E-resources and library practice an overview of selection, acquisition, and usage

Linus C. Emeghara

Chief Operating Officer

Ifegrace Ventures Ltd

E-resources and library practice an overview of selection, acquisition, and

usage

Being a paper presented at the training workshop on issues in the selection, acquisition and use of e-resources in TETFUND funded institutions

ABSTRACT

Points to the fact that e-Books, databases and e-Journals have become an integral part of any modern library

examines effective ways of selecting, acquiring and use of the various e-resources

further examines issues in the licensing and management of the e-resources in order to achieve the desired objectives.

Introduction.

The Library landscape has indeed been altered and reshaped by the information and communication technology (ICT) across the globe.

Great and vibrant libraries are now measured by the level of automation, Internet connectivity, and accessibility to other libraries on real time basis, subscription to reputable online databases as well as quality of collections.

Introduction Contd.

Information and communication technology (ICT) has, thus become a defining parameter in delineating libraries

The ones that are fully ICT driven are regarded as modern while those manually-driven are termed traditional

To disregard leveraging with this benchmark is to accept extinction and irrelevance

Introduction Contd.

e-resources have therefore become a part of the modern library.

Librarians are enthusiastic to incorporate these resources into the library collection

These resources have brought new challenges & opportunities

selection, acquisition, licensing and management issues have become more than necessary.

What is e-resource?

An electronic resource is defined as a resource which require computer access or any electronic product that delivers a collection of data, be it text referring to full text bases, electronic journals, image collections, other multimedia products and numerical, graphical or time based, as a commercially available title that has been published with an aim to being marketed

Types of E-Resources

The e-resources are basically divided in two major types are:

1. Online e-resources, which may include:E-journal (Full text & bibliographic) E-books Online databases

Web sites

Types of E-Resources Contd.

The other electronic resources may include:

CD ROM Diskettes Other portable computer databases.

eBook Acquisition Models

Subscription Model/ Option. Under the subscription model, libraries pay annually to maintain their access to the eBooks and therefore do not own the books.

Acquisition/ Perpetual Model/ Option. Under the acquisition model, libraries make an outright purchase of the eBooks/ own the books.

Pay per View Model Patron-driven selection

Acquisition/ Perpetual Access Model

price for this model typically higher than print Even single-user access almost always costs

significantly more than the print list price Preset e-book packages, comprise all of a

publisher’s current content in a given subject area

Some aggregators charge libraries for platform maintenance fee annually for ongoing hosting of the e-books purchased

Benefits of Pay-Per-View Model

Some aggregators and publishers offer content on a pay-per-view or short-term rental basis especially eBooks

a cost-effective way to provide access to e-book content for ongoing fees

pays only for content used Usually, short-term loan fees is a small percentage

of the total cost of the book

Types of Databases

There are two types of databases. These are:Subject Specific Databases: Subject specific databases focuses on one subject or discipline; eg Political Science Complete, Econlit with full text, etc.Multi-Disciplinary Databases: Multi-disciplinary databases as the name implies focuses on more than one subject, eg, Academic Search Complete, Business Source Complete, etc.

What is an e-Journal and how is it different from a database?

Electronic journal is a journal published in electronic format.

It is different from a database which is an aggregation of electronic journals under a given subject and or subjects.

Website

A group of World Wide Web pages usually containing hyperlinks to each other and made available online by an individual, company, educational institution, government, or organization

E-Resource Vendors/ Aggregators

EBSCOhost (Sales EBSCOhost databases and eBooks)

ProQuest (Sales ProQuest Databases and eBrary

Lexis Nexis (Law Publications Hein Online (for Law Publications

Concerns in the acquisition of e-resources

The cost Coverage Proprietary rights. License issues Agreements Technical Support Training

Ways of Acquiring E-Resources

Libraries acquire e-materials variouslySubscription (eBooks, Databases and e-Journals) Pay-per-view (eBooks)Patron-driven/ selection (eBooks)

Selection Criteria

Database brief to know scope and coverage Journal coverage list to ensure availability of

relevant journals Trial request to assess platform & relevance Access by password and IP authentication Agreement to support multi-user license Cost of subscription Technical Support .

Licensing Issues

License is a major concern for libraries for all electronic resource acquisitions

Establish a standard agreement that describes the rights of libraries and their authorized users in a plain and explicit language

The terms should reflect realistic expectations concerning the ability to monitor use and discover abuse

Licensing Issues Contd.

In the acquisition of electronic books and journals, the

librarian is usually under pressure to sign lopsided licence

agreements. Those agreements assume that aggregators have obtained

necessary permission and authorization from copyright

holders. When subscribing to databases, eBooks and or e-

journals libraries must negotiate and execute a

license agreement with each publisher before access

is granted

INDEMNIFICATION CLAUSE

Whether you are licensing e-books from a publisher or an aggregator, it is important for the licensor to indemnify the library against third-party claims of infringement of copyright or any other rights arising out of the library’s use of the e-book

A library cannot indemnify a licensor against misuse (or abuse) by the library’s authorized users

INDEMNIFICATION CLAUSE Contd.

A library needs to be careful not to accept an indemnification clause that requires the library to indemnify the licensor against use by their patrons

However, a library can agree elsewhere in the license to take all reasonable measures to protect the licensed materials from misuse and to inform its users about the rights and restrictions they have in using the licensed materials

A library will, however, find it difficult to offer any kind of guarantee that its users will not abuse their rights and should not accept responsibility beyond due diligence.

Measuring returns on e-resources.

Tenopir & King (2000, 2007) suggested that value

on electronic collections can be measured through:

Usage logs and vendors reports

Surveys to measure purpose and value of use.

Perceived value through surveys or interviews

.

Measuring returns on e-resources Contd.

Brown (2014) posited that library investment have

tremendous impact on student retention, teaching and

institution’s rankings as well as accreditation.

The bottom line of this proposition is that libraries should

constantly articulate their concrete contributions to the

overall mission and objectives of the parent institution to

justify or warrant continued investment on e-resources.

Conclusion

The pervasiveness and inevitability of the application of

e-resources to library collection is incontrovertible. It has

become a global standard and best practice. The impact of this current trend on the demands and

expectation of the savvy and more sophisticated library

clientele/ patron has been phenomenal Modern libraries must integrate e-resources to expand its

collection so as to expand the frontiers of its services.

Conclusion Contd.

libraries must formulate an acquisition policy that would make e-resources an integral part of the library collection.

It must also subject the acquisition to stringent selection criteria with a view to ensuring relevance and need.

Above all, the acquired e-resources must be evaluated from time to time through usage statistics

Library Staff should be trained and retrained to cope with the e-resource management skill.

ANY QUESTION?