In spite of unseasonable weather on the Friday morning of April 4th, NER's Annual ILL Meeting went on without a hitch! Co-sponsored by NAHSL (North Atlantic Health Science Libraries) and the NN/LM NER office, roughly 60+ attendees were on hand for the annual event.

Elaine Martin, Director of the NN/LM-NER, delivered the opening remarks. On behalf of NAHSL, Ed Donnald also delivered a note of farewell and presented a gift to Debbie Sibley, whose last day was the day of the Meeting. Mary Jackson from the ARL (Association of Research Libraries) in Washington, D.C. was the keynote speaker. She talked about new trends in interlibrary loan and document delivery, and shared some of her predictions for the future. Much of her talk was based on a preliminary analysis of an ARL survey that is due to be released later this year. Mary also touched on the Open Archives Initiative for the Metadata Harvesting Protocol (OAI-MHP) that provides an application-independent interoperability framework based on metadata harvesting as defined by the Digital Library Federation. What all this translates to is that (looking forward into the crystal ball), librarians will need to get involved with future developments of "metadata" as it relates to the "semantic web", in addition to gaining a greater familiarity with esoteric terminology related to the web and other emerging information technologies.

System updates were also provided for DOCLINE, QuickDOC, CLIO, ILLiad, and EFTS. Following a buffet lunch, there were separate breakout sessions for both hospital libraries and resource libraries. The day's events wrapped up with a brief presentation from Mary Zammarelli on ARIHSL's recent ability to post ILL statistics interactively on the web, through the use of an electronic form developed by Penny Glassman in the NER office.

If anyone is interested in downloading information from the Meeting (such as Mary Jackson's presentation or the DOCLINE systems update), here's the page link: http://www.nnlm.gov/ner/rsdd/presentations.html

ACCESS LOCATORplus

before SEARCHING SERHOLD

Many folks forget to focus their search for member serial holdings in SERHOLD by first securing the bibliographic record from NLM's web-based OPAC (Online Public Access Catalog), also known as LOCATORplus.

Please refer to the NLM page links listed below for FAQ's (frequently asked questions) and information about how to use LOCATORplus.

http://locatorplus.gov/help.html

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/services/faqlp.html

You may also contact Mark Goldstein at the NER office (508-856-5964) for assistance.

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JUST THE 'FAX", PLEASE - AND THE DATE NEEDED BY.

One of our NER members has recently brought to my attention the need to remind borrowing libraries that when they request FAX as the method of delivery for a given borrow request, they need to make sure to also provide a "needed by" date.

As our colleague astutely noted in an e-mail: "in the past, you requested a fax and then changed the date needed so you'd know it was somewhat urgent. Nowadays, (borrowers) change (the method of delivery) to Fax, but (they) do not change the date." One can see how this becomes troublesome for a library with a staff of one: productivity may be lost or compromised by misallocated time taken up with "non-urgent" ILL requests -or even worse -- urgent requests get "lost in the pile" rather than handled expeditiously!

Bottom line: please remember to indicate the date that a request needs to be filled when requesting fax as a method of delivery. Thanks!

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CAHN'T GET "THAY-AH" FROM "HEE-AH"? AW-YUP! --THE DOCLINE-toMEDLINEplus LINK

There's a mechanism now in place that bridges the DOCLINE/DOCUSER database to the MEDLINEplus database. Within one of the DOCUSER screens there exists a checkbox that when checked, will list DOCUSER contact information for that library within MEDLINEplus. This feature is particularly useful to MEDLINEplus users seeking contact information for local libraries that house and service consumer health collections.

If you are a DOCLINE participant (that is, FULL member of the NN/LM), you may add your library to the MEDLINEplus list, as follows:

• Step 1. Log into DOCLINE.
• Step 2. Click on the DOCUSER icon.
• Step 3. Click on the Update icon.
• Step 4. Click on the SERVICES tab.
• Step 5. Check the box on the first line next to the text:
,

"Authorizes listing in MEDLINEplus."

If you are NOT a DOCLINE participant (that is, AFFILIATE Member of the NN/LM), you may add your library to the MEDLINEplus list by contacting your DOCLINE Coordinator, Mark Goldstein:

PHONE:508-856-5964

E-MAIL:mark.goldstein@umassmed.edu)

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ATO THE FUTURE

WOULD YOU LIKE TO HOST A DOCLINE or LINKOUT PRESENTATION?

If you would like to host a LinkOut presentation in your local area, please contact Mark Goldstein at 508-856-5964 -or- mark.goldstein@umassmed.edu.

NAHSL '03 IN OLDE STURBRIDGE

The 2003 NAHSL Conference Planning Committee looks forward to your participation at their next annual conference "Lighting the Future," October 26-28, 2003, to be held at the Sturbridge Host Hotel and Conference Center on Cedar Lake, Sturbridge, MA.

Mark Goldstein, DOCLINE Coordinator

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