June and July are months in which many of our staff and faculty take their well-earned vacations and prepare for the fall semester. Major projects this summer involve integrating government documents into the collections and reference services. Facility work is also in progress on the first floor to accommodate government documents and to make public services desks more accessible. Room 254, our backup classroom, is being refurbished to make available more classroom space for electronic and other information instruction. The first UK library science class will be held in this space beginning August 30. This course will be Management 254, taught by Professor Tom Sineath, the Director of the program, on Mondays from 6-8:30 pm.

The KCVL (Kentucky Commonwealth Virtual Library) continues to work on service agreements for document delivery and other services. Most of these agreements will be in place later than previously planned. Several contracts have to be renegotiated. The KCVL Information Literacy Committee continues to finalize their five Web-based information literacy modules: (1)Web Basics, (2) Basic Search, (3) Advanced Searching, (4) Evaluating Sources, (5) Citing and Copyright. Modules can be found at http://www.kcvl.org under “Using the Virtual Library.”

American Library Association (ALA) Annual Conference Report
The ALA Annual Conference took place in New Orleans from June 24-30. More than 22,000 librarians attended and 1,400 exhibits were featured. Colin Powell was the keynote speaker and he reiterated his love for reading and libraries. There was some controversy about his coming to ALA because Dr. Laura Schlessinger, the radio show host who is campaigning against ALA because of its stand on Internet filtering, tried to persuade General Powell not to speak at ALA.

As usual a number of programs dealt with intellectual freedom issues, changes in librarianship and libraries, funding libraries and the future of the profession.

As a member of the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) Task Force on Information Literacy Competency Standards, I spent substantial time in meetings and a national hearing to get reaction and input from the academic library community on the standards. I have shared the draft document with the Information Literacy Team and the Administrative Coordinating Team. It is hoped that these standards can be finalized by next year and adopted nationally by professional groups in higher education.

As a member of the ALA Council, the governing structure of the association, I spent substantial time in meetings and deliberations. Major issues confronting the Council were professional education for librarians, electronic publishing, outsourcing, socially responsible investing, minority concerns, legislation and intellectual freedom.

--Hannelore Rader, University Librarian