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Several years ago, I wrote an article for Library Update about the WSU Libraries’ long history of cooperation and consortial agreements with other libraries in the state and region. At that time, I outlined the history of the Cooperative Library Project, a three phased state-supported project designed to share collections and electronic resources more easily among the six state-supported baccalaureate institutions in Washington.

I am pleased to announce that the Washington State Legislature has funded phase 3 of the Cooperative Library Project. Phase 3 will give library users improved access to the joint catalog of the six institutions. In addition, funds will be available for joint subscriptions to databases providing indexing and some full text of newspaper articles and articles found in core academic journals for the humanities, social sciences, sciences, and health sciences. Needless to say we are delighted by this development and look forward to working more closely with our Washington consortial colleagues.

Nancy L. Baker

Director of Libraries

335-4558

Earlier this year the WSU Libraries initiated a pilot project for direct ordering and delivery of journal articles with the assistance of several departments across campus and one research and extension center. We are pleased to announce that the Libraries are in the process of converting this pilot into an ongoing program which will be offered to all WSU faculty. Each of the library faculty liaisons will be working with her/his departments to provide the needed information for your participation. In a nutshell, this program will allow faculty to order copies of articles that are unavailable in the WSU Libraries directly from any of the suppliers with whom WSU has made arrangements, and have those articles sent to their offices. All billing will be sent to the Libraries. While we are not asking for any formal feedback on the use of this program at this time, we are always interested in comments or suggestions that might assist us in making improvements. Your contact for information about the program is the library faculty liaison for your department.

Developed by WSU Libraries, University 300 ("Accessing Information for Research") has been taught for several years through the Extended Degree Program. This Spring semester saw the delivery of the course to on-campus students enrolled in targeted research-oriented courses in several disciplines. Univ 300 offers an opportunity for students to learn information literacy concepts and skills in a classroom or distance education setting.

Univ 300 is a one-credit course that may be taken independently or in conjunction with a "linked course" in any academic discipline. A successful link to Univ 300 requires a 3-credit course with a substantial research assignment, which stresses the research process.

The modern "information landscape" offers students and scholars unparalleled access to information via computer networking, traditional library material, and alternative resources. To function effectively in this environment, one must adapt quickly to the pace of change, learn new technical skills, and evaluate information resources from commercial and private information providers. Univ 300 helps students develop the awareness of research as a process involving critical thinking, conceptual knowledge, and technical skills.

The General Education Program has been instrumental in the Libraries’ ability to offer this course to on-campus students by securing support through grant monies to develop a series of online modules exploring issues related to the research process. Foreseeing the increased need for more substantial support for self-directed student research, the General Education Program will facilitate the opportunity for both librarians and librarian-trained instructors to teach Univ 300 in both the on-campus and distance environment.

In a formal statement, Richard Law, Director of the General Education Program, stated: "To create an academic teaching and learning culture which is both research-based and self-reflective in nature, we must develop all possible synergies between teaching and research functions at WSU, to increase participation of research faculty in instruction, and, above all, include the library faculty as full partners in this instructional effort." The Libraries would like to thank the General Education Program for its support.

The Libraries subscribe to a growing collection of electronic databases, e-journals, and collections of electronic resources. Managing faculty and student access to these resources is becoming a much more complex undertaking than anyone could have predicted in the days before networked information.

Libraries have a long and successful history managing access to complex collections of information. Cataloging and classification rules and practices have evolved for over a hundred years. "Closed stacks" which banned all but a few privileged users from the shelving areas have long since given way to "open stacks." Electronic security systems were installed to help protect collections in open stacks from theft. The "reserve" system was developed to facilitate access by students in classes who all need access to the same library resources. User-operated copiers and microform reader-printers allowed students and faculty to create their own information packages of library-owned resources. And copyright law protected the interests of the producers of information while facilitating access by its users. In the new world of networked, electronic information, publishers are having to learn new business models, and libraries are discovering new challenges in managing access to information.

Copyright is, at present, less important for electronic information than for traditional printed resources. Very few publishers rely only on copyright to protect their resources. Instead, licenses govern the rules of access to almost all electronic subscriptions, and almost all licenses are more restrictive than the current copyright laws. The WSU Libraries attempt to negotiate the most liberal terms that we can on behalf of our users, but the following are just some examples of the challenges we face.

WSU is one university with multiple campuses, and we transfer printed, microform, and media materials among all of our various units unbounded by copyright restrictions. Many electronic licenses, however, define the subscriber as limited to a single geographical area. One even defines that as "no access from beyond six miles." Others specifically prohibit access by branch campuses (unless, of course, each of the branch campuses pays for a separate subscription). In trying to protect themselves from institutions like the University of California, these vendors exclude WSU’s branch campuses as well. But WSU is a land grant university, and unless we carefully negotiate exceptions, agreements such as these can also exclude access from our extension offices and research stations as well, even though these are clearly affiliated with WSU Pullman.

Fortunately, a growing number of electronic resource vendors specifically allow access by multiple units within a subscriber provided there is a single administration. This clearly describes WSU, with all of its campuses, learning centers, extended university programs, and extension services. And the best licenses of all simply authorize access by the students, faculty and staff of WSU, without any mention of organizational structures.

Many licenses contain restrictions which are not geographic. For example, Lexis/Nexis is restricted to academic users, i.e., it may not be used by WSU employees for work-related purposes. A few licenses restrict access to users on a local area network (LAN) and define a LAN as being within a single building. Finally, most of our licenses for CD-ROM resources restrict access to a single workstation and forbid network access.

A growing number of our electronic resources are acquired in cooperation with other libraries. Such consortial purchases provide us with significant savings because each library’s share of the group price is less than the price for the WSU Libraries alone. FirstSearch, ProQuest Direct, Britannica Online, IDEAL (the full-text electronic journals of Academic Press), and Current Contents are all joint subscriptions. The FirstSearch consortium is a group of over 30 libraries in Washington, Oregon, and Idaho coordinated by the WSU Libraries. ProQuest Direct, IDEAL, and Current Contents are coordinated by the University of Washington Library, and Britannica Online, by the University of Oregon Library.

During Christmas break, the WSU Libraries implemented a new online catalog interface. This new interface allows access to the Griffin online catalog -- and to its many indexes and reference tools -- through the World Wide Web. The new Griffin represents a significant step forward in library services and is an exciting event for the Libraries and its users.

One significant benefit to the new Griffin is that it establishes a standard interface. Before the Web Griffin, users who accessed the library catalog outside the libraries encountered an entirely different look than if they were inside the libraries. Griffin within the libraries ran on a Windows-based program, while users outside the library accessed Griffin over the Internet, either over the Web or through a text-based "telnet" program. The Web has long been seen as a solution to compatibility problems. All kinds of computers access and use the Web. The Libraries’ migration to a Web catalog simplifies service by taking advantage of the Web’s multi-platform capabilities, thereby giving library users one consistent catalog to use.

Another major improvement to our catalog comes from the abundance of web-based resources that have emerged during the past year. A new multi-disciplinary index, ProQuest Direct, upgrades services dramatically. ProQuest offers a huge number of citations, many available in full-text to be downloaded, e-mailed, or printed. Along with ProQuest, several new indexes have been made available over the Web. In particular, FirstSearch has made drastic improvements to its Web interface, and these improvements are reflected in the new online Griffin. As of this writing, there are forty-nine indexes available through the new library gateway, almost ten times as many as were available last fall.

As with any change, users need to make adjustments. Fortunately, most of the adjustments for this change will result in benefits for everyone. The new Griffin is easy to navigate, and results of searches are easier to read than in the Windows Griffin. Many users report being slightly overwhelmed by the multitude of options, but once they become accustomed to the abundance of options, we feel confident everyone will find the new Web Griffin a great addition to the online service we can provide our students, faculty and staff.

WSU Libraries has joined a consortium with University of Washington, Eastern Washington University and Evergreen State College to provide users electronic access to research journals published by the Academic Press.

The IDEAL (International Digital Electronic Access Library) database provides the table of contents and abstracts to all 175 Academic Press publications. In addition, users may view, print and download full text articles from journals subscribed to, in the traditional paper format, by any member of the consortium. This agreement will provide the Pullman campus access to over 50 additional journals. The number is even greater for the Vancouver, Tri-Cities, Spokane and ICNE campuses.

Holland Reference offers several new databases to assist researchers in the humanities and social sciences. Ethnic NewsWatch provides full-text coverage of newspapers, magazines, and journals of the ethnic, minority and native press. The database is available from several CD-ROM workstations in the Reference area, and will also be available for on-campus access soon via the campus network. Currently available are articles written in the year 1997, with monthly updates scheduled. With an additional CD-ROM disk to be added later this Spring, Ethnic NewsWatch will cover the years 1995 and 1996.

Simmons Study of Media and Markets will no longer be published in print format. The information from this thirty-four volume set will only be available on the CD-ROM entitled Choices II, now available on a dedicated workstation in the Holland Reference area. Professors should be aware of the complex nature of this new database. Choices II requires input of a request be done in a particular sequence of twenty-two steps, and consultation with the Choices II Technical Guide.