People in attendance were:

The meeting convened at 12:00 PM.  Myron Flugstad called the meeting to order.  The minutes of April 23 were approved.

 1. Arkansas White Paper and Brochure Report - Kathy Sanders unveiled the prototype tri-fold brochure.  We decided that we should print 2500 copies of the brochure (in which we took into account our parent institutions, state legislators, the governor's office, ADHE, etc.)  We briefly discussed a cover letter to be sent in conjunction with the brochure.  The final brochure should be ready by the second week in July.  Members were asked to proofread the brochure and send comments to Kathy Sanders no later than June 28. 

2. Report on Meeting of Arkansas Interim Joint Committee on Education - Janet Parsch described our consortium to legislators explaining the history of the group, a common card catalog and the need for additional databases.  She asked for 1 million dollars for 10 databases.  She said the chairman, Sen. David Malone, Fayetteville is an avid library user and would be helpful in our corner.  He suggested we present our proposal to several other committees include the Information Technology Task Force. 

There was a debate about whether or not the legislators see us as worthy to fund, since the state library has traditionally done database purchasing. Some mentioned that we should work on other areas that might not look as conflicting such as resource sharing or digitization.  After the debate, the consensus was that the executive board should meet to resolve the following issues: 

            a. What is our bottom line target?
            b. Possible scenarios for achieving our goals
            c. Research how similar consortia faced these problems
            d. Should we have a dues structure?

The board said it would meet in July to discuss these issues

3. Report on ARKLink Governance and tax-exempt status - Susan Goldner said that to file as a non-profit organization, we would need articles of incorporation as well as some bylaws.  Unclear as to whether we can use money for lobbying or not.  Janet mention that Arknet is a confederation and that might be a viable alternative.  Susan said she would work on a draft of the articles of incorporation. 

4. Database Purchasing Task Force:  - Janet read the report for Bob who was unable to attend the meeting.  He is still looking for databases for the smaller colleges.  One he had in mind was the Bell & Howell product ProQuest Career and Technical Education.  This would cost $4300.00 per institution and many thought that price to be a bit high for consortia purchasing.  Janet asked for volunteers to help Bob with the task force.  Sharon Kerr, David Glick and Martha Coleman agreed to help with database purchasing efforts.  Health Reference Center is in limbo at the moment, state library working on one scenario while academic libraries might work on another one. 

5. Resource Sharing Task Force:  - Peggy Morrison handed out a snapshot of the needs assessment survey.  She received a total of 26 responses (out of a possible 47).  There is seems to be a high interest in sharing training materials as well as a courier service.  Bob Yehl mentioned that Amigos has a courier service, although it is not active in Arkansas at this time.  There is a consensus that Amigos be contacted to let them know that we are interested in this service. 

6. Collection Development Task Force: - Amanda Moore talked to representatives of JSTOR and Project Muse. JSTOR is not interested in working with consortia, and Project Muse has only marginally advantageous consortial pricing. Project Muse is also available through Amigos so she will talk to Amigos to see how their consortial price quotes compare. She also spoke with OCLC about Electronic Collections Online and they seemed interested in working with us. They have 2200 electronic titles; we could choose what we have in print and access journals from all ARKLink member institutions. Pricing is based on print subscriptions of member libraries. Additionally, Henry Terrill mentioned that there are some vapor titles, so you may not want to cancel print journals. David Glick said he would be willing to place the titles on the web page for us to check at a later date.

7. Funding Sources Task Force:  - Kathy Sanders had no report, although she said we may want to look for special projects that would need funding. 

8. Discussion of proposed meeting with ADHE - It was mentioned that we might want to meet with them to answer questions about the brochure. 

9. Peggy Morrison mentioned that there have numerous problems with DIS and caching.  They have not been responsive to our needs, so if we have any complaints or horror stories, she would like to hear them. 

The next meeting will be held at Harding University in Searcy, on Thursday August 17at 11:30 AM. 

Minute taker: Ronald S. Russ 

Last updated 08/07/2000
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