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Chemical Information Instructor
Andrea Twiss-Brooks John Crerar Library University of Chicago Chicago, IL 60637
Examining the Effects of Introducing Online Access to ACS Journals at Primarily Undergraduate Institutions1
W
R. G. Landolt Texas Wesleyan University, Fort Worth, TX 76105;
[email protected] In 1996, in collaboration with Chemical Abstracts (CA) and STN International, Project UCAIR (Undergraduate Cooperative Access to Information Resources) (1) provided workshops for students and faculty at multiple institutions with hands-on electronic access to CA in the context of existing curricular offerings. This endeavor demonstrated that, through collaboration of faculty with local librarians, students in intermediate-level chemistry courses (usually organic chemistry) could put electronic chemical information resources to excellent use in learning chemistry! Further, this could be done at reasonable cost for significant numbers of students (2). Piloting Online Journal Access A subsequent phase of UCAIR was launched in 1999– 2000 to manage the transition from print to online access of primary journals for students at a pilot group of primarily undergraduate institutions (PUIs) across the U.S., selected competitively. Over 80 schools provided a history or existing pattern of undergraduate research or chemical information instruction as a feature of their chemistry programs and identified major thrusts within their curricula that would benefit from the UCAIR activity. Twenty-four schools were selected, eight each from three categories of PUIs: • Small (
