The minutes of the August 13, 2001 meeting at Hendrix College were approved.

Jerrie Townsend offered to host the December ARKlink meeting at the Stuttgart campus of Phillips Community College.  Kathy Sanders of UALR offered to host the February 2001 meeting and Janet Parsch of UAF offered to host the May 2002 meeting.

Doug Storm of the American Chemical Society's (ACS) Publications division presented information on online access to ACS journals, called Web Editions.  Option B of the proposed license will provide access to 24 titles.  Years of coverage are 1996 to present, in HTML and .PDF formats.  A minimum participation fee would be assessed each ARKLink member.  On top of that, each member will pay a surcharge (15% of their total print subscriptions) to gain web access.  If the surcharge does not meet or exceed the minimum participation fee then the member will have to make up the difference.  For example, a two-year institution pays a $1500 minimum participation fee for access to the web editions.  If that institution has $5000 worth of print subscriptions, they pay a $750 surcharge and an additional $750 to meet the minimum participation fee of $1500.  A school with $20,000 worth of print subscriptions will pay $3,000 for their surcharge, even if it exceeds the minimum participation fee.  The minimum participation fee that Mr. Storm mentioned during the meeting was $1500 for two-year and technical colleges, and $2000 for four-year institutions.  The minimum participation fee has not been finalized.  

Also under Option B as written, the print subscriptions cannot be canceled.  However, if through negotiations the group decides that cancellations are necessary, ACS will require the institution to keep paying the full subscription rate (but not the 15% surcharge) to access the Web edition.  Cancellations may done "at will" but only if a total cost is negotiated for the entire consortium.  Storm is currently working on a proposal for a total cost.  Once the Web fee is negotiated, there will be a discount on print subscriptions.  Print versions of the journals can be added later; that cost will vary according to the number of participants in the group.

Storm added that Web Editions journals meet ACS institutional accreditation standards,

Kathy Sanders introduced the new Head of Reference and Instruction at Ottenheimer Library: Kay Garsnett.  Sanders also asked for input on the "Nature of Academic Libraries" a presentation she will be giving at the fall conference of the Arkansas Library Association.  Possible topics mentioned include distance education, funding, facilities, and ARKLink activities.  Mary Ryan of UAMS, who will be giving a similar speech, only on "Special Libraries in Arkansas", also asked for input.    

Frank Brown (Network Manager for UAMS Library) and Cindy Caton (Head of ILL at UAMS) demonstrated the Iliad interlibrary loan software, which UAMS recently implemented.  The software is marketed and licensed by OCLC and was originally developed by the Interlibrary Loan staff at Virginia Tech University.  UAMS processed 136 requests in two hours right after the software went "live."  Caton and Brown reported that although Iliad took a considerable amount of time to implement, the convenience and time/money saving features are worthwhile.

Amanda Moore of Hendrix/UCA reported on several items: 

The ICOLC meeting in Stone Mountain, GA was interesting.  The focus was on Library Portals and their pricing and future.  Featured were OCLC FirstSearch, Standard and Poor's, Thompson Financial, ExLibris, Northern Light and others.  After reviewing the corporate models most agreed that the library marketplace was priced out of the market for such products. 

A proposal for standard elements to be present in vendor's pricing models was unsuccessful. 

Discussions of the Bath Protocol and other methods of data transfer; privacy guidelines for vendor data, and standards for vendor statistical reporting for consortia were discussed. 

Moore's recent meeting with Sally Hawkes from the State Library was productive.  Agreement was reached on quarterly meetings and additional consultations and information exchanges in the future. 

3M would like to demonstrate their inventory product to all libraries.  The February meeting was scheduled for this activity at UALR.

A suggestion by the Solinet library representative for library personnel to attend the Digital Divide Conference as a way to make contacts with state officials was discussed at length. 

The trial and price proposal for Britannica Online is pending. 

Quotes for CINAHL through FirstSearch and SilverPlatter were presented.  A price quote for Full Text CINAHL from ProQuest was also distributed. 

Price quotes from ABC-CLIO for America: History and Life and Historical Abstracts were distributed and discussed. 

Discussion of the price quote from the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette concluded that the coverage and search engine from Academic Universe was more complete and easier to use.  There would be no follow-up with the Democrat-Gazette. 

Congressional Quarterly  (CQ) has contacted Amanda and offered a 20% discount for ARKLink members.  Pending replies from those interested.

Peggy agreed to poll the membership via e-mail regarding Standard and Poor's proposal and if we should move forward on it.

Moore requested reporters for ArLA sessions next week.  Contact her to volunteer for any session.  Each reporter is to send in a few sentences on each session.  Let her know ASAP.

Due to the late hour, Chair Morrison will poll additional agenda items via e-mail to the membership.

The meeting adjourned at 3:15 p.m.

Minutes taken by Mark Shores & Henry Terrill.

Page posted on 11/6/01
By Mark Shores