Tag Archives: serials management

Proposal for e-resources management course

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One of the things that came up in conversation a few times when I was at NASIG this past weekend was that last year I made a proposal to UIUC GSLIS for a new, advanced course on electronic resources management. My intent in proposing this new course was that an existing course that I taught, Technical Services Functions, would be a prerequisite as would perhaps one or two other existing courses. More than that, however, my goal with this course is to get GSLIS students some much-needed focused exposure to the increasing dominance of e-resources (especially serial e-resources) in libraries of all types. Such a course is, in my view, long overdue. And the students themselves are clamoring for it.

Several people I spoke with at NASIG showed interest in what I had proposed so I have dug the following draft syllabus outline out of my email (thanks, Gmail, for making it so easy). If you have a moment and are interested in this topic, let me know what you think about it, either by commenting on this post or sending me an email.

Electronic Resources Management: A Suggested Course Outline
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I. Definitions and Distinctions
a. What is an e-resource?
b. How does it differ from and how is it similar to other, more traditional library materials?
b. Overlap with integrated library systems work, serials management, acquisitions, collection development, etc.
II. Conceptual Framework
a. Access vs. ownership for libraries
b. Effect of living in an Amazon/Google/iTunes worlds
c. Relevance and authority issues for e-resources vs. other library material
d. Virtual vs. in-person library service
III. Types of E-Resources
a. E-journals
b. Websites
c. E-books
d. Databases
e. Other
IV. Management Challenges
a. Diversity of selection and workflow processes
b. Explosive growth in availability
c. Preservation issues
d. Issues for intellectual access (e.g. website lists or links vs. traditional cataloging vs. other methods for organization)
e. Licensing and copyright
f. Fiscal resources
g. Balancing “traditional” vs. e-content
h. Rapid change and high user demand
i. Evaluation of use vs. cost and other metrics
V. System Tools for Managing E-Resources
a. Locally developed
b. Commercial tools
c. Classes or categories of tools (e.g. OpenURL resolvers vs. ILSs vs. ERMS vs. Other)

Some NASIG conference impressions

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It’s no secret that NASIG is my favorite professional organization and that I enjoy NASIG conferences more than any other. Why? One reason is that there is nowhere I feel more at home than at NASIG. People are friendly, warm, supportive, thought-provoking, and do very interesting things both in their personal lives and professionally. The NASIG organization is all about relationships. Funny, that is exactly what serials are like, too. I remember my former professor and mentor, Kathryn Luther Henderson, writing about serials in a Serials Librarian article a long time ago and comparing serials to families.1

Aside from the many warm hugs I received from longstanding friends, here is a smattering of what I remember most about this year’s conference, in no particular order of importance:

  • My friend and fellow “way past it” NASIG president, Susan Davis, jokingly remarking that I had peaked early (referring to when I was NASIG president eight years ago) and it was all downhill from there.
  • My friend and another “way past it” NASIG president, Anne McKee, mistakenly using the word obituary when referring to me in her introduction of a session I took part in.
  • Listening in amusement (and sometimes, amazement) at the open mic session Saturday night as various attendees stood up in front of a supportive audience to tell funny stories, read poetry, or sing acapella. I laughed ’til I cried at the story told by friend Gail Patrick of Depauw University that involved a motorcycle trip, snakes, and a visit to a place known as “The Garden of Eden.” Then there was a hilarious story from one woman that involved her mother’s false teeth. One first-time attendee worked up the courage to sing a solo. The whole event was great!
  • Wonderful food and great conversations at the dine-arounds Friday and Saturday evenings. Saturday night especially featured fantastic food at a restaurant in downtown Louisville named Saffron that featured simple yet elegant Persian-inspired food. I had an incredible rack of lamb on a bed of basmati rice, accompanied by a wonderful old vine Zinfandel whose name I can’t recall. I also remember one morning when we sat down with someone I had known for many years who is a cataloger at a state institution in the Washington, D.C. area. She was there with her husband and in the course of conversing with them I was floored to learn that they are avid thoroughbred horse-racing buffs and that they own several racehorses! Even more amazing was the fact that her husband knew of someone with whom I grew up in east central Illinois who is now a highly successful trainer based at Arlington Racetrack. His comment about my classmate, whose name is Chris Block, was simply “Money in the bank; money in the bank.” I told them how much I was fascinated with thoroughbred horse-racing when I was growing up and how Chris planned to grow up to be a trainer and I was going to be his jockey. He has reached his dream but somehow I grew out of any jockey aspirations :-) They even invited me to go with them to one of the nearby stables where they were going to check on the status of one of the brood mares they own. Unfortunately I couldn’t do that because I needed to leave for home immediately after the conference.
  • Many stimulating conversations on personal and professional topics with Mark Lindner, who shared the car trip and conference hotel room with me. I really enjoyed getting to know him and was glad to spend time with him. One of his many strengths is that he is unabashedly open and frank about what he thinks and about his life.
  • Talking with Sanjeet-Singh Mann, a student grant award winner from UCLA’s Department of Information Studies, about the importance of values and ethics in librarianship, among other things.
  • Meeting and talking with Steve Black from the College of St. Rose about the serials course he teaches at SUNY Albany, and also learning about a podcast program he founded for his institution called Periodical Radio, which focuses on interviewing editors and publishers of magazines and periodicals. Steve is also the author of a recently published book on serials management from Libraries Unlimited entitled Serials in Libraries: Issues and Practices.

There was of course much more to the three days. I haven’t even mentioned anything about the sessions I attended. I’ll try to mention some things about that in a different post.

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    1Henderson, Kathryn Luther. “Personalities of Their Own: Some Informal Thoughts on Serials and Teaching About How to Catalog Them.” Serials Librarian 22, no. 1/2 (1992): 3-16.

Updating course on technical services functions

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This past summer I taught LIS578: Technical Services Functions as part of the LEEP (distance education) curriculum at the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at UIUC. I was contacted today to ask if I’d be willing to teach the same course again next summer because students are already requesting it. The official description of this class is as follows:

“Seminar on the principles, problems, trends, and issues of acquiring, identifying, recording, and conserving/preserving materials in all types of libraries and information centers; includes the special problems of serials management; emphasizes service aspects.”

If I decide to accept this offer, a thorough review or shakeup of the syllabus might be in order. While I mull this over I thought I’d post the question here: What significant changes have happened or are happening in technical services functions that a course such as this should incorporate?

Currently the course is divided into the following parts:

  • Acquisitions/Collection Development (2 sessions)
  • Cataloging: An Overview (1 session)
  • Preservation (2 sessions)
  • Serials (2 sessions)

There is also an introductory session at the beginning and a wrapup session at the end. It’s important to note that this is the only course in the GSLIS curriculum that deals in significant way with serial publications. There are other cataloging courses already in the curriculum and that is why I only touch upon that part of technical services in this course.

The course objectives I’ve written are as follows:

  1. articulate the particular role that technical services plays in the work of the library as a whole
  2. understand the importance of the interrelationship between technical services and other library components including, but not limited to, public services and systems
  3. discuss the role that technology has played, and will continue to play, in the fulfillment of technical services functions
  4. understand past practices, current reality, and future directions in technical services
  5. appreciate the challenges and opportunities of serials management as an important component of technical services
  6. know where to look in the literature and in other information resources (e.g. websites, discussion lists) to understand issues and resolve problems in technical services work

I haven’t found any good textbook on this broad topic that isn’t already out of date and for that reason, I rely almost solely on a large number of book chapter, journal article, and website readings.

One of the main challenges of this course is that there is so much to cover in so little time. Another challenge is to somehow work in more “hands on” type work even though the course is taught almost entirely from a distance via the Internet. A partial answer to the former challenge would be to separate out the whole serials/e-resources piece and I have already proposed that a new course be defined for this (which I’d love to teach). I just need to flesh out a proposed syllabus and objectives and send them in to GSLIS to be considered. In my view, this is where a huge amount of the action is and it behooves every single student to have some understanding of this rapidly evolving arena before graduation as it is almost certainly going to be a large part of their future jobs.