Partnerships in the Electronic Age

Citation

Ashcroft, L. (2001), "Partnerships in the Electronic Age", Library Hi Tech News, Vol. 18 No. 10. https://doi.org/10.1108/lhtn.2001.23918jac.005

Partnerships in the Electronic Age

Partnerships in the Electronic Age

Emerald Library Link Workshop, IFLA 2001, Boston, USA 20 August

Linda Ashcroft

Workshop introduction

As keynote speaker, I was pleased to introduce the workshop with an outline of my research project into the marketing and evaluation of electronic journals. An earlier research project into e-journals in UK and North American academic libraries identified some concerns, including which promotional methods are most effective for e-journals, the low level of evaluation of e-journals and the low level of evaluation of promotional activity. This latest research project followed up on these issues. Again, it focused on e-journals in academic libraries in the UK and North America, and set out to investigate effective promotional methods for e-journals, evaluation methods for e-journals, how promotional initiatives are assessed and to investigate potential benefits for libraries arising from the e-journal supply chain. This research project was sponsored by Emerald, but was carried out as independent academic research in order to avoid any publisher bias.

The research findings identified many changes in provision, including changes in the delivery medium, change in the point of delivery, change in impact on end-users, change in purchasing processes and change in the marketplace. These changes lead to changes in staff skill requirements, including change in user education methods, change in the extent of collaboration with others, change in communication and marketing skills, change in market research skills and change in level of technical competence. When it comes to current methods of promoting e-journals findings demonstrate both differences and similarities in the UK and North America. The two most favoured methods in the UK are seminars for students and A-Z list of titles on Web pages with links, whereas North America favours electronic links from OPAC to journal/publisher/supplier, and e-journals notified on the OPAC. However, there are also similarities in practice with promotion of e-journals to academic staff and new developments notified on library Web pages. The research findings also identified barriers to effective promotion, which are felt to be greater in the UK than in North America. These include the lack of standardisation between suppliers' databases – making searching more complicated, and lack of staff time for both promotional activity and basic support activity. When it comes to future methods of promoting e-journals, the findings indicated consensus between the UK and North America on the three most favoured methods – electronic links from the OPAC to the journal/supplier/publisher, software to give a single user interface for searching all e-journals, and subject listings of e-journals on library/university Web pages.

On the topic of current methods of evaluation of e-journals, the findings showed consensus between the UK and North America with a clear preference on usage statistics supplied by suppliers/publishers. However, with regard to the top barriers to effective evaluation, North American respondents indicated that not all library suppliers provide usage statistics and these statistics are not provided in a standardised way. Whereas UK respondents indicated the lack of staff time for activity such as collecting and analysing data, in both the UK and North America there is consensus on the most effective future means of evaluating e-journals, which is usage statistics provided by suppliers/publishers to an industry-approved standard.

When it comes to any benefits for libraries from suppliers/publishers, both UK and North American respondents agreed on usage statistics by title for all titles as their first choice. Second, North American respondents favoured online user guides, whereas UK respondents favoured downloadable presentation for user groups. To give one example of best practice by publishers to promote e-journals, we need look no further than Emerald. There are many parallels to the research findings on benefits from publishers. For example at www.emeraldinsight.com/support/index.htm there are both librarian support services and user support services, which include downloadable guides, downloadable posters and presentations, logos for OPACs, e-mail alerting and a support resource suggestion form (inviting suggestions).

This workshop introduction provided the basis for the four discussion topics:

1. 1.

   What are the benefits of a complete online fulltext archive within the social sciences?

2. 2.

   Challenges faced when negotiating the purchase of electronic databases.

3. 3.

   What do customers expect from online support services?

4. 4.

   Consolidating and cataloguing e-journals – issues for librarians

What are the benefits of a complete online fulltext archive within the social sciences?

The majority of publishers now offer electronic access with their journal subscriptions, which invariably includes online access to a number of past volumes. Increases in the number of libraries with online access as well as advances in online technology has now made the option of a complete online archive possible, but are they really necessary and will they ultimately replace paper archives?

Librarians' expectations of fulltext archives take into account the needs of researchers, who require quality of archive articles, the needs of authors regarding pure online and paper formats, as well as the needs of librarians, who require archives in many manifestations/formats. Expectations also include longevity, accessibility, utility and the ability of peers to achieve. Whilst electronic archives are more accessible, there are questions regarding costs and rights of access. Editors need to see everything in an electronic archive, which raises the question of whether the full journal is contained in the archive, or only the articles. Standardisation, i.e. HTML or PDF, would be helpful at many levels. Statistics are important, and another issue for authors is the availability of statistics at article level for feedback purposes. Furthermore, some electronic archives are limited to five years back. In addition, there are questions surrounding access to electronic archives outside the library.

There are additional problems for developing countries, such as Africa and Asia, where important research is being lost because there are difficulties in getting it incorporated into databases. Furthermore, they also face problems in getting access to journals/databases. It was suggested that a tiered pricing policy should be established for developing countries.

The issue of cost has many aspects. Universities may bear more than visible costs as they support authors, also supporting publishing costs and then buy back journals. It might be preferable to have purchasing options, such as the option to purchase individual articles rather than a whole database. If the product is one big database, what does the journal add to the whole database? What is the value of the content?

Finally, there is the issue of information pollution. Perhaps screening for archiving is necessary in order to provide quality control.

Challenges faced when negotiating the purchase of electronic databases

The increase in publishing in electronic form has resulted in a differentiation of pricing models and the licenses that accompany them. Now the librarian/publishing community is becoming more familiar with the options and process involved, what more can be done to make negotiations more productive?

Librarians need special skills to face the challenges in negotiating purchases – especially regarding consortial deals. Some skills relate to use of electronic databases, including the provision of in-house training for reference staff for all products, the acquisition of experience based on trials, and skills to study compatibility and ease of use. Other skills relate to management, including negotiating skills, skills that enable confidence in dealing with publishers/suppliers, and skills in understanding and practising institutional and consortial goals.

Other challenges faced in negotiations include issues arising on perpetual access, fixed subscriptions and archives/backfiles. Further issues concern changing expectations, such as whether an immediate archive is available on electronic subscription, bundling and the different models for bundling purposes, and maintaining dual/hybrid formats of print and electronic resources.

The packaging of electronic content and output forms another challenge. There are problems with citations in electronic format and with the various linking efforts, such as rapid linking, cross-referencing and SFX. Technology itself can result in a digital divide for both customer support and personal devices. Whilst the mentality of databases and e-journals are increasing the value of the OPAC, an infrastructure is required to facilitate communication about service, upgrades and changes in order to build trust. Other issues include statistics on use for evaluation purposes and user aids, such as tutorials. Furthermore, some basic definitions are needed, particularly with legal terminology when dealing with such areas as contracts, indemnification, state and local laws, inter-library loans and remote access.

What do customers expect from online support services?

In addition to their online products many publishers offer various "support services", which serve the needs of librarians, authors and end-users, at no additional cost. These services are designed to build communities, aid dissemination of information and enable librarians to get the most from their purchase. The advances in technology mean that these types of services can now evolve more quickly than was previously possible. What more can be done to ensure these services continue to meet changing needs and add value to the communities they serve?

An important area of support services relates to remote access. Online help is needed, but not just in the English language – although the quality of translation is a debatable point, as some librarians feel that machine translation is acceptable, whilst others feel that any translation must be top class. Online help for users must be easy to find and easy to use. The level of technology available influences whether the inclusion of support services is important to purchase decisions.

Online support services have implications for library staff. Consortial purchasing involves lengthy discussions and negotiations as to what works for all concerned. There is a need for library staff to develop negotiating skills and skills to evaluate resources. Staff are working harder and longer, and time is at a premium. Thus a statistical package to analyse use is very important – as is time to embed statistics.

Promotion is vital in order to encourage users to use electronic resources effectively. Online support services could assist this promotional activity by providing seminars/workshops (although there were comments that these do not always work), "simple" powerpoint presentations, which contain graphics rather than many words, e-mail notifications and links from OPACs and Web pages which must contain access information.

Consolidating and cataloguing e-journals – issues for librarians

As e-journals are available via a number of channels, including agents, aggregators and publishers, librarians now have the opportunity to choose from where their online content is delivered. Or is it that simple? Can agents, vendors or aggregators guarantee librarians receive the online content they have subscribed to in an acceptable standard?

Issues that arise for librarians concern access to journal literature by end-users. This access can be via publishers or aggregators, via library Web pages, via library Web sites, via library databases – and this access can be direct to articles rather than journal titles. Access and cataloguing issues also arise from combined print, microform and electronic runs, and another issue is the stability of URLs for titles and articles.

Educational issues also arise. One aspect relates to library staff and the changes brought about by electronic resources, which in turn bring about a need for retraining. Another aspect relates to the modern generation of students and demands for electronic access. The product itself is another issue, particularly the nature of the product via an aggregator – is it a complete product?

In this environment are publishers' enhancements necessary? There are issues for distance learners, which include IP addresses and passwords. Use data might be provided, but should be geared to requirements, and the frequency of provision established.

Conclusions

Whilst the four groups might have continued their discussions further, they came together towards the end of the workshop to discuss their topics. User issues were on the agenda of each group, and both user and certain other issues were repeated in each group, demonstrating that the topics had common ground.

Some of the issues raised in discussions reflected the research findings presented in the workshop introduction. There was identification of the fact that librarians and publishers have common interests in making users aware of what is available and in facilitating ease of access. In this context Emerald is continuing to develop communication and invite suggestions from librarians.

Linda Ashcroft(L.S.Ashcroft@ livjm.ac.uk) is based at Liverpool Business School, Liverpool John Moores University, UK and is Editor of New Library World