained by the ACRL staff: the ACRL homepage, the 1997 National Conference site, and C&RL NewsNet, all available at: http://www.acrl.org/.

STRATEGIC PLAN
CONTINUING PROGRAMS

Awards

• ACRL continued its longstanding tradition of recognizing outstanding achievement among academic librarians and supporting research and publication through its awards program. In 1996 fourteen librarians and five libraries were honored with an award. The most prestigious award presented to an academic librarian is ACRL's Academic/Research Librarian of the Year, which was presented to Ralph E. Russell, university librarian at Georgia State University. In choosing Russell for this award, the committee cited "his long history of leadership in advancing network systems and developing library cooperatives."

STRATEGIC PLAN
CONTINUING PROGRAMS

Awards
• ACRL continued its longstanding tradition of recognizing outstanding achievement among academic librarians and supporting research and publication through its awards program. In 1996 fourteen librarians and five libraries were honored with an award. The most prestigious award presented to an academic librarian is ACRL's Academic/Research Librarian of the Year, which was presented to Ralph E. Russell, university librarian at Georgia State University. In choosing Russell for this award, the committee cited "his long history of leadership in advancing network systems and developing library cooperatives."

Statistics

• ACRL University Library Statistics, 1994-95 was published in May 1996. Institutions surveyed for this report include Carnegie Classifications: Research I & II and Doctoral Granting I & II. This report tracks trend data in collections, personnel, expenditures, and interlibrary loan.
• ACRL cooperated with the ALA Office for Research and Statistics (ORS) to conduct a survey of college and university libraries' electronic services. The survey covered the following topics: electronic public catalogs, electronic reference databases, electronic journals, electronic reserves, Internet services, computer hardware and software, electronic document delivery, and digitization. The results from the survey were announced and distributed in June 1996 and published in the November 1996 C&RL News.

Standards and Guidelines

• ACRL has 26 published official documents in the form of standards, guidelines, and statements. In 1996 the ACRL Instruction Section (IS) released the draft of an update of ACRL's "Guidelines for Instruction Programs in Academic Libraries." During the past year nearly all published official documents were mounted on the ACRL Web site.

Publications

While ACRL publications provide some of the best professional development opportunities for academic librarians, they also serve to share information throughout the profession. As the national organization representing all types of academic libraries, ACRL publishes many specialized titles that might not otherwise appear in print.

• In 1995-96 ACRL maintained its vigorous publications program, publishing four journals and six monographs (see sidebars).
• Data for the ACRL University Library Statistics, 1994-95 were collected electronically and the publication made available for purchase in print and on disk.
• A special task force of the Publications Committee--the Electronic Publication Task Force--issued its report containing recommendations for moving ACRL into the electronic publishing environment. Progress is already being made in this area. Many ACRL official documents have been mounted on Web sites and portions of its magazine of record, C&RL News, are available electronically. Nine ACRL section newsletters are available electronically.
• CHOICE magazine set three major priorities for the year: automation, marketing, and product development. Significant success was realized in responding to each. Expansion of the CHOICE network was completed, and all CHOICE staff now have 486 or Pentium workstations running a common set of applications which include WordPerfect 6.1, Excel 5.0, and ccMail. The new e-mail system, ccMail, provided Internet access to all CHOICE staff. To market CHOICE's products, several promotional and advertising items were developed including a new ALA Conference Program ad featuring the theme "CHOICES, CHOICES, CHOICES"; a reusable "poster" for the CHOICE exhibit booth that ties into the program ad; and a four-color CHOICE promotional flyer. The future for CHOICE will be determined by decisions that are made now about ways to diversify its publishing program and to extend its reach into new markets. This past year CHOICE added two electronic licensing agreements to its list: Brodart (TIPS) and Primary Source Media (Bookscope).

Financial Report

Helen H. Spalding
Budget and Finance Committee Chair

Both the ACRL and Choice budgets ended the ACRL 1996 fiscal year (September 1, 1995-August 31, 1996) with positive operating fund balances. Particularly because of expenses realized in preparation for the 1997 National Conference, the 1996 budget had been projected to result in a $264,741 deficit; however, due to higher revenues and lower expenses, the actual fiscal year deficit is only $75,426.

Although ACRL operated with a modest deficit budget for FY96, there is a sizable fund balance that will carry over to FY97. The Budget and Finance Committee has worked with the ACRL staff to provide additional budget lines and notes with definitions to make the accompanying Executive Financial Summary more readable to the membership. The "Ending Reserve" categories at the top of the summary spreadsheet represent funds available to the association in its major accounts at the end of the fiscal year.

On the accompanying spreadsheets, the Ending Reserve "Operating Fund" lines include the Mandated Operating Reserves for ACRL and Choice, which allow the association to carry risk for unexpected budget reverses and major budget commitments such as the National Conference. Thus, positive operating fund balances are realized even when the fiscal year operating budget is in deficit. At the end of FY96, the ACRL Operating Fund balance is $1,060,631, including the 1997 Mandated Operating Reserve of $425,413, and the Choice Operating Fund balance is $1,030,809, including the 1997 Mandated Operating Reserve of $661,663.

The actual ACRL revenues, including Choice, totaled $2,746,372, which exceeded by $85,615 what had been budgeted for 1996. (Sources of ACRL revenues are membership dues, publication and royalty sales and advertising, and education programs; sources of Choice revenues are subscription sales, other sales, and product advertising.) ACRL revenues without Choice, that directly support member activities and programs, totaled $1,121,288, exceeding by $163,156 the 1996 projected budget.

ACRL's actual expenses, including Choice, for 1996 were $2,760,558, lower by $235,912 than the expenses that had been budgeted. Revenues for Choice were $77,541 less than budget, but expenses were also less than budget, resulting in net revenue for 1996 of $61,240.

The ACRL and Choice Endowments now total $287,119 and include the following funds: ACRL, $70,548; Hugh Atkinson Award, $85,129; Leab Award, $20,320; Oberly Award, $14,517; and Choice, $96,604. Upon the recommendation of the Budget and Finance Committee at the 1996 Annual Conference, the ACRL Board established a purpose for the ACRL Endowment: "to provide a reliable source of income for an annual Initiative Fund that supports ACRL's activities accomplishing the strategic directions and priorities of ACRL."

In addition to long-term careful budget planning, the success of the 1996 budget is due to several factors: 1) staff costs and operating expenses being monitored by staff were lower than what had been budgeted; 2) revenues from publications exceeded the 1996 budget projections in almost every category:

• book sales revenues were $39,145 more than budget
• classified advertising revenues from job ads in C&RL News and C&RL NewsNet were $38,669 more than budget
• product advertising revenues for C&RL, C&RL News, and RBML were $40,794 more than budget
• subscription sales revenues for C&RL, C&RL News, and RBML were $8,186 more than budget
• in-house journal production has cut costs

3) the 1996 section preconferences were well planned and attended, meeting their revenue goals; 4) revenues from contributions made by corporate sponsors in support of ACRL's activities and programs were $26,653 more than budget; and 5) although Choice product advertising and subscription sales revenues were $100,393 less than budget, and book sales were $12,121 less than budget, revenues from royalties and commissions exceeded budget and Choice operating expenses were $209,753 less than budget.

The association's implementation of the Strategic Plan and an aggressive new membership recruitment plan, examination of long-term financial trends and potential means to strengthen revenue sources, and a successful 1997 National Conference in Nashville, will ensure ACRL's current financial stability. The 1997 revenues are projected to be well above the 1997 expenses.

Because of its prudent fiscal planning and management, ACRL is fortunate that no dues increase is required now, at a time that many of its members are absorbing the costs of increased dues in other ALA divisions. The Budget and Finance Committee will continue to monitor financial trends, study the implications of any new budget factors, and recommend to the Board annual budgets that meet both ALA and ACRL fiscal policies.

Many thanks to the ACRL staff for their efforts on behalf of the association, and to the 1995-96 members of the Budget and Finance Committee: Ray English, Rena Fowler, Cathy Henderson, W. Lee Hisle, Janice Kemp, Lynn Sorenson Sutton, Sharon Walbridge, and Juana Young; Ex officio: William Miller and Althea Jenkins. The committee is fortunate to proceed with Ray English as its chair, and to welcome reappointed committee member David Brink, and 1997 interns Gloriana St. Clair and John Popko.

ACRL COLLEAGUES 1996
ACRL thanks the corporate community for financially supporting its activities and programs throughout the year. Working together, the academic library and corporate community can achieve goals of mutual interest. Librarians benefit from the expert analysis and problem-solving corporate leaders can bring to issues and topics being addressed.

Corporate contributions added $42,551 to the ACRL 1995-96 budget. It was because of these contributions that the ACRL membership enjoyed a wider range of programs and activities. ACRL could not be the major player in the library and higher education arena that it is without the cooperation received from sponsorships.

ACRL's Colleagues program recognizes corporate supporters as "Summa Cum Laude" (donations of $5,000 or more), "Magna Cum Laude" ($1,001-$4,999), and "Cum Laude" ($500-$1,000).