E-Resources: Best Practices for Identifying & Acquiring for Today's Academic Libraries

1. E-Resources: Best Practices for Identifying &Acquiring for Today's Academic Libraries Adrian Whatley e-Resources Librarian Austin Community College

2. e-resource selection policy General Objectives • e-Resources considered for acquisition should fall within current selection guidelines as described in the Core Selection Factors.

3. e-resource selection policy General Objectives • All e-materials should be relevant and appropriate to a significant segment of the Libraries’ user community and reflect current academic needs and ACC’s mission.

4. e-resource selection policy General Objectives • Special attention should be given to e-resources that provide coverage of underrepresented or high-priority subject areas.

5. e-resource selection policy • Requests from library staff, faculty or other users should be directed to the relevant subject librarian. • The subject librarian must fill out an e-Resource Trial Proposal. • e-Resource librarian schedules products to trial based on the Procedure for Trialing and Acquiring e-Resources. • All e-resources must be trialed before acquisition.

7. homework • product site • professional journal reviews • institutional history • forums/e-mail lists • contacts at other institutions

8. e-resource assessment • Who assesses? • All librarians are invited to give feedback using the Electronic Resources Selection Criteria as a guide. • All students, faculty, and staff are invited to give feedback via the e-Resources Trial Review form.

9. e-resource assessment / content • How does this resource support a community college learning environment? • Think about ACC's student profile - early college start, workforce, associate degree, university transfer, continuing education, and adult education.

10. e-resource assessment / content • How does the information facilitate collection development on the affected subject area? • Neglected topic? • Newly created department? • Enhances existing holdings?

11. e-resource assessment / logistics • Response time • Do pages load quickly? Are graphics quickly downloaded? • Information architecture • What is your first impression of the site? Is it attractive? Is there information overload? • Would a student know where to begin? Are appropriate features highlighted?

12. e-resource assessment / logistics • Content • What format is content available in (HTML, PDF, JPEG)? • Is it easy to read/view online? • Are images sized appropriately?

13. e-resource assessment / logistics • Search • How useful are the options for basic as well as advanced searching? • Is the search interface intuitive? • Does the resource offer: • boolean search • truncation search • proximity search • other helpful search fields/parameters

14. e-resource assessment / logistics • Browse • Are you able to browse the contents of the e-resource easily? • Results • Do you find the results make sense based upon your parameters?

15. e-resource assessment • e-resource librarian collects and tabulates all faculty, staff, student, and librarian reviews and disseminates the results via the wiki. • e-resource librarian makes recommendation to collection development team (CDT). • CDT deliberates upon results and selects which e-resources (if any) to acquire.

18. e-resource acquisition • The e-resources librarian contacts vendors, negotiates pricing, finalizes the subscription, adds subscription information to the ERM, and links to the new e-resource via the A-Z and subject pages.

19. negotiation • relationships • consortia • big FTE = challenging • new customer • valued customer • subscribe by a certain date / pro-rate • deposit accounts

20. de-selection • e-resources • low usage stats • patron/librarian dissatisfaction • bad customer service • consortium • limited offerings • unimpressive discounts • bad customer service

21. recommendations for tight e-resource budgets? • cooperate with others • seek new partnerships • prioritize • broad-based content • be choosy • good vs. great