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January 14, 1998, Wednesday

Primary attendees:

Janice Beattie, Chief, Public Services Branch, NOAA Central Library, Silver Spring, Maryland
Katherine Day, Reference Librarian NOAA MASC, Boulder, Colorado
Gayl Gray, NCAR, Boulder, Colorado
Gary Hanneman, Desert Research Institute, Reno, Nevada
Karon M. Kelly, Director of Information Support Services, UCAR, Boulder, Colorado
Maria A. Latyszewskyj, Head, Environment Canada Library, Downsview, Ontario, Canada
Linda Pikula, NOAA Miami Regional Library, Miami Florida
Julia H. Triplehorn, Geophysical Institute University of Alaska, Fairbanks, Alaska
Jane Watterson , Public Services Librarian NOAA MASC, Boulder, Colorado
Lisa Wishard, Earth & Mineral Sciences Library, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania

Partial attendance:

Mariette de Jong , Acquisitions Editor, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, The Netherlands
Richard C.J. Sommerville, Prof. of Meteorology, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, San Diego, California

ASLI Roundtable

Meeting called to order at 9:24 a.m. by Janice Beattie

First order of business was to extend a thank you to the AMS for hosting the ASLI meeting, and its support of the organization.

Janice extended a congratulation to all members in attendance for being in attendance at the first ASLI meeting.

Roundtable session was primarily an opportunity to introduce member libraries. And discuss issues in atmospheric sciences librarianship.

Maria L., Environment Canada - The Library was organized as a meteorological library 125 years ago. The library has had several name changes overtime. It serves as the national atmospheric and environmental library for Canada. It is located in Downsview, Ontario. It has a large collection of international data (although much of this is not cataloged, it is arranged by geographic area within the collection.) The Library has 1600 journal subscriptions, 300 of which are still current. (For copies of the list of journals received, contact Maria.) Most journal usage is by EC researchers (2/3) rather than outside clients (1/3). The Library has a large film and video collection, as well as slides and photographs. The subject focus of the collection has current interests in global warming, greenhouse gasses, severe weather, ozone, and sea ice, among others. The Library will loan most material but does charge a $10 fee. The Library also maintains an archive of (2 copies) anything published by an EC researcher. (This collection is approximately 90% complete.) The library also maintains a Learning Center with material related to careers and continuing learning.

The Library has 5 permanent staff, intermittent contract workers and some student labors. The Library currently uses a homegrown integrated system named, ELIAS. The Library is looking to upgrade to a turn-key integrated system in the next few years.

The Library has been severely impacted the last 3 years receiving no materials budget, and being faced with a 35% reduction in salaries. The primary users for the collection are Canadian research scientists, but public demand for material and access has been increasing. The Library still is a net "lender" despite increased use. The Library has been collocated with several regional and provincial agencies.

The Library offers current awareness services whereby they run profiles on tables of contents and deliver articles via email to researchers. All online searching is done as a cost recovery service. Most online searching however is now done via CD-ROM.

The EC Library maintains an active and influential library advisory board. This serves as a good back-up to administrative actions taken in the Library as well as a good sounding board for making decisions relating to Library collections and services. There was much discussion relating to how to select a library board. It was stated that it is most effective when it is a mix of high-level researchers and administrators which use the library. It should also attempt to provide even representation of the different programs supported by the library.

The EC Library sells memberships which allow borrowing privileges, invoicing capabilities and more reference services.

The Library was formerly 100% funded by AES. But with collocation and consolidation, funding has changed somewhat. For instance journals are supported by the AES, but several staff salaries are supported by the Ontario region. Since the major cutbacks of the last 3 years the Library has been forced to perform most services on a cost recovery basis.

There was then a more detailed discussion of the use/effectiveness of library advisory boards.

Julia Triplehorn, University of Alaska-Fairbanks, Geophysical Institute, appoints her library committee. Her suggestions was to appoint library users and "non-argumentative" types. Her committee consists of 8 people in a variety of subject disciplines. The committee meets once or twice a semester. At the meetings she seeks advice. Through the library committee she has performed a collection conspectus during which she and a faculty member assigned a value ranking from 1-5 for each book in the collection. This conspectus project allowed the faculty to gain more familiarity with the collection as well as point out areas of strength and weakness. Since 1992 she has maintained statistics on periodical usage which has served her with much ammunition when preparing journal cancellation lists. These statistics and the library committee are both helpful when preparing the journal cut list.

Linda Pikula, NOAA AOML Library, has a library advisory council. In addition to representatives from each NOAA subject division and administrative division at her facility, the council also contains at least one technical, computer-support person. The technical expert has been very helpful in pushing through requests for upgraded equipment and software-as well as getting the new material installed. The council is only convened when there is a need.

Lisa Wishard, Penn State Earth and Mineral Sciences Library, University-wide library committee, but no committee exists within the College which the library supports. Program plan to redesign the EMS Library was drafted by a sub-committee of the College's Facility Committee. There are informal contacts within each department in the College which are often used to make decisions relating to library issues.

Jane Watterson & Katherine Day, NOAA Boulder Labs, their library committee had formerly been defunct but has now been revitalized. It is made up of representatives from up to 4 Department of Commerce representatives (all served by the Labs)-each Department can appoint up to two representatives. Appointees are ideally heavy library users.

There was discussion about the best way to contact library users and library committees. It was indicated that email is often not the most effective means due to clientele operating on different platforms as well as different expertise levels. Any email survey needs to be followed-up with either print or phone contact (and sometimes both.)

Gayl Gray, NCAR Library, maintains two library committees. An ad-hoc constituency-based committee which is primarily communicated with via regular staff interactions. This contact helps to define services and needs. The more formal committee is made up of NCAR administrators and serves as a library administration board, which deals with budget and other administrative library issues. NCAR is currently undergoing an institution-wide review of the use and impact of committee work.

Janice Beattie, NOAA Central Library, approximately 4-5 years ago NOAA administration questioned why it "needed" to maintain library-one that has been in existence since 1811. At that time, the Central Library put together a Library Advisory Council. They made a point to choose "vocal" representatives for the Council. The Council meets quarterly. Members are appointed for a two year term, but can re-appointed. Janice has found that having a fixed term appointment for the Council has done two things: a) lessened the "oh no not another committee" reaction to being asked to serve, and b) Council members often suggest appointees. (The EC also has fixed term appointments to is Library Board, which can also be renewed consecutively.) The Library recently acquired a new collection, when the NOAA Legal Counsel dept.'s library decided to merge with the Central Library. Since this merger there are now "legal"-types on the Council also, which has proven valuable when considering contracts and other legally-related library issues.

In a brief round-robin poll of how Collection use is measured a variety of ways were identified: citations in published literature; reshelving statistics; ILL studies; editorial processes; journal runs and cost per usage.

More Library descriptions:

Linda Pikula - NOAA AOML - The AOML library consists of two locations the NOAA Hurricane Center Library, run by Robert Britter and the larger Miami Regional NOAA Library. The library has specific collection strengths in the areas of: hurricane research, tropical meteorology, and ocean-air interaction. The Library maintains 180 journals in both electronic and print. The Library also contains a collection of eyewitness accounts and personal narratives from hurricane events. There are also documents relating to disaster preparedness, a non-circulating film and video collection. The film and video collection contains an extensive series of videos from the 1970's to date which document the coastal changes of FL from fly-over photography of the coasts. The Library is exploring ways to make this data more accessible, in possibly a digital media. The NHC collection has recently acquired the Bob Sheets collection which contains numerous videos and slides. (This collection is currently uncataloged.) The Library also has an extensive collection of climatic data relating to Florida from the mid-to-late 1800's. Some of this data is on microfiche and some is still in handwritten. (Much of the hand-written data is related to the old Miami Fort Dallas collection.)

The Library also has a collection of preliminary storm surge reports. They are considering making these available online but are concerned about the legal ramifications of supplying "preliminary" data online. There was some discussion regarding the problems related to patrons requesting "legally certified" data. In most instances, these patrons are referred to the NCDC, weather consultants, state meteorologists and occasionally college and university professors. The discussion about "certified" data led to question about selling data. NOAA can not sell data. EC sells data through its ?? branch, so can not lend data. There was unanimous concern about the difficulty encountered in acquiring international data. There was some talk about locating funding to establish a program to share data and studies internationally. The NOAA catalog has the capability to provide the URL for online data and link to persistent URL's.

In order to acquaint users with electronic resources, the Library has had open-houses and follow-up in-office visits. Linda has found that often the Division administration is the hardest to acquaint with Library services.

The AOML complex maintains several active research areas, which currently include: rainfall measurement (specific to FL--Florida Bay, Biscayne Bay and the Everglades); pure oceanography; ocean-atmosphere carbon exchange; Atlantic climate change; Pan American climate change; hurricane tracking and surface winds. There are 200 scientists at the AOML facility and 90 at the NHC facility.

The Library has produced a K-12 bibliography for material related to hurricanes. On the Library's web site there is access to full-text NOAA brochures related to hurricanes with links to FEMA and FEMA hurricane related publications. The AOML hopes to have a search engine up on their homepage sometime within the next several months which will provide access to research bibliographies on the Dry Tortugas, in addition to climate data on the FL bays and the everglades.

Linda suggested that during hurricane events, to contact the AOML library rather than the NHC library. Since, the NHC Library is inundated with requests for information during events. During non-event times, call the NHC library for information. During the hurricane season, FEMA is collocated at the NHC in the NHC Library. In order to better accommodate the FEMA crews and their equipment as well as overall necessity the NHC library was recently renovated. Linda was very active in the redesign of the Library including the wiring and interior design. The AOML complex is located on land leased from the Florida International University campus.

Before the new library was built, the library's collection was 70% uncataloged. Linda insisted that if there was going to be a new facility there was going to be complete access to the collection so incorporated a retrospective cataloging project in the program plan for the new building. The NHC, aside from the Bob Sheets collection and other recent gifts, is now completely cataloged.

The AOML received notice of the availability of AMS interns to assist with special projects. The AOML has worked with intern high school students from a local Marine Science School. The Library is always on the look out for possible collaborations with university and other governmental collections. In addition AOML has applied for a funding grant from the NSF/IAI for ARIEL access to Central American Libraries.

The AOML catalog and Web page are accessible outside of the NOAA firewall. The AOML homepage also contains access to NOAA's SE Fisheries.

There is increasing access to visual collections digitally online. Examples of this increased access included the NCAR COMET project, AOML and the NOAA Central Library photo collection.

Richard Somerville from UCSC/SIO, meteorologist, who has been tremendously active in the administration of the AMS as well as NCAR wanted to impress the importance of the ASLI organization for the academic research community. He also discussed changes in the field of meteorology in which there will be fewer jobs in governmental and academic research and increased jobs in the private sector such as consultants for airline industry. He also discussed the "revolt" taking place in some fields, specifically physical oceanography, in which researchers are refusing to publish in expensive journal titles and are instead attempting to publish more in "friendly" journals. He also alerted us a to a new title on global climate change, The Forgiving Air that he has written and will be distributed in 1998.

Judie Triplehorn - University of Alaska-Fairbanks, Geophysical Institute - The Geophysical Institute library will be moving to a new facility in July/August 1998 called the International Arctic Research Center. The new center has been 60% funded by the Japanese and 40% funded by the US. The Library in the new facility will be on two floors and will cover material from "the center of the sun to the center of the earth." The collection will be arranged in the building accordingly, with atmospheric science material on the top floor and geosciences material on the lower floor. This is the only high latitude geophysical research facility in the US. There are approximately 50 researchers, 100 graduate students and 350 support staff.

The Library is viewed as a special collection and therefore delivers special services. The Library contains approximately 325 journals and adds about 500 monographs per year. The library also receives numerous gifts. The library is part of the WLN. Subject focus of the collection includes glaciology, sea ice, satellite information (both Japanese, European and Canadian in addition to U.S.). There is also a large atmospheric sciences focus with specialties in Alaskan climate, atmospheric science for the arctic, volcanoes and earthquakes. The Library has a large collection of WMO publications. Judie, has in conjunction with EC and the NOAA Central Library developed a WMO Union List Pro-Cite database. The Library has 1 librarian and 3 students (2 in geosciences and 1 headed of to library school!) The Library currently does not have Ariel capabilities but will accept ILL and other requests via email.

Gary Hanneman - Desert Research Institute - The DRI Library has been in existence since 1957 when it was initially funded by the NV legislature. It is part of the University of Nevada system.

The collection has specific focus on the atmosphere, water, archeology, greenhouse gasses and biology. It is a multi-disciplinary collection. The Library is completely funded by overhead money from research grants-it receives no University money. So, the collection is strongly influenced by the research being conducted at the Institute. The Library received approximately 100 journals and adds approximately 50-100 monographs per year. The Library has attempted to maintain a collection of DRI publications. The whereabouts of the historic archive is currently not known, and the Library is doing a great deal of work on locating copies of old DRI publications. They hope to put together a catalog of what the DRI has published. It also maintains a collection of USACE records for the west. There are 3 full-time staff, 1 in the Las Vegas facility and 2 in the Reno facility.

NOAA Boulder Labs - Jane Watterson, Katherine Day - NOAA Labs were founded in 1954 as part of the National Bureau of Standards. Because the Labs support multiple units within the Department of Commerce, such as the National Geophysical Data Center, the Institute of Telecommunications Science and NIST, the collection has a broad subject focus. Subjects collected include: physics, atmospheric sciences, atmospheric chemistry, cryogenics and energy. The library has approximately 700 journals--which includes AMS conferences and journals and WMO publications. The Lab has a main library located at the NOAA Labs and satellite branch "across town."

The library maintains a collection of all the technical reports generated by the Boulder Labs which ranges in date from the 1950's to date. This collection is accessible via Internet as they are included in the Lab's online catalog.

The current library director, John Welsh, has implemented several new electronic resources. There has been some interagency agreements for funding for some of the new services. In addition, John has had to do a fair amount of educating about the electronic library resources to the various lab directors at the facility, but in general most of the directors have been very supportive of the new electronic resources and programs developed by the Library.

Where are the Archives for Arctic Data?

Judie Triplehorn
University of Alaska Fairbanks, Geophysical Institute

The study of the arctic has increased in importance with the growing interest in the study of global change. This interest has resulted in a clamor for data relating to the arctic. The UAK-Fairbanks Geophysical Institute, supports researchers working on a number of funded projects including: sea ice, glaciers, ARM and SHEBA.

With only 8 arctic countries, the prospect of locating data for these countries seems a manageable task. Judy has begun compiling the archives for Alaska and is seeking input on how to store and access the data as well as assistance on tracking down the archives.

Judy outlined some of the unique problems atmospheric problems in Alaska including some dramatic photos of the results of the permafrost layer melting and arctic haze intensified by pollution from Fairbanks and Russia.

There are problems in tracking down both Alaskan and international data, including the fact that there are two climate centers in Alaska. The 2 centers are located in Fairbanks and Anchorage. The Anchorage office deals primarily with the business and legal communications receiving approximately 2-3,000 requests for data per year.

Outlining a brief history of AK, including the dates of discovery 1741 by Bering; 1867 when it was purchased from Russia and 1959 when it was granted statehood.

The earliest weather observation data on record is from missionaries and hunting expeditions. Most of this data is anecdotal, and is not tied to a consistent location. Titles that are related to this period include:

Arctic Exploration and Development ca. 500 b.c. to 1915
International Bibliography of Meteorology
10,000 Miles by Dogsled

Consistent territorial observations began to be taken at 9 Army forts throughout the territory by surgeons around the 1880's. To track down Alaskan place names, and the locations of these early forts, the best title is: Dictionary of Alaska Place Names (USGS Professional Paper 567). These early observations can be found in the 7 volume set by A. M. Feyerherm entitled Probabilities of sequences of wet and dry days in Kansas [Iowa, Alaska, Missouri, North Dakota, Indiana, Wisconsin] from 1965. Archival copies of these early records are located in the National Agriculture Library, Smithsonian, Coast and Geodetic Survey collections. NOAA has climatic data for AK back to 1915. The first monthly summary volume for AK weather stations appeared in 1921.

Other useful titles include:

Alaska Snow Surveys (now Alaska Basin Outlook Report) -issued only for the months that have snow fall.
Climate of the Arctic; Wind Energy Resources of Alaska; U.S. Meteorological Team Data (CREEL); ESSA data from the ice island arctic station T-3; Climates of the States for AK cities;
Climate Normals; NCDC Surface Airways CD; Maps for arctic weather are difficult to locate, but have appeared in the Japanese Weather Maps, the European Meteorological Bulletin and Meterologische ab Handungen Ser. B. Synoptic weather maps are also available in Fairbanks. A full list of the titles mentioned in this presentation related to Alaskan climate data can be requested from the Geophysical Institute.

Judie also provided an overview of the climate records available for the Canadian arctic provinces; Finland; Greenland; Iceland; Norway; Sweden and Russia. These are outlined in a bibliography available from the Geophysical Institute.

Viewing the discreet number of arctic countries, Judie has proposed a collaboration among interested ASLI members to compile a union list database of the arctic climate data holdings. Discussion on the topic revolved around what information to include about the holdings in the union list. It was suggested that the database conform with meta-data standards. It was also suggested that an HTML form for inputting data into the Union list be explored. In addition to ASLI involvement graduate students in library science, and the history of science be recruited to assist in the development of this project.

Site Licenses: Joys, Problems and Questions

Janice Beattie, NOAA Central Library
Linda Pikula, NOAA AOML

The session with the quote from John Welsh, Boulder Labs that libraries of the future will be "Arranger rather than providers of information."

As providers the questions we will need to answer when we work on collection development may include: is this product within the scope of our collection? What number of users have asked for this product? And can we afford the product and afford to deliver it to our patrons?

Key component of site licenses is: negotiate.

Janice posed the question: Why are we doing site licenses? And why do we need site licenses? Is it really worth thousands and thousands of dollars to deliver products to the desktops of our users? Is desktop delivery the most cost effective use of our budget?

Point was also made that once we deliver a product to the desktop, that is where we must deliver product training.

Statistics of use need to be collected. Librarians can ask publishers to collect usage statistics.

Question was asked what was thought of the AMS solution to provide access by IP address. Janice mentioned the that to get ASFA at NOAA they were going to have to pay for 4000 users, yet probably only 200 of those would ever use the database, and rarely would there be more than one user at a time, so why were they supporting a user license for multiple users?

Frustrations of site license outlined, included: Determining how the product is going to be used? How to develop training programs? How to determine the IP addresses that accurately represent who is using the products? Determining what to negotiate for?

We discussed some of the pricing models for products that have been encountered such as percent of enrollment; class C IP addresses; percent of employees with Web-access. Also touched briefly on consortial and regional negotiations for products.

There was a brief discussion of how to handle check-in and maintenance issues (like binding) for electronic products.

Question was raised once someone has electronic access, do you cancel the print journal? And if so, who will be archiving the product? If we pay for access year by year, we are stuck with "Access Only" and do not actually control the future accessibility of the product.

The article "E-Serials: Publishers, Libraries, Users, Standards" in the D-LIB magazine was recommended.

Number of users / number of workstations = percent of actual users. Was mentioned as a formula to determine pricing structures.

There is no one answer for every journal.

There was brief talk about promotion. Promotion is often based on citations. If an article is distributed electronically how and who will cite it? If it doesn't get cited, what are the chances for promotion.

Janice closed the session with asking that we encourage publishers to discuss these issues with us via the ASLI listserv.

Data Archeology

Syd Levitus, Director of the WDC-A for Oceanography

Libraries as a source of historical oceanographic data.

WDC store data on temperature, salinity and plankton. Many of the historical sets of this data are in manuscript form are being lost because of media decay. Early data includes 1800's surface observations from ship data and profile data from the late 1800's. Magnetic media has an even shorter shelf life than printed manuscripts.

At a 1990 ad hoc meeting at the WDC with the International Council for Exploration of the Sea, the WDC members, et. al. a proposal was made to locate and digitize data. The importance of rescuing Russian and Asian data. In 1993 UNESCO approved the GODAR project (Global Ocean Data Archeology and Rescue), recognizing the importance of global ocean data in relation to global change issues. The end of t he cold war provided a greater opportunity to access and safe the previously inaccessible Russian and Asian data.

Data archeology seeks out data sets at risk of media decay. They will rescue the data, digitize it and attempt to migrate the data to new media as they come along.

The first product that GODAR issued was the World Ocean Atlas in 1994 which contained 1.4 million temperature profiles. A 1998 edition is planned with an additional 1 million temperature profile including southern hemisphere data and declassified British and Russian data from WWII.

There have been 6 GODAR meetings in Russia, China, Malta, Columbia, and Accra Ghana. And a GODAR review meeting in December 1998 in Silver Spring, MD.

Dr. Levitus outlined some of the data that he has come across in libraries, which he feels are of particular importance: data reports, cruise reports, older journals and grey literature. He described a few specific cases such as Russian data in the NYPL; Scandinavian and Russian data in the Murmansk Public Library; Woods Hole Institute Reports; Scripps Institute Reports and the NOAA Central Library. He described the importance of the grey literature in providing information about techniques/methodology used to take measurements. If a technique is inaccurate or biased and is known, then it can be adjusted.

OCR has not proven very effective. Instead images are scanned and saved as TIFFS with a metadata record providing for keyword access.

In conjunction with NOAA, GODAR is attempting to catalog the digital images. Each data set digitized receives a unique identification number. These sets will all eventually be migrated to CD-ROM.

A question was asked about permanence of the electronic form. In response Dr. Levitus said that GODAR's primary focus is to get the older material into an electronic format and that once that has occurred then they will turn their focus to preserving the electronic version.

GODAR currently has funding for digitizing oceanographic data. If you know data you would like to contribute contact Dr. Levitus at slevitus@nodc.noaa.gov.

NOAA Central Library
Janice Beattie

The NOAA Central Library has over 1.5 million volumes. Titles include the Weather Service records from 1870 to date; some historic material from the 1700's back to the 1400's. The library is working on retrospectively cataloging its material. The rare books items are indexed in a ProCite which Janice will be happy to share with those who are interested. They library also has a large amount of international data, some which they know about and some which still fall into the "hidden treasures" category.

The NOAA Data Directory is now available via the Web. They are trying to get items included in this directory cataloged.

The library is has a multi-disciplinary focus, serving the OAR, NOAA CORE, NWS and NOS. The core collection was formed in 1807 with the Coast and Geodetic Survey Collection. The Library was officially opened in 1811.

It is a partial U.S. government depository, primarily to ensure that it gets copies of NOAA and other government agency publications. In theory 2 of every NOAA publication published should be deposited in the NOAA Library by the authors. The Library is attempting to flesh out this archive, as well as build a similarly archive for CD or other electronic media publications. They are not however at this time, archiving web-based publications.

There was some concern when the tide tables were issued in electronic form only.

The library uses four different classification schemes for its material. Material from 1975 to date is accessible through their online catalog, but material older than 1975 is not. They are currently shifting their collection and converting to LC class for some older material. Uncataloged material is reclassed and cataloged when it circulates.

The library has a slide and photograph collection of over 26,000 images. Photos are slowly being put onto CD as well loaded to the Web and arranged by subject. The photos of the Coast and Geodetic Survey are being put on the Web, the success of this project is being used as a model to get photos from other NOAA divisions. The library has recently acquired the NURP, National Underwater Research Project collection of photographs, gray literature and 15,000 slides.

The library maintains a subject Web site, called Wind and Sea. The URL is http://www.lib.noaa.gov/docs/wind/windandsea.html.

In the past few years the library has faced a declining budget and shrinking staff.

Over half of the requests received at the library come from the public. The library is attempting to create more value added services for NOAA researchers.

The library does a lot of ILL, between NOAA branch libraries. The Library maintains 300 current journals, and attempts not to duplicate titles within the regional library system. For the regional libraries there is a one day turn around policy for ILL requests. Within the NOAA library system they do a lot of fax and FedEx document delivery.

The library is not open 24 hours, the legal counsel is the only other people within NOAA who have keys to the library.

There was a question about whether or not there were any plans to designate the NOAA library as a national library. Janice indicated that a few years ago there was a movement to create a national environmental library. However, the expert that was charged with developing the plan, created his first proposal draft without consulting one single library or librarian.

Thursday, January 15, 1998.

Janice Beattie, Chief, Public Services Branch, NOAA Central Library, Silver Spring, Maryland
Katherine Day, Reference Librarian NOAA MASC, Boulder, Colorado
Gayl Gray, NCAR, Boulder, Colorado
Gary Hanneman, Desert Research Institute, Reno, Nevada
Karon M. Kelly, Director of Information Support Services, UCAR, Boulder, Colorado
Maria A. Latyszewskyj, Head, Environment Canada Library, Downsview, Ontario, Canada
Linda Pikula, NOAA Miami Regional Library, Miami Florida
Julia H. Triplehorn, Geophysical Institute University of Alaska, Fairbanks, Alaska
Jane Watterson , Public Services Librarian NOAA MASC, Boulder, Colorado
Lisa Wishard, Earth & Mineral Sciences Library, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania

Partial Attendees:

Keith Seitter AMS
Beth Jarabek AMS
Dave Murray MGA
Wolfgang K . Meyer Education & Training Branch German Military Geophysical Office (Amt für Wehrgeophysik)
Scott Ritz, Atmospheric Sciences Coordinator Global Change Master, Greenbelt, Maryland
Directory, Hughes Aircraft
Sam Pepler, British Atmospheric Data Centre
Kathleen Morris, EOSDIS Langley DAAC Users & Data Services NASA Langley Research Center, Hampton, Virginia
Linda Hunt EOSDIS Mission Support NASA Langley DAAC, Hampton, Virginia
Dr. Ralph Petersen Chief Science Officer, National Centers for Environmental Prediction
John Olson
Beth Jarabek, AMS, Boston, Massachusetts
Mariette de Jong, Kluwer Academic Publisher, Dordrecht, The Netherlands

AMS Products

Discussed the digital AMS products. Including pricing, licensing and access. The documents for this presentation follows:

***the following text from submitted by K. Seitter:

AMS Publications

Presented at the ASLI Meeting, Phoenix, 15 January 1998

by Keith Seitter, Associate Executive Director
American Meteorological Society
45 Beacon Street
Boston, MA 02108-3693
kseitter@ametsoc.org

The AMS Journals Online
http://www.ametsoc.org/AMS

Special features

Articles are stored in an SGML database, allowing rich fielded search capabilities.

Articles will be delivered in two forms:

1. HTML optimized for the user's Web browser (generated on-the-fly from the SGML database).

2. As PDF to allow a precise replica of the printed page.

HTML version includes hyperlinks for easy internal navigation.

Full-text and fielded searching open to all users, and content down to abstract level available to all (full text of articles open to subscribers only).

Bulletin articles open to all users (only searchable at abstract level).

All of 1997 online, 1998 issues posted online as ready (normally before print).

Subscription Types

Individual:

for AMS members (username and password control).

Institutional:

network licenses (IP address range control).

Individual AMS Member Subscriptions

Each journal can be subscribed to in print-only, online-only, or both.

AMS member prices for the print journals range from $30 to $75 (depending on the journal).

For the online version, each journal is $20.

In initial offering, 1997 volume year provided with 1998 subscription.

Institutional Subscriptions

Each journal can be subscribed to in print-only, online-only, or both.

Online pricing has three tiers based on the number of workstations covered:

"Department level" (1-100 workstations)

"Small institution level" (101-500 workstations)

"Large institution level" (> 500 workstations)

In initial offering, 1997 volume year provided with 1998 subscription.

Institutional Subscription Example

Journal of Climate is a "typical" AMS journal (monthly, approx. 3400 pp/yr).

The print-only price is $350 (< $0.11/page). [Corporate member: $263]

At "department level" (< 100 Ws), online-only is $315, print plus online is $380. [Corporate member: $236 and $285, resp.]

At "full institution level" (> 500 Ws), online-only is $435, print plus online is $500. [Corporate member: $326 and $375, resp.]

License highlights

Provides same "fair use" provisions as for print.

Authorized users are employees, faculty, staff, and students of institution as well as "walk-ins" using workstations physically located on premises.

"Institution" is "campus" or collection of "campuses" under same administrative staff.

Acknowledges that institution is unable to enforce restrictions on third parties, but asks that an environment of nonabuse be promoted.

Perpetual access.

Perpetual Access

The AMS philosophy is that once you have paid for a volume year you "own" access to it.

Thus, the online license agreement provides for perpetual access to subscribed to years even if the subscription is dropped for subsequent years.

This requires "faith" in AMS as a publisher.

The next phase of the "journal"

The AMS is now considering whether or not it will allow "nonprintable content" (animations, datasets, etc.) to be integral to the journal content. (Supplemental material will be introduced in 1998 both online and in CD-ROM supplements.)

Once this step is made, the online version of the journal is the "archive copy" while the print version represents a subset of the full journal content.

Some societies have declared this transition to have taken place (APS and AIP, for example), but have not yet (to my knowledge) had a divergence of the print and electronic content.

We view this as an inevitable step, but not one to be taken lightly, and are just beginning to solicit input from the community.

Earth Interactions

http://EarthInteractions.org

Fully electronic and fully peer-reviewed journal intended to serve the Earth system sciences

Published jointly by the American Meteorological Society, American Geophysical Union, and Association of American Geographers.

First article posted in January 1997

The Need for an Electronic Journal

Remove the limitations of the printed page:

Animations

"Live math" and computer model code

Datasets

Allow value-added features:

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Since Panorama is not yet available for Mac and most UNIX platforms, a PDF version of each article is also provided.

HTML versions of articles are planned.

Other AMS Publications and Reference

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http://www.ametsoc.org/AMS

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AMS Newsletter - online only, and free to all via the AMS Web site

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Other AMS Publications

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Mesoscale Modeling of the Atmosphere

Stochastic Lagrangian Models of Turbulent Diffusion

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Handson Meteorology

Historical Essays on Meteorology, 1919 - 1995

The Collected Works of Henry M. Stommel (Vol. 1-3)

Preprint volumes

Preprint CD-ROM

1993-1997, continuing.

Image files of all papers, searchable only at the table of contents level, but across all conferences for year.

Journal/Bulletin Archive CD-ROM

1996, 1997, continuing.

PDF files of all articles, full-text searchable across all journals on each disc (two discs per year).

Dr. Ralph Petersen
National Center for Environmental Prediction

NCEP was formerly known as the National Meteorological Center, NMC. It changed its name to reflect the fact that it does a much more than just "meteorology." The NMC began in the 1950s as part of the NOAA National Weather Service. It started out in the Commerce Department building in which the Census Bureau was located. During the periods when census data was not being calculated, the NMC could use the census super computers for forecast modeling.

NCEP is considered the source for "all food" for weather prediction in the National Weather Service and private organizations like the The Weather Channel.

Dr. Petersen's talk was arranged around the NCEP organizational chart. (This chart is currently not available on the NCEP web site, but there was interest in seeing it added so stay tuned.) The following branches were profiled:

Environmental Modeling Center: This is the "brains" of NCEP. A highly academic core where operational improvements to weather and climate predicting occur.

Hydrometeorological Prediction Center: Produces daily weather forecasts.

Marine Prediction Center: Produces products distributed by the U.S. Coast Guard

Aviation Weather Center: In conjunction with the U.K. Met. Office, globally distributes aviation weather forecasts. The success of this Center was relayed in an anecdote where forecasts issued for a major snow on the eastern seaboard of North America in January of 1996 influenced United Airlines to fly all of its planes out of the east into the central U.S. The Airline could then perform maintenance on the planes while the majority of eastern airports were closed due to weather.

Climate Prediction Center: Formerly the Climate Analysis Center focuses on predicting climate change. Produces two-week, monthly and yearly forecasts up to a year in advance.

Space Environmental Center: Studies solar winds which can "slow down" satellites as well as electromagnetic fields of the atmosphere which can cause power outages.

The NCEP has a broad set of library users whose requests range from the meteorological literature to the computer science literature. 40% of the forecasters at NCEP have a masters or Ph.D. NCEP is spread across seven research centers which all have different abilities to access information not only due to geography but also the varied subject interests previously described. In addition researches needs include current and published research reports; pre-prints; weather analyses; and numerical weather data. Dr. Petersen indicated that pre-prints are very important for operational forecasters and in addition pre-prints offer an opportunity to share results without having to go through the formal review process. In the arena of forecasting there is often not time to wait through the normal publication process in order to get at new information. He suggested that librarians inform their offices on how to get preprints and where that information might be available.

External users of NCEP resources include the media; private meteorologists; space environment researchers; fishermen; U.S. Department of Agriculture; U.S. Federal Aviation Administration; ATC and Space and Satellite Operations.

Dr. Petersen asked those present to inform NCEP about the type of climate prediction questions that they get so that the NCEP can add that data to their homepage. In addition he indicated that the NCEP has many international documents and he would like to know the best way to distribute that material to a wider audience. An example was the NCEP currently gives the WMO software with no supporting materials. NCEP wants to know what to do with the documentation? They also have reference material available in Word Perfect format, and wonder how they can distribute that more widely. Can libraries aid in getting this out? NCEP has the skill to develop the material, they just need a mechanism for distribution, so that more libraries can store the information.

NCEP is setting up much more international outreach through international training centers and the establishment of foreign desks (e.g. training the trainers). Dr. Petersen posed the question "how can we get these folks more "aware" of the library and its resources?" He raised a concern about the language of materials. For instance Spanish language material and the large number of Chinese language researchers that the Center has. He mentioned the Chinese Fishers Homepage (URL ) which was created via an international exchange and is available in both English and Chinese. There is a lot of opportunity for international collaborations because a large number of interagency agreements go through NOAA's International Activities Division. Current examples included collaborations with China, India, Saudi Arabia, South Africa (which is a unique challenge since there are nine official languages), Mexico in one in preparation with Korea. Dr. Petersen asked if it would be worthwhile to survey foreign weather surveys about their journal needs and work to actively modernize the libraries in which they establish services desks. Those present resoundingly thought this was a good idea.

Bob Landis
Head, World Weather Watch
WMO Publications

The WMO Library does attempt to keep at least one copy of every WMO publication. (The WMO has a new librarian.)

There are plans for electronic publications, this will probably appear sooner rather than later, as the WMO scientists want this to happen. The WMO however is concerned about the loss in revenue. In addition, electronic publications will probably be co-produced in multiple media (print and electronic) because of the needs of developing countries. There is also a plan to produce a CD-ROM compilation of WMO manuals and guides.

? What determines what gets published

There are certain mandatory publications, specifically:

* manuals and technical regulations. These mandatory publications are determined by the WMO Congress and constituent commission bodies. (The next WMO Congress is June 1999.)

*guides which are determined by technical programs. Intergovernmental and technical representatives can make decisions as to whether or not guides can be republished or published if a need is determined for members and the cost of printing/reproduction can be covered by the publication fund. If there is a publication that you want reprinted write directly to the WMO or send a proposal to a delegate.

? Where do WMO publications get deposited?

There is no formal exchange/deposit program. For each publication 1-2 copies are sent to permanent representatives from the country or origination, it is up to the representative to determine the internal distribution. Other copies of the publication must be purchased. The U.S. Library of Congress does get one copy. There are no standing orders. The permanent U.S. representative is usually the head of the National Weather Service. The Canadian permanent representative is Dr. Gordon McBean.

? How can Grey Literature, e.g. working papers be purchased?

"Papers" and "documents" prepared for meetings are available off an FTP server. You can go in and download the papers. The papers will reside on the server for up to 6 months prior to the meeting and 3-4 months after the meeting. If copies of these papers are needed send an email requesting a copy if it is not on the server. (Not sure whom to send the email to, the author, the library or Mr. Landis?)

? Where are WMO publications indexed?

Was not sure

? Is the WMO Library catalog available online?

No, and Mr. Landis did not feel there was much unique in the WMO library in which others would be interested. Those present heartily disagreed.

? If we have gaps in our collection where can we get back issues?

There is no easy answer for this. Mr. Landis indicated that librarians need to let their permanent representatives know their frustrations with locating WMO publications. It was suggested that ASLI draft a letter stating the frustrations encountered with obtaining WMO publications and send it to several permanent representatives. The permanent representatives could then take this issue before the executive council (which meets every two years and is meeting again in June 1999).

There was some of the WMO union list created by J. Beattie, M. Latyszewkyj and J. Triplehorn. There 2700-2900 records in the union list some have numbers but no titles. Boulder Labs indicated that they have WMO catalogs back to the 1950's and may be able to supply titles for some of those missing.

WMO may sponsor librarians from developing countries to attend future ASLI meetings.

UCAR Library
Karon Kelly

Located in Boulder Colorado in the Mesa Labs, the building was designed by I.M. Pei.

The Library is developing a digital media catalog for its collection of photographs. Thumbnail images are available for viewing on their web site. Publication quality images can then be acquired from the Library.

UCAR is a consortium of 60 university and post-doctoral institutes. The goals and missions includes the collaborations with university in the study of the atmosphere as well as to supply facilities for analysis.

UCAR through its office of programs coordinates many multi-agency experiments and outreach activities. Funding for UCAR activities comes from the NSF, NOAA, FAA and Dept. of Defense as well as the Friends of UCAR (For educational products).

Information from K. Kelly:

The goal of the education and outreach programs is to educate the world about weather. Activities focus on education communities. They do many tours of the facility for K-12 students and scientific visitors. They have prepared a series of education classroom guides and developed several "exploratorium" exhibits with NSF funding. Visitation has increased over 150 percent since installing the exhibits. They are planning a virtual tour of the exhibits for their Web site. They have had open houses and open training sessions for the public, "Science Saturdays"; "Teacher Enhancement Programs" which are teaching modules. The library also has a popular, local artists display.

The UCAR digital catalog currently contains 1,200 images. Karon indicated that the web site is "rudimentary" and they hope to make improvements to it over time. They also have their COMET collection that contains over 6,000 images (also film and video clips) which are arranged by category, e.g. clouds, instrumentation, weather phenomena, solar, and crystal images. This catalog is currently not searchable, but they do plan to add metadata for the images--which will be searchable. Low resolution images are currently available via the Web (http://www.dir.ucar.edu/iss/dmc/). High resolution copies can be purchased.

The NCAR/UCAR archives contain the AMS History of Atmospheric Sciences tape recorded interview project. There are currently 55 oral histories in the collection (http://www.ucar.edu/archives/). Diane Rabson is the UCAR archivist. D. Rabson is putting the transcripts and abstracts online. There are other oral histories in the UCAR collection, but the exact number is unsure. The UCAR archive contains the papers if many prominent atmospheric scientists such as Phil Thompson, Will Kelly and Warren Washington. The AMS and UCAR have submitted a proposal to the NEH for funding to create a finding aid for the atmospheric sciences archives in the U.S. UCAR will look for collections in the west and the AMS will identify collections in the east. Karon indicated that the 1989 publication "Guide to Historical Resources in the Atmospheric Sciences: Archive, Manuscripts and Special Collections in the Washington, D.C. are" by Jim Fleming, Colby College (NCAR Technical Note 327+IA) has been updated and the author can be contacted for copies.

The oral histories project is still active. Atmospheric scientists with unique expertise are identified and interviews are conducted at AMS Meetings. Earl Dressler is conducting the oral interviews and is trying to increase the number of interviews to get "different stories." These oral histories, can be borrowed and used within some narrator set restrictions. (They are also collaborating with the AIP on some histories.)

UCAR affiliate institutions can access the collection. The library does have loaning services but there is a priority for UCAR members. There are also some movement towards UCAR consortial purchases.

The UCAR Development office publishes Search and Research newsletter in print and online (http://www.ucar.edu/ucargen/oga/newsletter/). It discusses funding opportunities in the atmospheric sciences.

UCAR, the AMS and AAG are collaborating on a Web site that will include and "experts database" that contains information about scientists and their research expertise. This site has been patterned after the AstroWeb list of major labs and facilities. (Sorry don't have the URL for this site.)

NCAR Library
Gayl Gray

The NCAR Library developed its Web site 2.5 years ago (http://www.ucar.edu/library/) which describes its services and databases as well as available full-text documents. The site focuses on the availability of items online.

G. Gray has been active in developing partnerships with the Library's users--often developing services for individuals. She feels very strongly that this benefits not only the user but also the Library. In this similar arena the Library has developed several tools for "marketing" itself, including a Fact Sheet which is updated annually. The Fact Sheet contains information on the library's budget, number of volumes, who works in the library, number of employees at NCAR, etc. She said that this has been very handy in conversations with administrators.

The library has 8 FTE and many part-time employees. G. Gray has been there 20 years.

The Library has: over 1,000 visitors per year; 31,000 titles and 600 journals. It is an educational institution, and even though it is not a "school" they do get academic pricing on their subscriptions. They have used the SIRSI system for the past 6 years. One of the best features she indicated was the systems ability to generate statistical reports for acquisitions, cataloging and circulation as well as ILL reports. The NCAR Library has been very active in the development of the SIRSI system. The Library has self-service circulation based on employee ID number. (NOAA Central indicated that they had had problems implementing specs with SIRSI).

In a recent redesign of the Web site G. Gray and her staff made over 300 on site visits to meet with the users of the Web site train the users on how to use the new site as well as get their feed-back on the site. These one-on-one visits allowed the library staff to know the users on their turf. The library staff also kept a diary of their sessions.

One of the surprise heavy users of the NCAR library is the NCAR Office of Development which often request a lot of "business reference" information.

The library offers "search on demand" service. G. Gray feels that unless users have a need at the time of training, then they will not remember how to use the resource.

Regarding the library-related conferences in which she and her staff participate: SLA is too general; NFAIS (National Federation of Abstracting and Information Services) a meeting of database suppliers such as Chemical Abstracts, Institute of Scientific Information and MGA, has been very beneficial (http://www.nfais.org/). NFAIS has also published a paper entitled, "Publisher Economic Models for Supplying Economic Models" (Available at 215/893-1561, nfais@nfais.org) which G. Gray recommended.

NCAR has also been involved in the Colorado Consortia for Database Networking which is exploring delivery of databases via the Web. The project, during the last 4 years, has had 3 pilot projects, including OCLC's FirstSearch and GaleNet products.

Electronic Journals In the Library: The Issues
Maria Latyszewkyj

In addition to the increased cost of journals, the cost of the hardware has decreased, but rapid changes in technology have put increased pressure on library budgets. Access to Web-based and other online publications present an opportunity for more timely and cost effective access through TOC services and Internet postings of electronic journals. E-journals were defined as "one whose text input may be entered directly by file transfer from a computer or by other transfer mechanisms in a machine-readable form, whose editorial processing is facilitated by a computer and whose articles are, thus made available in electronic form to readers. In other words, the whole of the normal publishing cycle can be accomplished electronically." These journals can incorporate hyper-links, video, graphics and audio.

Issues related to e-journals in the library include:

Availability: In 1995 there were 100 online journals at the end of 1997 there were over 3,000. Of the almost 7,000 scientific scholarly publications in the U.S. only about 3 percent are electronic.

Access: Various mark-up techniques, distribution models and marketing techniques are used. Very few e-journals are indexed so finding material published electronically can be difficult.

Technology: Very few standards exist for production of e-journals; with rapid technology changes there is concern over how material will migrate from current to future platforms.

Archiving: There are very few mechanisms to make sure the electronically published material will remain part of the scholarly literature; the debate of who will archive the material--traditionally this has been the role of libraries, but now publishers are "serving" information--will they maintain it?

Costs: Single vs. site licenses; subscription vs. per use license; interlibrary loan; copyright--sharing?

Peer Review: Very few e-journals have established formal peer review processes. Is the quality comparable to those published in traditional journals?

Integrity: Provenance--easy to edit and change electronic information; privacy; and how to cite electronic information.

Copyright: Fair use and resource sharing; Canadian laws are being revised, other nations will follow.

In conclusion M. Latyszewkyj discussed the intrinsic connection between paper and prestige and the future of traditional publishers in this electronic age. There was consensus that e-journals and other electronic publications, however are here to stay.

Metadata
Linda Pikula

L. Pikula discussed the FGDC and Dublin Core metadata standards. The Dublin core outlines 15 elements embedded in an HTML file for Internet items. The National Biological Survey has developed an HTML form called "Meta-Maker" for creating metadata. She distributed three handouts, the text for two of which "Geospatial MetaData" and "How to Write Good Metadata" are available at the NOAA Coastal Services Center Web site (http://www.csc.noaa.gov/metadata/). The third profiled the Everglades Information Network and Digital library metadata project. (http://www.csc.noaa.gov/metadata/).

Best-Search Engines on the Web
Lisa Wishard

L. Wishard gave a brief introduction on data factors to consider when looking for data on the Web such as What format of data is needed?; What geographic area should the data cover?; How much data?; What level of data?; and What interval of data? as well as an overview of the search engines parameters such as What type of search engine is it? (catalog or directory; keyword or crawler; multi-threaded or meta-crawlers); How is the database built?; How large is the database?

How current is the database and how often is it updated?; What search parameters does the engine support?; and How are the search results ranked and displayed?

Three speakers then demonstrated three Web-sites for locating atmospheric science data on the Web:

**Nancy Soreide, NOAAServer

http://www.esdim.noaa.gov/noaaserver-bin/NOAAServer

**Tom Ross, NCDC Data Server

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/

**Sam Pepler, British Atmospheric Data Centre (BADC) Server

http://www.badc.rl.ac.uk/

January 16, 1998
ASLI Business Meeting
Gary Hanneman
Keith Seitter
Lisa Wishard
Janice Beattie
Linda Pikula
Maria Latyszewskyj
Judie Triplehorn

This session was primarily a brainstorming session and a chance to recap the meeting. Here in no particular order are notes/snippets of what was discussed:

Membership:

Follow-up with WMO's offer to sponsor international attendees.

Create an ASLI brochure for the ASLI booth.

Send WMO Publications Session minutes to International Libraries

Recruit all the UCAR libraries

Program Planning:

Next AMS meeting, January 10-15, 1999, Dallas Texas. (Wyndham-Anatoll Hotel)

AMS has offered to host ASLI again for 1999.

Offer day-end wrap up sessions

Publisher Sessions (AMS, Elsevier, Community of Science, etc.)

MGA Training Session (Both basic and advanced)

More "draw" topics in order to get more general AMS attendees to ASLI events.

Will tailor title of the meeting e.g. Workshop; Conference and Meeting in order to foster members getting budget approval to attend.

Judie offered to host a future meeting at the new Geophysical Institute. Thought this would be a great site for a specialty workshop (ideas metadata; NOAA Directory)

We would like to continue inviting a speaker to speak on a special topic each year in memory of Betty Petersen. The idea of creating a Betty Petersen award for outstanding work in the field of atmospheric science librarianship was discussed.

2000 AMS Meeting, Long Beach, California

2001 AMS Meeting, either Phoenix or Albuquerque

At AMS meetings most educational symposiums are scheduled for Monday and Tuesday of the conference week. It was suggested any training workshops we organize be held during these two days. Also, it was suggested we look into a joint program with other education related sections of the AMS.

Publicity Outlets

Names in parentheses are the those who offered to contact those publications.

SLA Sci-Tech News (Judie); Earth Science Monitor; AMS Newsletter; CRLN (Lisa); Information Outlook (Lisa); Geotimes; UCAR Newsletter (Gayl was volunteered); IAMLSIC Newsletter; Texas Library Association.

Field Trip to Tucson

Gary Hanneman (Designated Driver)
Judie Triplehorn
Maria Latyszewskyj

The first stop was a tour of the Atmospheric Sciences Library at University of Arizona. Brian Avien, was our host for the tour. The Library was started in the 1950's when the department was organized. It has evolved sporadically over the last 50 years. It now occupies two rooms and contains roughly 3,500 monographs and 60 periodical titles. Book acquisition is primarily through faculty donations and some departmental money. There has been some discussion, as space pressures increase within the department, on whether or not a departmental library is still necessary especially since the University does have a large Science Library. Use figures for the departmental library however indicate that faculty and researches do use the facility so it has been maintained. The library is open from 8-5 M-F. Circulation of material is limited to department members, unless someone has a departmental sponsor. Material is cataloged in a card catalog by Dewey classification. They are in the process of creating a database of the Library's holdings. New books are added to the database and little by little they are adding the retrospective titles. They have only added about 60 titles to the University OPAC. Budget for staff and acquisitions comes completely from the Department. Some additional funds are occasionally received from grants.

The Library maintains a fairly extensive collection of article reprints written by authors from University of Arizona Department of Meteorology. The reprint collection is organized by a chronologically numbered list. There is also an author index to the collection.

There Library also has a small video collection, of about 25 weather-related titles which are used chiefly for teaching purposes. The reserve material for some graduate courses are located in this Library. IT does maintain a collection of departmental thesis and dissertations. These are only loaned to faculty, staff and graduate students within the Department.

The most common information requested is southwestern climate data.

After our brief visit to the University of Arizona Department of Meteorology Library the next stop was a tour of the Biosphere 2 in Oracle, Arizona (About 30 miles north of Tucson). Biosphere 2 is the worlds largest enclosed ecological laboratory.

At the facility we toured the living quarters of the "Biospherians"; observed many hands-on exhibits related to climate change and the earth's atmosphere (and other ecological processes). We also toured the grounds and visited the gift shop (much to Maria's chagrin we were only able to visit one of the Biosphere's three gift shops). Inquires into professional slides and books relating to the Biosphere research were directed to the facilities homepage (http://www.bio2.edu).

After the stop at the Biosphere we headed back into Tucson, through a spectacular desert sunset for dinner. We decided to forgo dinner at Cafe Terra Cotta and head back north towards Phoenix. We stopped for dinner at the Flying J Truckstop in Eloy, Arizona.

A good day was had by all and special thanks to Gary for doing all the driving are in order--Thanks GARY!

Respectfully Submitted,

Lisa Wishard

ASLI webmaster
Last update: June 14, 2007