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 > >