**   This announcement has been cross-posted on several lists.
        Please excuse any duplication.   **

At the ALA Midwinter meeting in Los Angeles, the newly-created LITA Research
Committee agreed to launch an examination of one of the most vexing problems
of the Information Age: how to measure and evaluate a library's information
resources and services in the emerging electronic environment.  The
difficulties of measuring and evaluating electronic library services range
from capturing the utilization rates of collections and services ("turnstile
counts") for users who access the online catalog or library gopher server
from remote locations, through counting the "circulation" of networked
texts, to evaluating the "collection resources" of a library that provides
unrestricted access to the vast information assets of the Internet, and
include a growing concern with evaluating the outcomes of library service as
well as measuring resource inputs.

These issues have been of concern to library researchers, managers and
practitioners for some time, and considerable work has already been done.
The Research Committee believes that the time is right to identify and
synthesize the previous research and development work in this area, to help
define the work that remains to be done, and to demonstrate the ways in
which the research findings can be applied to the development of actual
solutions to measurement and evaluation problems related to electronic
information.  To this end, the committee will prepare a proposal for a
program to be held at the 1995 Annual Conference.

To assist in preparing for the program, the Research Committee will hold an
open hearing at the 1994 Annual Conference in Miami.  The hearing is
scheduled for Sunday morning, June 26, from 9:30 to 11 AM, and we encourage
all LITA members with an interest in this topic to attend and participate in
the discussion.  In addition, we invite anyone who has conducted or is
conducting research  on measurement and evaluation of libraries in an
electronic environment, or who has a perspective on the issues that would
help frame discussion, to submit to the Committee a brief (250-word)
description of their research or analysis of the issues.  These submissions
will help us to prepare background information on the topic and plan the
1995 program and any related publications; in addition, we may ask some of
the respondents to join us at the open hearing in Miami to deliver a brief
presentation on their work as background for the discussion.  Please send
these submissions to the committee chair, Gary Lawrence, at Office of the
President, University of California, 300 Lakeside Drive, 18th Floor,
Oakland, CA 94612-3550; telephone (510) 987-9461; fax (510) 987-9456; e-mail
gary.lawrence@ucop.edu.  Submissions or questions are welcome at any time,
but submissions received by May 31, 1994 will be given first consideration
for inclusion in the open hearing at Miami.