From: "Jim O'Donnell" <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2020 16:20:01 -0700

Over the past few weeks, academic libraries have been awash in generous
offers of temporary free access to electronic information resources that
otherwise come with a sturdy price.  The complications are real:  Can we
hear on the list from anyone who has or knows of good models for handling
this shower of benevolence.

The complications are real.  First, there is little rhyme or reason or
pattern to what is being offered.  Some single publishers are offering a
short extract of their publications list, others make their entire
collections available, still others are aggregators with thousands and
thousands of titles.  Some offers are made to all; some are to specific
institutions or specific consortia; others are to end-users only.  Some are
for longer and others for shorter periods of time.  Second, it is difficult
to know, without investing staff time, just what is contained in any given
announced resource.  Third, promoting these resources usefully to faculty
and students would require some curation time at least to determine who
might be interested in what and to display the possibilities intelligibly
(with their end dates, which may change and will need to be updated).
Fourth, there are numerous (and different) lists and places for
announcements of such offerings.  Fifth, some of the purpose of making this
material freely available may come from vendors that are hoping to entice
users to some products they've not seen before and send those users back to
their librarians insisting -- when the free period is over -- that we
absolutely must subscribe to some of them -- at a moment when prospects of
budget flexibility are evaporating and cancelations are looming.

So my question is:  how do we balance the impulse to make known with the
real costs of doing so?  At ASU, we have a "libguide" page listing
resources we think possibly relevant to our users in alphabetical order:  a
dog's breakfast of a list.  Our liaison librarians will call items they
think highly relevant to faculty/discipline attention.  Is there a better
way to handle this?

With thanks for any enlightenment,
Jim O'Donnell
ASU