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Show -9- And what help does the national association offer "mid-career" librarians whose jobs have suddenly changed because of library mechanization ? The computer should result in freeing librarians from routine, repetitive tasks, but too often it has had in reality the opposite effect. In 1948, in response to pressure to define the difference between professional and nonprofessional librarians, the American Library Association published a preliminary draft of the Descriptive List of Professional and Nonprofessional Duties in Libraries . Today, A.L.A . 's Office for Library Personnel Resources could take on a similar project to describe computer impact or compile model job descriptions for various library positions. The language of the only current document on manpower policy, Library Educational and Personnel Utilization, is, in my opinion, simply too broad to do the job. At the final membership meeting on July 23, several resolutions were presented for consideration. The last and most important one-approved after more than two hours of debate and discussion-was a Resolution on Racism and Sexism Awareness. Unfortunately, I felt even this resolution was irrelevant and that the real problams of the profession were not being faced by the national association. -Elaine Broadbent-- TRANSMOGRIFICATION OF THE MONTHLY CATALOG After one-hundred years of using essentially the same format, the Monthly Catalog of United States Government Publications has changed ; its style. In response to requests by the library community and the Depository Library Council to the Public Printer, TheVI,ibrary Division of the Government Printing Office joined the O C L C Network in October 1975, and began contributing bibliographic entries from the Monthly Catalog. At the same time, GPO made a commitment to change the Monthly Catalog to AACR/ MARC format. The changes are embodied in the July 1976 issue of the Monthly Catalog. Although the new Monthly Catalog retains some features of the traditional publication, substantial changes in size, arrangement, style and indexing reflect recent policy decisions. Entries are arranged strictly by Superintendent of Documents classification number rather than by individual issuing agency. Major departmental headings do appear, however, and most documents produced by sub-agencies are grouped together since they bear the same class number. |