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This Issue
May 1996
Science Library Renovations
Gutenberg and Beyond: An Exhibit Purchase Request Form on the Web Budget Squeezed by Journal Prices Finding the Needle in the World
Reserve to Deliver Personal Copies FLL and A-VLRC Cooperate on Classroom Technology Cataloging Project Increases
Selecting and Cataloging Electronic Resources |
Selecting and Cataloging
Electronic Resources
The Library's Collection Development Committee has recently written an Electronic Collection Development Policy to serve as a guide for the selection of electronic resources for the Georgetown University Library. The Electronic Collection Development policy addresses the unique concerns related to electronic resources, especially those on the Internet, and is the beginning of a focused attempt to integrate electronic, digital materials into current library practices and procedures. The Library has been acquiring and cataloging electronic resources in the form of CD-ROMs, online databases, and software on diskettes for a number of years. Hardware requirements, software usability, networking capabilities, and delivery decisions have had to be made in order to add these resources to the collection. The advent of the Internet and especially the World Wide Web as a delivery system for electronic resources has forced libraries to review customary collection development practices and to reconsider the traditional definition of the catalog. Whereas libraries formerly cataloged only materials that were purchased and owned by the Library, libraries today can provide electronic access to appropriate resources through their catalogs. The Electronic Collection Development Policy is meant to address this new environment and to guide selectors in considering not just the quality and content of a resource, but other factors as well. What is the cost of the resource? Does the electronic version do a better job than a print version, if one exists? Is the sponsoring author or agency credible? Is the resource kept up-to-date? Is retrospective information maintained in an archive for future use? Is the site clearly organized with logical links? Are there clear instructions on locating and using the information? What are the search capabilities of the resource? Is the site available on a regular basis? Are there special requirements for downloading full-text documents? Is the document-downloading and capture software widely available? What additional support will the Library have to provide for users to obtain information from this site? These are just some of questions which selectors must address before deciding to recommend the addition of these online electronic resources. Whether or not libraries and their users feel they are ready to cope with these new forms of information, the marketplace is forcing us to accept these electronic resources, as they are ever more frequently replacing printed formats. This critical change in direction has recently been demonstrated by the decision of the United States Government Printing Office (the Library's source for U. S. government publications) to increase the information made available on CD-ROMs and on the World Wide Web without providing an equivalent printed version. Likewise, commercial suppliers of information databases and journal publishers have also begun to use the World Wide Web to distribute both their databases and full-text versions of their journals. The Library must be flexible in this fluid environment, but it must also develop a process to integrate these changes into standard library practice in order to meet the current and future needs of our faculty and students. The Electronic Collection Development Policy is one of many steps in the Library's consideration of the issues related to selecting and cataloging electronic resources. |
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