Congratulations to Elaine Bonner, Serials Unit Head at IUN, for her ten years of service to the IUN Library. Elaine served in the Circulation & Reserve Departments prior to her current appointment. Many thanks to Elaine for a job well done!
--Ellen Bosman, Head of Technical Services
2. REFERENCE STATISTICS
Reference statistics data collection forms and instructions have been distributed via e-mail. Reference statistics are used for the Libraries Annual Statistical Report, and ARL statistics. The suggested week for collection is March 24-30, 1996. If you hav
e not received these forms, please contact Yolanda at (5-3403) or e-mail: (ycooperb). Forms should be returned to the Administration office by April 15, 1996.
3. PUBLICATIONS FROM OCLC
MPS has received the following brochures (2-4 pages each)from INCOLSA. For more information or to obtain copies of them, please contact Anne McGreer at 855-1666 (phone) or mcgreera@indiana.edu (e-mail):
1. "PROMPTSELECT: Questions and Answers"
2. "Delivering Cataloging Automatically ... PROMPTCAT"
3. "OCLC Authority Control: Questions and answers"
The above brochures describe OCLC services which streamline some technical services operations.
4. Announcing the "What the OCLC Online Union Catalog Means to Me" Essay Contest:. Grand Prize $1000, four prizes $500 each; celebrating OCLC's 25th anniversary. (April 26 deadline)
5. "Efficient Tracking of Your PRISM Use ... PRISM Usage Stats." Describes monthly electronic reports of your OCLC PRISM service usage.
--Anne McGreer, Asso. Librarian
The popular plastic Preservation book bags are back in stock. Please pick them up in the Preservation Dept., or contact me to have them shipped to your library. Book bags, posters, table tents and bookmarks are available free of charge to Bloomington ca mpus libraries and at cost to the regional campuses.
--Lorraine Olley, olley@indiana.edu, Head, Preservation Department
March 29, 1996 from 1:00 - 3:00 p.m. IHETS will offer a telecast - Fair Use - featuring Dr. Kenneth Crews, Kris Brancolini and others on a panel debating the meaning of fair use. At IUB the telecast will be on campus cable 32 and available in Studio 8 of the Radio/TV Building. Please attend if your time permits.
--Pat Steele, Acting Dean
The IUPUI University Library recently unveiled ERROL, their new system for making course reserves and other materials available online. ERROL which stands for Electronic Reserve Retrieval Online, represents the second phase of the partnership between Xer ox and University Library. Notable among the changes are the new easy-to-use structure and advanced printing capabilities. ERROL may be accessed from any web-capable machine anywhere in the world, however certain files, such as course reserve materials a re restricted by IP address so that only users coming in from IU and Purdue campuses may access them. To access ERROL, click on the ELECTRONIC COLLECTIONS icon on the University Library homepage, then select the link to COURSE RESERVES FOR IUPUI CLASSES, or connect directly to ERROL#s URL at http://xdodsrv.iupui.edu
--Mary Stanley, Asso. Librarian
7. IU CHEMISTRY LIBRARY USES WWW TO ACCESS INTERNET RESOURCES
Librarians and staff members of the Indiana University Chemistry Library have developed two innovative Internet resources: Chemical Information Sources from Indiana University (CIS-IU) http://www.indiana.edu/~cheminfo and BioTech, an interactive educational resource and biotechnology reference tool. http://biotech.chem.indiana.edu
A collaborative project funded by a $3.5 million grant the U.S.Department of Education awarded to IU, Iowa State (lead institution), the University of Minnesota and the University of Wisconsin, BioTech is designed to bring a range of biological informatio n to people at various educational levels. "Our goal," says Gary Wiggins, head of the IUB Chemistry Library and BioTech project director, "was to design a teaching tool, as well as to provide a directory to science information on the Internet."
Resources such as BioTech's Dictionary, a searchable science dictionary of more than 1,200 terms defined by a staff technical writer, and the staff-written Educational Guides are useful reference tools for high school (and older) students. In addition to providing clear introductions to such complex topics as human genetics, nucleic acids and proteins, the Educational Guides direct readers to reputable Internet resources addressing these subjects. The Educational Resources section features links to information at IU, Utilities, Online Courses, Web Guides and other compendia of biological and chemical sites, some of which are appropriate for beginning science students, while others are designed for the advanced researcher. BioTech's Literature and Professional Resources are geared toward doctoral students and others working in the science fields.
Wiggins considers the BioTech Dictionary and instructions for searching science-specific databases to be especially valuable resources for beginning science students. "You don't have to be an expert to use these tools. You can start from scratch and work your way up," he says.
CIS-IU originated from Wiggins' individual effort to compile notable chemistry sites he discovered during his Internet searches. His lists of chemistry sites which he updated 10 times in a one-and-a-half year span and distributed to people in chemistry, p roved to be very popular, especially after another person (with Wiggins' permission) posted the lists on a Web site and announced it.
Once Wiggins learned the hyper-text markup language (HTML) for creating Web documents, he created CIS-IU. Although it's a time-consuming project, "I like to do it," he says. "It's given me an impetus to convert Gopher information to the Web. And my ultima te goal was to put it in a structure I could use for teaching."
CIS-IU's contents, including: Guides to Chemical Information Sources and Databases (with tips for searching chemical resources), Science Writing Aids and information on Teaching Chemistry, follows his syllabus for Chemistry C400. "Now I make a class assig nment to find chemistry resources on the Internet, and students have found some things of which I wasn't aware!"
Maintenance of both CIS-IU and BioTech becomes a project in itself as the resources grow. "We try to check links fairly frequently," Wiggins says. "If a site has changed or moved and we don't get a response from the 'webmaster' then we'll pull it. In sele cting links to other Web-based biology and chemistry resources, Wiggins explains: "We're looking for things that have some stability and some importance to the field. In neither BioTech nor CIS-IU are we trying to be complete. Instead, we may link to a s earch engine like Yahoo where someone can go for more listings. Overall, we're trying to give people an avenue to get to where they want."
Apparently, BioTech has been doing just that. In January 1996, the site was accessed more than 100,000 times, with nearly 75 percent of the "hits" originating from outside Indiana University.
For further information about BioTech or CIS-IU, contact Gary Wiggins at (812) 855-9452, or e-mail: wiggins@indiana.edu
--L. Champelli - Library Administration Graduate Assistant
8. GOVERNMENT PUBLICATIONS REVIEW
In November, 1995 Pat Steele appointed the Government Publications Review Task Force to look at a number of issues related to the services and collections in the Libraries related to government publishing, specifically in the Government Publications Depar tment. The task force has met several times; interviewed all GPD staff for input into issues which the review should consider; looked at several statistical reports, annual reports, organization charts, and processes; and prepared a questionnaire, on which we would like your input. The questionnaire consists of a list of discussion topics and questions on a number of i ssues, including electronic access, space, and organization.
If you would like to make short general comments or request a copy of the questionnaire, either electronic or print, please contact Lou Malcomb (malcomb@indiana.edu 855-9857) or any member of the task force. The Task Force consists of Bob Goehlert, Jeff Graf, Lois Heiser, Linda Kamoji, Lou Malcomb (Chair), Andrea Morrison, James Russell, Jane Torres, Alice Wickizer. Because of time constraints we are asking all questionnaires be returned by March 29, 1996. Thank you in advance for your input and support during this review.
--Lou Malcomb, Head UGL
9. COMPUTERS IN LIBRARIES CONFERENCE HELD IN FEBRUARY
IUPUI University Library Executive Associate Director, David Lewis and Circulation/ILS Head, Steven Schmidt teamed up to offer a light-hearted but informative presentation on the "Unlimited Potential of the Electronic Library (except wehre prohibited by c opyright)" at the 11th Annual Computers in Libraries Conference in Washington, D.C., February 27, 1996.
--Mary Stanley, Asso. Librarian
More Issues of IUL News