AMICO Press Release

November 15, 2001
Pittsburgh, PA

The Art Museum Image Consortium (AMICO) and Nylink have entered into a cooperative purchasing agreement to make The AMICO LibraryTM available to Nylink's membership at competitive rates. The AMICO Library will be available for subscription via two distributor options, H.W. Wilson (http://www.hwwilson.com) or VTLS (http://www.vtls.com). A preview trial period of The AMICO Library will be in effect Nov. 15th through Dec. 31st, 2001; subscriptions will begin Jan. 1st, 2002. Full Nylink members and cooperative purchasing participants should visit http://www.nylink.suny.edu/coop/coop.htm to learn more and sign up for the free trial. Nylink is a diverse membership organization of over 350 institutions in New York state and the surrounding region. The institutional diversity that will now come into contact with The AMICO Library furthers AMICO's goal of wide delivery matched to varied user needs.

Jennifer Trant, AMICO's Executive Director, declared, "This is a landmark agreement for AMICO. Not only do we now have exposure to a wide-ranging mix of potential AMICO Library subscribers, we get to introduce two of our new distributors and secure a relationship with Nylink. Organizations like Nylink provide excellent opportunities for AMICO to broaden our reach beyond the higher educational level in which we have already made in-roads and gain recognition as a resource with applicability for K-12 schools and public libraries, as well." Mary-Alice Lynch, Executive Director of Nylink, adds, "Providing access to The AMICO Library via our cooperative purchasing agreement is a welcome addition to the current offerings that Nylink makes available. We feel that making strong, well-documented visual materials available to our members is important for curricular multiplicity and users' education in visual literacy."

About Nylink
Nylink, established in 1973 as The SUNY/OCLC Network, is a not-for-profit membership organization providing services to libraries throughout New York State and beyond. As one of 16 regional OCLC (Online Computer Library Center)-affiliated networks, Nylink provides user support and training for OCLC products and services to its member libraries. Additionally, Nylink provides training, support and consulting services for libraries on a broad range of technology-related issues, and facilitates group purchasing opportunities to help libraries obtain cost-effective alternatives to electronic information. All libraries and library-related organizations in the state of New York are eligible for Nylink membership.

Approximately 350 institutions, representing more than 700 academic, special, government, law, medical, public, school and non-profit libraries, and library systems, are Nylink members. Nylink members are encouraged to advise both the Network and OCLC, and to have a voice in Network planning and decision making. Full members of Nylink have the opportunity to become involved with its governance, and to participate in Nylink Advisory Groups and Nylink Council. Nylink is administered through the Office of the Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs of the State University of New York.

About AMICO
The Art Museum Image Consortium (AMICO) is an independent non-profit corporation with 501 (c) 3 designation from the IRS. Founded in 1997 with 23 Members, the Consortium today is made up of over 30 major museums in the United States and Canada. It's an innovative collaboration - not seen before in museums - that shares, shapes, and standardizes digital information regarding museum collections and enables its educational use. Membership is open to any institution with a collection of art.

AMICO Members make annual contributions of multimedia documentation of works in their museums' collections. This is regularly compiled and made available as The AMICO Library to universities, colleges, schools, and public libraries. The 2001-2002 edition of The AMICO Library documents approximately 78,000 different works of art, from prehistoric goddess figures to contemporary installations. More than simply an image database, works in The AMICO Library are fully documented and may also include curatorial text about the artwork, detailed provenance information, multiple views of the work itself, and other related multimedia. "Subscribers find The AMICO Library valuable because it combines the immediacy and accessibility of the Web with the persistence and academic weight of traditional library reference sources," states Ms. Trant.

The AMICO Library is accessible over secure networks to institutional subscribers including universities, colleges, libraries, schools, and museums, and now serves over 1.5 million users on four continents, including faculty, students, teachers, staff, and researchers. Educational institutions may subscribe to The AMICO Library by contacting one of its distributors. These include the Research Libraries Group (RLG), the Ohio Library and Information Network (OhioLINK), H.W. Wilson, SCRAN, and VTLS. Potential subscribers may preview a Thumbnail Catalog of the AMICO Library and get further information at http://www.amico.org.

AMICO AMICO Communications Art Museum Image Consortium Phone: (412) 422 8533 Fax: (412) 422 8594 Email: info@amico.org Web: http://www.amico.org

Nylink Jen Stelling Products and Services Librarian E-mail: stellingj@nylink.suny.edu Tatiana Sahm Products and Services Librarian Email: sahmt@nylink.suny.edu Phone: 518-443-5444 or 1-800-342-3353 Web: http://www.nylink.suny.edu