THE ELECTRONIC COLLECTION

In the past decade, all academic libraries have relaunched their collections through the addition of electronic resources.  In The Academic Library, Peter Brophy writes of the library’s electronic collection: “It is important to emphasize that [the electronic collection] is just as much a library collection as the traditional books on shelves. It requires expert staff input to select and maintain…” [Brophy]. 

Peggy Johnson writes that “the high prices of electronic resources justify special attention. Collection policies guide budgeting decisions, and the decision to acquire or access a single electronic source have significant dollar implications” [Johnson]. She goes on to note the large capital expenditure required to purchase technological components essential to the acquisition of electronic resources.

In addition to the purchase of technology, she writes, the librarians must become expert in use of the technology in order to be able to teach users how to use it.

The individual academic library may contract alone with an aggregator  (such as EBSCO or Proquest), or the library may form a consortium with other libraries and attempt to reduce the cost to each individual library. The latter, while apparently cheaper may not be since the products purchased by the group must conform to the needs of various institutions, meaning the individual library is likely paying for products it does not need or want.

Harris and Hannah point out how dramatic the shift to electronic resources has been. “In the digital environment, remote access is the process of breaking forever the relationship between accessibility and ownership that has served so long and so well as the guiding strategic principle of library planning” [Harris and Hannah].

Relaunching the academic library with its new delivery systems has meant a large expenditure (as all launches and relaunches require), and forced the library to choose access over ownership in order to provide students and faculty researchers with immediate and convenient access. Without the computer access to those texts, they would have arrived in print form much later and be accessible only by a visit to the library.

A research study at Drexel University focused on a benefit of electronic versus print journals other than mere convenience. "[A] recent readership survey shows that by using electronic journals, faculty and graduate students substantially broaden the range of journals read; that they access articles from many locations..." [Hansen and King]

Johnson writes: “The ideal collection policy is a living document, reviewed and revised regularly to keep it current and meaningful. A dynamic policy organizes and guides the processes of acquiring and providing access to materials and information sources, integrating them into a coherent collection” [Johnson].

Budd and Harloe write that "the transformation from concentration on managing collections (physical objects, their placement and storage, and their economics) to managing content is not an easy one..." [Budd and Harloe]. Quoting Branin, Budd and Harloe write "librarians must manage the 'intersection' between two different systems--one print and one electronic. In the near future, a network-based strategy for "content management" must be developed [Branin]. These two types of management, collectiong print and collecting electronic resources, inevitably fold into one hybrid collections job where material is chosen not by medium but for content. In this sense, the advent of the electronic library has left the origial concept of collection management untouched.  The challenge to librarians remains the same:  to respond to user needs by acquiring content.

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