ARKLink Meeting Minutes

                               June 21, 1999; 1:30 p.m.

                               UALR - Law School

                                        People in attendance were:

Myron Flugstad and Janet Parsch, co-chairs, called the meeting to order at
1:35. Introductions were made.

David Glick presented summary results of the Database Purchasing Task
Force's survey on databases held and databases desired. Thirty-one of 44
Arkansas academic institutions responded to the survey.
Those databases most held include: ABI/Inform (6 institutions), Academic
Abstracts (5), Britannica Online (19), CINAHL (7), ERIC (10), FirstSearch
(5), Lexis/Nexis (9), MLA (8), PsycLit (8), SIRS (16), and Sociofile/Soc.
Abstracts (5). Those databases most mentioned as desired include:
ABI/Inform (12), Academic Search Elite (7), America: History and Life (10),
Britannica Online (6), CINAHL (10), FirstSearch (20), Health Reference
Center (15), Historical Abstracts (8), InfoTrac (3?), ProQuest Direct (PA
Research II) (22), Psychology (PsycInfo, PsycLit, PsycFirst) (12), Wilson
(Select/Omnifile) (6), Legal Trac (10), Lexis-Nexis (6), MLA (8), and SIRS
(Knowledge Source, Renaissance, Research) (6).

Thanks and appreciation were extended to David Glick for his contributions
to the survey, to Henderson State for photocopying the results, and to Bob
Frizzell, chair, and the other members of the Task Force for their hard
work on the enormous task.

Kathy Sanders presented the Funding Task Force report. A prospects form is
being developed that will enable the task force to gather data on each
potential funding source. Nine possible activities have been identified
for which funding might be sought, including database purchases, serials
purchases, courier service, common ID card, equipment, professional
development opportunities, a true union catalog, legislative packages, and
digitization projects.

Peggy Morrison, chair of the Resource Sharing Task Force, presented a draft
of a survey form for gathering information on what resources Arkansas
academic libraries are sharing now and what they would like to share (or
have others share). Any suggestions for the form should be submitted to
Peggy Morrison by July 15 at morrisonpeggy@exchange.uams.edu.

Mary Ryan discussed the issue of legal status for the ARKLink consortium.
An article in a recent issue of Library Administration and Management deals
with consortial agreements (Kopp, James J. Documenting partnerships.
Spring 1999: 13(2):68-77). Also, a website provides documents in use by
various library consortia (http://www.lis.uiuc.edu/~sloan/consort.htm).
Mary Ryan, Myron Flugstad, and Janet Parsch volunteered to develop a draft
Memorandum of Understanding, based on the ARKLink mission statement, to be
discussed at the next meeting.

Juana Young described a possible project involving representative libraries
in EPSCoR states to digitize 1,000,000 science and technology volumes
(books, journals, and other flat paper items). (The acronym EPSCoR stands
for Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research.) EPSCoR
includes the eighteen states and Puerto Rico which have historically not
received substantial government funding for research. Using the approach
that Carnegie Mellon University has developed for digitizing materials, it
is proposed that digitizing materials can be done for $25 per volume. Four
libraries in EPSCoR states (Nebraska, Maine, Mississippi, and Arkansas)
have volunteered to serve as beta sites to develop project specifications
to test the feasibility of such a project. Biotechnology, forestry, and
mining are possible pilot study areas. Many are skeptical of the
practicality and feasibility of the project.

ASU is participating in OCLC's CORC project by contributing 20 hours per
week of cataloging time to catalog web-based resources
Discussion of Database Task Force's report: Student FTEs from the 31
responding institutions is 64,247 (not including ASU and ATU); potential
number of FTEs in Arkansas academic institutions is probably around 80,000.
One difficulty with the survey results is that one database might be
called by several names. Also, platform choice will be an important
consideration in final selection of a database. There was general
consensus on the need to select one database as a pilot to test the ARKLink
concept. There was also general approval to commit funds--depending on
what the database is--to test the concept once a database is selected. The
Task Force later decided to study the survey results more and make a
recommendation on a proposed database to the full membership at the next
meeting in August.

The next ARKLink meeting will be Tuesday, August 10, at 1:00 at Hendrix
(subsequently changed to UCA). The meeting adjourned at 4:10.
(Minutes written by Janet Parsch based on Henry Terrill's notes from the
meeting.)

Last updated January 10, 2000
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