The State of Florida is funding a program entitled the Distance Learning Library Initiative to provide community college and university students with desktop access to an electronic collection of databases. The databases will include course syllabuses, scholarly electronic journals, electronic reference tools, course reserve materials, and patron access catalogs. Using the Internet and the Web, students will be able to connect to the resources from their homes, offices, and classrooms-or from academic libraries near their homes. There are plans to include patron-initiated interlibrary loan.
The Initiative is a cooperative effort among the State Department of Education's Division of Community Colleges, Florida Community College System's Division of Universities, Florida State University System, and the State Library. Two million dollars in state funds will be available in fiscal 1998. The goal is to make distance education more credible and successful by giving students working at some distance from their educational institutions access to resources more nearly comparable to those of on-campus students.
OCLC will be the primary service provider. FirstSearch will be the central component, augmented by local databases and patron access catalogs and Sit eSearch, OCLC's single user interface to multiple resources. Solinet, an OCLC-affiliated regional network, will provide profiling, training, and support services.
[Contact: OCLC, 6565 Frantz Road, Dublin, OH 43017-3395; telephone 1-614-764-6000; FAX 1-614-764-6096]
