From: JL Morin <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Wed, 8 Apr 2020 23:00:56 +0300

Thanks, Jim.

It would be interesting to hear what catalogs you (and others) like to look
at.

Best regards,

Joss

On Tue, Apr 7, 2020 at 2:56 AM LIBLICENSE <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> 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
>
>