Managing Electronic Collections
from the Fall 2003 FDLC
This presentation consisted of three parts: Valerie Glenn from UNT talked about managing the library's web pages; Arlene Weible, also from UNT, discussed access to electronic documents through the library catalog; and Chris Brown, from the University of Denver, described a program he has developed to generate detailed statistics of the use of electronic documents through the catalog.
UNT has made the decision to link to individual electronic documents via their catalog and to devote their subject web pages to broader resources. They think this is a useful distinction to make and helps cut down on duplication of effort. Valerie gave some good tips for link checking and updating web pages, the two major aspects of web page maintenance. In determining whether to continue to update a page or to remove it, you should consider 1) if someone else is providing similar information that might be duplicating your work; 2) if usage of your page is not high (she explained how UNT determines usage); 3) if your user needs have changed; and 4) if meny others have linked to your page (she showed us how to check on this using Google advanced search--very cool!).
Arlene went over the points that need to be considered when dealing with electronic documents in the library's catalog. First you have to decide if your catalog's mission is only to inventory the library's physical collection or if you want to expand that mission to providing access to remote resources. Then you have to decide how to treat remote vs. "owned" resources, and what level of accuracy will be acceptable for these links. She returned to this last point several times, stressing that each library needs to weigh the amount of time spent on checking, verifying and correcting links against the needs of their users and the resources they have available for this and other important tasks. She gave some pointers on finding remote resources for inclusion in the catalog, checking links, dealing with multiple formats, and assessing usage (she feels this last must be done in order to justify the large amount of time that managing an "electronic collection" requires). One of the more provocative points she brought up was the relative pros and cons of using GPO's PURLs vs. regular agency URLs. She thinks that libraries need to decide which to use, or whether to use both, based upon their own user needs and system peculiarities.
I had to miss Chris' section of this presentation in order not to be late for my flight home. But he sent me a copy of his PowerPoint file, which I've put on the St. Mary's server if you want to see it. He also is going to be developing a web page dealing with his program, which uses Cold Fusion to monitor, at a specific SuDoc level, usage of the electronic documents in the University of Denver's catalog.
