Please join the Electronic Resources Interest Group for a discussion of advances in electronic resources management on Saturday,
January 21st from 1:00 to 2:30 p.m. in Room A315 of the Georgia World Congress Center.
As libraries continue to transition away from information services based on physical materials, how is electronic resources management
changing? How have libraries reorganized to manage electronic resources? Are legacy print collections being replaced systematically with online journals and eBooks? What are some of the problems encountered in this transition? How have information services
been improved to serve users? Attendees will participate in small group discussions and then share their answers with the Group.
Electronic Resources Interest Group
Questions for Discussion ALA Midwinter 2017
1.
Discuss the prioritization of electronic resources in collection development. Have there been any significant changes at your library during the past five years?
a.
Does your library have a collection development policy or other formal guidelines for collection development? What types of library materials, if any, must still be collected in print or physical formats
and why?
b.
What kinds of information are used to inform collection development decisions? What kind of quantitative and qualitative information, if any, is gathered in addition to COUNTER statistics?
How is this information collected and by whom?
i.
Are most stakeholders in your library currently satisfied with the type of information gathered for the assessment of electronic resources?
c.
Are there different preferences for print or electronic format among decision makers or selectors regarding continuing resources vs. monographs? What reasons, if any, are cited for continuing to support
print acquisitions?
d.
At what rate, have electronic resources replaced existing print resources (already held) in your library during the past five years?
i.
How many online journal archives have replaced holdings of print journals (leading to de-accession)?
ii.
How many eBooks have replaced already held print books (de-accession)?
iii.
How much resistance, if any, has there been to shifting current and archival collections to online format?
iv.
How much stacks space has been converted to other uses?
2.
How has the usability of electronic resources changed at your library during the past five years?
a.
Are most users generally satisfied with library eBooks?
b.
What are some of the problems in managing contemporary eBooks?
c.
What kind of discovery tools/services are provided by your library?
d.
Have any systemic improvements been attempted or undertaken in terms of discovery and/or metadata for electronic resources at your library?
3.
Within technical services or units charged with managing electronic resources, discuss some of the more important changes during the past five years.
a.
How have professional roles and responsibilities changed?
b.
How is the work of licensing, acquiring, activating, describing/cataloging and troubleshooting electronic resources distributed?
4.
How has the larger organizational structure of your library changed during the past five years?
a.
How has the overall number and type of personnel changed, e.g., more professional staff, fewer support staff positions, more student staff, etc.?
b.
What kinds of new positions have been created or developed at your library? Increasingly common specializations such as data management, GIS librarianship, collection strategists?
c.
What positions have been eliminated or made redundant?
d.
Describe any departmental or larger scale reorganization efforts. Have the results been mostly positive or negative? What are some of the achievements and problems facilitated by these changes?
Best regards,
George
George Stachokas
Electronic Resources Librarian
Auburn University Libraries
231 Mell Street
Auburn, AL 36849-5606
Phone: (334) 844-1777