ACRL News Issue (B) of College & Research Libraries 522 / C &R L News for taking too long to publish results of the HEGIS library surveys. One reason for the delay was that librarians were very slow to return completed questionnaires. In 1985, when the last H EGIS li­ brary survey was in process, Robert Wedgeworth, then Executive Director of ALA, and JoAn Segal, ACRL Executive Director, co-signed a letter sent to all academic library directors urging response. A good number called ALA to say that they had never received a form! This experience made us resolve to alert academic librarians next time the library sur­ vey form went out. If you don’t get a copy by the end of September, contact the person on your cam­ pus responsible for responding to government sur­ veys. Once you have the survey, please fill it in com­ pletely and return it promptly to the indicated ad­ dress. The sooner forms are returned, the sooner results can be published. ACRL and the ALA Of­ fice for Research are working with the NCES to get results out fast. You can help by returning your sur­ vey form as soon as possible. We are also working with NCES to improve the questionnaire. Please let us know what you think of the 1988 form. INNOVATIONS Faculty access to RLIN at New York University: R LG ’s research access project B y M elanie D odson C oordinator, P roject In form B obst L ibrary , New York University RLIN, the database of the Research Libraries Group, has entered the world of end user services through the Research Access Project (RAP), a pilot program involving eleven RLG institutions. Initiated in early 1988, RAP provides faculty with RLIN searching accounts at a cost of $99 for a ten hour block of search time. Each participating institution has adopted its own approach to subsi­ dies, training, and selection of faculty. But all will contribute evaluative information about the proj­ ect through a questionnaire developed in conjunc­ tion with the Public Services Committee of RLG. At New York University, we have set up over forty library-subsidized RLIN/RAP accounts thus far for faculty and research staff— the largest group of accounts to date among the RAP institu­ tions. RAP’s enthusiastic reception at NYU is partly due to Project Inform, an initiative through which librarians at NYU are examining ways and means to u tilize and in teg ra te in fo rm atio n systems throughout the campus. As part of Project Inform, we have introduced faculty to many online data­ bases, including RLIN. Through these demonstra­ tions, faculty see firsthand R L IN ’s capabilities and, by extension, the benefits of the Research Ac­ cess Project. Initially, we identified departments with faculty most likely to use R L IN as a research to o l— primarily in the arts, humanities, and social sci­ ences. Reference librarians and bibliographers also suggested specific faculty who use RLIN in the L i­ brary or who are involved in ongoing bibliographic research projects. These faculty were sent a letter and brochure describing the database and equip­ ment needed to access it. From this targeted mail­ ing of 100, we received thirty-five requests for ac­ counts from departments ranging from nursing to telecommunications and from cinema studies to Near Eastern languages. A month later, we distrib­ uted several more accounts following a general an­ nouncement in the Library’s newsletter. While most accounts are for individual use, some are shared by faculty and graduate students within de­ partments. Librarians conducted training for participants during April and May. These one-hour sessions S ep tem ber 1988 / 523 outlined database content, basic searching proce­ dures, and interpretation of display formats, and also highlighted special databases and files such as the Eighteenth-Century Short Title Catalog and Archives and Manuscripts. Training packets for each participant included RLG instructional mate­ rial, a mini-manual and quick reference sheet de­ veloped by NYU, and log-on procedures through Telenet. We distributed all account and password information at the time of training. The majority of questions posed by users of re­ mote databases typically relate to technical aspects of online searching, such as how to connect, download, and print. Our experience with RLIN is no exception. Given the variety of communications software packages available, we did not attempt to give RAP users a crash course in telecommunica­ tions. Rather, we provided assistance for packages used on campus, such as ProComm and Kermit and, where appropriate, referred users to the RLIN Information Center or their user manuals. In addition, as previously mentioned, we provided packets that contained detailed instructions on T e­ lenet access and a Telenet help number. The RLIN/RAP training sessions were an excel­ lent opportunity for librarians to learn more about faculty research and for faculty to increase their awareness of library initiatives in the areas of data­ base design and resource sharing. Further explana­ tion of the MARC record structure was of special interest to several faculty involved in database con­ struction, and created a common basis for under­ standing indexing and retrieval. The training ses­ sions also gave us the opportunity to stress the utility of using NYU’s online catalog, BobCat, in conjunction with RLIN for identifying local re­ sources. One of RLIN ’s strengths, of course, is the display of holdings information for member libraries. The breadth of the database and inclusion of location information within each record combine to create a powerful verification tool for faculty searchers. Because so many libraries within the metropolitan area contribute to the RLIN database, NYU fac­ ulty are able to identify a tremendous amount of lo­ cally available material from libraries such as Co­ lu m b ia , New York P u b lic, the M etro p o litan Museum, and a host of similar institutions. Searching RLIN for themselves, faculty are in­ troduced to the vast potential and importance of R L G ’s resource sharing programs. An evaluation instrument, along with informa­ tion collected by R L G , will provide extensive data on the relative ease or difficulty of searching the database, the usefulness of various files and special databases, and what barriers, if any, exist for end user access to RLIN. In addition, it will indicate impact on interlibrary loan, on-site referrals, and collection development activities, such as book purchase recommendations. Since the program has evolved differently among the RAP institutions, of interest will be the effect of various training ap­ proaches, attitudes toward the cost of searching, and satisfaction with the database. We will admin­ ister evaluations as participants complete their ini­ tial ten hours of connect time. After only a few months, participants have ex­ pressed enthusiasm about using RLIN, due to its comprehensiveness as a database and its usefulness as a verification and location toolŝ As growing numbers of NYU faculty tap into RLIN, we are as­ sessing our interlibrary loan program, considering document delivery options, and furthering our knowledge of the scholarly communication pro­ cess. The Research Access Project is one of many initiatives in remote delivery of library services en­ abling us to realize the full potential of electronic access to information. When closing a library is progress B y R e b e c c a Stu rm H ead o f Public Services N orthern K entucky University Like many other medium-sized academic li­ braries at the start of this decade, our university got caught up in the need to establish another campus, complete with a small library facility. Located in Covington, which was the original site of the Uni­ versity and about fifteen minutes from its present location, University College was established with a dean in the spring of 1983. The campus offers a va­ riety of courses and special offerings and services, but no distinct academic programs. Faced with lit­ tle start up money, slim hope of additional funds in the future and “no thank you” not an option, against our best instincts the library during the aca­ demic year of 1983-1984 set up what was called a “library referral center” for the new University College. The Library Referral Center (afterwards re­ ferred to as the UCLRC) consisted of a small gen­