The minutes of the April 27, 2001 meeting at Arkansas State University Beebe were approved.

Brief reports were given by libraries currently using the courier service. Kristine Shrauger (UAF) stated that 193 items were sent and 151 were received. Items were averaging $3/package. They are having a 1-day turn around in Arkansas and 72 hours for Oklahoma and Texas. There were only 3 minor problems and pickup was consistently at 2:30 daily.

Dena Plaisted (UAMS) reported 44 items received and 36 sent. They had 2 days without service and were able to determine that Amigos had a "query" problem. The service is working very well with their health consortium.

Kathy Sanders (UALR) reported 85 items received and 16-20 sent. Use should increase with publicity in the library newsletter. One of UALR's partners, Susan Goldner (UALR-Law) reported 2 received and 8-10 sent.

Bill Parton (ATU) reported 34% of outgoing ILL transactions went via courier with 73 sent out of 213 and 61 items received. A turn around time of 24 hours in state and 72 hours typical for out of state.

Bob Yehl (Henderson) reported 66 items received and 66 sent. They are partnering with Ouachita Technical College. There were a few problems with mail going to the Amigos office during July and having to be sorted which caused a delay in service.

Amanda Moore reported for UCA/Hendrix. 102 items were sent and 61 received. The service has been reliable with only 1 late day. Statistics are being kept. No one has been billed yet by Amigos. New members can be added at any time and will be pro-rated for the remainder of the year. The Arkansas State Library and CALS know about the courier service but won't be participating yet.

Amanda Moore reported that we currently have free trials for Standard & Poor's Net Advantage and CQ Electronic Reference Library. (See username & password emails). Amanda was concerned about the number of company reps that are contacting ARKLink members about database trials. It was decided that ARKLink would focus on titles from our database survey and refer other reps to Sally Hawkes. Amanda will also check back with Arkansas Business to see if any progress has been made on IP address recognition rather than single user access.

ARKLink will re-survey members to come up with a firm number of libraries interested in the America: History & Life database. It was decided that once a total library count is given to the vendor and a price quoted, it would be up to ARKLink how much each library would pay. (See ABC-CLIO email)

Amanda distributed copies of the current ACS Web Editions license agreement and Option B Addendum and pointed out 2 sections of interest; 2A states you pay additionally to keep the print edition and 2C is an additional participation fee. Several questions were brought up about the proposed agreement and it was suggested that the ACS rep come to our next meeting.

The CINAHL subscription for ARKLink renewal is coming up in December and libraries should send Amanda their FTE figures for new negotiations. Amanda will also get proposals from other vendors such as ProQuest, First Search, and EBSCO.

Beth Juhl reminded us to please return the survey to Barbara Nicholls concerning FirstSearch add-ons.

We were also reminded of our list of databases in the draft Collection Development Statement:

Peggy Morrison reported a concern expressed by Mary Ryan that the Funding Task Force is not going anywhere and needs direction. Suggestions were made to help focus the group's activities:

Identify four possible sources of funding initially for projects such as INN-Reach, ACS or other high dollar databases, a union catalog (other than Innovative), a core e-journal collection (J-Stor for example), training & instructional material, or web-based tutorials.

Peggy announced that Mary Ryan asked to be relieved of the duties of Funding Task Force chair. Kathy Sanders has agreed to be Chair.

We also need to elect a Chair-elect. It was agreed to suspend the rules to allow more time to accept nominations for Chair-elect. Peggy asked that nominations be sent to her attention.

Dena Plaisted asked for help in promoting Arkansas Health LINK. She asked that each library take a couple of packages of brochures and distribute them, as well as linking the site on our web pages, if possible.

Susan Goldner reported on a meeting she had with Amigos/OCLC representatives. Topics discussed included Iliad, whether Arkansas libraries keep their union lists up to date, imaging, what other consortia are doing, unlimited searching for FirstSearch, issues between academic and public libraries, full membership access for the entire state (such as Montana), FirstSearch add-ons, our relationship with the Arkansas State Library, and concern about funding for public libraries.

Beth Juhl distributed a handout on digital reference resources and products and spoke briefly on UAF's electronic reference services. UAF is not doing real-time reference; chat is not being used because of end-users having to install chat software. LSSI is very expensive but has some excellent features such as school name "branding", and storage of canned responses. There was general concern over the 24/7 name as most of our libraries cannot provide 24/7 service.

Many libraries were interested in core e-journals. This would be a selective list with guaranteed access.

Kathy Sanders mentioned that our letters and emails to the Network Advisory Committee did make a difference. It was agreed that training is an issue if public libraries want to make full use of the FirstSearch base package.

The next ARKLink meeting will be October 12^th. Arkansas Library Association meets October 21-23. Peggy will let us know where the meeting will be held.

Minutes submitted by Martha Coleman.

Page posted on 9/21/01
By Mark Shores