Techniques in Electronic Resource Management (TERMS)

Two decades after the advent of electronic journals and databases, librarians are still grappling with ways to best manage these resources in conjunction with their print resources. In addition, economic pressures at many institutions of Higher Education are resulting in librarians having to justify their spending on collections and resource management. Furthermore, ebooks are becoming yet another stream of purchasing and management with the added complexity of patron driven acquisitions. All of these issues result in the need to codify the management of electronic resource management more than ever.

Techniques in Electronic Resource Management (TERMS) is a project to encourage open peer commentary and crowd sourcing of areas of best practice for each of the stages of the E-resources lifecycle.

This poster will describe the 6 stages that have been posted on the TERMS blog (http://6terms.tumblr.com/).

1. Investigating New Content for purchase/addition

2. Acquire New Content

3. Implement

4. Evaluation and Ongoing Access

5. Annual Review

6. Cancellation and Replacement Review

The project aims to become a reference point for those who are new to e-resource management and for those who may want to implement its recommendations of best practice.

Since the launch of TERMS in mid September 2011 we have had some excellent feedback with over 100 followers on Twitter (http://twitter.com/#!/6terms), over 140 members in our FaceBook group (Group: TERMS) members and 11 direct followers of the blog.

This poster aims to encourage further review and comment. Do LIBER delegates agree with what we have found? Does what we have said relate to e-books? Would you be willing to share your local workflows on E-resources management? What are your experiences? Tell us about your areas of best practice and help us refine TERMS for others to use.