Electronic Resources Management and Licensing - The Start

After completing the Information Ethics and Policy course last semester, I felt I had a strong understanding of copyright and policy surrounding information resources. Now, I get the chance to gain a specialized knowledge of policy in the electronic resources management arena.

Here are a few things I want to focus on from the Unit 1 readings:

Electronic Resources and Academic Libraries: 1980 - 2000

- One issue in the 1980s and 1990s (among others): the serials crisis. Libraries struggled with the access vs. ownership debate and purchasing for reasons of "just in time" or "just in case." This library debacle still exists - how many resources do libraries acquire or decide to keep in off-site storage, just in case someone may need it? Are our libraries (including the UW libraries) avoiding or maintaining the notion of the library as a storage space instead of a research facility? I suppose it depends - the School of Business Library maintains a small collection of old reference books, but has mostly done away with outdated print material, opting for current business databases. However, the Mills Music Library frequently struggles with managing the large storage room and cage of ancient 78s and music education material from the 1960s and 70s.

- "The question then, is how to determine which resources to provide by immediate full-text access, delayed full-text, or as citations, and most importantly, how to pay for all of these" (3).

Especially in the academic setting, students and faculty want instant gratification when it comes to doc delivery and access to on-line articles. When libraries (like Mills Music Library) decides to keep massive print collections in an off-site space where the patron may not browse material, the library's catalog must maintain a high standard of information about each print item. Otherwise, the materials lose their value. In order to be useful to patrons (especially those who are accustomed to instant access to information) on-line catalogs must strive to reach the same standard of accessibility as many commercial, full-text databases.

Class discussion from 9/3 and "History of Traditional and Electronic Scientific Journal Publishing": Here are just a few notes I took from this article and some of the points that were brought up in class.

- NSF wound down research and funding for libraries until the Digital Libraries Initiative (late 90s)

- Early 1990s: massive increase in the number of computers in the U.S., increase in the number of e-journals (deal with the access vs ownership issue)

- use of on-line resources and the CD-ROM in the 1990s

- Libraries had to figure out how to convert the articles to a common digital format - this resulted in extra staffing and overhead costs

- Red Sage: early work with e-publishing

- Overall, there has been (and continues to be) growth in the amount of e-resources produced

- Instead of relying on publishers, a direct link from the author to the reader occurred.

- Researchers now find articles through a 3rd party (intermediaries and aggregators). The difference between these two parties is still not entirely clear to me.

I must admit that despite my work in Information Ethics and Policy, I remained somewhat clueless about this area of research. I use on-line databases everyday, but never realized the complexity and controversy surrounding electronic resource management. I'm ready to dive in.