Abstract
Electronic resource management (ERM) is the system and technique used by library professionals to track the selection, acquisition, access, maintenance, usage, evaluation of a library's electronic resources. The innovation of ERM conducted in the University Library, University of Calcutta has been discussed. It provides innovative insights into how technology transfer has operated in the University Library for digitising the documents. E-resources are a vital reference source for different types of library users. The main focus is on how ERM is done through the digitisation of resources in the digital library of the University of Calcutta. Digital libraries have been set up in all the campuses by the University Library System so that users can download e-resources from any campus. The University Library maintains an online catalogue for information search and retrieval. Theses have been digitised, and full texts are available. Through the innovation of the Digital Library System of the University, it would enhance the University's education and research value.
TopIntroduction
Electronic Resource Management(ERM) is the system and techniques used by library professionals to monitor the selection, acquisition, access, maintenance, licensing, usage and evaluations, of a library's electronic information resources. These resources include electronic journals, electronic books, streaming media, databases, CD-ROMs, and computer software.
Due to the rapid growth of e-resources in libraries, the maintenance of these resources has become more complex. So the libraries have to develop strategies to manage and deliver e-resources conveniently to the users keeping in mind the ‘five laws’ of Dr S.R. Ranganathan. Therefore, Electronic Resource Management (ERM) has become a challenge among library professionals. To meet these challenges, library professionals and vendors of e-resources decided to develop electronic resource management systems (ERMS) for the management of e-resources in a more systematic way. Breeding (2004) defined two facets of managing electronic resources: firstly, the details of delivery of the content to library users and secondly, staff management related to acquisition, payment and licensing. The adoption of ERM leads to systematic management and thus optimum access to library resources.
ERM calls for the formulation of library policies for collection development of e-resources that would ensure uniformity in approach, the relevance of e-resources requirements and assessing economic feasibilities. There are different ERM software available, both commercial and open source. Some of these ERMS are Ex Libris’s Verde ERM, Interface’s Innovative ERM, MIT’s VERA, OCLC’s Web-Share License Manager, SemperTool’s SMDB, TDNet ERM Solutions, University of Notre Dame’s CORAL, and others.
In the Indian scenario, from amongst the Management schools/institutes, Indian Institute of Management like Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Ahmedabad is using the Integrated Library Management Software “KOHA” for automation. Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Bangalore uses “VTLS-Virtua” for library management. The library system is run by the library automation software “Libsys” in Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Calcutta. Xavier Labour Relation Institute (XLRI), Jamshedpur uses library automation software “Alice for windows” of Softlink Asia. The library has introduced the integrated library management software ‘Libsys’ in Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Lucknow. “VTLSVirtue” has been implemented in Indian School of Business (ISB), Hyderabad. Management Development Institute (MDI), Gurgaon uses fully automated “Libsys” software. Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Library, Delhi and IIT Kharagpur use LIBSYS as Library Automation software. IIT Madras uses Library Automation software VTLS. The Library resource management software used by the University of Calcutta is SOUL developed by INFLIBNET.
The objective of this chapter is to study the innovation of Electronic Resource Management conducted in the University Library, University of Calcutta. It provides innovative insights into how technology transfer has operated in the University Library. The project of Electronic Resource Management has been supervised by the University Librarian and other library personnel.
Key Terms in this Chapter
D-Space: An open source repository software package typically used for creating open access repositories for scholarly and/or published digital content.
E-books: They are electronic books (i.e., a book publication made available in digital form), that consist of text, images, or both. E-books are readable on computers or other electronic devices, like smartphones, kindles or laptops.
Electronic Resources: They are materials in digital format that are accessible electronically. They are also known as e-resources. Examples of e-resources include electronic journals (e-journal), electronic books (e-books), online databases in varied digital formats, Adobe Acrobat documents (.PDFs), and webpages (.htm, .html, .asp, etc.).
Online Catalogue: It is an electronic bibliographic database that describes the books, videotapes, periodicals and other documents possessed by a particular library.
Digital Library: A collection of documents in organized electronic form which is available on the Internet or on CD-ROM disks. A user may be able to electronically access documents including journal articles, books, papers, images, sound files, and videos from a library.
Institutional Repository (IR): IR is an archive for collecting, preserving, and disseminating digital copies of the intellectual output of an institution.
PDF (Portable Document Format): It is a file format that captures all the elements of a printed document as an electronic image that we can view, navigate, print, or forward to someone else. PDF files are created using Adobe Acrobat or Acrobat Capture, among other programmes.
OCR (Optical Character Recognition): OCR is the mechanical or electronic conversion of images of typed, handwritten or printed text into machine-encoded text, whether from a scanned document or a photo of a document.
E-Journals: They are also known as electronic journals and electronic serials, are scholarly journals or intellectual magazines that can be accessed via electronic transmission.