E-resources Collection ManagementAnna Grigson
E-resources Manager
• What are e-resources?• Where are e-resources?• How do users find e-resources?
• How do we select e-resources?• How do we buy e-resources?• How do we manage e-resources?
• Policy • Practicalities
E-resources Collection Management
What different types of e-resources
do you have at your institution?
What are e-resources?
• E-books – textbooks, monographs, reference works
• E-journals – scholarly journals, trade journals, magazines, newspapers
• Official documents – reports, standards, legislation, law reports, grey literature
• Multimedia – maps, music, sound, images, films, computer games
• Teaching materials – course packs, lecture notes, podcasts, tests, exam papers
• Research materials – datasets, theses, preprints, conference presentations
• Metadata – indexes, website directories, institutional repositories
What are e-resources?
Where are e-resources kept?• Online or offline? • Institution’s server or external website?
How do users access them?• From on-campus, from home, from work?• Using a computer, an e-book reader, a mobile phone?• Via a screen or a screen reader?
Where are e-resources?
How do you search for e-resources?
How do users find e-resources?
Where do users search?• Library catalogue, federated search, A-Z lists• VLEs, reading list systems, portals, institutional repositories• Union catalogues, bibliographic databases• Google, Amazon
How do users search?• Full-text, abstracts or bibliographic metadata • Structured or unstructured metadata
How do users find e-resources?
• Text and media• Formal and informal publications• Individual items, bits of items and collections• Content and metadata• In-house content and third-party content• Owned, leased and free content
What is an e-resources collection?
How do we select e-resources?
• Quality and relevance• Availability• Licence• Access
Availability
What can we get in e-format?
• Good availability – scholarly journals, STM• Increasing availability – special collections, multimedia, social
sciences & humanities• Poor availability – trade journals, textbooks
How do we select e-resources?
Licences
What we can do with the content?
• Authorised users – staff, students, alumni, visitors• Authorised site(s) – single or multi-site, campus
or off-campus, UK or overseas • Authorised uses – print, copy, ILLs, course packs• Vendor’s responsibilities – maintaining the service• Your responsibilities – monitoring for misuse
How do we select e-resources?
Access
Will users be able to access and use the resource easily?
• Interface quality – quality of search, usability• Technical issues – accessibility, browser support, device support• Tools – downloading, printing, exporting to RefWorks • Authentication – IP, Athens, Shibboleth, password
How do we select e-resources?
Business ModelsDetermine what we get for our money
• Payment type – one-off purchase, subscription• Duration of access – perpetual, annual, pay-per-view• Extent of access – limited or unlimited, users or uses• Content – individual items, fixed collections, changing collections,
pick n mix collections
How do we buy e-resources?
Costs
Determine what we can afford!
• Price – VAT, currency fluctuations• Additional fees – access fees, maintenance fees• Terms – multi-year deals, minimum spend, link to print, price caps• Deals – consortia discounts, national deals, open access
How do we buy e-resources?
educating for professional life
educating for professional life
educating for professional life
Who selects content?• Subject librarians• E-resources team• Users
Who buys content?• Acquisitions staff• Journals staff• E-resources team
Who selects and buys e-resources?
Do we need to catalogue e-resources?
What metadata do we need?• MARC, XML, Dublin Core, ONIX
How do we get metadata?• In-house, vendor MARC records, Knowledge Bases
How do we link users from search results to content?• Deep links, link resolvers, OpenURLs and DOIs
How do we make e-resources findable?
• Data – number of searches / sessions / full-text accesses, search terms
• Sources – from vendors, from library systems• Standards – COUNTER, ICOLC, SUSHI• Analysis – most popular resources, value for money
How do we know if e-resources are being used?
Right to access content?• Risks – no rights, terms change• Solutions – licence, codes of practice
Ability to access content?• Risks – technical or commercial failure • Solutions – local hosting, archives (LOCKSS, Portico)
How do we preserve our e-resources?
Who catalogues resources?• Cataloguers• E-resources team
Who maintains the collection?• E-resources team• Systems & IT teams
Who promotes e-resources and trains users?• E-resources team• Subject librarians
Who manages e-resources?
What systems do they use?• existing LMS• ERM system• spreadsheets
Who manages e-resources?
• Defines why we have a collection whose needs it should meet – staff, students, visitors what needs should it meet – teaching, learning and research
• Is determined by high-level information strategy• Determines selection and preservation decisions• Acts as a quality benchmark
is the collection ‘fit for purpose’ how does it compare to other institutions
What is an e-resources collection policy?
• User needs who are the users and what do they need? where and how they want access?
• Range of content which subjects? which formats – print, online or both? new resources or old?
What is an e-resources collection policy?
• Holdings and access where is access available – in-house or in other libraries? who gets access? how long do we need to maintain access?
• Budget Funds – separate print / e funds? for each department? Planning – currency / VAT variations, multi-year deals Running costs – space costs vs staff / support costs
What is an e-resources collection policy?
A day in the life of an e-resources manager
educating for professional life
educating for professional life
educating for professional life
educating for professional life
educating for professional life
educating for professional life
educating for professional life
educating for professional life
educating for professional life
educating for professional life
educating for professional life
educating for professional life
educating for professional life
educating for professional life
educating for professional life
educating for professional life
educating for professional life
educating for professional life
educating for professional life
educating for professional life
