1. Schedule for Fall ARL and SPARC Membership Meetings
2. NIH Announces Launch of Electronic Archive
3. AAP Sends Letter to Provosts
4. Wisconsin Study Confirms Barschall's Findings
5. Japan Journal Access Project Launches New Document Delivery Pilot Project
6. Latin Americanst Project Expands
7. SPARC Update
8. Analysis of 1998 Copyright Law Revision Released
9. Interlibrary Loan Workshops Scheduled
10. Interlibrary Loan System Interoperability Advances
11. CNI Update
12. IFLA General Conference Convenes in Bangkok
13. ARL Publications in August
14. ARL Transitions
15. ARL Staff Changes
16. Recent ARL Web pages
1. Schedule for Fall ARL and SPARC Membership Meetings
The 135th Meeting of the Association
of Research Libraries will
take place October 13-14, 1999,
at the Washington Marriott Hotel in
Washington, DC. A new design for
the meeting will be employed. There
will not be program sessions on
Thursday and Friday. Instead, ARL will
conduct a Business Meeting on Thursday
morning and at noon the Scholarly
Publishing and Academic Resources
Coalition (SPARC) membership will begin
their first annual membership meeting.
Meetings of the ARL Standing
Committees will be held as usual
on Wednesday, along with the Federal
Relations luncheon. This new format
is an experiment and the ARL Board
of Directors welcomes your comments
and suggestions.
2. NIH Announces Launch of Electronic Archive
PubMed Central is the latest name
for the electronic archive to be
launched by the National Institutes
of Health in January 2000. According
to the announcement by Harold Varmus,
director of the NIH, PubMed Central,
now incorporating all of the life
sciences, "will archive, organize and
distribute peer-reviewed reports
from journals, as well as reports that
have been screened but not formally
peer-reviewed. Scientific publishers,
professional societies, and other
groups independent of the NIH will have
complete responsibility for the
input to PubMed Central. Copyright will
reside with the submitting groups
or the authors themselves, as determined
by the participants." The American
Society for Cell Biology is one of the
first major societies to agree to
submit its articles on an experimental
basis to PubMed Central, according
to an article in the Sept. 3 issue of
Science. The complete contents of
Molecular Biology of the Cell will
appear two months after publication.
Science also reports that Varmus
has asked the National Academy of
Sciences "to create an international
advisory body that would assume
responsibility for deciding who should
be allowed in the gate" (p. 1466).
Varmus's most recent statement can
be found at:
http://www.nih.gov/welcome/director/pubmedcentral/pubmedcentral.htm.
3. AAP Sends Letter to Provosts
On August 30, Patricia Schroeder,
President and CEO of the AAP,
sent a letter to over 3,000 provosts
seeking to provide help with
copyright education on campus. The
letter addresses AAP's copyright
education efforts and provides a
sample letter that a university could
send to all of its faculty concerning
copyright compliance for for
coursepacks. Schroeder notes that
such information was requested by many
provosts during AAP sponsored visits
to campuses last year. ARL was sent
a courtesy copy of the letter by
Carol Risher of AAP.
We are currently working with the
AAU and the ACE on a letter to
provosts to be sent from all of
the presidential associations. This letter
will remind provosts of the longstanding,
significant differences in
interpretation of the law between
the AAP and the academic community and
provide them with a list of alternative
resources for information on
copyright. We are also encouraging
provosts to consult their library dean
or director as they develop copyright
policies and educational programs
on campus. ARL directors will be
sent a copy of the AAP letter and our
response as soon as the text is
finalized. Please consult Mary Case
for more information.
4. Wisconsin Study Confirms Barschall's Findings
In commemoration of the 10th anniversary
of the research of Henry
Barschall, Professor of Physics
at the University of Wisconsin-Madison,
the General Library System at Madison
undertook a cost effectiveness study
replicating Barschall's methodology.
The new study examines 293 journals
in physics, economics, and neuroscience
and concludes: "By the measures
employed here, commercially published
journals in all three fields are
significantly less cost-effective
than journals published by
not-for-profit enterprises." In
some cases the difference is a factor
of 910 to one.
As is well known in the library community,
Barschall's 1988 cost
effectiveness studies of 200 titles
in physics were published by the
American Institute of Physics (AIP)
and the American Physical Society
(APS). Barschall found that commercially
published journals had the
lowest cost effectiveness and that
Gordon & Breach titles scored
consistently at the bottom of the
scale. As a result, Gordon & Breach
filed suit against the AIP/APS in
four countries, all but one of which
has been settled in favor of AIP/APS.
The last is still undergoing
appeal.
A summary of the Wisconsin studies
are featured in the August
issue of the ARL Report: http://www.arl.org/newsltr/205/index.html.
The complete study can be found at:
http://www.library.wisc.edu/projects/glsdo/cost.html.
5. Japan Journal Access Project Launches New Document Delivery Pilot Project
Ten North American research libraries
were selected to participate
in a nine-month document delivery
pilot project coordinated by the Japan
Journal Access Project and the Association
of National University
Libraries (ANUL) in Japan. The North
American participants are UC
Berkeley, Chicago, Columbia, Duke,
Harvard, North Carolina State, Oregon,
Pittsburgh, Texas, and Washington.
The Japanese participants include
Hokkaido University, Chiba University,
University of Tokyo, Tokyo
Institute of Technology, Kyoto University,
Keio University, and the
National Center for Scientific Information
Systems. The pilot focuses on
bi-directional document delivery
of copies of journal articles and book
chapters. Documents will be sent
and/or received using EPICWIN
workstations and Ariel software
or as email attachments.
The Japan Journal Access Project
is one of six regional projects
of the ARL/AAU Global Resources
Program. The University of Hawaii Library
has recently joined the project,
becoming the 33rd institution to join
this effort to improve access to
research materials published in Japan by
contributing to the Union List of
Japanese Serials and Newspapers, hosted
by Ohio State, and by undertaking
interlibrary loan and document delivery
projects with libraries in Japan.
6. Latin Americanist Project Expands
The Latin Americanist Research Resources
Project welcomes its
newest member, Dartmouth College,
raising the total to 43 participating
institutions. Members continue their
active participation in building the
journals database, augmenting journal
coverage, and refining monographic
collecting assignments. Both UC
San Diego and Notre Dame recently
increased their commitments under
the distributed resources component of
the project.
In conjunction with The University
of Texas at Austin General
Libraries and Institute of Latin
American Studies, the project will launch
its new initiative in October 1999,
under the auspices of a three-year,
$300,000 U.S. Department of Education
Title VI, Section 606 grant. The
initiative is entitled"International
Cooperation to Expand the Range,
Accessibility, and Availability
of Research Materials for Latin
Americanist Students and Scholars."
It is expected to build new
capabilities into the journals table-of-contents
database at LANIC as well
as expanding journal coverage of
additional areas of Latin America and
the Caribbean. The new intitative
will also test the model of distributed
collection resources, collaborative
indexing, and electronic document
delivery with new foreign library
partners.
7. SPARC Update
SPARC enhances its international
profile with new members Hong
Kong University of Science and Technology
and Universite Catholique de
Louvain (Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium).
Both universities, facing budgetary
challenges and serials cutbacks
due to the increasing cost of scientific
journals, joined SPARC to support
its goal of transforming the scholarly
communications market. In a related
development, the Australian
Vice-Chancellors' Committee (AV-CC)
recently voted to endorse SPARC,
lending its support to SPARC's publishing
partners.
Library directors at SPARC member
institutions recently received a
request for support of BioOne. BioOne
offers economical Web access to
core society-published journals
in the biological, ecological, and
environmental sciences. It demonstrates
an innovative, not-for-profit
response to the "serials crisis"
that SPARC believes will have a
far-reaching market impact. As noted
in recent coverage of BioOne in the
Chronicle of Higher Education, Science,
and Nature, most of the journals
planned for inclusion in BioOne
are available today only in printed
format, not on the Web. But It is
doubtful they will survive long without
electronic editions. Unfortunately,
because their subscription prices are
so low (the average price per title
is just $165), the societies generally
do not have the capital to go electronic.
Controlled by libraries and
societies acting together, BioOne
will enable high-impact, low-price
journals to move to the Web in a
way that addresses the overarching
needs of academe. BioOne is now
asking libraries for Charter Support
ranging from $1,000 to $5,000, depending
on the size of your library's
materials budget. Libraries that
are able may also become a BioOne
Sponsoring Organization by making
an additional contribution to BioOne
development beyond Charter Support.
Institutions that respond by
November 30 will receive a BioOne
subscription credit equivalent to 115%
of the amount contributed. For further
information, contact Alison
Buckholtz at: alison@arl.org.
Information about SPARC's 1999 Membership
Meeting, "Opportunities
for Scholarly Communications: Crafting
New Models," is now available on
the web at http://www.arl.org/sparc.
The meeting will take place
October 14-15, 1999, in Washington,
DC, immediately following the ARL
meeting. SPARC welcomes three people
from each member institution: the
library director; the scholarly
communications liaison or another library
staff member involved in scientific
communications; and the provost or an
interested party from the provost's
office. Attendance for SPARC members
is free and registration is required.
2000 pricing is now available for
SPARC-endorsed journals Organic
Letters (American Chemical Society),
Evolutionary Ecology Research, and
PhysChemComm (Royal Society of Chemistry).
In less than one year, these
journals have established themselves
as top-quality, lower-cost
alternatives to expensive, commercially-published
titles. For SPARC
members, the 1999 purchase commitment
of up to $7,500 should be directed
toward subscriptions to these journals
if they are appropriate to your
collection.
8. Analysis of 1998 Copyright Law Revision Released
As a result of changes made by the
Digital Millennium Copyright
Act to Section 108(a)(3) of the
U.S. Copyright Act (Title 17 U.S.C.), some
libraries raised a question about
whether, when they reproduce an article,
there is a need to research the
copyright notice of a periodical, journal,
or the larger work from which an
article is reproduced. The attorney of
the Shared Legal Capability, Arnold
P. Lutzker, Lutzker & Lutzker LLP,
recently addressed this issue. His
conclusions and a complete analysis of
the implications of the changes
to Section 108(a)(3) can be found on the
ARL website athttp://www.arl.org/info/frn/copy/notice.html.
9. Interlibrary Loan Workshops Scheduled
"From Data to Action," an ARL workshop
on strategies to redesign
ILL/DD services, will be held twice
this fall. The first workshop is
scheduled for Monday and Tuesday,
November 15-16, 1999, in St. Louis,
Missouri, and will be hosted by
St. Louis University Library. The second
workshop is scheduled for Monday
and Tuesday, December 6-7, 1999, and will
be held at the ARL office in Washington,
D.C. Space is limited at each
workshop, so please register early.
Additional information and the
registration form may be found at:
http://www.arl.org/access/performance/illddwork.shtml.
Contact Mary
Jackson mary@arl.org
with questions about the workshops.
10. Interlibrary Loan System Interoperability Advances
In August, members of the Interlibrary
Loan Protocol Implementors
Group (IPIG) formally approved the
IPIG Profile. The IPIG Profile
outlines the common set of decisions,
options, and values included in
the ISO ILL Protocol agreed upon
by IPIG members. Implementation of
the ISO ILL Protocol and the IPIG
Profile by ILL system vendors ensures
that libraries using a Profile-compliant
system from one vendor will
be able to exchange ILL transactions
with libraries using Profile-
compliant systems from different
vendors. During the spring and summer,
a number of IPIG members exchanged
test messages. The NAILDD Project
has prepared a series of charts
to track the status of testing.
Although successful testing does
not guarantee interoperability, the
charts are useful in tracking which
IPIG members are testing, and the
messages they have exchanged. The
charts may be found at
http://www.arl.org/access/naildd/ipig/res/ipig9801-stat-test.shtml.
For additional information, contact
Mary Jackson mary@arl.org.
11. CNI Update
CNI and the CIC are cosponsoring
a "Working Together" workshop for
archivists, records managers, and
information technologists on November
18-19,1999, in Indianapolis. Registration
is limited to individuals from
CIC institutions; the registration
form is available on the CNI website
at http://www.cni.org/.This
is the third specialized workshop CNI has
sponsored to address institutional
issues in planning for long-term
preservation of electronic records
and archives.
CNI's Fall Task Force meeting will
be held in Phoenix, AZ, on
December 13-14, 1999. Registration
materials will be sent to Task Force
representatives next week.
12. IFLA General Conference Convenes in Bangkok
The 65th International Federation
of Library Associations and
Institutions (IFLA) Council and
General Conference with the theme
"Libraries as Gateways to an Enlightened
World" convened August
20-28 in Bangkok, Thailand. The
conference was attended by 2,200
colleagues from 117 countries. The
US delegation was the largest with
over 300 representatives. For information
on the program and activities
of IFLA view the IFLA web site http://www.ifla.org/.
The 2000 IFLA
Conference will be held in Jerusalem,
Israel, and information on this
conference can be secured from the
IFLA 2000 Secretariat
teumcong@netmedia.net.il.
13. ARL Publications in August
+ SPEC 247, Management of Library
Security, George Soete with
the assistance of Glen Zimmerman,
July 1999, 101 pp.
+ ARL Academic Law and Medical Library
Statistics 1997-98,
compiled and edited by Martha Kyrillidou,
Jonathan Green, and Julia
Blixrud, August 1999, 87 pp.
+ Leading Ideas, issue #9, August 1999.
+ ARL: A Bimonthly Report, issue #205, August 1999.
14. ARL Transitions
+ Saskatchewan: Frank Winter is on
administrative leave from 1
September 1999 through 31 August
2000, during which time Ken Ladd is
serving as Acting Director of Libraries.
+ Kent State: Don Tolliver resigned
to accept the position of
Vice President for Information Services/Chief
Information Officer for
the University. Mark Weber is serving
as Interim Dean of Libraries.
15. ARL Staff Changes
+ DeEtta Jones is joining James H.
Lowry and Associates, a
management consulting firm specializing
in business development and
diversity practices within Fortune
500 companies and a variety of
government agencies. She will become
Vice President with a portfolio
for managing their diversity program
as well as serving as the engagement
manager for contracts located in
the east. DeEtta's new position starts
on September 13. She will continue
to devote half of her time to
managing the transition of ARL's
Diversity Program through the end
of 1999.
16. Recent ARL Web pages
+ SPARC Influences Journal Purchasing
in Asia, Europe, and
Australia
+ Online Lyceum Course on Coaching for Performance
+ Lutzker Analyzes Changes to Section 108(a)(3) of Copyright
+ Fall 1999 Online Lyceum Distance Learning Opportunities
+ 1997-98 ARL Academic Law and Medical Library Statistics Published
+ SPARC E-News August 1999
+ New Filtering Legislation Introduced
dew 9/9/99 pm
Duane Webster, Executive Director
Association of Research Libraries
v (202) 296-2296 f (202) 872-0884
duane@arl.org