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Wednesday, January 12
Roundtable discussion was held starting at 8:30 am, moderated by
Doria Grimes from the NOAA Central Library, Silver Spring, MD. Each
person gave a short presentation about their library and its unique
collection. Some people gave out brochures and went online to their
library’s website. The NOAA Central Library has a wonderful homepage,
one of the best at http://www.lib.noaa.gov/.
After a brief coffee break, an ASLI Business Meeting was held.
Madeline Needles (Haystack Observatory, MIT) and Eleanor Uhlinger
(Univ. of Rhode Island at Narragansett) had worked very hard on the new
ASLI Bylaws. Madeline presented these to the assembled group to vote
on. After some amendments / suggestions were made, we voted to accept
the bylaws with the changes in place. Elections then took place and the
results were: Evelyn Poole-Kober - Chair; Doria Grimes - Chair Elect;
Susan Tarbell - Secretary (2-year term); Linda Pikula - Treasurer (her
2nd year on a 2-year term). By the way, our name had been written two
ways - Atmospheric Science or Atmospheric Sciences; we voted on Atmospheric Science Librarians International.
Evelyn Poole-Kober (Atmospheric Sciences Modeling Division; EPA;
Research Triangle Park, NC) presented the Treasurer’s Report as
prepared by Linda Pikula (NOAA Miami Regional Library) since Linda was
unable to attend. There is $348.97 in our treasury as of December 31,
1999.
The Exhibit’s Report was next, presented by Judy Triplehorn from the
Geophysical Institute Library, Univ. of Alaska. Judy, Evelyn, and Maria
Latyszewskyj (Environment Canada Library, Downsview, Ontario) set up
the ASLI booth on Monday and had many favorable remarks from visitors
to the booth. It was suggested that maybe we could have an author sign
books at our booth next year.
Lunch Break
After lunch, Dennis Stephens (University of Alaska, Fairbanks)
presented an excellent session on "Collection Evaluation: A Key to
Management and Cooperative Planning" (from the Research Library Group’s
Conspectus). Dennis recommended the book Using the Conspectus Method: A Collection Assessment Handbook,
by Mary Bushing, Burns Davis, and Nancy Powell, 1997. Some key concepts
of collection assessment/evaluation include: An assessment provides a
description of the library’s total resources; A Collection policy with
conspectus division and subject details is an ideal tool for explaining
information resource decisions and expenditures; The purpose of an
assessment is to develop a snapshot of existing collections; Collection
management involves making choices and implementing priorities; The
primary conspectus procedure employed as a qualitative technique is
shelf-scanning; Keep it simple, make decisions, perfect is unlikely,
get it done! As Dennis said "Perfect is the enemy of good." A good collection evaluation demonstrates accountability to governing bodies and colleagues.
The next session was on New National Science Foundation (NSF)
Programs.
First, Madeline Needles, from the Haystack Observatory in Westford,
Mass., spoke on research experiences for teachers. The Haystack
Observatory does a lot of outreach in the surrounding community. The
National Science Foundation sponsored teachers in the science field to
come and learn about the Observatory and help do research. However,
Madeline stated that "the only thing in the universe that is not
expanding is the budget here at the Observatory." The e-mail address is
http://www.haystack.mit.edu
The second speaker was Karon Kelly from the University Corporation
for Atmospheric Research (UCAR) in Boulder, CO. UCAR is open to the
public, but its main mission is to the staff. They get about 1000
distinguished visitors a year. Karon spoke on the Geoscience Digital
Library (GDL), which is being funded by the NSF. UCAR is part of the
collaboration team to create this digital library, a pilot project from
DLESE (Digital Library for Earth System Education). The goal of the GDL
is to help educators and learners find, evaluate, use and create
resources that support active learning about the Earth system. The GDL
will not be a single library but a URL controlled by a Central
Coordinating Manager. For more information: Geoscience Digital Library www.page.ucar.edu/gdl/. or Digital Library for Earth System Education www.dlese.org
The last session of the day was on vendor/publisher updates.
Keith Seitter from AMS spoke about their publications and getting
online subscriptions to them, both current and back issues. The
three-tier structure is retained with differentials of $30.00, $90.00,
and $150.00 over the print counterpart for perpetual online access. The
Journal of Hydrometeorology went online recently. There is good "interlinking" between the indexes and full-text articles. The Bulletin online will still be available at no charge.
The Meteorological and Geoastrophysical Abstracts (MGA) now
have simple search screens and advanced search screens. This is due to
various librarians asking for these features. The MGA journal number is
actually the MGA abstract number, and the classification is the UDC
system. You may reach them at www.mganet.org.
Joe Schumacher from Colombia University spoke about ordering free
documents from the U.S. Global Change Research Information Office
(GCRIO). The main thing they put out is "Our Changing Planet" www.gcrio.org.
Representatives from Academic Press said that the Encyclopedia of Atmospheric Sciences and Encyclopedia of Ocean Sciences are due out August, 2001. Thermodynamics of Atmospheres and Oceans is available now.
Thursday, January 13
Etienne Gregoire from the Meteorological Service of Canada (MSC),
Environment Canada was our first speaker this day and gave a very
interesting talk on this organization. The previous name of this
organization was the Atmospheric Environment Service (changed at
Christmas-time). He spoke about the two-year study on the usefulness of
the MSC - was proven useful! Environment Canada has had its
Meteorological Service since 1871; the Water Survey of Canada since the
1910s; the Military Weather Service since the 1940s; and, the Canadian
Ice Service since the 1950s. There are 1600 employees under 5
directorates in 5 regions.
5 Directorates:
1. Atmospheric Monitoring and Water Survey;
2. Atmospheric Environmental prediction;
3. Atmospheric and Climate Sciences;
4. Service Clients and Partners;
5. Policy and Corporate Affairs.
The 5 Regions are Atlantic, Quebec, Ontario, Prairie Northern, and
Pacific and Yukon. Right now the Environment Canada is low staff due to
downsizing so severely. The Canadian universities know this and have
stopped offering meteorology degrees for now. Therefore, the
Environment Canada is actively recruiting from the United States.
E-mail is www.ec.gc.ca
Mark Hibberd from Melbourne, Australia spoke about CSIRO -
Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization of
Australia that started about 1930. There are 20 divisions, but they do
not do human medicine research. Mark is a member of the Atmospheric
Research Division (DAR) which started in 1947. Overall e-mail address
is www@dar.csiro.au; Librarian’s address is library@dar.csiro.au and publications can be seen at www.publish.csiro.au.
Graham Proctor from the British Meteorological Office in Bracknell,
England said they have a very good global model, do a lot of aviation
flights, and put out data. He stated how the United States does not
charge for much of their data so does not want to pay for what they
receive from Canada or Great Britain. There is a bit of controversy
over this between Britain and the United States.
The next session was "Fire Weather by the National Weather Service -
Alaska." This turned out to be an extremely fascinating topic for all
attendees.
Lee Kelley from the Fire Weather Operations, National Weather
Service spoke on what operations are used for this kind of weather
forecasting: 1) AWIPS (Advanced Weather Information Processing System);
2) WSR-88D; 3) NOAA Weather Radio and Console Replacement System (CRS);
and 4) Training. There are field offices in Fairbanks, Alaska; Boise,
Idaho; and Missoula, Montana. Fire crews get routine forecasts twice a
day. Spot forecasts are given on request, and Red Flag Warnings are
issued when necessary. With so much land in Alaska, some fires are
allowed to burn out naturally.
Rick Ochoa from Boise, Idaho is a Fire Weather Meteorologist. Their
biggest mission is to fight fire safely. They go on sight to fires and
provide meteorology by using a "portable" weather office. Fire weather
meteorologists usually have a background in "fire behavior" and know
basic safety aspects. www.boi.noaa.gov, then link to Fire Weather.
Dave Goens from Missoula, Montana said their field office came into
existence in 1915 because of the many California fires. Smoke jumpers
started in Missoula in the 1930s. A defining moment of fatality fires
occurred in 1949. This started the need for fire research, safe
fire-fighting gear, etc.
Lunch Break
After lunch, our room was crowded with AMS Conference attendees to
view our next presentation "May’s Fury" - Spectacular Footage from the
1999 Oklahoma City Tornadoes. No one was disappointed. Dennis McCarthy
from the NOAA Oklahoma City office showed two unbelievable videos on
the May 1999 tornadoes and gave a wonderful commentary. There were a
lot of ooohs and ahhhs from the audience. During the tornadoes, some
people thought they would be safe by going under bridges or ramp areas.
NOT TRUE SAID DENNIS. A wind tunnel effect goes through these openings.
Debris could kill you, or you could be sucked out!
Next, Doria Grimes, from the NOAA Central Library, gave a very
interesting talk on the comparison and contrast between the Oklahoma
City tornadoes, 1999 and Hurricane Andrew, 1992. She discussed dates,
measurement scales, movement, width and duration, deaths, and damages.
According to the Saffir-Simpson Scale, Hurricane Andrew sustained winds
of 145+ mph after landfall in Florida, August 24, 1992. The Fujita
Scale showed 261+ mph winds for the Oklahoma City tornadoes on May 3,
1999. The width of Hurricane Andrew was 30 miles wide across Florida.
Oklahoma City tornadoes were 1/4 to 1 mile wide and covered 70-100
miles. There were approximately the same number of deaths per each
natural disaster, 54-62. The damages of each natural disaster were
vastly different -- $30 billion for Hurricane Andrew (with 1 million
people impacted), and $1.5 billion for the Oklahoma City area.
Maria Latyszewskyj, from the Environment Canada Library, was the
last speaker of the day. She described the Downsview Learning Centre
which was established in the Spring of 1995. It is a joint venture by
the Environment Canada (EC) Library at Downsview, Atmospheric
Environment Service (now called the Meteorological Service of Canada
(MSC)) and Human Resources to support MSC and EC Ontario Region staff
needs in career development and changes. E-mail addresses: http://www.msc-smc.ec.gc.ca/library for the library's website, http://199.212.19.41 for the library's catalogue, and http://www1.tor.ec.gc.ca/learning/index_e.cfm for the learning centre.
The ASLI members attending this conference then got together and
discussed different issues like pros and cons of electronic journals,
list serve helps, patron issues, and how to get upper management
support. We also discussed ways of getting more ASLI members to attend
the conference next year. We ended the day by meeting for dinner on the
Queen Mary. What a neat experience!
Friday, January 14.
Some of the folks went on a field trip to the Jet Propulsion Lab -
NASA, in Pasadena, Calif. I understand it was quite enjoyable.
Respectfully submitted,
Susan A. Tarbell
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