Skip to main content
E-resources and library practice 
an overview of selection, 
acquisition, and usage 
Linus C. Emeghara 
Chief Operating Officer 
Ifegrace Ventures Ltd
E-resources and library practice an 
overview of selection, acquisition, and 
usage 
Being a paper presented at the 
training workshop on issues in the 
selection, acquisition and use of 
e-resources in TETFUND funded 
institutions
ABSTRACT 
 Points to the fact that e-Books, databases 
and e-Journals have become an integral part 
of any modern library 
 examines effective ways of selecting, 
acquiring and use of the various e-resources 
 further examines issues in the licensing and 
management of the e-resources in order to 
achieve the desired objectives.
Introduction. 
 The Library landscape has indeed been altered 
and reshaped by the information and 
communication technology (ICT) across the 
globe. 
 Great and vibrant libraries are now measured by 
the level of automation, Internet connectivity, and 
accessibility to other libraries on real time basis, 
subscription to reputable online databases as well 
as quality of collections.
Introduction Contd. 
 Information and communication technology (ICT) 
has, thus become a defining parameter in 
delineating libraries 
 The ones that are fully ICT driven are regarded as 
modern while those manually-driven are termed 
traditional 
 To disregard leveraging with this benchmark is to 
accept extinction and irrelevance
Introduction Contd. 
 e-resources have therefore become a part of 
the modern library. 
 Librarians are enthusiastic to incorporate 
these resources into the library collection 
 These resources have brought new 
challenges & opportunities 
 selection, acquisition, licensing and 
management issues have become more than 
necessary.
What is e-resource? 
 An electronic resource is defined as a 
resource which require computer access or 
any electronic product that delivers a 
collection of data, be it text referring to full 
text bases, electronic journals, image 
collections, other multimedia products and 
numerical, graphical or time based, as a 
commercially available title that has been 
published with an aim to being marketed
Types of E-Resources 
The e-resources are basically divided in two 
major types are: 
1. Online e-resources, which may include: 
E-journal (Full text & bibliographic) 
E-books 
Online databases 
Web sites
Types of E-Resources Contd. 
The other electronic resources may 
include: 
CD ROM 
Diskettes 
Other portable computer databases.
eBook Acquisition Models 
 Subscription Model/ Option. Under the 
subscription model, libraries pay annually to 
maintain their access to the eBooks and 
therefore do not own the books. 
 Acquisition/ Perpetual Model/ Option. Under 
the acquisition model, libraries make an 
outright purchase of the eBooks/ own the 
books. 
 Pay per View Model 
 Patron-driven selection
Acquisition/ Perpetual Access 
Model 
 price for this model typically higher than print 
 Even single-user access almost always costs 
significantly more than the print list price 
 Preset e-book packages, comprise all of a 
publisher’s current content in a given subject 
area 
 Some aggregators charge libraries for 
platform maintenance fee annually for 
ongoing hosting of the e-books purchased
Benefits of Pay-Per-View Model 
 Some aggregators and publishers offer content on a 
pay-per-view or short-term rental basis especially 
eBooks 
 a cost-effective way to provide access to e-book 
content for ongoing fees 
 pays only for content used 
 Usually, short-term loan fees is a small percentage 
of the total cost of the book
Types of Databases 
There are two types of databases. These are: 
Subject Specific Databases: Subject specific 
databases focuses on one subject or discipline; 
eg Political Science Complete, Econlit with full 
text, etc. 
Multi-Disciplinary Databases: Multi-disciplinary 
databases as the name implies 
focuses on more than one subject, eg, 
Academic Search Complete, Business Source 
Complete, etc.
What is an e-Journal and how is it 
different from a database? 
Electronic journal is a journal published 
in electronic format. 
It is different from a database which is 
an aggregation of electronic journals 
under a given subject and or subjects.
Website 
 A group of World Wide Web pages usually 
containing hyperlinks to each other and 
made available online by an individual, 
company, educational institution, 
government, or organization
E-Resource Vendors/ Aggregators 
 EBSCOhost (Sales EBSCOhost databases 
and eBooks) 
 ProQuest (Sales ProQuest Databases and 
eBrary 
 Lexis Nexis (Law Publications 
 Hein Online (for Law Publications
Concerns in the acquisition of 
e-resources 
 The cost 
 Coverage 
 Proprietary rights. 
 License issues 
 Agreements 
 Technical Support 
 Training
Ways of Acquiring E-Resources 
Libraries acquire e-materials variously 
Subscription (eBooks, Databases and 
e-Journals) 
Pay-per-view (eBooks) 
Patron-driven/ selection (eBooks)
Selection Criteria 
 Database brief to know scope and coverage 
 Journal coverage list to ensure availability of 
relevant journals 
 Trial request to assess platform & relevance 
 Access by password and IP authentication 
 Agreement to support multi-user license 
 Cost of subscription 
 Technical Support .
Licensing Issues 
 License is a major concern for libraries for all 
electronic resource acquisitions 
 Establish a standard agreement that 
describes the rights of libraries and their 
authorized users in a plain and explicit 
language 
The terms should reflect realistic 
expectations concerning the ability to 
monitor use and discover abuse
Licensing Issues Contd. 
 In the acquisition of electronic books and journals, the 
librarian is usually under pressure to sign lopsided licence 
agreements. 
 Those agreements assume that aggregators have obtained 
necessary permission and authorization from copyright 
holders. 
 When subscribing to databases, eBooks and or e-journals 
libraries must negotiate and execute a 
license agreement with each publisher before access 
is granted
INDEMNIFICATION CLAUSE 
 Whether you are licensing e-books from a 
publisher or an aggregator, it is important for 
the licensor to indemnify the library against 
third-party claims of infringement of copyright 
or any other rights arising out of the library’s 
use of the e-book 
 A library cannot indemnify a licensor 
against misuse (or abuse) by the 
library’s authorized users
INDEMNIFICATION CLAUSE Contd. 
 A library needs to be careful not to accept an 
indemnification clause that requires the library to 
indemnify the licensor against use by their patrons 
 However, a library can agree elsewhere in the 
license to take all reasonable measures to protect 
the licensed materials from misuse and to inform its 
users about the rights and restrictions they have in 
using the licensed materials 
 A library will, however, find it difficult to offer any kind 
of guarantee that its users will not abuse their rights 
and should not accept responsibility beyond due diligence.
Measuring returns on e-resources. 
Tenopir & King (2000, 2007) suggested that value 
on electronic collections can be measured through: 
 Usage logs and vendors reports 
 Surveys to measure purpose and value of use. 
 Perceived value through surveys or interviews 
.
Measuring returns on e-resources 
Contd. 
 Brown (2014) posited that library investment have 
tremendous impact on student retention, teaching and 
institution’s rankings as well as accreditation. 
 The bottom line of this proposition is that libraries should 
constantly articulate their concrete contributions to the 
overall mission and objectives of the parent institution to 
justify or warrant continued investment on e-resources.
Conclusion 
 The pervasiveness and inevitability of the application of 
e-resources to library collection is incontrovertible. It has 
become a global standard and best practice. 
 The impact of this current trend on the demands and 
expectation of the savvy and more sophisticated library 
clientele/ patron has been phenomenal 
 Modern libraries must integrate e-resources to expand its 
collection so as to expand the frontiers of its services.
Conclusion Contd. 
 libraries must formulate an acquisition policy that 
would make e-resources an integral part of the 
library collection. 
 It must also subject the acquisition to stringent 
selection criteria with a view to ensuring relevance 
and need. 
 Above all, the acquired e-resources must be 
evaluated from time to time through usage statistics 
 Library Staff should be trained and retrained to cope 
with the e-resource management skill.
ANY QUESTION?