Bonnie Tijerina October 22nd, 2008
Proposed Abstract: The Florida Center for Library Automation spent two years attempting to implement an ERM system for itself and four state university libraries that ultimately failed. This presentation is on the lessons learned and the questions that need to be asked before a product is ever purchased.
Bonnie Tijerina October 22nd, 2008
Proposed Abstract: A panel, comprised of well- respected electronic resource librarians and publishers and moderated by Christopher Warnock, ebrary’s CEO, will be discussing what innovations will be successful for libraries with regards to eBooks/ electronic content, as well as how libraries will integrate electronic content across multiple vendors and platforms. The panel will also discuss which functionalities and technologies are required for libraries to achieve cohesiveness thus making content
accessible and useful for their patrons. If time allows, questions will be accepted from the audience.
Bonnie Tijerina October 22nd, 2008
Proposed Abstract: This program will introduce participants to an alternative way to teach the Boolean Searching method. Rather than using Venn Diagrams, the session will introduce the use of a table format to create a Boolean search. Using examples, the participants will learn how to teach Boolean in a new way, one that has been tested to indicate better understanding by some than the traditional three circles. Boolean logic for searching will also be explained, and various ways to write these based on the databases and search engines being used will be explored.
Bonnie Tijerina October 22nd, 2008
Proposed Abstract: This program will introduce participants to various Web 2.0 technologies available for use in the school media center. Besides introducing each of the technologies, issues related to the decision on which technology to use will be raised and addressed. Looking at issues such as economics, politics, time, place, space, culture, communication, technology, and more, participants will learn to understand not only the technologies out there but also how to select the best technology for the intended purpose. Through looking at examples of how the technologies might be used ? and why this use is or is not the best choice for the particular purpose, participants will learn to analyze the technologies available to them to make the most informed decision as to the best fit between technology and purpose.
Bonnie Tijerina October 22nd, 2008
Proposed Abstract: Tracking statistics and cost-per-use is more important than ever as budgets continue to shrink. ERMS (Electronic Resource Management Systems) are great but what if you can’t afford one? Using spreadsheets to track e-resource usage statistics, cost-per-use, costs and associated product information can be a practical and economical solution.
Kelly Smith October 15th, 2008
The deadline for submitting proposals has been extended until next Monday, October 20, 2008.
Call for Proposals: The ER&L Conference Program Planning Committee encourages you to submit a proposal for the Electronic Resources & Libraries 2009 Conference to be held February 10-12, 2009 with pre-conferences on February 9th. The conference will be held on the campus of UCLA in Los Angeles, CA. To submit a proposal, or for more information about the Call for Proposals, go to: http://www.electroniclibrarian.org/ocs/index.php/erl/2009/schedConf/cfp
View Track Descriptions: http://www.electroniclibrarian.org/ocs/index.php/erl/2009/schedConf/trackPolicies
Proposal Evaluation: The committee will evaluate each proposal on the basis of subject matter (including, but not limited to, the issues listed in the topic descriptions), clarity, and timeliness. We will also hold a period of open voting to allow potential attendees to help shape the program. Proposals should be for original work that has not been published. We may request that some presenters combine sessions with complementary subject matter.
Compensation: Presenters receive 50% off the cost of registration.
Questions: Please direct questions about the Call for Proposals to Bonnie Tijerina (bonnie.tijerina@gmail.com) or Elizabeth Winter (elizabeth.winter@library.gatech.edu).
Kelly Smith October 1st, 2008
REGISTRATION
Registration is now open for Electronic Resources & Libraries 2009!
http://www.electroniclibrarian.org/erlwiki/Registration
Early-bird rates are in effect for registrations by December 14, 2009:
Professional: $220
Student: $100
Paraprofessional/Support Staff: $150
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TRAVEL & HOTEL INFORMATION
http://www.electroniclibrarian.org/erlwiki/Travel_Hotels
—————————————————————–
SCHOLARSHIPS, AWARDS & GRANTS
This year the conference scholarship committee has worked with sponsors to provide funding to help students, staff, professionals and international colleagues attend ER&L. The awards are as follows:
Student Scholarship, Recent Graduate Grant, Innovation Award, Needs-Based Travel Grant, Developing Nation Conference Presenter Award, and the International Conference Attendee Travel Grant.
More information may be found at:
http://www.electroniclibrarian.org/erlwiki/Scholarships
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T-SHIRT DESIGN CONTEST!
Tired of conference t-shirt designs you have no say in? Think you
could do better? Help us design the ER&L 2009 conference t-shirt!
This year, YOU have a chance to submit a design for potential ER&L
attendees to vote on.
All entries must:
1. Be submitted by 5 pm EST on Friday, Oct. 31, 2008.
2. Be one- or two-color designs.
3. Include “ER&L 2009″ somewhere in the design.
4. Be in .ai, .svg, or .jpg format.
Please note:
Fine details don’t always translate well into screen printing.
Simpler designs are usually better.
T-shirts are being sponsored by EBSCO and will include the EBSCO logo
in addition to the winner’s design.
Voting will take place online the week of Nov. 3-7, 2008.
The winner will be decided by a vote on the ER&L blog.
Maximum of two entries per person.
Submit your design via email to Elizabeth Winter:
elizabeth.winter@library.gatech.edu
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More ER&L ‘09 conference details are online at:
http://www.electroniclibrarian.org/erlwiki/Main_Page
Questions?
Please direct questions about the conference to Bonnie
Tijerina (bonnie.tijerina@gmail.com) or Elizabeth Winter
(elizabeth.winter@library.gatech.edu).
Kelly Smith September 26th, 2008
Electronic Resources & Libraries Conference 2009 is on Facebook. Check it out…
Bonnie Tijerina August 15th, 2008
ER&L Conference Program Planning Committee encourages you to submit a proposal for the Electronic Resources & Libraries 2009 Conference to be held February 10-12, 2009 with pre-conferences on February 9th. The conference location will be on the beautiful UCLA campus in Los Angeles, CA.
You can view track descriptions and read more details about the call.
This year we plan to have an Election Day in late October so potential attendees can vote on their favorite submitted proposals! Thanks Code4Lib for the great idea. Details about ER&L Election Day will be posted here so stay tuned!
Bonnie Tijerina August 6th, 2008
For the first time ER&L will be offering scholarships(!) to attend the ‘09 conference. I am recruiting 3 people to join us as we decide on the types of scholarships and the requirements and stipulations. Members of the Scholarship group will also review submissions and make decisions on who should receive the awards.
Interested in working with ER&L behind the scenes on this or another area? Email your interest and any specific skills/experiences to: bonnie.tijerina[at]gmail.com
Bonnie Tijerina August 1st, 2008
Hi Everyone. I am excited to annouce ER&L will be located on the UCLA campus and held February 10-12, 2009 with pre-conferences, tours and other fun events on February 9th! The facility is really nice like the Global Learning Center and will be even nicer for everyone coming from the cold of the winter to sunny Southern California!
The venue allows for plenty of time to enjoy the nice weather including an indoor/outdoor Sponsors’ Reception. This facility will also have more reliable internet access. All for the amazingly low price of $220 for early bird registrants (opening September)!!!
Plus, with all the cultural facilities and amazing scenery, we plan to treat attendees to some lovely receptions and offer many opportunities for you to explore LA and UCLA on your own or with a group before and after the conference. Just a reminder - we’re still capping at 350 like last year.
Keep an eye on this blog for updates and scholarship opportunities too! More to come in the next few weeks including a Call for Proposals.
Bonnie Tijerina April 17th, 2008
We record ER&L sessions, preserve them and make them available so they can be listened to and watched by anyone interested in the topics at ER&L. Please share with everyone you think could benefit from the great content this year.
Conference material(recorded sessions, slides, handouts, etc.) is now available through the conference website. Just click on the Abstract link for the session you want to view.
You can also go to SmarTech, GA Tech’s IR and get access to all three years’ content.
Keynotes talks are available as well -
There’s No Catalog … Like No Catalog by Karen Coyle
E-Resources: Enigma or Dilemma, or Both? by Tom Wilson
Charlene Barina April 1st, 2008
I am working on a Mediawiki-based reference tool/subject guide (specifically, for the American Center for Mongolia Studies) and we would like to make it easier for researchers to import bibliographic data into their citation management software. II don’t know much about this stuff, but it seems like embedded RDF is one way to do so, and Dublin Core are a standard/naming convention for making this RDF easily parsed by many management softwares. However, how do you go about generating this information? This metamaker seems like the most likely tool, although its focus is agriculture. Is there another, better way to generate or include this information?
Bonnie Tijerina March 28th, 2008
Below are issues that were touched upon. Hopefully we can have further discussions on these.
Best Practices
It was suggested that we need best practices for gathering and reporting usage statistics. Margaret Hogarth and Virginia Kinman will begin work on this.
Are libraries developing a culture of assessment?
We need to figure out a way to share data with others so we can incorporate the information into how we make decisions.
How are we interpreting or adding value to usage data?
Benchmarks/Baselines
It was asked if there is a way we could derive baselines/benchmarks for subject areas. A ratio between use and FTE was suggested.
User Behavior
Institutions want to use the data that they have to create a better picture of their users. They are working on connecting the data pieces to see where the information is leading. Who is doing this and how are these results used?
NISO Library and Scholarly Usage Data Conversation Wiki
NISO Library and Scholarly Usage Data Conversation wiki was created following the NISO Usage Data Forum, 1-2 November 2007, in Dallas, TX primarily to provide a place for folks who care about library and scholarly usage data to work together to develop a decision framework to help those organizations trying to figure out how to approach usage data.
Bonnie Tijerina March 28th, 2008
This roundtable discussion on Usage Stats was lead by Margaret Hogarth(UC-Rvierside), George Boston(Western Michigan University), and Michael Whang(Western Michigan University). This is an overview of topics covered during the discussion. Contact Margaret for the full notes and contact information - margaret.hogarth at ucr.edu
Case Studies
To begin our discussion, we took a survey to see how many people in the room had well-established usage statistics gathering programs and tools and 4 responded. Most of the other attendees were gathering and processing usage statistics, but doing a significant amount of data manipulation. The 4 gave us an overview of what their gathering looks like.
Nancy Beals (Wayne State) reported that they acquired Scholarly Stats in January, but haven’t used the reports yet. They use Innovative’s ERM and SUSHI, and are supplementing data loading by hand. They were able to justify the cost of the system through the efforts of their Systems Librarian. It will be for use in collection development decisions.
They are still experiencing problems with the cost per use data and SUSHI.
Virginia R. Kinman’s institution (Longwood University) recently purchased Serials Solutions 360 Counter.
They have not been focusing on journal-level statistics, but would like that information. She manually puts non-COUNTER data into COUNTER format so it can be evaluated across the COUNTER-compliant resources.
An assistant does the download and Virginia does the number crunching.
They have set up a fairly complicated Access database with a table for all of elements that match to provider and database. There is a form for each database and the assistant enters the metrics. The assistant prepares the reports and puts them into Excel. They are an Innovative shop, but do not have an ERM. They have put in cost data. Statistics are gathered on a monthly basis.
Joseph Thomas (Cornell University) pointed out that he is new to Cornell and is still in learning mode. They use Scholarly Stats and an ERM, but are having some trouble. They also use JUR (Journal Use Reports) from ISI. Joseph asked what is the right amount of work to do so there is evidence that a resource is being used?
Anita Wilcox’s institution (University College Cork, Ireland) has a 2-tier system for usage statistics. She gathers the local statistics and those for the consortium level, also. In this way members of the consortium share the burden of downloading and disseminating statistics. The report goes out to participating institutions and to the Department of Education. The institutions can then use the statistics reports to negotiate with vendors. In illustration, in 2006 they noticed that Wiley Ref Works wasn’t being used much except for 5 titles. They took the usage information back to Wiley and renegotiated for those 5 titles and Wiley agreed. When institutions buy from vendors, the vendors are aware purchases are based on usage.
Usage statistics are downloaded monthly. There are over 200 databases, so it is a huge task to maintain on a local level.
Bonnie Tijerina March 26th, 2008
What’s Missing?
Most Useful
More Comments
Add any other comments. Thanks everyone for your feedback!
Bonnie Tijerina March 26th, 2008
Some shared their reasons for coming –
Practical stuff we can bring back to home
See what others are doing
Hear and learn about new ideas/concepts
Meet others concerned about these issues
Looking for answers, not more questions
Why do you come to ER&L?
Bonnie Tijerina March 26th, 2008
We discussed the idea of keeping ER&L at the Global Learning Center in Atlanta or moving it around. Some thoughts were:
A lot depends on costs and availability. Any other thoughts?
Bonnie Tijerina March 26th, 2008
Comments on the website:
Currently we are using OCS (Open Conference System) to experiment with this open source system created by the Public Knowledge Project .
OCS was easy for presenters to submit proposals, but for our interactive purposes, OCS is rather limited.
Moodle (what we used the last 2 years) was better even though it has limitation as well.
Thoughts:
Idea:
To add to the website:
Any more thoughts/suggestions?
Bonnie Tijerina March 26th, 2008
On the last day of the ER&L08 Conference, ER&L planners Elizabeth Winter and Kelly Smith led a Feedback Discussion over lunch. The next several posts are a break down of comments captured by me, Ranti Junus and Jacquie Samples. If your comments weren’t captured or you didn’t make the Feedback Discussion, feel free to comment on these posts.
Thoughts on Conference Sessions
Thoughts on Conference Logistics
Ideas
ewinter March 26th, 2008
…are posted at http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=ER%26L%202008
(Thanks go to our fabulous photographer, Katie Gentilello!)
ewinter March 25th, 2008
At the Workflow Roundtable, the group also discussed the ways in which they were using a variety of tools and technologies to assist with workflow-related issues.
Some of them were:
ewinter March 25th, 2008
Due to popular demand on the ER&L 2008 Thought Cloud @ http://www.electroniclibrarian.org/tagcloud, a group of 25-30 met to discuss workflow on the last day of ER&L 2008.
The notes below are from the group’s discussion. Feel free to continue the discussion and share more ideas using the “comments” feature below…
Some problems/issues raised by participants regarding workflow were:
Some suggestions offered to selected issues were:
Re. “too much work”:
Re. “Staffing–limited skills/knowledge (are the people who have the time to do the work willing and able to do the work?)”:
Re. “Staff mindset (print-based/inflexible/don’t want to learn new things)”:
Bonnie Tijerina March 20th, 2008
Topics we’ll discuss this Friday at the ER&L Roundtable Discussions include:
Usage Data
Ebooks
Perpetual Access
Workflow
Federated Searching
Moving to online only
CORE Standard
Open Data and the Future of ERM
LibGuides
and more
Check out the schedule.
Bonnie Tijerina March 13th, 2008
Are you willing to share your experiences with licensing work in order to improve licensing education? If your answer is YES, please consider participating in a study of the challenges faced by librarians in the practice of licensing electronic resources.
The study is being conducted by LIS researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Library and Information Studies: Kristin Eschenfelder and Awa Zhu. Kristin and Awa are currently recruiting participants for 1/2 hour to 45 minute interviews. If you are interested in participating in the study, please contact Awa Zhu at xzhu2@wisc.edu to schedule an interview at the conference. They can also schedule phone interviews for after the conference.
Bonnie Tijerina March 11th, 2008
What are you thinking about this year at ER&L? Submit your thoughts to the ER&L Thought Cloud. The topics submitted most often will be discussed on the final day of the conference!
Kelly Smith February 22nd, 2008
Check it out!
http://eku.facebook.com/event.php?eid=8873163841
Bonnie Tijerina February 17th, 2008
The Journal of Electronic Resources Librarianship is looking for a few reporters who will write on sessions, discussions and events in short 2-4 page pieces for issue four of the 2008 volume. More details and example topics are found at the JERL site.
Kelly Smith February 14th, 2008
If you are interested in writing a report on the 2008 ER&L Conference for the column “Serials Spoken Here” in the journal Serials Review, please contact Kurt Blythe [kcblythe at email.unc.edu]. The deadline for submissions will be February 13.
Bonnie Tijerina January 26th, 2008
We are excited to have Karen Coyle and Tom Wilson as our keynote speakers for this year’s ER&L Conference.
Our opening keynoter Karen Coyle is a librarian and a consultant in the area of digital libraries. Most recently, Karen was part of the Library of Congress Working Group on the Future of Bibliographic Control. She blogs at Coyle’s InFormation.
Our closing keynoter Tom Wilson is Associate Dean for Library Technology at the University of Alabama Libraries, was elected President of LITA in 2003-2004, and is currently active in Information Technology policy.
Bonnie Tijerina January 9th, 2008
The deadline for early-bird rates to register for ER&L 2008 is tomorrow. The rates are:
Professional: $215
Student: $105
Paraprofessional/Support Staff: $165
The Electronic Resources & Libraries 2008 Conference will be held on Wednesday, March 19- Friday 21, 2008 at the Global Learning Center in Atlanta, GA.
Pre-Conferences will take place Tuesday, March 18, 2008 at the GA Tech Library & Information Center.
Bonnie Tijerina December 15th, 2007
ER&L Planners have been VERY busy working on preparing for the March, 2008 ER&L Conference. Now that we finally have all the presentations listed, I am getting very excited! The Program Planning group had the tough job of narrowing down all the proposal submissions but I think they’ve done a great job giving us a wide variety of sessions and interesting pre-conferences.
Early registration will be open until January 10th. We are planning to send out another reminder just before the deadline in case you get distracted by the holidays and forget to register.
The Sponsorship group has confirmed that we will indeed continue offering the popular flashdrives with conference content! Thanks to all our sponsors who are making the conference more enjoyable! We will post their logos and links to their sites in January.
The Marketing group has been getting the word out through listservs and press releases and the Web group has been experimenting with ways to improve the OCS-version of this year’s conference site.
There’s a few other activities in the works for conference attendees. I’ll post more about those as they get firmed up. More to come…
artadobbs December 3rd, 2007
November 28 News Release…..
Portico Archive Supports First Trigger Event
Graft: Organ and Cell Transplantation, published by SAGE Publications from January 2001 to March 2003, will be removed from SAGE’s online offering at the end of this year creating the first ever trigger event for the Portico archive and Portico’s participating publishers and libraries.
Because SAGE Publications, a leading international publisher of electronic media, journals and books, has ensured that Graft is preserved in the Portico archive and because Graft will not be offered by any other commercial online source, Portico will “light up” this portion of the Portico archive and provide access to literature that otherwise would be lost to the scholarly community. Through this first trigger event Portico demonstrates how publishers, archives, and libraries can cooperatively provide a permanent archive of scholarly literature published in electronic form and avoid a permanent gap in the scholarly record.
On December 3, 2007, Portico will make Graft available to its library participants via the Portico website and access via SAGE will end December 31, 2007. In the coming days, Portico will forward to its library participants instructions for accessing Graft. In the meantime, if you would like more information about Portico, or would like to discuss your institution’s participation in Portico, please contact us at participation@portico.org.
Last updated on November 28, 2007
The Details have been released today……
This is not the complete backfile ……please read on……
As a participant in the Portico archive, your institution may now access Graft: Organ and Cell Transplantation, published by SAGE Publications from January 2001 to March 2003 via Portico. As recently announced, Graft will be removed from SAGE’s online offering at the end of this year creating the first ever trigger event for the Portico archive and participating publishers and libraries. (The full announcement is available at http://www.portico.org/news/112807.html.)
As of today, Portico has made Volumes 4 through 6 of Graft available to our library participants. (Please note that Volumes 1-3 of Graft were published by Landes Bioscience, and we are attempting to contact this former publisher about archival arrangements for these earliest issues.) Graft issues will be accessible to your students, faculty and staff through a new “Access Archive” link on the Portico homepage (www.portico.org) through which users will be able to browse, print and search all triggered content. Beginning January 1, 2008, these Graft volumes will no longer be available via the SAGE website, and libraries wishing to redirect link resolvers should note the Stable URL below. Portico will be taking responsibility for the Graft DOIs in December, and DOI links will continue to work and will be directed to the content at Portico. We are also working with the holdings data vendors and linking services to include information about Graft at Portico in the coming weeks.
We have summarized below key facts about the content in Graft that will be triggered and available to participating libraries via the Portico archive:
| ISSN | 1522-1628 |
| e-ISSN | N/A |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications |
| Holdings Information | v. 4 (no. 1-8), v. 5 (no. 1-8), v. 6 (no. 1-2) |
| Publication Date Range | January 2001 – March 2003 |
| Stable URL | http://www.portico.org/Portico/browse?journal=ISSN_15221628 |
| OpenURL Base URL | http://www.portico.org/openurl/ |
Especially because this is the community’s first trigger event experience, we welcome any comments, questions or concerns you might have about this event. Please contact us at support@portico.org to share your input.
Regards,
ledwards October 5th, 2007
EBSCO has asked us to remove the EBSCOnet publisher access model notes from the Publisher Perpetual Access Information wiki. See the ER&L projects wiki for the updated version.
Bonnie Tijerina September 27th, 2007
Informal Discussion at LITA Forum
Time: Saturday 10/6, 8-9am
Location: Silverton Room Molly Brown Room
ER&L and LITA ERM Interest Group are hosting an informal discussion about the state of e-resource management at this year’s LITA Forum.
Grab some breakfast and come in for a discussion.
Join us as we continue our discussions (started at ER&L, ACRL and NASIG) on the future of e-resources management. We’ve been exploring ideas of how to create a community, a collaborative work space, an understanding, and a vocabulary about how we need to manage and make accessible our electronic content.
These conversations spurred this blog and ideas for other collaborative spaces, like the projects wiki.
I will touch on some of the highlights of the discussions held so far and possible future projects.
This is very informal, allowing for time to talk about what’s happening in your libraries and your ideas for ways to improve.
Nancy Beals September 20th, 2007
A wiki has been created for commenting on the preservation issues that face electronic resources. I would like to ask for volunteers who are interested and willing to devote some of their time to an ad hoc group that has formed to examine these issues further.
We will be taking a look at archiving/preservation models for our paid resources (like LOCKSS, CLOCKSS and Portico) and assess and organize them. Then we will post what we find on the ER&L Projects wiki.
If you are interested in volunteering, please contact Nancy Beals at nbeals@wayne.edu.
Bonnie Tijerina September 10th, 2007
I set up a wiki that lives at electroniclibrarian.org/projects in case we have future collaborative projects to work on. At this point, you do not need to log in to make changes.
Here’s a few tips about the Publisher Perpetual Access Information sheet:
Scroll to the bottom to find the edit button. Once you do, each cell becomes editable like an Excel spreadsheet.
If you want to have a copy for yourself, hit export at the bottom and choose csv (the Excel option is still in development and is not fully working).
Kelly Smith September 6th, 2007
In reference to the interest in having a centralized location to access and edit information related to perpetual access discussed today and yesterday on the ERIL-L list, we will set up a wiki this evening. Bonnie or I will post the URL when it is ready. In the meantime, for those who want access to the spreadsheet (compiled by Laura Edwards of Eastern Kentucky University Libraries) in its current state (as of 9/7/2007), here it is: eku-publisher-access-notes-2007.xls
Bonnie Tijerina July 24th, 2007
I was not in attendance at NASIG this year, but Jill Emery and Dana Walker held what sounded like a lively conversation with a standing room only crowd in Louisville. Below are Dana’s notes.
Key issues discussed included:
• ERM implementation and workflow planning
• Staffing for electronic resource management
• Standards for electronic resource data management
Participants expressed the need for an ERM implementation and workflow planning web space. An online community where libraries could share ERM implementation experiences and issues. – (We think ER&L site would be a perfect place for this!!)
There was considerable discussion regarding the quality of knowledgebase data. Is there a place for agents, other vendors, to improve the data in KBs.
Participants would like to see ERM vendors supply an optional default set up so initial ERM implementation could be simplified and streamlined.
How should libraries manage staffing for e-resources? If 60-70% of budget is spent on e-resources but only 20-30% of staffing there’s a gap. Typically managing e-resources requires more higher level staff.
• What level of staffing is needed both initially and for ongoing maintenance?
• We lack trained support staff to help with electronic resource management.
• What is the appropriate staff classification for ERM/SFX management?
What’s still holding us back from driving the ERM market?
• We created home grown systems and stopped when vendors started creating ERMs.
• Biggest problem is coverage loads.
• Can’t get standardized data from publishers or aggregators.
• More consulting between ERM vendors and libraries to understand local workflow.
NASIG and ER&L could potentially provide continuing education regional workshops for ERM implementation planning.
Bonnie Tijerina July 9th, 2007
ER&L Conference 2008 will be held March 20-22 at the Global Learning Center on GA Tech campus.
I’m working out the hotel arrangements now and will post information when I have it.
Bonnie Tijerina July 5th, 2007
Lots of people come up to me at conferences or email me asking how they can get involved with anything ER&L-related. Here’s some possible ways to get involved, but we are open to new ideas or projects as well:
Conference Planning
At-Conference Volunteer
Advisory Groups
ER&L Forum Bloggers
Other working groups and future projects
Send me an email at bonnie.tijerina at gmail.com if you want to know what’s available at the moment or if you have some ideas for the conference or the group to work on.
Kelly Smith June 29th, 2007
A half dozen folks got together for an informal discussion at NASIG 2007 to brainstorm ideas for improving the 2008 ER&L Conference. Due to vacation and other issues, I’m posting these discussion notes a month after they occured, so if I’ve forgotten things or stated them incorrectly, perhaps the other folks who were there can add comments to this. Or, if you weren’t at the meeting, but would like to add additional comments for the 2008 conference planners to consider, feel free to do so here.
1.     What went well at ER&L 2007?
a.      Plenty of time for networking
b.     Reasonable time between sessions
c.      Liked the programs with different tracking colors
d.     Program size was nice.
e.      Wireless in the meetings (however, wireless tough to set up – maybe put directions in program or send to attendees ahead of time so attendees can check with their IT people. Maybe put on moodle?)
f.       Internet café went well
g.      People really enjoyed tour of Georgia Tech
h.      Refreshments provided all day long, not just at breaks
2.     What could be improved?
a.      Moodle site not used very much – general dissatisfaction w/moodle
b.     People couldn’t print in Internet Café – maybe provide little pencils and paper for internet café 
c.      Session at conference on how we can use the Moodle site, or perhaps before the conference.  There are really weird pathways to stuff.
d.     1st year there was more about digital repositories
e.      Help give it a better identity. Making it clear that we’re different from NASIG. Emphasize that focus is not just tech services people.
f.       Strive to keep the conference a mix of areas. Like Solinet.
g.      Need focused marketing on various areas of librarianship and related fields
h.      Need to get the website cleaned up and clarify the focus
i.        You have to drill too deep to find stuff, and then go back out and log back in to get to stuff
j.       We need something more current for the blog - who will keep content fresh to keep it interesting?
k.     Pull various things together for the site? Keep it constrained to just conference stuff?
3.     How about having more informal time? “unconference†“library camp†– a time for project feedback and resource sharing.
a.      Generational thing? Good to have a mix that includes both planned and unplanned time.
b.     Have a short planning cycle to give currency (1st conference seemed more current)
c.      Cool program.
d.     The first year was more free-flowing - had more unplanned time.
e.      Ideas: Track discussions; informal roundtables; follow-up w/keynote speaker
f.       Weakness: venue not ideal for small group discussion – maybe we could book one additional traditional conference room that’s set up for discussion sessions and not necessarily IT hookup.
g.      Encourage attendees to join in the blog.
h.      Vendors – need to define the role of vendors more clearly - who’s being targeted? – make sure vendors know what to expect and who to expect
4.     Some other ideas
a.  Have a component of the conference where the attenders shape the content – place where people could put important ideas or words – leading to facilitated discussion of issues on final day.
Bonnie Tijerina June 4th, 2007
Join us as we continue our discussions on the future of e-resources management and on defining the future direction of products, services and content within the context of electronic resources. We will explore ideas of how to create a community, an understanding, and a vocabulary about how we need to manage and make accessible our electronic content which is taking over more and more of our materials budgets.
Appetizers will be provided by the Electronic Resources & Libraries group.
Saturday June 23rd, 4-6pm
The Hawk ‘n’ Dove
We will meet in the Loft (upstairs)
329 Pennsylvania Ave. SE (near the Library of Congress)
G-Map Directions from the Convention Center
Closet Metro stop: Capital South on the orange and blue lines
jemery May 17th, 2007
One of things my group talked in-depth about was OCLC’s attempt to build one knowledgebase that everyone could contribute to and borrow from for electronic resource management. One of the more interesting comments that was made during this discussion was a reminder that libraries had initially started along this road with the advent of JAKE and in the end, our collaborative spirit petered out and this ended up being one of the failed collaborative efforts to carry forth into the openURL realm. One of the questions we need to ask ourselves is do we really have the staff time to expend on creating another shared knowledgebase of this sort and are librarians really committed to this level of collaboration?
There major issues identified with electronic journal transfers included: problem of titles changing from one provider to another…short catalog of standards/best practices for web site such as the transfer journal group & creation of database of tracking of title changes from one publisher to another, rights management change from one publisher to another and from one year to the next, and journals changing pricing models and how to management that and how to capture this in a knowledgebase. Everyone at the table agreed that this was an ideal place for subscription agents to step-in and help to create tools for librarians to keep up with these changes and bits of metadata.
Our group also spent quite a bit of time discussing archiving initiatives and how best to manage back-files and older generation material. It was noted that at this time there really are not any digital preservation standards available. It was also noted that we have been reliying heavily on JSTOR to provide us with archival material and we want to start investigating other alternatives. It was suggested that consortia could play a vital role in this arena.
Then the group began a fairly intense discussion on standards and why librarians are slow adopters of new standards. Many felt it was due to lacking the tech savvy on how to best implement standards prior to our systems and software incorporating new standards into their platforms. This forum could help out the process by developing a best practices documentation on the web site in order to push harder for standards development where needed.
jemery May 17th, 2007
Here’s a brief summary of some of the more general ideas from the ACRL discussion. Please comment if I’ve missed anything or if you want to expand on anything.
*We need to include consortia and consortia staff when sending out invitations to discussion group meetings
*It was felt that control was too strong word and not truly getting at what we are attempting to do with electronic resources. It was suggested to change this segment to “Manage” instead.
* We need to create a segment or separate web site where all related standards development is captured so that we can truly see what standards are being created, at what point in development each standard may be at, and hopefully so we can see where there are intersections or needs to fill in gaps.
Bonnie Tijerina May 3rd, 2007
A group of about 50 people met in Baltimore during the ACRL Conference to talk about e-resources and how we as librarians would like to see things move forward. We started with a presentation given by Jill and Elizabeth and then broke into three groups. Here’s a few topics covered (I don’t think I’ve listed them all):
We had great discussions and lively debate. This week the three of us will be posting our notes.
Bonnie Tijerina May 3rd, 2007
Here’s the new ER&L Forum. The content you see that is older than March ‘07 is content from all blogs from the ER&L Moodle site. We decided to put them all together and bring over all the tags.
For those who have blogged on the ER&L site: We removed entries of the general or technical nature (2-3) and left everything in private and draft as a “draft†post.
Everyone: If you have an ER&L username/pw, then use that to add posts. If you are not a member of the ER&L community, its easy and takes a minute.
jemery March 22nd, 2007
We are looking for the first 50 participants who are willing to visualize a library not focused solely on print resource management and willing to go out on a limb and conceptualize the library which is focused on user access and management of online resources & services. Four questions we will be brainstorming about, to try to develop our future scenario today, are:
Please join: Jill Emery, Bonnie Tijerina, & Elizabeth Winter to learn more about the ERAMS concept and the future possibility this concept holds for libraries.
Where: Marriott Inner Harbor at Camden Yards, Chesapeake Room, Baltimore, MD
When: Saturday, March 31, 2007
Time: 2:00 - 4:00 PM
Light refreshments will be available.
Please RSVP to Jill Emery at J.Emery@austin.utexas.edu by March 29, 2007.
Bonnie Tijerina March 22nd, 2007
As “e” becomes more prevalent, we are shifting workflows, but how about the creation of a new department focused solely on electronic? At the ER&L Conference we heard a few libraries are doing that, one being UCLA. Sharon Farb, Angela Riggio and Andrew Stancliffe presented on how they used the workflow diagrams from the ERMI Report to create the Digital Collections Services Department. I am interested to see how this relatively new department grows/changes. This presentation brought up a few questions for me that I don’t have answers to but are on my mind:
jemery March 22nd, 2007
[JE]: Hi Dan,
How are subscription agents helping libraries in maintaining accurate and precise knowledgebases?
[DT]:
Subscription agents like EBSCO have been in routine contact with over
14,000 publishers in the print world and built a strong database of ordering and payment information as well as limited electronic metadata. From the rapid conversion of our academic business from print to an electronic component, which now involves 72% of our academic orders, subscription agents have totally reengineered their title file or acquisitions and service knowledge base into a real time e-journal bibliographic tool that have moved a traditional ordering system into a bibliographic tool with new data elements to enable libraries to access and better manage their e-collections. We have reengineered our databases, expanded our staff, improved the level of staff to support this effort, instituted training for e-journal management and also are applying Web searching techniques to go out and collect data from publishers web sites.
Now that we have expanded our business line to include an A to Z
service and our Link resolver, there is a constant demand for current updated information. These new products have forever changed our data collection operation as this recent requirement has placed a high priority on obtaining and maintaining our knowledge base. We have added a dedicated team of professionals whose full time job it is to maintain the knowledgebase which builds on our traditional ordering and payment function. We get data directly from the publishers, we mine the data with our spiders crawling around publisher sites, and we collect data from our 32 offices as publishers announce changes to their data.
Maintaining a high quality knowledgebase is part of our strategic
mission in support of e-journal access and management and we are constantly looking for ways to keep that critical data up to date. So far we have made considerable progress in meeting this goal. Our knowledgebase gets better and stronger every day.
Dan Tonkery
Vice President, Director of Business Development
EBSCO Information Services
ewinter March 21st, 2007
Serial Solutions’ ERAMS concept seems able to encapsulate most of the types of work currently done in libraries: