Get Answers From Kansas

"The state of Kansas has started KANAnswer, an online reference service for the residents of Kansas and for non-residents who have questions about Kansas. It's accessible at http://skyways.lib.ks.us/KSL/KLNB/KANAnswerWeb/index.htm .  

The service operates during bank hours basically -- M-F 9-5, with some weekend and evening hours. It's not available during national and state holidays. Down at the bottom of the front page there's a 'LiveHelp' button which will indicate whether anyone's available or not....

Remember, only residents of Kansas may ask general reference questions; non-residents are restricted to questions about Kansas itself. It'll be interesting to see how this goes." [ResearchBuzz]

Excellent - the land of the Jayhawks implements statewide virtual reference! Next step - 24/7 (I hope). My brother should love this since he's still in Kansas City ("more boulevards than Paris and more working fountains (200) than any city but Rome.").

The proposal to cut the University of Arizona's School of Information Resources and Library Science made the Arizona Daily Star. Rightly so, since we've seen far too many LIS schools close over the last decade.

Students Defend UA Programs

"The school is one of 16 programs Likins and Provost George Davis have proposed eliminating....

Lisa Bunker, a recent graduate of the School of Information Resources and Library Science, told Likins its supporters have been "working feverishly" in the past week since he challenged them to find a way to save their program.

Supporters want to appeal to the school's 1,900 alumni, and could ask for more time from an accreditation agency that said it must add faculty to its master's program and keep building.

The library school is one of the largest graduate schools on campus with more than 200 students.

On Monday, Likins announced he would ask the regents to approve a special program fee of $100 per credit hour for resident students and $400 per credit hour for non-resident students, beginning this fall if the school survives." [Thanks for the pointer, p.e.!]