I wanted to share some of the results of the recent introduction of large-scale full text document services in our library (with a little comment about other libraries).

As many of you already know, the Washington State Library led an effort last year to identify vendors of full-text electronic databases, and have Washington libraries select the one(s) they would like to be able to subscribe to. The Library then led negotiations for state-wide contracts that allowed small public and other non-profit libraries, as well as large publics and academics, to subscribe at very low prices. In some cases, larger libraries were able to continue subscriptions to databases they were already using, but at much lower rates.

Empire Health Services' Health Information Service (Robin Braun and Arleen Libertini) at Deaconess Medical Center in Spokane is an example of a hospital library that has benefited; they've found UMI's ProQuest affordable and useful. Just recently, a user asked for an article from the newest issue of Lancet. Their copy was not yet in, and they could not get the electronic version from the Lancet website to work. The issue was already in ProQuest; they were able to print it for their user.

Through our relationship with the Washington State University Libraries, we are able to offer UMI's ProQuest Direct to our students and faculty. This index/journal collection is now accessible from all our facility computers, as well as to users who log in from outside with their library ID.

After looking at the list of full-text journals in the ProQuest Medical Library and Research Periodicals subsets, we are now advising our users to search in the following sequence: first, use CINAHL to identify nursing materials we'll have in our library on the topic. If those items do not have all that's needed, then search ProQuest Direct, using the Medical Library and Research subsets to find nursing, medical, and other health-related journal articles. Most of those will be available in full text right on the screen, so no interlibrary loan activity will be required. Finally, if more is needed, search MEDLINE or other specialized databases, and use our other document delivery services to obtain the items identified.

Both our students and our faculty are using the service. Students have very quickly picked up on the fact that they can print or e-mail the article to themselves right away. They are particularly pleased with being able to find medical journals in full-text, which allows them to expand the resources they use for patient care very conveniently. Faculty, too, are pleased with full-text availability.

The group most pleased seems to be our students who feel more geographically isolated. Those in our Yakima and other out-of-Spokane programs no longer have to wait for document delivery of so much of the material they wish to use. Even with rapid fax delivery from our collection, they have felt a lack of library materials. Now, just as with the student in the main library, they have immediate access from a computer at home or at their learning site. We have seen requests from these students for documents begin to decrease.

One of the things we find ourselves cautioning users about is reliance on just what's available, instead of looking for the "best" article. While availability has always affected user behavior, we are seeing people more and more simply taking what's listed on the screen, without looking any further. This can occur even when they know the item found is not completely satisfactory.

We also find that users want to print from the computer, even when they'd get a higher-quality copy if they went to our paper issue on the shelf and photocopied it. At present, all our public printers are dot-matrix machines, which cannot offer graphics, and are slow and moderately noisy.  Some wish to avoid the cost of copying, but some seem to want the computer version no matter what.

The availability of high-quality full text has also made the demand for laser-quality printing much more urgent. Libraries such as ours, which installed inexpensive printers to allow "free" printing of citations and abstracts, now face calls for high-speed laser printers. We expect to spend a good deal of money on this kind of installation, and will be expecting our users to pay for the consumables via a charging system.

As always, it seems that improvements and new services from our vendors mean better information finding for our users, and more teaching and service from us. We're pleased with this new capability, and will deal with the new demands it makes on us.

[Bob can be reached at the Betty M. Anderson Library, Intercollegiate Center for Nursing Education
2917 West Fort George Wright Drive, Spokane, WA 99224-5290  Phone: 509-324-7342 Fax: 509-324-7349]

OCLC/WLN Merger - Past, Present, and Future

submitted by Kathleen McCrory, MLS, AHIP

 

On January 1, 1999, WLN merged with OCLC, and WLN became the OCLC/WLN Pacific Northwest Service Center (abbreviated PNWSC), serving Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Washington and British Columbia. The merger came as a shock to many of the librarians in the Northwest who have had dealings with either WLN or OCLC, but what does it all really mean?

First, the staff at the Pacific Northwest Service Center is still the same helpful staff that we knew and loved when it was WLN. In spite of the stress of the merger and the tremendous changes in their jobs, there has been surprisingly little turnover. Everyone I've spoken with has been has been eager to help and to discuss the ramifications of the merger insofar as decisions have actually been made, although some crucial issues remain undecided or in negotiations.

We do know that the WLN database is being merged into OCLC's WorldCat and that the migration is scheduled to be completed by the end of October 1999. PNWSC has pledged to maintain the existing WLN database separately until all online libraries have been converted over, and all problems have been solved. Online libraries have been receiving training in the use of WorldCat since the beginning of March.

For those of us who do not have online access, but have used LaserCat instead, good news! LaserCat will continue as before except that eventually it will be extracted from WorldCat, not the WLN database. This is not to say that there are no problems. As you may know, WorldCat does not display local holdings: no call numbers for books, no volumes or years for journals -- just the 3-letter OCLC code for the holding libraries. Since a large part of the usefulness of LaserCat for cataloging and ILLs has been the presence of local holdings statements, the PNWSC is determined to see that they remain and has made solution of this problem a high priority. For LaserCat libraries, training and migration of data to WorldCat should occur during the third quarter of this year.

As for costs, OCLC/WLN has promised to hold prices at their present level for the next year. After that, nothing is certain. However, the PNWSC staff is well aware that the users of LaserCat are mostly small to medium-sized libraries with budgets to match. The PNWSC will fight hard to convince OCLC that there is a market for products aimed at smaller libraries, and those products must be given an affordable price. They need all the ammunition they can get, so if you have concerns, let the PNWSC know about them.

originally posted on hlib-nw@u.washington.edu on 28 Feb 1999

UW School of Library and Information Science

submitted by Heather Wilder

There has been quite a bit happening at the School of Library and Information Science since last summer. As the student liaison to the Washington Medical Librarians Association, I thought I should give you an earful. I have talked with a few Medical Librarians here in the Seattle area to try to get an idea of general interests concerning the SLIS, but if anyone has further questions that I don't cover, please let me know.  This summary will cover:

Introduction of the new director
Things that have changed since Mike's arrival
Brief introductions of new and visiting faculty
Information about Directed Field Work

First, I would like to announce the appointment of a new director to the School of Library and Information Science. Dr. Michael Eisenberg is an exceptional person with lots of energy to share. You can find out more about Mike Eisenberg through his web page.  Mike has been changing the School at both a micro and a macro level. Here are just a few of the things that have happened since his arrival in last summer.

- The name of the School has changed. We have dropped the "Graduate" from the beginning, so we are now simply the School of Library and Information Science.
- The change of name is a direct result of Mike Eisenberg's vision. He sees the School adding on both undergraduate and PhD programs within the next five to ten years.
- The School has moved. We are now in temporary quarters on the third floor of the Old Electrical Engineering Building. Please drop by and visit if you have the chance! The School will be there until its permanent location in Mary Gates Hall is prepared. Construction is supposed to be completed in 2000
- The School is in the process of interviewing and hiring several new professors. This quarter alone, there have been twelve people scheduled to each give a presentation, teach part of a class, and meet with the students.
- A few new faces have already begun teaching courses this quarter, both as visiting faculty and as new faculty. The School's faculty list can be found at on the web.  I'm looking forward to watching it grow during the rest of the year.

It seems as if the entire attitude of the School has jumped up several levels from last year. Many people have commented, and I've noticed myself, that you can almost feel the energy and excitement as you walk down the halls.

As for the new and visiting faculty, following is a little more about them. These briefs about research and interests were written by the individuals and are displayed with some examples of their work on posters in the hallways of SLIS.

Ziming Liu
Dr. Ziming Liu's current research interests center on trends, emerging issues, and opportunities in information technology, as well as the social, ethical, and policy implications of digital technologies and digital libraries. He is interested in how people's reading behaviors change over time, and the impacts that electronic documents and "links" have on the reading path. Other areas of research include the preservation of digital media, and the future of paper in a networked environment.

Maurice Green
Professor Maurice Green's research focuses on the management of information technology (IT). Particular attention is given to the role of the chief information officer (CIO) in the IT management process. His current research examines competence in the role of the CIO. His teaching interests draw from the project management, systems analysis, leadership, and organizational behavior literature bases.

Joeseph Janes
Dr. Joeseph Janes is interested in the idea of digital "reference," drawing on traditional and electronic understandings of the term. His research focuses on technologically mediated reference and user services, exploring strengths, problems, concerns, and the relationships between traditional resources and their digital counterparts. In his work, he seeks to answer questions such as: "What makes a high-quality Net resource?" and "How can computing and telecommunication technologies draw on the strengths of traditional reference knowledge, while maximizing their own inherent strengths?"

Harry Bruce
Dr. Harry Bruce studies the human factors in information and communication technology. His research focuses particularly on how people use these technologies to obtain the information that they need. In recent years he has completed a number of studies that examine how the Internet is used, how people perceive the Internet, the barriers to effective use of the Internet, and the extent to which measurable benefits are derived from Internet use.

It was mentioned to me that night classes would be of particular interest to the WMLA community.

For the spring quarter, the night classes being offered are:

Special Topics
498Y(K-12) Strand M 5:00-7:50 OUGL

Subject Analysis of Library Materials
523Y Lee T Th 4:30-5:50 EEB 318

Bibliographic Knowledge
533Y Brooks M 4:30-7:20 EEB 321

Materials for General Information Needs
540Y Pierce M W 7:30-8:50 EEB 321

Planning Library and Information Services
562Y Green W 4:30-7:20 EEB 316

Special Librarianship
566Y Gershenfeld Th 5:00-7:50 EEB 321

Public Library Services for Youth
567Y Jacobs T 6:15-9:00 EEB 321

Intellectual Freedom
581Y Nelson W 4:30-7:20 EEB 321

Due to popular demand, there are many more night classes available than in the past. Though the web pages are slow to keep up with the happenings at the moment, SLIS is in the process of finding a paid web master. Keep checking out the SLIS home page. There are links to past night classes.  Though the Spring 1999 classes are not yet listed, I imagine that once the web master is hired, pages will be kept much more up to date.

In talking with Judith this afternoon, she wanted me to make sure to say that Mike Eisenberg really believes in "spreading the word," so if some information is not yet available to the world, it's not because we don't want it to be!

I have received some questions about Directed Field Work, whether this is still happening, and how to let it be known that you are interested in having a student for directed field work. SLIS is trying its best to reach its fingers out into the community. If you are interested in having a directed field work student in your library, please contact the school.  I participated in directed field work this past summer and found it an invaluable experience, though it seemed there were so few libraries to choose from.

For more information about Directed Field Work, please contact Cass (ckvenild@u.washington.edu) or Joe Janes (jwj@u.washington.edu)

The School of Library and Information Science is a really great place to be right now. It is definitely in a state of transition, which makes some things a bit difficult, but it really adds to the excitement to be able to see things changing and improving on a daily basis. For instance, just this past weekend, Scott Schramke and Scott Barker revamped the student computer lab to give us access to more programs. Also, by the beginning of next quarter "the two Scotts" have promised they will have the new teaching lab ready for use.

I guess that's about it for now. If anyone has further questions, please to not hesitate to contact me: hwilder@u.washington.edu.

originally posted on hlib-nw@u.washington.edu on 09 Mar 1999

More information about the School of Library and Information Science

submitted by Heather J. Wilder, University of Washington School of Library and Information Science

 

I've recently gotten a lot of questions about Distance Learning and the School of Library and Information Science at the University of Washington.  In answer to your questions, and for the rest of you who might also be interested:

The director of SLIS, Mike Eisenberg, intends to have a Distance Learning program established through the School by 2001 at the latest.  Word is that it is going to be a "full blown distance learning experience" and that is the reason it's going to take so long to get it going.

Thank you to the people who asked me questions about the School of Library and Information Science at the University of Washington.  If anyone has further questions, please do not hesitate to send them my way.

Northwest Notes / 20(1) Jan.-Mar. 1999 / April 22, 1999