TexShare '94-'95
Commercial Indexing Working Group

Wednesday, November 9, 1994 Meeting
Clarion Hotel, Dallas, Texas

Minutes

              
  Present:  Bonnie McNeely, Chair, Virginia Andrews, Nancy
  Bierschenk, Roberta Pitts, Ellen Safley, Steve Stoan, Rajia Tobia,
  Karen Wielhorski, Paul Dumont, Anne Highsmith, and Mary Lou
  Goodyear.
 
       Mary Lou Goodyear, Co-Principal Investigator for TexShare gave an 
introduction for the Working Group. The TexShare program for this year 
is defined by a contract between the Texas Higher Education Coordinating 
Board and the University of Houston and Texas A&M University.  The 
Working Group's mission is to recommend to the TexShare Management Team 
and the TexShare Advisory Board the type of service which should be 
provided to the TexShare libraries under the commercial indexing service 
part of the project.  In addition, the Working Group should recommend a 
charging scheme to be used to distribute TexShare funds and to charge 
the libraries for the service.  The following parameters should be taken 
into account. 

        -The TexShare project is funded by state funds.  Therefore, service 
contracts will be written after a competitive bid process. 

        -TexShare funding for this part of the project is budgeted at 
$214,000.  The libraries who receive the service must pay one-forth of 
the cost of the service.  Therefore, a total contract of approximately 
$285,300 is anticipated.  Funds must be expended by August 31, 1995.

        -The Working Group recommendation should be ready for review by 
mid-January in anticipation of a contract to start during February or 
early March and to run a full year. 
 
    No definition was given of "commercial indexing service" by the 
Coordinating Board or by the TexShare Management Team; therefore the 
Working Group may define this service. 
     
        In order to assist the Working Group with its deliberations, a Request 
for Information was sent to several vendors.  The responses to this 
request was sent to the Working Group members before the meeting.  Three 
different types of services were defined:  a) table-of-contents services, 
b) multi-disciplinary subject indexing services, and c) discipline databases.

        The Working Group identified and discussed the following options in each 
category.>Table-of-Contents: Ebsco (93-present, 75% sciences), Faxon 
Finder (SDI service available), First Search (Contents Alert available 
for a charge, ILL Link), ISI (tape loading on a host system required), 
Uncover (Reveal option available). 

        Multi-disciplinary Databases: Ebsco (if subject indexing, on Open 
DRANET), IAC (direct to company),  Wilson (on OCLC FirstSearch and Texas 
A&M University system), and UMI (on OCLC FirstSearch). 

        Discipline Databases (of interest): Academic Index,  ABI Inform, ASTI, 
Business Index, Cinahl, Code of Federal Regulations, Commerce Business 
Daily, Dissertation Abstracts,  ERIC, GPO, Health, Humanities Index,  
MLA, Medline, NewsBank, Periodical Abstracts, PsychLit, Science Citation 
Index, SocioFile, WorldCat. Bonnie McNeely presented to the group a count 
of the databases currently available in TexShare libraries as collected 
by the Amigos TexShare study.

        After this review of possible services the group decided to focus on a 
general multi-disciplinary database with subject indexing (control 
vocabulary) and with abstracts if at all possible.

        Discipline areas to be covered are:  General, Business, Social Sciences, 
Health, Education and Science/Technology.  The Group would also like to 
explore full text options. 

        Possible vendors were identified as follows:  Database Producers are 
IAC, Ebsco (if subject indexing available), UMI, and Wilson. Host site 
vendors include DRA, IAC, OCLC, Texas A&M University, and the University 
of Texas.  (Note:  Information gathered after the meeting indicates that 
University of Texas is not able to become a host site vendor, and RLG was 
added to the vendor list.  The Working Group is still considering 
Chadwick-Healey as a database producer.)

        The Group recommended that the Commerce Business Daily be added to the 
Federal Register service immediately for the total cost of $1,000.  
(Note:  This has been done after a positive recommendation from the 
majority of the TexShare Advisory Board.) 

        Bonnie McNeely, Virginia Andrews, and Ellen Safley agreed to work on a 
draft of specifications before the December 8th meeting. 

        The next meeting of the Working Group will be December 7th (9:30 to 
6:00) and December 8th (9:00 - 3:00) at the Clarion Hotel in Dallas.  The 
first day will be used for vendor demonstrations, the second day will be 
used to draft specifications for the service and discuss a charging 
system.  Working Group members are to send to Mary Lou a listing of the 
elements they wish vendors to cover in their presentation.



  Mary Lou Goodyear
  Senior Associate Director
  Sterling C. Evans Library
  Texas A&M University
  College Station, TX  77843-5000
  (409) 845-8111  fax (409) 845-6238
  mlgoodyear@tamu.edu