PUBLIC SERVICES FORUM

Memo from Ross Atkinson, February 6, 2001

There will be no Public Services Forum this month--not because there is nothing going on affecting or relating to public services, but because I just can't get enough people together to report. Here are a few of the many things that are happening:

• E-metrics:  Christian is leading our participation in the ARL e-metrics project, which will among other things establish ARL standards for measuring services--including public services--in an electronic environment.

• Annex: The Annex Steering Committee, especially Pat Schafer and John Hoffmann, has been doing a great deal of work and calculation in the past several months to project when the Annex will be filled, and when we will need a new module.

• Laptops:  Mann is going to start circulating laptops this week or next.

• Ubiquitous Returns:  UR is in place as of 1 February. I will be working with Access Steering on publicity, which we expect to undertake toward the middle of this month.

• E-Reserves:  E-reserves are running in Uris and Mann. We now need to work on a process to get other units involved, so that they can prepare to provide e-reserves next semester. Part of this effort will probably be to consider extending public printer capability.

• Palm Project:  The Working Group on E-Books is starting to work on a proposal which, if successful, would result in a project in the fall semester to test the use of palm readers by undergraduates for assigned course readings.

• Distributed Learning:  We have a significant, new distributed learning effort now underway--in ILR. There are some thirty students, from all over the world, who will have remote access to Library resources. ILR is working on methods now to provide the best possible reference service to these new Cornell students.

The next Public Services Forum is scheduled for 12 March, and I am hopeful that we can discuss some of these actions then.

RWA

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2/9/01, jwg