From the Director

I am happy to report that the Library’s budget will be increased $150,000 for 2005-2006 to cover the annual cost increase for the current journal and database subscriptions, and to add a few new subscriptions for journals which have been heavily requested on interlibrary loan. The Library also recently received $26,000 from the Arkansas Biosciences Institute, which was used to pay for improved online access to the New England Journal of Medicine for all UA campuses, a portion of the Cell Press online journals, and the online backfiles of the Wiley neurosciences journals.

The National Library of Medicine (NLM) is currently involved in a massive project to digitize major journal backfiles not yet available electronically. The articles will be made available through PubMed Central, which is NLM’s free online repository of journal articles. Libraries throughout the country have been asked to provide needed print backfiles, and the UAMS Library has provided printed backfiles for two journal titles totaling about 75 volumes. We are happy to be a part of this project which will make older journals more readily available.