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This article describes administrative metadata and their use in managing electronic resources. The focus of the article is an interview with Tim Jewell, Head of Collection Management Services at the University of Washington, and Adam Chandler, Information Technology Librarian at Cornell University.

Aims to review the Digital Library Federation's (DLF) Electronic Resource Management Initiative (ERMI) guidelines and related commercial e‐resource management system development.

Documents commercial e‐resource development by reviewing materials made public by leading library system vendors.

Provides information about commercial and library‐developed systems and where additional information about each can be found.

Provides the status of industry initiatives to respond to the DLF ERMI functional specifications. Suggests the need to improve workflows in conjunction with implementation of an e‐resources system to more effectively manage electronic resources.

This paper aims to describe the development of the Standardized Usage Statistics Harvesting Initiative (SUSHI) standard, and its applications and impact on libraries.

The information is based on a questionnaire survey conducted by the author. Inquiries were sent to members of the National Information Standards Organization (NISO) Committee SU responsible for producing the SUSHI standard.

Four out of six members responded to the survey including Ted Fons from Innovative, Oliver Pesch from Ebsco, and Ted Koppel from Ex Libris. One member responded but did not want to be quoted.

Provides information on the development of a library aid.

This paper aims to analyze the intersection of LibGuide authors (producers) and LibGuide users (consumers) at University Library, Cornell University, New York, USA. In consideration of this previous finding, the authors felt it was vital to address the question of how Cornell University Library (CUL) LibGuides can better serve Cornell’s user base. By posing questions such as, “what are authors’ intentions in creating LibGuides” and “how are local users finding, accessing and/or engaging with LibGuides”, this paper hopes to make nuanced recommendations to authors.

This paper addresses two key pieces of data: browser search terms from the Springshare log files and interviews from authors of 20 different LibGuides. The author interviews gave us insight into the purpose, use and marketing of specific library guides for CUL, while browser search terms revealed how our users constructed Internet searches that resulted in that hit on a CUL LibGuide.

Data uncovered in our analysis of affiliated search terms provide great insight into users’ expectations or perception of what they are seeking: 39 per cent of searches performed by affiliated users contained terminology of either the name of the course, the four-digit letter-number code for the course (e.g. ANTH 2300), the name of the professor and the course or some other similar permutation. This suggests that the LibGuides software needs a better way to index institutional courses by number and name, a finding the authors will return to later.

As LibGuides are ephemeral and constantly changing, rather than creating a LibGuides based on the premise of its purpose – course guide, subject guide or other – perhaps, authors should consider how the LibGuide will live online and specifically, what is its life cycle? The longevity of a LibGuide ensures that it will be discovered in some way or another; however, the discovery of outdated material is not the best introduction to these vehicles of information. If LibGuides aim to serve as an unmediated stand-in for librarians, its online life expectancy needs to be considered at the point of creation.

Recommendations for LibGuide authors/producers: place most important content in the first tab (over 50 per cent of hits are to the homepage); minimize the total number of tabs. Fewer tabs are likely to encourage more in-depth browsing and facilitate better discovery of key content; include interactive content in LibGuides, such as assignments and tutorials that increase the use of that LibGuide; identify LibGuides and/or tabs in terms of function – teaching or discovery – within a search environment.

The tension between LibGuides as a teaching tool and LibGuides as an answer to a student’s research is an issue that we should resolve to fix. This tension is often eased in classroom instruction or during mediated interactions at the reference desk or via chat reference. However, in the online environment of LibGuides, librarians must be cognizant that students will often not be seeking the instruction on locating resources but rather will focus on simply locating the resource itself. Course guides might be better served online by pushing the instructional components toward the final tabs and relocating the valuable resource content to the Home tab. Promoting the use of library guides beyond the classroom or the event that they were designed for may not be necessary or desirable; however, as LibGuides have a lengthy life cycle, consideration about how they might meet a user’s online needs is worthwhile.

This paper offers a unique perspective in the use of a common library tool from two points of view: the producers and the consumers of library guides. Too often, people take for granted the idea that they know and understand what librarians and/or library staff do and intend with the creation of LibGuides, without informing our perspective with actual data. The authors realize that the sample size of their interviewee pool was small, but nonetheless, deemed it an essential aspect to consider when evaluating the interaction of library guides or other library content put forth for the constituents we serve. In terms of user research, the authors are in a privileged position given the quantity of attention directed at the consumers of library guides; this study contributes to the conversation by highlighting the rare access people have to the results of unmediated user practices in the information gathering process.

The electronic resource management initiative (ERMI) is one of the Digital Library Federation’s (DLF) active initiatives. The purposes of this initiative are to develop XML‐based metadata schemata/DTDs and tools for managing data associated with licensing issues. Developing workflow, identifying best practices, promoting the standards, and engaging library system vendors to implement this system are the other goals of ERMI. This article describes the recent progress made by ERMI.

A behavioural approach to information retrieval system design is outlined based on the derivation of a behavioural model of the information seeking patterns of academic social scientists. The information seeking patterns of a variety of academic social scientists were broken down into six characteristics: starting, chaining, browsing, differentiating, monitoring, and extracting. These characteristics constitute the principal generic features of the different individual patterns, and together provide a flexible behavioural model for information retrieval system design. The extent to which these characteristics are available on existing systems is considered, and the requirements for implementing the features on an experimental system are set out.

Aims to provide highlights from the American Library Association (ALA) 2005 Midwinter meeting.

Provides a brief report of the meeting held in Boston, MA. in January 2005.

Outlines how the Public Library Association (PLA) debuted blogging at this meeting and provides a summary of the ever popular ALA Technology Showcase – the highlights of which included shared networks, library data mining and audio archives. Concludes with highlights from various Library and Information Technology Association (LITA) meetings and discussions and a detailed report on the Standards Interest Group.

A report of interest to library and information management professionals.

This paper aims to provide an overview of the trends and standards in electronic‐resource management (ERM).

This paper examines the challenges that rapid growth in the number of electronic resources and in the complexity of managing e‐collections has posed for libraries, and traces the progress in developing tools and setting standards to address such challenges. Particular emphasis is given to the work of the Digital Library Federation Electronic Resource Management Initiative (DLF ERMI) to develop ERM systems not only for managing e‐collections throughout their life cycle but also for aiding collection‐development decision making. The integration of such systems in existing library environments and the mechanisms that make such integration possible are highlighted. Finally, the paper describes the collaborative process through which one vendor, Ex Libris, designed its ERM system, Verde.

Collaboration between vendors and customers – in this example, Ex Libris and its users – combined with attentiveness to industry initiatives and standards can lead to a system design that responds to the demanding and rapidly changing requirements of the e‐resource world and builds on the software infrastructure already available at libraries.

This discussion will help librarians who struggle with the challenge of e‐resource management to set their expectations about the potential of future tools to assist them in their tasks.