Electronic Resources: : Access and Issues

Citation

Morgan, S. (1999), "Electronic Resources: : Access and Issues", Library Review, Vol. 48 No. 1, pp. 51-51. https://doi.org/10.1108/lr.1999.48.1.51.9

<p>There are a number of reasons why this little book might not have worked: its wide remit (to guide the reader through the whole gamut of electronic resources), its aim to be up‐to‐date (certainly a challenge given the pace of technological development), its readership (to ensure accessibility to both international practitioners and students of library and information science), and, finally, its determination to keep the substantive text within 111 pages (excluding the select bibliography which is Chapter 5). The author, Mary Beth Fecko, has successfully cleared each of these hurdles with some room to spare.

<p>Although divided into chapters ‐‐ five, in fact ‐‐ over half the book is given over to the Internet (surprise, surprise) and electronic publishing. On either side of these we have an introductory chapter on the history and evolution of electronic resources (Chapter 1) and a penultimate chapter covering interactive multimedia, virtual libraries and digital libraries. This order gives the reader a certain logical progression through the electronic maze. The first chapter is very much an overview, exploring how electronic services have transformed the LIS profession for users and library staff alike. We hit the Internet almost sooner than expected with a breakdown of the various elements that currently make up this Christmas present of a lifetime, or monster, depending on your persuasion. Like most things it is a mixture of the two. E‐mail, discussion lists, bulletin boards, Usenet, freenets, Internet indexing and retrieval tools (including the increasingly anachronistic gopher′′) and the World Wide Web are all visited and concisely discussed. Just when you feel the chapter must come to an end, you read the subheading Markup languages′′. Off we go again through guidelines for creation of Web documents and finally ‐‐ out of breath ‐‐ we clamber aboard a host of search engines.

<p>As you have gathered, this is a meaty as well as a lengthy chapter, but is expressed in accessible language not always apparent in technology‐based texts. Also the liberal sprinkling of Internet screen dumps succeeds in breaking up the text. Slightly shorter than the previous chapter, Electronic publishing and document delivery services′′ has a range of elements within its domain. These include electronic books, publishers and journals as well as the second part of the chapter title. It is the electronic journals that attract the lion′s share of the text. In particular, the issues explored are comparisons with print journals, the role of commercial publishers and planning for access. The projects (together with their weird and wonderful acronyms) referred to in this chapter represent a fair geographical cross‐section covering the UK, USA and Europe. Chapter 4 discusses applications of interactive multimedia in libraries plus some newer technological developments, specifically virtual and digital libraries. I am one of the ones mentioned on page 96 who thought that these terms were interchangable. I now know different! An interesting question that the author throws up in the air (without any attempt to catch it) goes something like this: Will the virtual library make librarians obsolete or increase their professional stature? The problems of digitising information are addressed with reference to a number of projects worldwide where substantial progress is evident. The book is rounded off with 22 pages of bibliography/references helpfully divided into print and online resources and a glossary.

<p>If someone were to come up to you and ask: What is the current state of play with electronic resources in libraries?′′ you could do a lot worse than refer him/her to this book.