Military Librarians Workshop, 18-20 Nov 97, Dayton Marriott Hotel, Dayton, Ohio

Our big news item is formation of the Consortium of Navy Libraries (CNL). Some of you may recall my mentioning that at last year's Navy meeting at MLW there was a long and very spirited discussion of a Naval Postgraduate School thesis calling for a grand Naval Service Digital Library concept and strategy. In that thesis, the authors stated that of all the services, Navy had made the least progress in developing the digital library.

We felt at that meeting last year a very great sense of frustration that our efforts weren't better known or recognized, yet we had to agree that although Navy libraries each had their vision statements and planning documents, we did lack a unified concept and set of strategies. And, we also agreed that developing such a unified concept and set of strategies could serve us in defining the changing and critical role of libraries in the Department, and also might facilitate new ways of doing business in our increasingly networked environments.

So, we had a meeting... in March...for 3 grueling days of discussion and eventual consensus building. We decided to form a consortium, and we drafted a charter and a strategic plan for the Consortium of Navy Libraries which was then approved by the end of June. We now have 37 member libraries, libraries of all types, technical, medical, academic, and general. Our grand vision is: " to provide world class information access and services to the Navy, ashore and afloat, and be the Department of Defense leader in virtual library development!"

The principal purposes of the Consortium are to:

• support and promote Navy library programs and services;

• exploit possibilities for leveraged buying and distributed costs;

• advise on pertinent information issues, including core sources and services;

• and explore areas of cooperative technical support and resource sharing.

We had a one-day mini-meeting in September in which we focused on issues relating to cooperative acquisitions and licensing. We've compiled data about Navy subscriptions to electronic products to help us in identifying potential products for cooperative acquisition. At the all-day Navy meeting on Monday here in Dayton, we constituted a Consortium Working Group on Product Research to coordinate that process of identifying Consortium products.

We're now very excited about a work in progress, a Web site for the Consortium. We, of course, had a committee that worked on the basic design and content in October, and we're delighted that DTIC is going to host and Webmaster our site. The purpose of our Web site is three fold: to establish presence and gain recognition by the Department of the Navy for the CNL; to provide a communication channel between the Consortium membership and our vendors; and to provide a source of current information on Navy, DOD, and federal acquisition policies, procedures, and developments pertinent to information and information technology acquisition.

Some of our future Consortium plans include: a project to aggregate Navy Fedlink Dialog accounts into one to qualify for a better discount; training in strategic budgeting for Consortium activity; and a 3 day meeting in conjunction with ALA in Washington next year with a very focused vendor fair.

I'd like to preface other news from Navy with the observation that in spite of downsizing and no significant growth in resources, our libraries have pretty much held their own in the last year. I attribute that success in these hard times to the skills and ingenuity of great Navy and Marine Corps librarians! I also think that increased understanding and perhaps even sympathy or empathy by Navy managers for library and information issues may be occurring, and I think this might be attributed to another year gone by in which more and more personnel experience the possibilities and the challenges of the Internet and the Web.

Here are just a few highlights of 1997:

• The Navy Virtual Library (NVL) project continues in a third phase with streamlining of the prototype and documentation of the system. It will be made available in early 1998 for any organization interested in providing and managing desktop end user access to an array of scientific and technical information sources and services.

• The new library building at the Armed Forces Staff College is now underway, with the occupancy date set for 4th quarter FY98. It will increase the floor space from 16K to 41K square feet.

• The Resource Information Center Library at the Atlantic Intelligence Command has purchased Endeavor's Voyager ILS.

• The library of the Navy's Office of General Counsel moved from Crystal City to smaller, but nicely renovated space at the Washington Navy Yard therefore accelerating the pace to more electronic services.

• Good support for the libraries at the Naval Medical Center, San Diego continued, including acquisition of new computers, subscription to OVID's Web Gateway, and a face lift for the 10 year old building. This in spite of the fact that during the Spring of 1997, Navy medical libraries were informed by BUMED that they may be subject to outsourcing or contracting studies along with computer department services. No new news on that front.

• The Medical Library at Portsmouth completed its implementation of the Georgetown Library Information System, and the OPAC is available via the Web from the Library's homepage.

• The Medical Library at Camp Pendleton installed the EOSi automation system, is in the process of setting up a CD-ROM network, and the Library's homepage contains journal holdings , as well as a library guide and links to important medical websites.

• The Naval Surface Warfare Center Library in Dahlgren, VA developed a home page, completed a major facility renovation, added over 50 new electronic products, and upgraded its ILS to a Windows/client server with Web access.

• The NRL Library expects to complete conversion of its entire unclassified reports collection to optical storage by the end of the calendar year. Hyperlinks have been added to the Library's Web-based STILAS catalog making the full content of 5,000 NRL formal and memorandum reports available on the Web. The Library received a special $100,000 allocation from the Director of Research to continue its digital initiatives in FY98, and it also received special funding of $135,000 to upgrade its library system during the current fiscal year.

• The Naval Observatory Library and the Navy Department Library (in a partnership venture) received approval on a DOD Legacy Pre-Proposal and are very optimistic about approval of their final proposal for $400,000 for conservation and cataloging projects for rare and 19th century books.

• The Naval Postgraduate School Library (one of the Navy's 2 RLIN sites) added OCLC as a cataloging utility this year, as well as switched to Windows 95 and implemented the STILAS Serials Control Module. The Library staff have begun teaching organized classes for Lexis/Nexis, and also are being asked to do more course-oriented classes, as well.

• The Naval Academy Library continues to develop its homepage and increase access and services via the Web. It recently added ProQuest Direct, Eureka on the Web from the Research Libraries Group, and expanded its Project Muse subscriptions to include all of the journals published electronically by the Johns Hopkins Press.

• NAWC China Lake has launched a virtual library initiative to transition over a 10 year period to an intensively electronic library. The Library is supporting a Center-wide marketing strategy of 5 strategic thrust initiatives and hot technologies and working with the Center's Director for Business Development. It has also made improved customer service a primary goal: listening to library advisory board and patrons, trying to make a difference one-to-one, and taking a long-term approach to process improvement.

• and, a final highlight, the Naval Facilities Engineering Service Center, Port Hueneme, CA has in partnership with China Lake formed a consortium for a shared, common OPAC and circulation system. They've installed STILAS for this new arrangement, and are also planning to extend access to users without physical libraries or librarians at Camp Pendleton and Point Mugu.

Consequently, we're watching with very keen interest the Marine Corps STILAS project. This is a centrally funded initiative for a networked ILS for the 18 Marine Corps commands with general libraries. The system server will be located at MWR, MC HQ in Quantico, and each library will have an NT server, CD tower and patron Internet access. PTFS is the contractor for the project, and the data conversion phase is nearing completion. The database will have about 700K records (or 225K bib records). PTFS plans to load STILAS and build a training database in December, and then Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point will be the first library (sort of a beta site) scheduled for installation and should be operational in February. There is a committee of 6 Marine Corps librarians to develop policy and procedures for this new network.

In other news from the Navy general library front, BRAC, regionalization, and fiscal realities continue to reshape naval organizational structure and library services. Naval Air Station Miramar has been transferred to the Marine Corps; Naval Hospital Millington library has closed; Naval Training Center Orlando, Naval Support Activity Memphis, and Marine Corps Air Station Tustin libraries are scheduled to close next year; and library service for Naval Amphibious Base Coronado and Naval Air Station North Island is to be consolidated. Naval Stations at San Diego and Norfolk have significantly decreased the size and scope of their library's collections, co-located the remains in multipurpose spaces with contracted computer labs and other MWR services, and are relying on public libraries to bridge the information gaps.

On a more positive note, general libraries have opened at Fleet Anti-Submarine Warfare Center San Diego and Naval Air Station New Orleans; and in '98 Naval Support Activity Naples will open a new facility, and ten commissioning ship Library Multimedia Resource Centers will come on line.

I would like to conclude the Navy report with a few special thank yous. As I said earlier, our big news is formation of the Consortium of Navy Libraries, and we couldn't have done it without Mary-Deirdre Coraggio, John Cummings, and Bryan Thompson. Mary-Deirdre, who left China Lake last spring to become associate director at NIST, and John Cummings, from the Naval Academy Library, served as facilitators at our planning meeting last March. It was their amazing skill as group leaders and facilitators, as well as their long experience in and knowledge of Navy libraries that led to the success of our sessions. Bryan Thompson, Naval Facilities Engineering Service Center, took on the task of Coordinator of the Consortium and its Working Groups, in addition to his work as the current chair of the Council of Navy Special, Scientific and Technical Libraries (CONSSATL). Bryan has kept the Consortium agenda well on track and moving towards its future objectives. And, special thanks to all the members of the Working Groups, too many names to mention now, but you know who you are, and you'll all soon be able to see their names at our CNL Web site.

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