Portals, Access, and Research Libraries.

This paper provides an overview of the scope and progress of the initiatives of the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) in the U.S. It is noted that ARL has always been on the cutting edge of new developments in librarianship. Some of ARL's recent initiatives support the implementation of portals in research libraries. These include the Scholars Portal Project, a collaborative effort between several ARL member libraries and Fretwell-Downing Inc. The author concludes that the Scholars Project and similar portal initiatives in other ARL member institutions will be characterized as successful if users can discover a wide range of content; capture that content using harvesting and/or delivery tools; manipulate text using text-processing and citation management tools; distribute content by the use of contribution and publication tools; and consult by means of access to virtual reference services and electronic scholarly communities.