Library Staff Participate in
Paws on the Pavement 5K Walk/Run

Six staff members of UAMS Library met early on Saturday morning, May 21, at Murray Park on the banks of the beautiful Arkansas River to participate in the annual Paws on the Pavement 5K walk/run. The race is held in support of the Central Arkansas Rescue Effort for Animals (CARE), and was followed by a 1K fun walk for people and their pets.

Participants from the library were Cindy Caton, Schemeka Herron, Abby Holt, Sharon Keel, Sheila Peters and Belinda Rocco. Abby and Belinda participated in the Little Rock Marathon earlier this year as members of the library relay team, but this was a first-time race for the others. Each participant reached her goal of finishing the race and had great fun cheering others across the finish line!

After the race, Schemeka said, “ I really enjoyed the race, and I look forward to doing it again soon.  Oh, seeing all of the gorgeous dogs made it even nicer and the weather was so pleasant.  I had lots of fun!” Cindy commented, “I survived. Thank you all for cheering me on to the finish line.  I’m proud of all of us and can’t wait until next year!” All participants are already making plans to form a UAMS Library team for the 5K Race for the Cure in September. These ladies are taking the “Get Healthy UAMS” campaign seriously!

Library Purchases Membership for Nucleic Acids Research

Oxford University Press is now providing free online access to its flagship journal Nucleic Acids Research. It is a rarity for a journal of such importance to be completely free to all users immediately upon publication. Beginning in 2005 the journal will be funded by memberships and author fees instead of the traditional subscription model. To support this effort toward Open Access and to defray our faculty authors’ expenses, the Library has recently purchased an institutional membership to NAR for UAMS. This membership will entitle our faculty whose articles are accepted for publication in Nucleic Acids Research a reduced author fee of $500. Authors from non-member institutions will be charged $1500. (This charge applies to articles up to 9 pages in length. Each page above 9 will be an additional $50 per page). This experiment in Open Access will be closely watched by both publishers and libraries to gauge the success of this method of paying for “free” online journals. If you have comments or questions, please contact Mary Hawks (hawksmarys@uams.edu).