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Selection of Electronic Informational Resources
What?
- Electronic resources include individual e-books and e-journals and databases of text materials, streaming audio, or streaming video.
- E-resources support all colleges and disciplines
- E-resources account for more than half of the library's scholarly acquisitions budget
- E-resources costing more than $2,000 are evaluated and selected through the following process
Who and How?
- Faculty liaisons or individual faculty members suggest new resources to librarians.
- Librarians follow up on faculty requests, keep up with new resources in their disciplines, and suggest new resources.
- E-Resources Librarian researches functionality, cost, licensing, and technical questions and arranges and monitors trials of new e-resources.
- Collection Development Committee prioritizes requests and recommends purchases and subscriptions.
- The Head of Collection Development allocates funds for highest priority requests.
- Librarians and Library Marketing Committee promote the use of e-resources.
Where and Why?
- Most informational databases should be acquired through the library to
- Avoid duplication of resources and costs
- Ensure evaluation of resource quality by faculty and library staff
- Ensure campus-wide access
- Obtain the best price, possibly consortial pricing
- Ensure correct licensing and license management
- Provide assistance to users
- Databases with restrictive or unusual access models may not be handled by the library.
When?
- Usage statistics are gathered continuously to monitor the effectiveness of e-resources
- Renewals are processed throughout the year. Cost per use is one factor in the decision to renew e-resources
- Requests for new e-resources are accepted at any time
- Selection of new e-resources is made in April or May for start dates in the new fiscal year (Sept. 1)