The Biomedical Libraries have posted the presentatons from our third annual October Conference for New England Librarians:

Electronic Journals: Pragmatic Solutions
for User Access

The program:

Thursday, October 21, 1999

"Facilitating User Access to Electronic Resources:
Framing the Issues"
Arnold Hirshon, Executive Director, NELINET

Electronic resources are quickly becoming the standard, but a variety of access issues are still unresolved or chaotic. This presentation provided an overview of the issues.
Article

"Optimizing Access to Ejournals via the Library Web"
Patricia Lynn, Reference Librarian, Van Pelt Library, University of Pennsylvania

Multiple access points to electronic journals from a library's Web site can help ensure greater exposure and use. Subject and title access from a variety of locations has been incorporated into the University of Pennsylvania Library Web.

"How many copies of a journal do we need
and which one do we keep forever?"
Connie Rinaldo, Librarian of the Ernst Mayr Library, Museum of Comparative Zoology and Michael Leach, Librarian of the Physics Research Library and of the Kummel Library of the Geological Sciences, Harvard University

As we move toward an increasingly electronic environment, how do we make decisions about which digital version of a journal to choose? When can we choose digital over print? Space and budget dictate the need to reduce duplication but libraries must consider the need to maintain the intellectual content of journals in perpetuity. Models for how to address duplication and archiving were discussed in this presentation.

"'Good Enough' Authentication for Licensed Web Resourses"
Lee Cornelison, University Systems Librarian , Tufts University

Tufts licenses Web-based resources, with the vendors authenticating users by IP address checking. We authenticate remote/off-campus access to the titles, via a low-cost method involving PERL scripts, and the Netscape Proxy Server.

"One User-ID and Password for all your Electronic Journals"
Mary M. LaMarca, Assistant Director of Information Systems, Dartmouth College Library

Taking advantage of a previously-established method to assign electronic mail addresses, we use a combination of Kerberos authentication, restricted web pages, and PERL scripts to validate users. Ideally, we'd like our users to only remember one user-ID and password for access to library journals.

"Implications for Public Services: An Open Discussion"
Bill Garrity, moderator, Director, Dartmouth College Biomedical Libraries

Electronic journals can be bewildering for staff as well as users. Ejournals are altering some of the behaviors and expectations of users and staff in the public services areas of our libraries. What opportunities do public services staff have for user education? How does the availability of ejournals change "traditional" library services like mediated literature searches and document delivery? Bill moderated a panel discussion of these and other e-journal public services issues. Members of the panel included: