The Project’s first library application is to make four academic databases available to consortium members. The Project has four components:

Component I:

By September 1998, deployment of a suite of four electronic academic databases of indexes, abstracts, and full-text journals housed on servers located at Rutgers (New Brunswick) and Seton Hall University (South Orange). The academic resources will be made accessible through a common search engine, SiteSearch, to institutions around the state via the Internet or dial access. The resources are UMI Research Periodicals II Full-Text, PsycINFO (the American Psychological Association’s premier bibliographic database), UMI’s ABI/Inform Global Full-Text (a business/management database), and the Current index to Nursing and Allied Health (CINAHL). Students and faculty will search these remote databases from their homes, offices, dormitories, computer laboratories, and libraries where ever and whenever they have access to the Internet or telephone lines. The academic databases have been selected by a task force for the quality of their content, curriculum relevance, quality of full-text coverage, and broad need across all of the eligible institutions. Component I funding includes $300,000 for the purchase of servers, search engines, telecommunications, and $495,875 for the purchase of the academic databases.

Component II:

This component includes support for the purchase and/or upgrade of local web-accessible workstations at each participating institution. In order to extend access to the VALE suite of academic databases, each institution must have a sufficient number of high-end computers to enable quick and easy access to the host servers at Rutgers and Seton Hall. Component II hardware funding to support the necessary infrastructure improvements at each participating institution to ensure adequate local access is $204,125.

Component III and IV:

These pertain to training and technical support needs which will be greatly simplified by the procurement of OCLC’s SiteSearch as a common search engine and interface so that all users across New Jersey will have access to VALE’s academic databases uniformly. Technical training and end-user support are also included at no additional cost in the proposal submitted the search engine vendor. Component III and IV funding is included in software and will be provided by existing staff.