Developing Electronic Collections with Shrinking Budgets (Doing More With Less)

Abstract

This presentation will focus on the collaborative efforts of academic librarians from three different divisions of the library in combating collection development inertia in spite of dwindling materials budget. While 'doing more with less' is nothing new for libraries, the process of discovering "free" quality e-resources deflected the attention away from the fact that there was no extra money in the materials budget for new purchases or subscriptions. We chose to turn our sour situation (lemons) into lemonade. It has proven to be a creatively challenging, lucrative and rewarding collaboration for all.

Phil Reynolds, the Research & Instructional Services Librarian, will demonstrate how to construct Google search strings using searchable metadata from web page and web sites that users frequent daily. The presentation will include clues for locating and identifying free research and bibliographic databases, especially government and military databases that can be included in library portals, i. e. the library catalog or subject specific pages.

Ann Ellis, head of Cataloging Services, will discuss the decision-making process of changing library policies that restricted the types of materials that were to be included in the catalog. Broadening the purpose of the library's catalog as a portal that should include print and electronic records proved worthwhile by the immediate increase in visibility and usage of materials. The discussion will also include the workflow issues of using bulk MARC record imports from Serials Solutions, NetLibrary?, etc. These changes occurred during a time of department staff retirements and hiring freezes, yet more time was required on bibliographic information enhancements such as links to electronic materials, adding more content and summary information, and data cleanup for better retrieval results.

Shirley Dickerson, head of Collections, Access, Loans & Managements Services (CALMS) will discuss her primary role as the Electronic Services Librarian. Steen Library selected the suite of Serials Solutions products (A-Z, Central Search, ERMS & ArticleLinker) for managing the Library's 199+ databases and over 30,000 e-books from subscription, consortium and free e-resources. The discussion will include observations of increased usages of e-resources with Serials Solutions. Ms. Dickerson will discuss the importance of frequent communication within the library and to the academic community due to the shifting nature of e-resources.

Cross -Linking existing resources, investigating and negotiating lucrative consortia opportunities, and tapping into 'free' quality web resources are some of the avenues pursued that have proved very profitable. Investing time and collaborative efforts into bringing greater visibility and accessibility to electronic materials is the proper and rewarding response of libraries during tight budgetary times.