E-resources Collection Management Anna 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? Institutions 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 Vendors 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 Models Determine 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?
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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
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Questions? Anna Grigson