The session on electronic publishing and resource sharing presented at the recent Joint Meeting of the regional MLA chapters was co-sponsored by PSRML and the Joint Meeting program committee, and focused on a topic which is sure to bring significant c hanges to the library's role. Speakers representing some of the important players in this new future were on hand to discuss applications and implications of electronic publishing and how it might affect our traditional methods of resource sharing w ithin the NN/LM.
Tom Rindfleisch, Director of Lane Library, Stanford University, provided a good introduction to the topic by demonstrating PUBMED, a project, under development at the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) at the National Library of Medic ine. PUBMED is a good example of how electronic full-text can be made available through links from the bibliographic records in a database, in this case MEDLINE, to Web sites of the publishers who have mounted the full text of their journal articles (in this project, Highwire Press and the New England Journal of Medicine). This ability to link resources at the user's desktop will make possible a very different way for the individual researcher or practitioner to access information. For a description o f the PUBMED project, you can visit the NLM's Web page at the following address: www4.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/PubMed/overview.html.
A series of slides taken from Mr. Rindfleisch's presentation and demonstration are available at the following Web address: http://www.smi.stanford.edu/people/tcr/pubmed/.
Alison Bunting, PSRML Director and Associate University Librarian for Sciences, UCLA, followed this presentation with a discussion of how document delivery models might change within this new type of publishing environment. After reviewing the tradit ional document delivery methods used by health sciences libraries, Ms. Bunting described the various models which have emerged for delivery of information from electronic journals, and how libraries are currently providing interlibrary loans from this med ium. She went on to describe the University of California's planning initiative for a UC Digital Library as an example of how libraries will be changing the way they provide document access to their users. This change will effect the roles of not only i ndividual libraries and librarians but also our professional associations, the Regional Medical Library, and NLM. Ms. Bunting sketched out possible future roles for these groups and how they might start preparing themselves for new challenges.
A copy of Ms. Bunting's complete presentation is accessible from the PSRML Web Site.
The third speaker was Mary Ann Nash, Director of OCLC Pacific, who described OCLC's First Search Electronic Collections Online. This project is being developed to help libraries gain access to large collections of academic journals on the Web. Based on the premise that librarians should make the decisions for their own library's serials acquisitions, First Search Online provides a Web-based search interface for journals which includes access to all OCLC database citations, but full-text access only t o the journals to which a library actually subscribes. Presently 260 journals are available through the system, and OCLC has archival rights to all of them. The system is designed to eventually support document delivery and be integrated into local sys tems and other information resources.
Slides from Ms. Nash's presentation are available from the PSRML Web Site.
The final speaker was Lucy Thomas, Director of the Reeves Medical Library at Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital. Ms. Thomas considered the various issues facing hospital librarians as they contemplate access to the electronic literature: cost, demand, ret ention, equipment, and training for both staff and users. She also discussed the emerging roles for the librarian in this electronic environment.
Ms. Thomas's presentation is also available from the PSRML Web Site.
The session concluded with a lively question and answer session, moderated by Rachael Anderson, Director of the University of Arizona Health Sciences Library, in which the speakers were joined by Clifford Lynch, Director of Library Automation at UC. T he panel addressed a variety of questions on archiving electronic documents, authentication, justifying the library in the electronic age, privacy, funding for electronic publishing, and possible roles for MLA in helping librarians cope with this emerging electronic environment.
PSRML has had a long standing role in facilitating resource sharing among health sciences libraries in this region of the NN/LM. Organizing programs such as this, to inform and educate library staff, is one way of maintaining our ongoing commitment to resource sharing. We will continue to work with Network libraries to make sure that their needs, in providing access to the biomedical literature for their users, continue to be recognized in this new electronic environment.