5/8/00
Meeting Notes
Attending: Diane Hillmann, Ed Weissman, Scott Wicks, Bill Kara, Holly Mistlebauer, Marty Kurth, David Block
AP Photo Archive. This resource is currently available to Cornell courtesy of SCRLC. We have reviewed the file and find it very useful. The photos, some 50 million of them, go back to the 19th century (the earliest is of President Zachary Taylor (1849). They are accessed from a search screen that parses the captions attached to the photos. (Try Hunter Rawlings for an interesting flaw in this strategy.) NERL is currently considering a group purchase which would include the photos and the AP sound archive, which the SCRLC license apparently does not cover. Sound would cause some problems in those cases where computers are not equipped to handle it. Many of the new endowed computers have sound cards but no speakers, which would enable listening through headphones, which Phil tells us Mann is now checking out as a circulation item. We will work on a way to accommodate users but in the meantime catalog the Photo Archive site. (David will do the form and pass it along to Marty.)
SCRLC Shared Database Access. The last number of the SCRLC newsletter had a very interesting table of electronic resources made available in whole or part through government programs. Among these are the AP Photo Archive, mentioned above, our old friend Dialog@Carl and Wilson FullText Select. We encourage selectors to consider the resources on this list for adding to Cornell's collections. (The same caveats of numbers of users and database availability that we tested for D@C will no doubt apply.)
Marty brought along a request for electronic access to the Thomas Register. The resource is free (for now) but does require individual registration and password assignment. The Committee verified that we continue to cling to the requirement that passwords not be required for resources funded by the library or accessed through the Gateway. These resources are made available to users through entries in college and departmental web pages.
We all know that this is not a hard-and-fast rule. Regular readers of these notes will know that netLibrary.com is an exception, but as Phil pointed out , ERC specifically exempted netLibrary from setting a precedent for future practice.
Minutes recorded by David Block
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