Building and managing digital collections in libraries: advice from the trenches

Dorette SnymanDorette SnymanCollection Developer: Electronic ResourcesCollection Developer: Electronic Resources

Unisa LibraryUnisa Librarysnymad@unisa.ac.za

NLSA, 19 March 2015NLSA, 19 March 2015

E-Books, SA publishers and academic libraries

Academic library environment• University (institution)

– Serve the needs of the university: study, teaching and research– Report institutionally– statistics, user behaviour and ROI

• Content– Growth in depth and breadth of content collections - permanent– Content should be accessible to all staff & students (authorised users)

• Legislative– Procurement framework– Licenced vs open access– Protection of user privacy (POPI Act)

• Technical– Integration with campus learning management systems– Academic library systems – integrated, industry standards

• Cooperative environment– SA National Library and Information Consortium (SANLiC)

Collection development

• Academic libraries collect in all formats – print and/or e• Digital format is convenient for distribution – remove distance• Academic libraries build collections for:

– Short term – prescribed & recommended materials– Long term – scholarly collections

• Collecting SA and African content is a requirement• (Digital) Content collected:

– Scholarly books & journals – current and back files (legacy collections)– Reference works – Newspapers (current and historical)– Technical, trade, conference proceedings, music, video, images– Fiction or literature– General interest material, magazines

E-book purchasing models

• Purchase model dictated by availability of funds• Title by title selection – publishers, mainly aggregators• Subject collections from publishers• “Cherry pick” – or customized collections• Packages defined by publishers – by year (front lists)• Complete collections • Back files – historical collections• Subscriptions – aggregators• Open access collections – Knowledge Unlatched (

http://www.knowledgeunlatched.org/)

What academic libraries require• Business

• Multiple user access, academic pricing, permanent (ownership), none or little DRM

• Technical (platform) standards• Networked access by IP authentication – library authentication system, • Responsive design – device agnostic• Linking standards – persistent linking (DOI) on granular level• Compatibility with assistive technologies

• Discoverability • Resource discovery tools (metadata), MARC / RDA records

• Statistics for analytics & analytical tools• Usage statistics in COUNTER format (www.projectcounter.org)

• Integration with academic systems• Learning management systems, library systems, citation and

referencing tools

What is not acceptable

• Individual e-book titles in HTML or pdf

• Individual username & password access

• Downloading to individual workstations

• Restrictive pricing: price per individual user

• Unstable content (technical standards, platform migrations)

Relationship with academic libraries

• Libraries is a valuable market

• Libraries have own unique requirements

• Libraries build long term relationships

• Visit libraries or library related events and learn more:– LIASA, SA Online Users Group, SANLiC Conferences