CDL/LOC Environmental Information Project Ends September 30

The CDL/Library of California Environmental Information demonstration projects ends on September 30.  The Project, which involved creating a selective topical Web site designed to meet the information query needs of multi-type libraries, digitizing UC collections, and licensing a commercial database, provided many valuable lessons for both the CDL and the Library of California.  The Project’s accomplishments will be summarized and will form the basis for recommending long-term relationships through which the CDL may deliver digital content to multi-type libraries in California.

The Environmental Information Project (EIP), a collaboration between the Library of California (LOC) and the CDL, began in 1997.  It has explored the economic and intellectual benefits of collaboration between the libraries, as well as the infrastructure issues involved in delivering electronic content through the CDL to participants in the LOC.

In its first year of the EIP, an Environmental Information Project Web site was developed [http://www.eip.cdlib.org/] to provide access to environmental information contained in a licensed database (Cambridge Scientific Abstracts), University of California collections, and selected sites on the Internet.  The CDL made the environmental Web site available to 33 California libraries of various types, including public, special, and academic libraries, and provided training to staff at those sites.

UC campus librarians Barbara Schader, UCLA (environmental librarian on the project, year 1) and Dawn Talbot, UCSD (evaluation consultant) were instrumental in the completion of this project.