The John F. Kennedy Library is dedicated to the memory of the 35^th President of the United States, and to all those who, through the art of politics, seek a new and better world. Through its museum, archives, and educational programs, the Library fosters greater awareness and understanding of American politics and history, the process of governing and the importance of public service.

The Library lends oral history transcripts, cassette tapes and transcripts of Presidential recordings, a guide to the Ernest Hemingway Collection, the Taylor Report on the Bay of Pigs invasion and, at the discretion of the Librarian, duplicate copies of books. Archives, manuscripts, and single copies of books, theses, dissertations, and microfilm are not lent. Loans are made through institutions only, not to individual researchers, and are to be used in the library of the borrowing institution.

The Library is open for research from 8:30AM to 4:30PM, Mon. - Fri; 9AM to 3PM on Saturday (by appointment only). Research rooms are closed on Sundays and Federal holidays. Research rooms are not open to the general public but rather to researchers who require the use of the Library's unique manuscript, audiovisual, and documentary holdings.

The John F. Kennedy Library, which is administered by the National Archives and Records Administration (U. S. Government, Washington, DC), is located at Columbia Point, Boston, MA 02125; tel: 617-929-4500; fax: 617-929-4538. The Librarian is Ron Whealan; the Director is Bradley S. Garratt; the Reference contact is Maura Porter (617-929-4534); and the Interlibrary Loan contact is June Payne (617-929-4591; june.payne@Kennedy.nara.gov).

On April 20, a group of archivists and rare book and manuscripts librarians had their first informal meeting at the Boston Public Library. Sponsored by the Boston Region, the purpose of the get-together was to allow people with similar interests to meet one another and to make connections that could prove useful when a question needed to be answered or a problem solved. In this way, members could benefit from others' experience and a support group or network of contacts would be formed that could be put to good use when needed.

Participants represented public, school, academic, and special libraries so the mix of backgrounds was especially broad. A list of those present and their institutions was distributed, so everyone would know who was who. As it happened, the principal discussion began with a special library's question about insurance policies and vendors for use in emergencies. This led to a vivid and enthralling description of the recent flood and its effects (which are still being felt) at the Boston Public Library.

All participants agreed to send to Ed Montana, at the Regional Services Office, a list of vendors that they would use in the case of a disaster. All of these lists will be combined into a single list that will be distributed to members later on.

All agreed that they enjoyed the meeting, found it beneficial, and were looking forward to the next one, tentatively scheduled for late fall.

Thanks go to Bobbie Zonghi, Keeper of Rare Books, Boston Public Library, for coming up with an idea that, in execution, proved to be both successful and worthwhile.

NOTE: the following is an expansion of the article "More Databases" which appeared in the April issue of BRiefly.

NO, your eyes are not deceiving you. When you log on to SearchBank, the database menu has expanded to include Health Reference Center Academic and Promt. Descriptions of these two additional databases are provided below in the database summary chart. Also forthcoming is Contemporary Literary Criticism Select, which will be up later this Spring.

Funding for these extra database offerings is provided through the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners and the six Massachusetts Regional Library Systems. These three files are under contract for two years. The databases are licensed for in-library use for public and special libraries; campus-wide for K-12 and academic institutions.

Marlene Sue Heroux
Reference Information Systems Specialist
MA Board of Library Commisssioners

Databases are licensed for in-library use for public and special libraries; campus-wide for K-12 and academic institutions.

* Funding provided through the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners and the six Massachusetts Regional Library Systems.

Marlene Heroux, Reference Information Systems Specialist at the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners, has had a number of calls lately from librarians needing a copy of the Technical Work Form for IAC InfroTrac SearchBank Access.

The easiest way to get a copy of the Work Form is to go to the MLIN (Massachusetts Library Information Network) Web site: www.mlin.lib.ma.us, and click on the link for Indexes and Databases; then click on SearchBank; and then click on Note to Librarians: Check Our SearchBank Program Pages for Information on How to Bring SearchBank into Your Library; from there, there is a link to how to obtain authorization. The Work Form can be downloaded via Adobe Acrobat or Word.

NOTE: If you would like to borrow any of the following titles, contact the Regional Services Office: 617-536-4010; fax: 617-267-0364; emontana@bpl.org.

Everhart, Nancy. Evaluating the School Library Media Center. Analysis Techniques and Research Practices. Libraries Unlimited, 1998. 249p.pap. "School library media specialists are very busy people! With the many duties that they must attend to, media specialists often list conducting evaluations low on their list of priorities. In addition, many school library media specialists would like to conduct evaluations but require knowledge on how and what to evaluate in the school media center. This book addresses both problems. It points out many areas to evaluate, explains how to do it, and provides instruments to use in the evaluation."

Swartz, Charles A., Ed. Restructuring Academic Libraries. Organizational Development in the Wake of Technological Change. (ACRL Publications in Librarianship No. 49). Association of College and Research Libraries, a Division of the American Library Association, 1997. 273p. pap. "Restructuring Academic Libraries is the product of a recent discontinuity: information technology in the 1990s is advancing more rapidly than our profession is prepared to assimilate the changes. Indeed, the acceleration of computer networking has shown no respect for traditional organizations or other institutional arrangements in higher education as a whole. When Stephen E. Wibberly, Jr., Editor of the monograph series began to talk in summer 1995 about this lag of organizational development, only a handful of articles had recognized the problem. Since then, however, general awareness of it has grown. It was a theme of ACRL's biennial conference of 1997 and the focus of an Association of Research Libraries survey report, which took note of the lack of even internal documents on reorganizations under way. This book is the first major attempt to help fill this gap in the literature."

The Roots of Genealogy Collections by Thomas Jay Kemp, Library Journal, April 1, 1999, pp. 57-60. The demand for genealogy information is steadily increasing and this article covers collection building tips and online genealogy and also highlights some of the best books, periodicals, CD-ROMs, and Web sites that "librarians will find invaluable in assisting genealogical researchers." All titles are annotated. Thomas Jay Kemp is the former Director of the New England Historic Genealogical Society Library, a member of the Boston Region.

In the same issue, pp. 40-42, is Libraries Close in on Distance Education by Elizabeth E. Kirk and Andrea M. Bartelstein. "Librarians have emerged as activists for their services, inserting themselves into the development of distance-based programs." Elizabeth E. Kirk is Distance Education Librarian, and Andrea M. Bartelstein is Instructional Services Coordinator and Resource Services Librarian for Education and Women's Studies, Milton S. Eisenhower Library, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore. The article includes lists of distance education resources online and listservs dedicated to distance and off-campus issues.

On April 22, the nine members of Fenway Libraries Online (FLO) gathered at the Massachusetts College of Art to celebrate the first ten years of their automated network. Bernard Margolis, President of the Boston Public Library, was the keynote speaker for the event.

Located primarily in the Fenway area of Boston, this group of academic and research libraries banded together in the 1980s with the goal of achieving affordable, cost-effective automation of their library services. According to Jamie Ingram, FLO Network Director, the generous support of several federal grants awarded by the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners provided the necessary funds both to implement the original system and to undertake subsequent major upgrades.

Sharing of their resources has gone beyond jointly owning an automated library network. Since the system became operational in 1989, the FLO libraries have benefitted from cooperative development of their collections, the implementation of a local delivery system, early connectivity to the Internet, and expanded opportunities for professional development. In recent years, their collaboration has enabled them to acquire deep discounts for various electronic databases needed by their patrons.

FLO's online database currently includes records for 900,000 volumes held in the libraries of Emerson College, Emmanuel College, Lesley College, Massachusetts College of Art, Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, The Museum of Fine Arts, New England Conservatory of Music, Wentworth Institute of Technology, and Wheelock College. Additional information is available at the FLO Web site: http://flo.org.

Carolyn Noah, Assistant Regional Administrator, Central MA Regional Library System, had asked librarians to send her Internet links that could be used to support the MA Curriculum Frameworks. But please note: each community implements curriculum differently; these are broad selections and may not apply precisely to local curricula.