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alternative energy sources with emphasis on gasohol rue e. olson Gasohol does work as an automotive fuel and it is technically feasible to produce. However, it is not economically feasible and would not be a contribution toward the solution to United States energy problems. These were the conclusions reached by the director of research of the Illinois Farm Bureau back in 1978 when many people were searching for alternative sources of energy to help ease America's energy problem.The IFB felt that it needed to know if gasohol represented a viable new use for farmers' grain and instructed its director of research to study the situation. In order to perform the study, many reports were obtained and began piling up in the research director's office. The Illinois Farm Bureau Library did not have a record of what titles were there, although we were allowed to use them to answer reference requests on gasohol which were becoming more and more frequent. When there was no longer any space for this material in the research director's office and he had completed his initial report, he offered his collection to the library. We accepted it and were happy for the opportunity to have material that was in demand to catalog and index for easier retrieval. This collection of material includes books, government reports, university reports, and privately funded research by companies such as General Motors, Archer Daniels Midland, Raphael Katzen Associates, the American Petroleum Institute, the Solar Energy Research Institute, and Battelle. Included also were a few periodicals and some articles which have been extracted from magazines and newspapers. These items form the basis for the Energy Collection in the Illinois Farm Bureau Library which serves the 2,000 employees of the Farm Bureau family of companies that include the Illinois Farm Bureau, GROWMARK, Inc., the Country Companies, and several smaller affiliated companies. Since our major subject emphasis in the general collection is agriculture, our Energy Collection is necessarily concentrated on the relationship of agriculture and energy and only additionally deals with the total field of energy. The library had been collecting other, more general materials in the energy field, so we decided to combine our holdings and the recently donated material and actually shelve all these items apart from the regular collection. A separate shelflist is maintained for this combined collection. A plastic jacket with a green border with the words ENERGY COLLECTION on it is used to cover the title and author cards that are filed in the main catalog. A three-fourths inch green dot is placed on the front of each report so that the file clerk knows to file that publication on the Energy Collection shelves. 197 In addition to the books and pamphlets, clippings and extracts of articles are kept in a vertical file we call our Energy Subject File. This material is organized under the following twenty-one broad subject headings: 1. U.S. Economics; The heading 9, Unconventional Resources, contains the bulk of the items we have collected and is subdivided as follows. 9. Unconventional Resources A. Production/Processing III. Geothermal IV. Hydrogen V. Methane VI. Methanol VII. Synthetic Fuels VIII. Vegetable Oils — Soybean Oil, Sunflower Oil IX. Wind X. Wood XI. Consultants XII. Publications available for purchase but not in our collection. The Energy Collection numbers about 500 books and pamphlets and the Energy Subject File takes up about one file drawer for items added since 1981. Earlier items have been converted to microfiche to conserve on file space. Patrons seeking information on gasohol or one of the related areas covered by our Energy Collection generally ask our reference librarian for assistance. She will use KRIS (Keyword Retrieval Information System), our computerized subject retrieval system to search for references which are pertinent to the question. All the books and pamphlets in the Energy Collection are included in KRIS along with our general collection. The Energy Subject File has not been entered in KRIS, but only because of lack of time, a common library problem. This special collection is not being heavily used presently. Only occasional reference questions require use of these files, although the more recent questions seem to be centered on coal as an energy resource. The heavy use, from 1978 to 1981 occurred during the time the IFB had an energy specialist on the staff, a temporary position that ended when the total United States energy picture began to improve. Use was more frequent also during the time GROWMARK, Inc. installed a farm-size ethanol still at the FS Feed Research Center near Lexington, Illinois, in order to determine the best way for farmers to economically produce alcohol and distillers grains that result from the distilling process. Plans included utilizing the alcohol in vehicles which had been converted to run on 180-proof alcohol, not gasohol which requires 200-proof alcohol. In 1982, at the conclusion of the GROWMARK research efforts, the alcohol production unit was donated to Parkland College, a leader in the research of alternate fuel sources. Additions continue to be made to both our Energy Collection and our Energy Subject File although not as frequently as during the period of heavy use. All new additions are announced in our monthly NEW PUBLICATIONS which is distributed to staff employees. All the books and pamphlets that have been added to our collection since we began using OCLC in 1981 are in that data base and may be borrowed from us through the OCLC Interlibrary Loan Subsystem. Direct interlibrary loan requests are honored also, and visitors are always welcome to use the collection on the premises. Librarians and others wishing additional information may contact the author at the Illinois Farm Bureau Library, 1701 Towanda Avenue, P.O. Box 2901, Bloomington, 61701, phone (309) 557-2550. 198 |
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