- Email: [email protected]
Things that keep me awake at night: A report
1996 CharlestonConference
243
Joint licenses to Internet resources might also be included. An example of this is the Michigan Electronic Library (http://mel.lib.mi.us). 6. Cyberstacks. The library integrates Internet resources into the catalog with hotlinks and organizes these as "cyberstacks" in a classified arrangement. Direct full-text access to these resources is provided from either library workstations or workstations outside the library. McClure urged librarians to give careful thought to each of the models described before making collection development and management decisions for Internet-based resources. Each individual library needs to decide what is the best that can be done to provide these resources for its users, based upon the library's information infrastructure, the pool of skills among the staff, the various costs involved, the methods of access from within and without the library, licensing and copyright issues, the library's management structure, the collection development policy, and cooperative relationships with other libraries. There is no one best model--the environment is changing too rapidly for a single solution to fit any given type of library. Even so, McClure stressed, we must develop strategies for collecting Internet-based resources and stop whining. The reality is that these resources will continue to grow and expand and we must plan for them, with what he termed "approximation-based planning." McClure concluded, "The ostrich approach will not work. When you have your head buried in the sand, other parts of your body are embarrassingly exposed,"
PII S0364-6408(97)00047-1
Linda A. Brown Collection Management Coordinator Jerome Libral 3, Bowling Green State University Bowling Green, OH 43403 hlternet: lbrown @bgnet.bgsu.edu
Things That Keep Me Awake at Night: A Report Karen Hunter, Senior Vice President, Elsevier Science, delivered the final keynote address of the Thursday morning session. She gave an overview of the TULIP experiment and the resulting project, encompassing more than 80 journals. Elsevier Electronic Subscriptions (EES) now offers electronic subscriptions for local implementation and plans to unveil in July 1997, ScienceDirect, a new Web host containing Elsevier publications and links to other sites, providing a database approach to subject specific journals. A consolidated service with clusters of journals linked to abstracting and indexing will add value for the users by preserving the current benefits of browsing. Other future plans include separating the publishing schedules for electronic and paper subscriptions to offer the electronic publication at the earliest possible date. Elsevier has begun and will continue to add nonprintable features to the electronic version, including links, video, audio, 3-D graphics, animation, datasets, etc. Moving to the concerns that keep her awake at night, Hunter first explored the numerous and delicate aspects of parallel publishing, maintaining the quality and quantity of the present print publishing processes while planning and implementing the electronic ones. Designing storage and management systems, redesigning production and sales units, developing licensing and technical
244
1996 Charleston Conference
support, and determining the proper role of agents are all key factors in leveraging a successful transition. All of these contribute to the high cost of change. Pricing is, of course, keeping everyone from sleeping soundly. New models are developing, but several years of experience will be needed to test them. Hunter would like to try announcing an offer of lower prices contingent on a minimum subscriber base. This would test the concept of increasing subscriptions by lowering prices. Also, yet to be settled is the future of subscriptions vs. "selling by the drink." Some additional issues and unanswered questions contributing to Hunter's insomnia include the danger of raising a generation that believes that the only way to search for information is "to Yahoo," determining what constitutes an interlibrary loan in the electronic context, discovering how to create secure gateways and seamless links, and how to define the marketplace in terms of user communities of faculty, students, researchers, and libraries, not to mention the complications that come with consortial arrangements. Many short- and long-term archival considerations must be dealt with. Who will create archives--publishers, a government agency, libraries? What will be the terms to access the archives? Will cancellation of a current subscription mean no further access to the archives? Will local alternatives develop, such as micro, CD-ROM, or paper? Hunter lamented that "we can do so much more than we can afford to do." What will "give," services, prices, expectations? She lays awake, wondering where all the money will come from and how to decide on the priorities. How do we know if we are too early, too late, simply misdirected, or just about right on target?
PII S0364-6408(97)00028-8
Nancy Kaul Head of Collection Management University Libraries Box 5053 The University of Southern Mississippi Hattiesburg, MS 39406-5053 lnternet: [email protected]
Vendor Partnerships: CEOs, Systems, and the Future This panel discussion was moderated by Mary McLaren (University of Kentucky) and Elsie Pritchard (Morehead State University). The CEOs for the first panel discussion were James T. Stephens, President, EBSCO Industries, Birmingham, Alabama; Ward Shaw, President, CARL, Denver, Colorado; and Daniel P. Halloran, President and CEO, Academic Book Center (ABC), Portland, Oregon. The common thread tying together the CEO presentations was the inability of library service vendors, confronted by new technology and the increasingly broad nature of library demand for new services and products, to continue to operate in isolation and attempt to be all things to all libraries. The need is for "synergistic relationships with significant others," to quote McLaren's introduction. Daniel Halloran, emulating Yogi Berra, entitled his talk, "The future ain't what it used to be," which contrasted the recent past with the immediate future. In the old days when collection decisions were based on price and service and library worries were largely confined to inflation projections for paper publications, all interested parties had well-defined roles: the user of the card catalog; the personnel in library technical services, acquisitions, serials, and cataloging; the
243
Joint licenses to Internet resources might also be included. An example of this is the Michigan Electronic Library (http://mel.lib.mi.us). 6. Cyberstacks. The library integrates Internet resources into the catalog with hotlinks and organizes these as "cyberstacks" in a classified arrangement. Direct full-text access to these resources is provided from either library workstations or workstations outside the library. McClure urged librarians to give careful thought to each of the models described before making collection development and management decisions for Internet-based resources. Each individual library needs to decide what is the best that can be done to provide these resources for its users, based upon the library's information infrastructure, the pool of skills among the staff, the various costs involved, the methods of access from within and without the library, licensing and copyright issues, the library's management structure, the collection development policy, and cooperative relationships with other libraries. There is no one best model--the environment is changing too rapidly for a single solution to fit any given type of library. Even so, McClure stressed, we must develop strategies for collecting Internet-based resources and stop whining. The reality is that these resources will continue to grow and expand and we must plan for them, with what he termed "approximation-based planning." McClure concluded, "The ostrich approach will not work. When you have your head buried in the sand, other parts of your body are embarrassingly exposed,"
PII S0364-6408(97)00047-1
Linda A. Brown Collection Management Coordinator Jerome Libral 3, Bowling Green State University Bowling Green, OH 43403 hlternet: lbrown @bgnet.bgsu.edu
Things That Keep Me Awake at Night: A Report Karen Hunter, Senior Vice President, Elsevier Science, delivered the final keynote address of the Thursday morning session. She gave an overview of the TULIP experiment and the resulting project, encompassing more than 80 journals. Elsevier Electronic Subscriptions (EES) now offers electronic subscriptions for local implementation and plans to unveil in July 1997, ScienceDirect, a new Web host containing Elsevier publications and links to other sites, providing a database approach to subject specific journals. A consolidated service with clusters of journals linked to abstracting and indexing will add value for the users by preserving the current benefits of browsing. Other future plans include separating the publishing schedules for electronic and paper subscriptions to offer the electronic publication at the earliest possible date. Elsevier has begun and will continue to add nonprintable features to the electronic version, including links, video, audio, 3-D graphics, animation, datasets, etc. Moving to the concerns that keep her awake at night, Hunter first explored the numerous and delicate aspects of parallel publishing, maintaining the quality and quantity of the present print publishing processes while planning and implementing the electronic ones. Designing storage and management systems, redesigning production and sales units, developing licensing and technical
244
1996 Charleston Conference
support, and determining the proper role of agents are all key factors in leveraging a successful transition. All of these contribute to the high cost of change. Pricing is, of course, keeping everyone from sleeping soundly. New models are developing, but several years of experience will be needed to test them. Hunter would like to try announcing an offer of lower prices contingent on a minimum subscriber base. This would test the concept of increasing subscriptions by lowering prices. Also, yet to be settled is the future of subscriptions vs. "selling by the drink." Some additional issues and unanswered questions contributing to Hunter's insomnia include the danger of raising a generation that believes that the only way to search for information is "to Yahoo," determining what constitutes an interlibrary loan in the electronic context, discovering how to create secure gateways and seamless links, and how to define the marketplace in terms of user communities of faculty, students, researchers, and libraries, not to mention the complications that come with consortial arrangements. Many short- and long-term archival considerations must be dealt with. Who will create archives--publishers, a government agency, libraries? What will be the terms to access the archives? Will cancellation of a current subscription mean no further access to the archives? Will local alternatives develop, such as micro, CD-ROM, or paper? Hunter lamented that "we can do so much more than we can afford to do." What will "give," services, prices, expectations? She lays awake, wondering where all the money will come from and how to decide on the priorities. How do we know if we are too early, too late, simply misdirected, or just about right on target?
PII S0364-6408(97)00028-8
Nancy Kaul Head of Collection Management University Libraries Box 5053 The University of Southern Mississippi Hattiesburg, MS 39406-5053 lnternet: [email protected]
Vendor Partnerships: CEOs, Systems, and the Future This panel discussion was moderated by Mary McLaren (University of Kentucky) and Elsie Pritchard (Morehead State University). The CEOs for the first panel discussion were James T. Stephens, President, EBSCO Industries, Birmingham, Alabama; Ward Shaw, President, CARL, Denver, Colorado; and Daniel P. Halloran, President and CEO, Academic Book Center (ABC), Portland, Oregon. The common thread tying together the CEO presentations was the inability of library service vendors, confronted by new technology and the increasingly broad nature of library demand for new services and products, to continue to operate in isolation and attempt to be all things to all libraries. The need is for "synergistic relationships with significant others," to quote McLaren's introduction. Daniel Halloran, emulating Yogi Berra, entitled his talk, "The future ain't what it used to be," which contrasted the recent past with the immediate future. In the old days when collection decisions were based on price and service and library worries were largely confined to inflation projections for paper publications, all interested parties had well-defined roles: the user of the card catalog; the personnel in library technical services, acquisitions, serials, and cataloging; the