--- Forwarded Message from Ursula Williams <[log in to unmask]> --- >Date: Fri, 10 Sep 1999 11:20:29 -0500 >To: [log in to unmask] >From: Ursula Williams <[log in to unmask]> >Subject: #5170 Funds for Video purchasing As luck would have it, the new Dean of the College of Arts and Letters was the Chairman of the Department of German and Russian Languages and Literatures first. Prior to his becoming Dean, we experienced similar frustrations connected with obtaining videos and other materials. Faculty were unable to buy materials because "it would have to come out of the book budget (library allocation), and we need that for books." Language faculty had the feelings Nina described in her post, especially because the language faculty was primarily adjuncts who got virtually nothing in the way of services anyway. Back to the luck part: In my annual report last year I requested the addition of a budget line for the acquisition of materials, and I got it! I had a history of buying things when I could out of the supplies budget, and the departments had a history of saying no, so maybe this was a no-brainer. Starting this year, the Language Resource Center has a modest budget for acquiring new videos and materials. So far, the only criterion is that items that will affect more students have priority over those that will be used by fewer students. Lynne Crandall at UMich (boo!) has a very nice form for requests. Questions on it enable her to determine what's a worthwhile thing to get and what's not. I may, er, "adopt" that eventually. Since I am the only one who has ever bought this "stuff" I have purchased such things as cards with pictures of things on them. (Some of the things are sequenced; one that comes to mind is a series that has a picture of a potato, a picture of a potato peeled and cut up for French Fries, and a fryer. Another set has opposites; a rainy day, a sunny day; happy, sad, etc.) I have bought ABBA's greatest hits in Spanish, little cardboard clocks, number puzzles, hats, well, you get the idea. Videos, too. And CD-ROMs. A substantial video collection was purchased with grant money when we refurbished the Center several years ago. More recent acquisitions have been replacement tapes and new releases. Hope this helps. So far it's working for me! Ursula Williams Notre Dame