This document presents a plan to use computer and communications technology as the first step in a ten- to twenty-year process of providing students and faculty with rapid electronic access to journal articles from sources outside the local library. Thi s plan will not only benefit students and faculty in traditional on-campus programs, it will also help the new university as well as off-campus and distance learning programs. The plan envisions making available additional computer databases of journal a rticle citations as well as the electronic delivery of journal articles themselves.
The first step in obtaining journal articles is to perform searches in sources of citations to journal literature. The LUIS system, supported by FCLA and running at NERDC, has several citation databases: Education Resources Information Clearinghouse (E RIC), Expanded Academic Index (EAI), Business Index (BI), Applied Science & Technology Index (ASTI) and Biological and Agricultural Index (BAI). There are dozens of additional citation databases on CD-ROM PCs in the SUS libraries.
Once a relevant journal article has been discovered through searching journal citation databases, if the library does not have the article, electronic delivery can be accomplished by several means:
The five methods of electronic article delivery described above are not mutually exclusive. To the contrary, libraries will rely on all five to provide a complete delivery service, with the fax machine declining over time from being the primary tool for the electronic delivery of articles to that of a lesser used tool of last-resort.
2. Provide PCs to replace the current base of LUIS terminals most of which are now seven years old. These terminals and their supporting controllers are no longer manufactured and soon the vendors will no longer provide maintenance. It makes sense to purchase replacements that (1) meet the libraries' needs for the download function, (2) provide a client/server architecture (in which the PC client has the flexibility to search a variety of database servers); and (3) are able to receive, decompress a splay images. Funds for the PCs would be allocated to the SUS libraries. The libraries would own the PCs and be responsible for their inventory.
3. Provide funding to acquire complete electronic articles for approximately 400 popular academic titles covering the humanities, social sciences, and sciences at the undergraduate level. One year later, add articles for 400 business journals. Also purchase PCs and printers capable of handling full page bit-mapped images. The articles would be stored at NERDC and delivered over the FIRN network to designated areas of the libraries for display and printing. FCLA would be responsible for the so store, retrieve and deliver the articles. The PCs would be located in the SUS libraries to receive the articles.
4. Add two or three more citation databases which have SUS-wide applicability to the LUIS system and increase the FCLA budget to cover them. Some of the ones most frequently mentioned are Psychological Abstracts, Current Contents, Compendex Plus and INSP EC.
5. Provide an Electronic Reference Collection which would include an encyclopedia, a dictionary and possibly a gazetteer, almanac and statistical abstract. These items would support the entry-level student as well as the advanced scholar in all nine inst itutions and their remote learning centers.
6. Improve the gateway from LUIS to the commercial firms which offer rapid article delivery. These services would provide access to more journal citations than can be loaded at NERDC and would provide fast delivery of articles that are not available in the SUS.
Year 1 Year 2 Year 3 Year 4 Year 5
1. Improve LUIS $260,290 $0 $0 $0 $0
2. Provide PCs 1,550,925 1,691,197 948,500 877,500 877,500
3. Article delivery
(in-house) 0 1,122,440 1,032,650 242,200 242,200
4. Journal citations 518,000 300,000 0 0 0
5. Electronic reference 0 0 370,000 300,000 0
6. Gateway to commercial 0 0 70,000 110,000 0
Total $2,329,215 $3,113,637 $2,421,150 $1,529,700 $1,119,700