Digital Content and User Education: Electronic Resource Mismanagement

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Digital Content and User EducationElectronic
Resource Mismanagement

• Stephanie H. Wical
• Digital Content Section Chair
• Information Technology Division

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• Electronic Resource Mismanagement Is What I Do!

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While I was sleeping

• Necessary articles were not obtained through ILL
• Library did not make all of our holdings
  available
• Did not know the ILL license restrictions
• Package purchased through a consortium
• I woke up and
• Compiled a spreadsheet
• Wondered how things could be if only

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• this task had been
• AUTOMATED.

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The Old School of Electronic Resource Management

• License Details Files
• Payment Details Files
• Contact Information Lists
• Systems Details Databases
• Hopefully cooperative staff members who talk to
  each other, because their records sure dont

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The Old School of Electronic Resource Management

• Licensing Data
• Purchasing Data
• Administrative Data

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This may have worked in the early days of
electronic journals

• Electronic Access Strategic Plans
• Proliferation of Electronic Journals
• Hidden coststaff time and energy

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No, this did not really work

• In the absence of readily available license
  agreement policies on ILL many libraries did not
  and still do not make their electronic-only
  journals available for ILL, even though many
  publishers, like Elsevier and Springer, allow for
  ILL of their e-journals.

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End Users Dont See

• Cost of scholarly journals
• That buying power decreases every year
• That the price of STM journals increases at a
  rate of 10-15 each year
• Labor involved to make access seamless
• That administrators pressure library staff to cut
  costs

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End Users Dont See

• Electronic Only Options Uncertain Futures
• Different Levels of Access
• like Wileys Basic and Enhanced
• like ACMs Digital Library
• That some AI databases do not allow
  customization to suppress features which
• cannot be usedCompendex

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Users

• Expect instant access to content
• Forget that Databases evolved from Abstracts and
  Indexes
• Complain that the library is no good because it
  doesnt have what they need
• Dont appreciate human link resolvers

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The Famous EBSCO Diagram

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License terms
E-resource life cycle
Order
Trial use
Pay
Price
Assess need/budget
IP Addresses
Evaluate
Register
User feedback
Acquire
Proxy Servers
Catalog
Usage stats
Evaluate Monitor
Portals/Access lists
Provide Access
Downtime analysis
Campus authentication
Review problems
URL maintenance
Provide Support
Problem log
Administer
User IDs
Hardware needs
Admin module information
Software needs
Preferences (store)
Contact info
Holdings lists
Troubleshoot/ triage
Access restrictions
Claiming
View rights for use
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Now is not the time to be a tightwad!

• You are spending thousands if not millions of
  dollars on electronic resources. Buy a good
  Electronic Resource Management System!

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Several Systems, Products and People

• But no real sense of community as no one talks to
  each other.
• People reinvent the wheel or develop remedies
  without thinking about other ways of using the
  data they attempt to organize and get under
  control.
• Data collection efforts are always incomplete and
  information is never updated in real time.

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The New Fugitive Documents

• Articles from resources that are not adequately
  promoted and linked.
• How can you in good faith deselect a title that
  has been underutilized because it is not readily
  available to the public?

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Library Staff Members Suffer

• Spending hours culling data from disparate
  sources, and
• Creating lists, spreadsheets and databases that
  colleagues will probably never use.
• Not being able to delegate such highly sensitive
  data collection and report preparation,
  administrators of electronic resources burn out.

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• But sometimes these burnouts also dream

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An Integrated Solution

• Like Innovatives Millennium ERM
• Allows one to easily cull a Title List
• Functions as a Coverage Database
• Allows for easy Coverage Load
• Allows for Incident Logs
• Facilitates Renewal and Trial Management
• Provides Tickler File
• Keeps Track of License Agreement
• Stores Statistics at the Resource Level

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This Integrated Approach

• Allows electronic resource librarians to see
  overlaps in coverage thereby simplifying
  selection decisions
• Allows electronic resource librarians to easily
  sort by resources that are from consortia
  purchases
• Allows for batch loading and not only updates
  coverage but also links titles to resources and
  updates URLs

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One-Stop Shopping

• All electronic resource tasks as well as
  reference tasks are in one place
• Just to be able to include number of simultaneous
  users and track usage in one product like this is
  helpful because I get calls from users who think
  the system is down and only after exploring
  several things do I discover that the maximum
  number of users has been exceeded.

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The Potential

• Making the invisible visible to users.
• A product like this could be used to enhance user
  education.
• Most users are unaware of budget and licensing
  restrictions and if used to its full potential
  this tool could help users become responsible
  consumers of information.

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This Can Allow You to Perform Outreach Instead of
Tedious Data Collection

• You can promote Open Access to faculty or
  researchers at your institution
• You can get involved on institutional committees
  to ensure that your budget increases enough to
  sustain current collection levels
• You can provide that seamless access that allows
  researchers to bring in big grants

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Imagine

• What it would be like to think strategically and
  not simply to
• put out fires or perform regular
• damage control.

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One More Thing

• I would like to see ERM systems develop ways to
  keep track of policies publishers have for
  self-archiving preprints and post-printsso that
  faculty and researchers seeking to publish can
  use the integrated system to make good publishing
  decisions.

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• Just as you would choose the electronic format of
  a journal for the end-users convenience, you
  should choose an ERM system for the Electronic
  Resources Administrators convenience.
• Why is this?
• Because we have a sense of urgency and we work to
  restore access ASAP. We know our users have
  deadlines and we want them to succeed.

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• Special Thanks to EBSCO Subscription Services,
  Innovative Interfaces and UNM Libraries.

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• Stephanie H. Wical
• Electronic Technical Services Librarian
• New Mexico Tech
• Socorro, NM
• swical_at_nmt.edu

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• Thank You!