Collection Development Issues in the Online Environment

Citation

Peare, T. (2007), "Collection Development Issues in the Online Environment", Library Review, Vol. 56 No. 9, pp. 848-849. https://doi.org/10.1108/00242530710831400

This is another useful and practical title in the Haworth Press series, although it does suffer, as the editor notes in his introduction, from the fact that “… due to the rapid change of technology, some facts might have already been out‐of‐date by the time the book is published”. However, the contribution by David Stern on “Enhanced online access requires redesigned delivery options and cost models” is a particularly good summary of the broader issues facing librarians (and their users) in the rapidly changing online environment.

The book is in three sections: Common Issues; Special Issues; and Future Issues, each with contributions that bring a practical insight into the challenges facing the beleaguered Acquisitions Librarian. The contributors are from authors based in the USA, Canada, the UK and Australia and is a demonstration in itself that the online environment is truly a global one.

The first section of articles indicate that the managing of subscriptions to online material is a mess – from the library budgeting and accounting processes for a multitude of cost models and bundled or aggregated subscriptions to the technical issues of providing sustained access to the purchased material for library users. The linking of a paid subscription to a working URL is not simple and is nicely illustrated by reference to a selection of email posts to discussion lists where librarians are caught in the middle of frustrated users and inadequate information and support from publishers.

The section on special issues explore some of the labyrinth that is the (USA) Copyright legislation and case law; the necessity of close examination of the content and indexing used by databases before committing a subscription; and a case study of a small‐scale project with company annual reports.

By far the most interesting contribution for this reviewer was the Stern article mentioned above in the “Future Issues” section. Stern exhorts librarians to get involved with the policy issues: “It is part of our professional responsibility to act as both stewards of intellectual content and as collaborators on future information networks in order to address these new possibilities in more creative and proactive ways”. He discusses the need for librarians to use evidence‐based factors for purchasing. These are becoming available through such initiatives as Counting Online Usage of Networked Electronic Resources (COUNTER). But we also need to question the pressure for publication within the academic promotion and tenure process without any controls on the publishers to prove value in their activities of packaging and delivery.

Certainly food for thought! The book does not include any significant discussion of the impact of the current developments of the Open Archives Initiative (OAI) and the dawning recognition by academics concerned with personal promotion that their work will have a higher chance of being cited when included in repositories that have unrestricted access. Authors, publishers and librarians all need to work together so as to provide the infrastructure for current and future researchers.

This book is a useful support for librarians in that it indicates individual's practical issues are experienced by others across the world. It identifies many of the long‐term development issues, but it is difficult to anticipate very far into the future on this topic.