NJ Knowledge Initiative to end February 29, 2008: campaign to restore funding needs your help

One-third of the research databases listed on Libraries @ Camden County College website will go dark on March 1, 2008, if NJKI funding is not restored.

  Since the late June announcement of the $1 million shortfall that would cause all NJKI-funded resources to be discontinued as of February 28, 2008, State Librarian Norma Blake and her staff with other library supporters in Trenton have been seeking ways to continue this program. Now they need our help. They ask us to contact our legislators and to call the Governor’s office (609-292-6000) or email http://www.state.nj.us/governor/govmail.html (choose topic: Commerce) to tell them what this program means for students, faculty and administrators at Camden County College, and to businesses in the County.

   On our website we’ve identified the resources to which access by College library users is funded by NJKI (go to http://library.camdencc.edu/ and click on DATABASES BY TITLE). The following resources are at risk; college librarians consider those with asterisks vital for our community:

               For Science and Health:

                             Biomedical Reference

                             CINAHL and Pre-CINAHL*

                             MEDLINE*

                             Nature Research and Review Journals*

                             Nursing and Allied Health Literature*

                             OVID/Lippincott Williams and Wilkins

                             Wiley InterScience

               For Business and General Research:

                             Business Source Premier*

                             ReferenceUSA*

Regional Business News

                             (Academic Search Premier* is part of NJKI, but its contract expires 6/30/08.)

  Ironically, NJKI has just won the prestigious Innovation Award from the Council of State Governments (CSG) that is given to only 8 projects in the country each year. Other states want to replicate it for their academic and business communities!

  While the State Library is obtaining pricing for members of VALE (our academic library consortium) to cover the March-June shortfall – with high hopes for full funding in FY09 – this will not help Libraries @ Camden County College, as our budget for online resources is already fully committed for this year. Neither will it help the 300 small businesses that joined NJKI or the members of the public that use some of these resources through JerseyClicks using a NJ public library card.

  Since NJKI began in FY06, more than 10 million articles/records have been used by NJ researchers and entrepreneurs; colleges and university students and faculty; legislative staff and state agencies; and the more than 2500 member libraries of the NJ Library Network and the people they serve. For more information, see, “NJKI is Vital to the Needs and Goals of Higher Education”, posted at http://www.njstatelib.org/LDB/NJKI/2007_Advocacy/NJKI%20Academic%20Library%20Survey%20Points%20-%20Jan%2007.doc