ACRL News Issue (B) of College & Research Libraries 18 / C&RL News Transformational potential of networked information By N oreen Alldredge and Thom as G. Kirk A Coalition f o r Networked Inform ation report T he Task Force of the Coalition for Net­ worked Information (CNI) met in Wash­ ington, D.C., on November 19—20. With over 350 attendees the conference was the largest coalition meeting held thus far. The next meet­ ing will be March 22-23, 1993, in San Francisco. The conference centered around the theme “The Transformational Potential of Networked Information,” and suggested a number of is­ sues which academic librarians need to think about and address. Instead of trying to summa­ rize the conference, much of which was tenta­ tive and in formative stages of development, your ACRL representatives chose to reflect the conference in a series of questions. The ques­ tions are suggested as starting points; they may provoke more questions than answers at this point. If they seem global or premature we suggest readers pursue the literature for more detail. At the end of this column there are some suggestions for access to the literature. Questions, comments? Feel free to contact ACRL’s representatives to the coalition with your comments or ques­ tions via all modes of communication: N oreen Alldredge, D ean of Libraries, Montana State University, Bozeman, MT 59717-0332; voice: (406) 994-3119; fax: (406) 994-2851; e-m ail: alld re d g e /lib ‹ā re n n e . lib.montana.edu. T h om as G. Kirk, College Librarian, Berea College, Berea, KY 40404; voice: (606) 986-9341, ext. 5266; fax: (606) 986-9494; e- mail: bertgk@ukpr.uky.edu • Are individual academic libraries work­ ing with their local congressional representa­ tives to ensure that they know how the net­ w orked environment is already affecting the distribution of information? • Does each academic library have staff w ho are assigned the responsibility for devel­ oping their expertise in aspects of networked and electronic information? • Has a program been developed to keep faculty at all levels of sophistication and inter­ est informed and prepared to use the advanc­ ing capabilities of networking? • Are academic libraries working with mu­ seums and other units on campus that have educational resources to bring access to those resources into the networked environment? • Are academic libraries developing plans to provide electronic access to archival collec­ tions or indexes to such collections? Are mecha­ nisms for the electronic capture and transmis­ sion o f im portant archival materials being developed? • Does the campus have a plan to upgrade hardware and telecommunications infrastruc­ ture so that larger and larger message units and multimedia information can be received? N e tw o r k e d in fo rm a tio n resources Those w ho want more information on CNI and/ or wish to obtain CNI documents can send an e-mail message to INFO@CNI.ORG and a staff member will respond. Some documents can be anonymously FTP’d from FTP.CNI.ORG once you have received a list of available documents. Joan Lippincott, assistant executive director of CNI, can be contacted at JOAN@CNI.ORG or (202) 232-2466 to answer harder questions. ■ Thomas G. Kirk is college librarian a t Berea College; Noreen Alldredge is dean o f libraries a t M ontana State University lib.montana.edu mailto:bertgk@ukpr.uky.edu mailto:INFO@CNI.ORG ftp://FTP.CNI.ORG mailto:JOAN@CNI.ORG