Challenges and Opportunities for E-Resource Management Jill Grogg E-Resources Librarian University of Alabama September 23, 2007

Fun with Acronyms DLF ERMI – Digital Library Federation Electronic Resource Management Initiative ER – Electronic Resources ERMS – Electronic Resource Management Systems ER in L – Electronic Resources in Libraries SUSHI – Standardized Usage Statistics Harvesting Initiative

Common mission Make as much available in as many places as possible WHILE Managing all the technology, tasks, and data necessary to facilitate such ubiquitous access. In other words: The right resource for the right person at the right time.

The myth of multitasking Hal Pashler, a professor at the University of California, San Diego: "If you talk on the cell phone and drive to work, you don't crash the car, but you may forget where you parked it." – October 12, 2006, Bob Faw, correspondent for NBC Nightly News Report,

Translated to e-resources OCLC/RLG databases switched from the Eureka platform to the FirstSearch platform in September … I scanned this announcement while talking to my boss about our three-year renewal for ScienceDirect … so what are the chances I will remember or even process that the OCLC/RLG switch requires some action on my part?

Weve acknowledged and addressed the problem Volume of e-resource materials collected in libraries has reached critical mass that prohibits traditional title-by-title management. Thus, traditional tools (ILS) used to manage e- resources are not in and of themselves effective. Digital Library Federation Electronic Resource Management Initiative initial report released in August 2004 ( erm02.htm)

To understand where we are going… Lets examine where we have been (and for some of us, still are).

Self-disclosure

More self-disclosure

Information held hostage

Fantasy vs. Reality

Pandoras Box Examination of local e-resource workflow Collaboration of library departments Prioritization of ERMI data elements Library mission for ER access and discovery Responsibilities for data entry

Recipe for successful ERM System to: – manage the entire life cycle of an electronic resource – performs a variety of functions – facilitate workflow processes – eliminate duplicative efforts – help all users lose ten pounds Honest workflow analysis + flexible people + efficient tools = SUCCESS

ERMS Implementation Choices Administrative metadata Collection development / management / evaluation info Licensing / terms of use information Public display Incident tracking / reporting Acquisitions / financial data Queues / ticklers / other workflow helpers And more ….

Interoperability Interoperability is a much bandied about term these days. It is a very broad term that covers many of the issues that impinge on the effectiveness with which heterogeneous information resources can co-exist …

Interoperability, continued … To achieve the goal of seamless integration for the user requires significant collaboration and partnerships; and the use of standards and the implementation of common protocols is key to success...

Interoperability, final thoughts … as important [as technical interoperability] is the semantic interoperability … and libraries themselves need to consider the human/political interoperability as well as international and intercommunity interoperability. – Jenny Walker, Online Conferentie Nederland April 5, 2000; also published as Open Linking for Libraries: the OpenURL Framework, in New Library World 102, no. 1163/1164, 2001, pp

Successes! (and challenges) ERMI itself, ERMI Phase II ERMI SUSHI Ticklers and reminders for specific workflow tasks Reallocating disproportionate number print staff to ER / addressing compartmentalization, gatekeeping Knowledge management of administrative metadata and other e-resource collection management information

Electronic Resource Management Report of the DLF ERM Initiative – Timothy D. Jewell – Ivy Anderson – Adam Chandler – Sharon E. Farb – Kimberly Parker – Angela Riggio – Nathan D. M. Robertson Digital Library Federation, Washington, D.C., 2004,

Challenges (and successes!) Licensing information Amorphous ER workflow issues (non-linear processes) – seeing the invisible Continued reliance on outside tools Pulling data from ERM and pushing to context- sensitive user groups Reporting functionality Data maintenance Many more opportunities for standards

Most Popular Cross-population of data from varied systems which leads us back to … Interoperability No publisher is an island, no information cannot be improved by enriching its context. (Pardon the double negative.) -- Elseviers Karen Hunter, 1998

Interoperability Redux

Future discussions DLF ERMI 2, NISO workshops and committees, LE Working Group, and other less formalized initiatives Electronic Resources in Libraries Forums – NASIG, ACRL, ALA, LITA – – Article summarizing past years forums forthcoming

Questions?