Search results

Several years ago, North Carolina State (NC State) University Libraries technical services department, Acquisitions & Discovery (A&D), merged acquisitions, cataloging, and electronic resources management functions and staff. One intended outcome for the merger included integrating and distributing electronic resources management across all staff positions whereby staff would be trained to manage a larger portion of the life cycle for print and electronic resources. The benefits of a life cycle approach for both print and electronic resources included better staff understanding of resources; staff ownership of packages; and improved staff follow-through, consistency, and ability to troubleshoot. Key positions were reimagined to support this effort. This included the creation of a staff package manager role in the serials unit to provide oversight of e-journal packages, distribute work to staff, and create and maintain an information dashboard (the Electronic Resources Hub) for staff as well as for other stakeholder departments across the libraries. The monographs unit has recently adopted a similar integrated approach to manage NC State's growing collection of e-books. This chapter will outline A&D implementation of two package management models, one for serials and one for monographs; describe the associated tools and technologies used for support; and discuss lessons learned. Benefits will be discussed to illustrate how other libraries might transform their electronic resource management operations by using a package management strategy.

The article aims to examine how the University of Maryland, College Park, evaluated two specific task management software packages that could make the pre‐order workflow for electronic resources more transparent to library staff.

The results from an electronic resources gap analysis done at the University of Maryland, College Park, were used as a basis to evaluate and select task management systems.

Two electronic resource management systems, CORAL and License Manager, were selected. They were evaluated in the areas of task, license and vendor information management.

This paper provides criteria that could be used to evaluate tools that support license management for electronic resources.

To keep librarians and colleagues informed about the issues and programs of the Electronic Resources & Libraries (ER&L) Conference held in Atlanta, Georgia on the Georgia Institute of Technology campus in February 2007.

Provides a review of the conference.

Acquisitions staff, catalogers, public service staff, administrators, IT personnel, information providers from the vendor side, content managers, and others all came together to assess what needs to be done to continue high servicing of both born digital and electronically available resources in a hybrid environment that continues to describe all library settings today. As the percentage of electronic resources quickly grows, there are new challenges in acquiring, caring for, servicing, preserving, using and citing them that keep librarians up at night to consider short‐and long‐term solutions in how they should be organized bibliometrically and how we can re‐engineer some of our procedures to best treat the wide range of e‐Resources now common in all libraries.

The program blended services with processing reinforcing the importance of electronic resources for the “total” library environment. It seemed like there was nothing left out.

To report on the 1st Electronic Resources & Libraries Conference held in March 2006 in Atlanta, Georgia.Design/methodology/approach – Provides a review of some of the events of the conference.

The ER&L conference is the first step to building an shared understanding about the unique medium of electronic resources and management and developing a supportive community for dissemination of basic practices and latest developments in the field.

A conference report of interest to information management professionals, especially those involved with electronic resources.

The purpose of this paper is to describe the motivations, creation, and implementation of workflow and organizational redesigns within two academic library acquisitions departments: the University of Alabama (UA) and the University of Florida (UF).

Both institutions utilized a combination of goal identification, staff contribution, and Blackwell's workflow consulting services to build and implement new acquisitions workflows.

A comparison of the projects reveals two paths to conducting a reorganization of acquisitions in academic libraries, but with the same goal: doing more with less staff while promoting a more cost‐efficient model of operations.

In evaluating these analysis projects at UA and UF, common successes that are applicable to future undertakings were identified.

Aims to review the Digital Library Federation's (DLF) Electronic Resource Management Initiative (ERMI) guidelines and related commercial e‐resource management system development.

Documents commercial e‐resource development by reviewing materials made public by leading library system vendors.

Provides information about commercial and library‐developed systems and where additional information about each can be found.

Provides the status of industry initiatives to respond to the DLF ERMI functional specifications. Suggests the need to improve workflows in conjunction with implementation of an e‐resources system to more effectively manage electronic resources.

The purpose of this paper is to provide insights into issues encountered in maintaining library technologies on a limited budget and with limited personnel.

The paper presents reports on real world experiences in the deployment of an electronic resource management system (ERMS) in an effort to centralize information relevant to electronic resource subscriptions.

While technological advances have streamlined workflows in the modern library, adequate staffing is still required to maintain these technologies. As such, libraries must re‐examine priorities in an age of shrinking budgets.

This paper offers insights and real‐world experiences encountered in the deployment of an ERMS with limited human resources.

This study aims to report on a series of “essential audits” implemented by technical services personnel at Georgia Southern University to provide proactive troubleshooting of electronic resources.

These “essential audits” include bi-weekly link tests in the library’s A-Z database list, quarterly book and link asset tests in LibGuides and rolling authentication audits of link resolver records. Taken together, these techniques help to reduce access issues before they arise, improving overall provision of access.

Since implementing these “essential audits,” Georgia Southern has seen reductions in troubleshooting requests related to database-level authentication and access, as well as reductions in link-level troubleshooting requests originating from the library’s LibGuides platform and article-level troubleshooting requests originating from the link resolver.

Findings recommend implementation of regular audits pursuant to proactive troubleshooting of electronic resources and improved overall provision of access.

This case study contributes to the recent literature and discourse on electronic resource access troubleshooting by highlighting simple, proactive auditing techniques.

The purpose of this paper is to describe the challenges and examine the impact of the transition from print to electronic resources at a medium‐sized academic library at a multi‐campus Caribbean university, The University of the West Indies (UWI), with particular reference to the St Augustine campus.

Through a review of the literature on the shift from print to electronic resources, the paper uses the experiences of The UWI St Augustine to provide a model that can be used by other libraries.

Libraries have successfully built a “hybrid” collection of print and electronic resources despite challenges with information and communications technology (ICT) infrastructure, balancing costs, licencing model and strategies for selection, acquisition and management of electronic resources. There are some key steps which libraries can follow when transitioning from print to electronic resources.

The paper focuses on the experiences and lessons learnt in moving a collection from print to a hybrid of print and electronic resources. However, this by no means encapsulates all the issues associated with any such undertaking.

The paper provides some key steps that a library can take in transitioning its collection from print to a print‐electronic hybrid.

Although the literature speaks to different aspects of implementing electronic resources, this paper provides a roadmap for similar libraries with the lessons learnt and simple steps that a library should take when considering to move its collection from print to some level of electronic resources.

Academic libraries have witnessed huge changes due to internal and external factors. Recent evidence shows that there is a lack of interest in process analysis within academic libraries. There is a lot written on the need to change academic libraries but there is little analytical research that investigates processes, in terms of the process architecture. The paper aims to discuss this issue.

The modelling tool used is Architecture of Integrated Information Systems (ARIS).

ARIS can provide a process architecture and design for academic libraries that might raise questions later about procedures and some inefficiencies.

Library managers might need to learn new techniques.

There is a lot written on the need to change academic libraries but there is little analytical research that investigates processes, in terms of the process architecture. This research examines business process modelling for academic libraries, focusing on the process architecture, as a way of visualizing, understanding and documenting processes.