Military Education Research Library Network

Ed Burgess

Combined Arms Research Library, Fort Leavenworth

A Dedicated Civil Servant at Work

What is MERLN?

United States military education libraries, United States Department of Defense Regional Center libraries and their international counterpart libraries in a comprehensive website devoted to international military education outreach

Who can access MERLN?

MERLN is a website available on the Internet and is open to all. Due to licensing agreements, some databases are available only to students, staff, faculty and alumni of the participating institutions.

Members

Air University Library Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies Library Combined Arms Research Library Gray Research Center Library Joint Forces Staff College Library Marshall Center Research Library National Defense University Library Naval Postgraduate School Library Naval War College Library Pentagon Library U.S. Army War College Library U.S. Coast Guard Academy Library U.S. Military Academy Library

Resources

Union Catalog of member libraries Access (password controlled) to full text ejournals,

documents and reference sources Digital Collections of full text lectures, papers,

legislation. Military Policy Awareness Links (MIPALS) Publications Individual libraries’ websites Links to worldwide military library online catalogs

in multiple languages http://merln.ndu.edu/

“Non-geographic network”

OCLC initiated Pilot program Incentives Mission-related Pricing Public availability Various views Integrate with other services Branding

Issues

Proliferation of passworded systems Remote users worldwide Security, appropriate access, content How many access points can we provide? Cataloging/metadata/integration Cost/cost sharing/partners Digitization of legacy resources

U.S. Army Command and General Staff College

CGSC

Command and General Staff College For professional soldiers Five Schools

– CGSOC (Best Majors at 15 yrs of service)– CAS3 (All Captains)– SAMS (follow-on to CGSOC)– PCC (LTCs & COLs)– Nonresident

MMAS, Cooperative graduate programs for MA and PhD

International and sister services students

My Environment

Combined Arms Research Library, Fort Leavenworth, KS

Staff of 36 FTE– 17 professional (plus 2 temps)

– 23 techs

Dual mission– Academic, supporting CGSC

– Public, supporting installation population, including family members and retirees in area

Combined Arms Research Library New Building, 1994 280K Books, 180K docs, etc.

– Heavily electronic; OPAC, online svcs, web

– Productivity programs & Internet for users

c. $700K non-personnel budget http://cgsc.leavenworth.army.mil/carl/

Questions?