Department of Library Science Department of Mathematics and Computing Computers Changing Things Around During the 1983 fall semester, the Beaumont Memorial Library made available to students and faculty members a computer reference service. The service consisted of a Digital LA120 DECwriter terminal / printer and a group lease agreement with Bibliographic Retrieval Services of New York through membership in AMIGOS Bibliographic Council, a network of libraries in the Southwest. Reference Librarian Craig Beard was in charge of this service. "The computer can search more material quicker and more efficiently than is possible for a human being ," Beard said. "The computer doesn ' t get tired of looking. It is incredibly fast , requiring no more than 10 - Wes Hol/Alill 102 Library Science seconds to search completely all references to anyone subject term or name." Under the oversight of Henry Terrill, Government Documents Librarian, the library increased the number of government docu - ments received from the Government Printing Office from 22 percent to 31 percent of availab le government publications. Business, education and health publications dominated the nearly M,DDO-document collection housed on the second floor of the library. "The biggest use of our collection is for informational reports," Terrill said. The varied co llection included weekly weather maps and publications from the Civil Rights Commissions, Census Bureau, Labor Department , and National Institute of Education. The Harding Library was one of 18 federal depositories in Arkansas. During 1982-83, the librarians taught more than 75 classes with 42 of these being for students in English 103, which emphasizes the writing of term papers. Other classes in bibliographic instruct ion and the use of information tools were taught in various academic areas as requested by faculty members. The library was open 86 hours each week and the librarians made reference service available 73% of these hou rs. Although no courses in library science were offered, students interested in a career in library science had the opportunity to work in - fohn Radcliffe the library under the supervision of Winnie Bell. Librarian , and other professional librarians. A number of these students in previous years have pursued a graduate degree in library science after graduating from Harding. Appointment of Dr. Dean B. Priest, chairman of the department, as Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences effective with the beginning of the 1983 fall semester, was the most significant event during the year for the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science: He continued to serve as department chainn'an but Dr. Steve Smith was named Assistant Chainnan of the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science and Dr. Bill Oldham was named Director of Mathematics Education . Institution-wide , the revision of Mathematics 101, the general education course in mathematics , from "Basic Mathematics" to "Computer Literacy with Mathematical Applications" was a major curricular change. This change reflected the change in emphasis in society and education from the so-called "New Math" to "Computers." The mathematics courses required of elementary education majors also experienced increased emphasis on "Computers." Dr. Steve Baber, a Harding alumnus with a Ph.D. degree in computer science, joined the department in the fall because of the rapidly increasing number of majors in computer
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