Creating a Successful E‐information Service

Citation

Tedd, L.A. (2003), "Creating a Successful E‐information Service", Program: electronic library and information systems, Vol. 37 No. 2, pp. 138-139. https://doi.org/10.1108/prog.2003.37.2.138.12

This is yet another paperback recently published by Facet Publishing – formerly known as Library Association Publishing. Facet Publishing aims to understand “the importance of providing dynamic, relevant and up‐to‐date books for information professionals wherever they may be” and the current glut of useful books emanating from this publisher certainly seems to bear this out.

Creating a Successful E‐information Service has been written by two people with a wealth of experience in managing library and information services and their experiences have been distilled into the text of this book. Pantry now runs a consultancy service and electronic publishing business, having worked for many years in the UK’s Health and Safety Executive, and Griffiths is Assistant Director, Communication Directorate at the UK Government’s Home Office. Pantry and Griffiths have collaborated on a number of other books also published by Facet, including Becoming a Successful Intrapreneur and The Complete Guide to Preparing and Implementing Service Level Agreements.

As stated on the back cover of Creating a Successful E‐information Service “to be successful, LIS managers constantly need to reassess the effectiveness of their information services and to be sure that they are really delivering the services needed by their users”. With the massive developments in electronic information sources this is more relevant today than ever. The aim of this book, therefore, is to provide the reader with useful ideas, hints and tips to be used when developing electronic information services (EIS).

The book is structured into eight chapters entitled: Introducing the concept of the e‐information service; What kind of e‐information service do you want to provide? Where are the customers? What kind of information do your customers need? Who needs to be involved in your plans? Budgeting for your e‐information service; Keeping in touch with your customers; Keeping ahead of your competitors. Each chapter also has a clear structure which is outlined at the start of each chapter and so the whole is commendably easy to read and work through. I was, however, surprised not to find much information included in Creating a Successful E‐information Service on the provision of e‐information services to visually impaired and other disabled users.

Following the main text (of 134 pages) there is, to my mind, a rather strange section entitled Glossary of sample electronic services – note, these are confusingly not called e‐information services. The chosen services include a number which are provided nationwide for the UK higher and further academic community via the Joint Information Services Committee (JISC) such as:

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  Athens (www.athens.ac.uk), which is an authentication management service.

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  DNER – Distributed National Electronic Resource (www.jisc.ac.uk/dner), which was a “vision” of the JISC and which has, since the book has been published, changed direction.

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  HERON – Higher Education Resources (www.heron.ac.uk), a service for copyright clearance, digitisation and delivery of book extracts and journal articles.

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  NESLI – National Electronic Site Licensing Initiative (www.nesli.ac.uk) for providing an e‐journal service to the UK higher and further academic community.

It might have been more useful to have had case studies of specific e‐information services in organisations which were the result of a reassessment of previous information services rather than brief descriptions of UK‐based national services.

The final 12 pages cover a good set of current references and further readings from a range of sources (including Program) to support statements made in the text. There is also a subject index.

This book certainly keeps up the Facet aim of being dynamic, relevant and up to date. Facet is also currently making available sample chapters of its books and for this work. You can read the first chapter of this text at: www.facetpublishing.co.uk/pantry_chap1.pdf