Special Report...
Commission Offers Deal on netLibrary

Imagine having a collection of 1,500 electronic books at your fingertips and imagine sharing the cost of that collection with several dozen other libraries across the state.

Translate this into a real-life situation and it might go something like this: One of the business owners in your area calls and asks if you have any information to help her develop computer use policies. You search online and find that one of the titles, E-Policy: How to Develop Computer and Internet Guidelines to Protect Your Company and its Assets, is in the shared collection. You explain how she can check out this book without leaving her office (after undergoing an authentication process through the local library or the Nebraska Library Commission).

Thanks to the work of Nebraska librarians and Library Commission staff serving as a collection development team, this service is now available. A collection of 1,500 titles is available. One thousand are from the Academic Collection and five hundred from the Mass Appeal Collection. An academic library may participate for as little as $1.29 per full-time equivalent student. K,12 media centers pay $1.29 for 50% of their enrollment and public libraries pay only two-and-one-quarter cents for their population served (the figure used in the Public Library Statistical Report). The minimum charge is $75.

Currently, only those libraries that are paying consortium members have access to this shared collection. The collection will belong to this group of libraries in perpetuity. In years to come, this consortium may choose to purchase more collections together. Other libraries may join as these new collections are developed.

Data Elements Proposed

Each year, public library staff complete an annual survey providing information about the governance, services, and finances of their library. The public library survey program started in 1988, with nearly 9,000 public libraries participating annually. Each state and territory has a State Data Coordinator, appointed by the Chief Officer of the state library agency. State Data Coordinators collect library data at the local level and submit the data to the Federal-State Cooperative System (FSCS). Kit Keller serves as State Data Coordinator for the Nebraska Library Commission.

FSCS specifies standard core data elements to be collected by all states and territories. This provides for consistent, regular reporting of certain information on specific elements of library operations, including information about staffing, operating income and expenditures, and services. Changes to the core data set are scrutinized, evaluated, tested, and voted on in a three-year process before being implemented at the individual state level

State Data Coordinators recently voted on proposed data elements. The following were added by majority vote:

• Administrative entity mailing address,The current data element "street address" is important for mapping purposes. However in some cases this does not provide an acceptable address for contacting the administrative entity. Providing both elements will give the best description of the location and contact point of the library.

• Central Library,Each administrative entity may report either no central library or one central library.
• Number of users of electronic resources in a typical week Librarians are asked to count the number of customers using electronic resources in the library in a typical week. Electronic resources include, but are not limited to, Internet (WWW, , telnet, etc.), online indexes, CD-ROM reference sources, software, and the online catalog.

The first two data elements will not be reflected in the Public Library Statistical Report received by libraries. They only affect the data submission to FSCS in a few instances. However, the third data element should be collected at the local level and reported to the Library Commission. For more information contact Kit Keller, 402-471-3216, 800-307-2665, e-mail: Kit Keller.

Forums Held Across Nebraska

Librarians, library boards, and the general public attended a series of statewide public forums this Summer. The Nebraska Library Commission used this opportunity to generate input and discussion on the Libraries for the 21st Century 2001,2003 Campaign for Improved Library and Information Service. The Library Commission will use the ideas and recommendations from the Public Forums to revise the state long-range plan, and to construct the 2001-2003 biennium budget request. The forums were held in Scottsbluff, Cozad, and Lincoln. For more information contact Nancy Busch, 402-471-4002, 800-307-2665.

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