Action for Libraries

              ACTION FOR LIBRARIES
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BIBLIOGRAPHICALCENTER'FOR'RESEARCH, ROCKYM6~;~IN REGI~~j~.
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VOLUME XVIIIl No 3, March 1993
FOUR MULTI-STATE LIBRARY
NETWORKS AGREE TO SHARE
RESOURCES
The executive directors and representatives of the
governing hoards of the Bibliographical Center
for Research (BCR), and the AMIGOS,
NELINET, and SOLINET library networks met at
the BCR offices in Aurora, Colorado on January
25 to discuss strategic planning and explore the
possibilities of sharing network services. The
group concluded that the ability to share services
would significantly benefit the member libraries
of all four networks, and agreed to work toward
the development of procedures that would facili­tate
such resource sharing. This decision has the
potential to dramatically widen the range of
services available to over 3000 libraries that use
the services of the four networks.
Linda Saferite, Library Director, Scottsdale (AZ)
Public Library and Chair of the AMIGOS Board
of Trustees said,
"The groundwork laid in our Denver discus­sion
represents a logical next step in resource
sharing: not just sharing of resources among
libraries, but a coordinated extension of
sharing among library networks."
The four networks also agreed to share the results
of their strategic plans, and to move, toward
coordinated strategic planning in the future.
Further meetings of the four network directors
and their governing board Executive Committees
will occur this summer in conjunction with the
annual ALA meeting in New Orleans. _
USE YOUR FREE TRAINING
VOUCHERS NOW
This year BCR member libraries earned 181
training vouchers for funds transferred for OCLC
prepayments. However, only about one third of
these vouchers have been redeemed for free
training sessions. This is just a reminder that the
vouchers must be used by the end of this fiscal
year. So don't wait until the last minute - sign up
for BCR workshops now and pay with your free
training vouchers before they expire! If you have
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questions aboLt how many vouchers you? institu­tion
received br how many remain un~sed, just
call Arleta Blad~6ffice. _
OClC PRICING FOR NEXT YEAR:
STIll A MYSTERY
by David Brunell, BCR Executive Director
Normally at this time of the year we are able to
provide BCR members with relatively specific
projections concerning OCLC price changes for
the coming fiscal year. However, this year OCLC
management has been unusually nebulous about
their proposed pricing alterations (see William
Crowe's related Users Council report on page 4).
While it is always risky to predict precise changes
based on vague RONDAC briefings, some general
trends are clear.
I expect that the move toward "Contribution
Pricing" will continue, meaning that the search
surcharge will increase while FTU and ILL
transaction costs wiIl both decrease. But I have no
clue as to how dramatic this modification will be.
Despite OCLC assurances that the move to
Contribution Pricing is designed to be "revenue
neutral," the increased cost of searches has led to
substantially higher total costs for some research
libraries and processing centers over the past two
years. One would, therefore, normally expect
OCLC to proceed very cautiously with this.
In addition, there have been hints that OCLC wiIl
begin charging for use of the export function next
year. This new charge may be balanced by a
slight decrease in the cost of MARC tapes. They
are also planning to offer an option of annual
subscription pricing for FirstSearch services, and
to simplify the pricing of other reference products
and services.
Since OCLe has been doing very well financially,
I would expect that their management and Board
would be unlikely to raise overall prices greater
than the current rate of inflation (between three
and four percent). All of this is, of course, very
speculative. We have been told that the networks
should receive final pricing information after the
OeLe Board Meeting in mid-April. _
A NON-PROFIT, MULTI-STATE LIBRARY SERVICES COOPERATIVE