About this Program
The vision of the CIC Virtual Electronic Library (VEL) is an
e-resource that offers seamless online access to the wealth of
information resources and services available through CIC member
libraries.
The culmination of a three-year research and development project,
the VEL seeks to integrate electronic library resources and end-user
services by offering a single interface to search local, group,
or external resources and to allow patron-initiated interlibrary
loan and document delivery requests within the same interface.
When fully implemented, the CIC VEL will provide access to 60
million books, 550,000 serials, and countless databases and digital
systems owned or licensed collectively by the CIC libraries. It
will allow users to search across the online public access catalogs
(OPACS) of all the CIC libraries as well as other electronic sources
using a standard Web browser. Funding for the project was provided
in part through a U.S. Department of Education Office of Library
Programs Library and Technology Cooperation grant (HEA II-A) awarded
to the CIC. The deployment of the VEL marks a significant step
forward in the enhancement of services to the students, faculty,
and staff of the CIC universities by opening access to the library
catalogs of our universities. The VEL provides a user-friendly
Web-accessible interface, and allows the user to initiate information
requests directly from the access interface.
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