Managing Electronic Resources: A LITA Guide

Citation

Low, K. (2013), "Managing Electronic Resources: A LITA Guide", Library Management, Vol. 34 No. 3, pp. 260-262. https://doi.org/10.1108/01435121311310969

Managing Electronic Resources: A LITA Guide is timely and is a handy reference. It is meant as a guide to most librarians with little education or professional development in electronic resource management. In just 167 pages, key elements, and essential points and discussions, are included in the eight chapters of the book. This goes to show how concise and clear the content is.

For a complete understanding of this topic, this book should be read in conjunction with another reference book, Electronic Resource Management in Libraries: Research and Practice, edited by Holly Yu and Scott Breivold (2008). In order to gain in‐depth understanding, a more comprehensive discussion on the most commonly encountered e‐resource format is provided in E‐journals Access and Management, edited by Wayne Jones (2009).

This book provides a good overview of the electronic resources life cycle – which has not been published in such detail before. Perhaps a “prequel” to this publication would be Managing Electronic Resources: Contemporary Problems and Emerging Issues, edited by Pamela Bluh and Cindy Hepfer (2006), in which a five‐stage e‐resources life cycle was illustrated by Dan Tonkery (p. 52):

1. 1.

   acquisition;

2. 2.

   provide access;

3. 3.

   administration;

4. 4.

   provide support; and

5. 5.

   evaluate and monitor.

In this book, the electronic resources life cycle is described in eight stages:

1. 1.

   discovery of a resource;

2. 2.

   trial of a resource and quote request;

3. 3.

   acquisition of a resource/price negotiation;

4. 4.

   contract negotiation (licensing);

5. 5.

   activation and provision of access;

6. 6.

   statistics gathering;

7. 7.

   trouble‐shooting; and

8. 8.

   review and renewal of a resource.

Chapters 3‐6 contain the bulk of the content, with discussions on the crucial stages within the electronic resources life cycle:

• •

  acquiring electronic resources by categorization into a relevant framework with the appropriate workflow, and quantifying what is being purchased;

• •

  licensing and the importance of negotiating for terms that favor the library and its patrons;

• •

  providing access via eight types of online access tools; and

• •

  using statistical usage information effectively and responsibly to assist in the decision‐making process about renewing or discontinuing e‐resource subscriptions, with particular reference to the COUNTER Code of practice for Books and Reference Works: Release 1 (March 2011) and COUNTER Code of Practice for Journals and Databases: Release 3 (March 2011).

Chapter 7 – Staffing changes to facilitate the shift to electronic resources – covers an important aspect that has been not been highlighted in previous books on similar topics – that is, the need for staff reorganization and workflow redesign, and for librarians to develop new skill sets to meet the needs of a dynamic electronic environment. In this chapter, strategic management approaches such as appreciative inquiry (AI) and backcasting are recommended for librarians to create and maintain collaborative and cohesive working teams.

This is certainly a book not to be missed by all librarians, as the editor Ryan O. Weir has aptly written: “This guide instructs electronic resource librarians or other professionals who manage electronic resources collection on how to achieve a balance and will give readers practical tools and insights to aid in managing collections and relationships. In addition, it also serves as a window into the life and functions of electronic resources librarians for those who work with, supervise, or aspire to be someone in that role”. To me, all the above‐mentioned goals of this guide are well achieved after reading this guide.

With the known complexities of electronic resources by nature, more of such guides, written by practitioners in academic libraries, would surely be appreciated by emerging librarians taking up new responsibilities in this area. I am eagerly looking forward to more in‐depth guides being published on the management of databases ore‐platforms in future!