Presenters: Alexis Linoski, Sofia Slutskaya Presented at the Georgia Libraries Conference in Columbus, GA on 10/05/2018. In this session, two GA Tech librarians discuss the pros, pitfalls, challenges, and learning opportunities presented by a largely electronic collection.

1. CHALLENGES &
OPPORTUNITIES OF AN E-
ONLY COLLECTION
Presented by:
Alexis Linoski & Sofia Slutskaya
Georgia Institute ofTechnology

2. About GATech
■ 26,369 students
■ 6,258 faculty
■ Offers Bachelor’s, Master’s, and PhD degrees
■ Majority in Engineering programs
■ Distance programs offered

7. Challenges of e-collections
■ Variety of e-resource materials
■ The many ways to build the collection
■ Keeping everything up-to-date
■ Educating staff, faculty, and students

8. Oh, the variety!
■ Ebooks
■ Streaming media
– Like eBooks, variety of vendors and options
■ Data sets
– More vendors making these available
■ ejournals
– New formats becoming available, such as Flipster
■ Digital collections (think primary sources)

9. Options, options, and more options
■ DDA/PDA/ATO
– Patron chooses
– Pay at time of purchase
■ EBS/UBA
– Usage determines purchases
– Pay upfront – selections made at the end of the year
■ Packages/collections
– Usually by subject
– Subscription vs purchase
■ Frontfiles/Backfiles/Archives
– Can be by subject
– May be purchased based on turn-away stats

10. Additional considerations
■ Streaming media
– PDA/Subscription/faculty driven
– Usually licensing done for one year – access to titles expires after
that year, unless DDA, when it will be licensed/paid for again
■ Data sets
– Usually a separate, though simpler, license required, even if they
are provided at no charge
– Can be provided in a flat file, so either the researcher or the
library has to have the means to make the data accessible
– Cost varies widely, depending on the resource
■ Licensing

11. Acquiring the e-resources
■ Determine where to allocate money for on-demand or usage based plans and then
determine how much
– Create and maintain corresponding fund codes
■ Processes to determine which individual titles to purchase from publishers, such as
reference works, handbooks, etc.
■ Process for purchasing individual titles
■ Workflows need to be tailored not only for the resource, but for how the resource is
acquired
– Process for adding ATO/DDA/EBS titles to holdings
– Process for adding individually licensed streaming media titles to holdings that
takes into account the “expiration” date

12. Explaining it to the users
■ LibGuides
■ Differences in types of ebooks
– DRM-free vs non DRM-free
– 1,3, & multi-user titles
– Yes, some are checked-out
■ Teaching faculty so that they understand how to use the various resources in their
courses - mainly ebooks and streaming media
– Course reserves
■ Teaching staff to troubleshoot
– Not only the nuances of using each resource but also understanding how remote
access works, i.e. OpenAthens

13. Maintaining the resources:Workflows in
Paradise
Buy an e-book
Find a record in a community zone and activate it
DONE !!!

14. Maintaining the resources: quality of
metadata
■ Adding new titles to subscribed front files
– Using Community Zone/vendor provided records vs creating local collections and
uploading MARC records
– Is quality of metadata important ?Why?

15. Maintaining the resources: level of
access

16. Maintaining the resources: challenges
■ Workflow-related decision making
– Fast or quality
■ Staff qualifications and comfort with new workflows
■ Leadership recognition that e-only library requires just as much if not more work to
maintain

17. Creating the experience

18. Opportunities
■ Ability to make available a large number of titles without purchasing them, thus
ensuring users have access to a variety of titles
– Purchases seamless to the user
■ Meet the needs of distance students
■ Collaborate with faculty
– Support the Georgia AffordableTextbook initiative
– Support the affordable course initiative
– Reduce turnaround time for new materials (vs print or DVD)

19. References
■ Richter, F. 2016, September 5E-Books Are No Match for Printed Books (Yet) [Digital image]. Retrieved September 27, 2018,
from https://www.statista.com/chart/5714/book-reading-in-the-united-states/.
■ Pew Research Center. (n.d.). Book consumption in the United States from 2011 to 2018, by format. In Statista -The Statistics
Portal. Retrieved September 27, 2018, from https://www.statista.com/statistics/222754/book-format-used-by-readers-in-
the-us/.
■ Richter, F. 2016, October 21eBook PricingAround theWorld [Digital image]. Retrieved September 27, 2018, from
https://www.statista.com/chart/6361/ebook-pricing/.
■ Cook, M., 2018.Virtual Serendipity: Preserving Embodied Browsing Activity in the 21stCentury Research Library. The
Journal of Academic Librarianship, 44(1), pp.145-149.
■ Turner, A.K., 2016. Establishing batch processes for e-books. TechnicalServicesQuarterly, 33(2), pp.121-130.

20. Questions?
■ Alexis Linoski | Licensed Content Coordinator | GATech
– alexis.linoski@library.gatech.edu
■ Sofia Slutskaya | Metadata Strategist | GATech
– sofia.slutskaya@library.gatech.edu