Managing electronic resources presents many challenges, the primary being their complex and frequently changing nature. Electronic subscriptions to journals and e-books for purchase have existed for less than twenty years. Managing a few subscriptions is a much different matter from monitoring the titles in large aggregator databases from content providers such as EBSCO, Gale, and ProQuest. Librarians are used to tools developed in the print world, such as integrated library systems (ILSs). The print world had its challenges, such as individually cataloged or analyzed serials, but ILSs were built to manage such items, and these processes have been well understood for decades. ILSs are very good with the progress of a physical item through physical space, tracking where that physical book is at any given time. But the very physicality of the book makes its management simpler: the book is on order, then it is in processing, then on the bookshelves, checked out, returned, repaired, and finally discarded. Electronic resources have no such simple life cycle. Their workflow includes multiple iterative and repeated steps and is difficult to track in an ILS without some extension of functionality for electronic resources. An additional complication is the need to communicate this complex, frequently changing information to a wide variety of stakeholders, including vendors, publishers, library staff, and patrons.

Additionally, the information required to manage electronic resources is complex and rich, ranging from individual titles to journal holdings to subscription and admin information, some of which is common to many libraries and some of which is specific to only one. The information may be spread across a variety of software systems such as the ILS, the link resolver, the ERMS, the budgeting system, and the A–Z list. These software systems may share information or not and may have overlapping information or contain related information. All of these systems need to be managed and updated and may get information about resources from a variety of sources, which include proprietary vendor updates. For a complete literature review of the stakeholders and current situation of electronic resources, see the recent issue of Library Technology Reports written by Jill Emery and Graham Stone (vol. 49, no. 2).

“Techniques for Electronic Resource Management” by Jill Emery and Graham Stone

www.alatechsource.org/taxonomy/term/106/techniques-for-electronic-resource-management

The foundation for the development of electronic resource management was the DLF ERMI report. The Digital Library Foundation (DLF) is a program of the Council on Library and Information Resources and consists of a network of libraries and stakeholders who are invested in all aspects of digital libraries, including electronic journals, digitization, digital library structures, standards, preservation and use, and resources for research, teaching, and learning. In 2001, a study by Tim Jewell found that many libraries were creating local systems to manage electronic resources.¹ The DLF organized the Electronic Resource Management Initiative (ERMI) to expand on the work of these libraries and encourage software development by vendors through standards, glossary, and needs documentation development.

At an American Library Association meeting in 2001, a project to discuss problems of resources management was organized and discussion began on the need for a report that ultimately became the DLF ERMI report.² This meeting also included the initial presentation of the National Information Standards Organization (NISO) standard proposal. A NISO and DLF workshop in May 2002 created the steering group to develop the ERMI and also asked librarians, library software vendors, and representatives from interested organizations for their input. This group put together a report, available on the web both as a draft and as a final version, which became known as the DLF ERMI report.³

DLF ERMI Report

http://old.diglib.org/pubs/dlf102

Although ERM systems will be discussed frequently throughout this report, it may be helpful to start with a brief definition. In 2005, Maria Collins defined the ERMS as a system that “provides a technical services backbone for controlling the entire life cycle of an electronic resource” and stated that the development of commercial systems was due to the DLF ERMI, “which has been instrumental in outlining the requirements for an ERM system. The DLF ERMI report has provided commercial vendors with a blueprint for development by noting functional specifications and best practices for ERM systems.”¹⁸ The DLF ERMI project is certainly the definitive resource on what an ERMS is and what it contains. Jill Emery described the ERMS through functionality: “The basic elements of these management tools help a library capture not only the payment and invoice information but also essential metadata elements in regards to the licensing of products.”¹⁹

ERMSs have been developed by many of the major library software vendors in the past several years. Vendor-created ERM software is specifically designed to manage one or more elements of electronic resources workflow. ERMSs come in two major categories. One is built to integrate into the ILS. Not surprisingly, the companies that went in this direction are known for their strong, well-developed ILSs, such as Millennium’s Innovative Interfaces. The other approach to the ERMS is to integrate it with specific electronic resource management functionality instead of with management of all resources. An example of this method is integrating an ERMS with a link resolver and A–Z list and sometimes with resource budgeting and COUNTER statistics as well. This is the direction taken by Serials Solutions, OCLC, and EBSCO. Development of this software has been going on for the last five to ten years in most cases, but the available functionality and standards have changed drastically during that time. Ex Libris also deserves a brief mention, as its approach began with stand-alone ERM software (Verde) to complement its two ILSs, Aleph and Voyager, but it then redeveloped Verde along with the SFX link resolver and federated search tool MetaLib to produce a new product called Alma.

Because these systems are designed from the strengths of the vendor’s original software and because electronic resources are so complex to manage and have so many different parts, many of these software solutions still do not fulfill every need. It is common for libraries to use one of these ERMSs but still maintain some supplemental systems or work-arounds to fill all required functionality. A good example would be maintaining an ERMS of budget data but also keeping a spreadsheet of the financial data that senior management would like to see. The goal of all systems is for these work-arounds to be unnecessary, but the library, the library workflow and requirements, and the software implemented will determine whether this is possible.

Some of the earliest ERMSs were developed in-house by individual libraries and this remains a good option for many libraries. Much of the initial work analyzed by the standards committees and in the DLF ERMI report came from early systems developed by individual libraries, such as MIT’s VERA system and ERLIC at Penn State, before ERM software was commercially available or developed.²⁰ Twenty other libraries have developed individual systems that turned into widely implemented open-source software ERMSs, such as the CORAL system developed by the University of Notre Dame, the CUFTS system from the Simon Fraser University Library, or the ERMes system from the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse.

CORAL

http://erm.library.nd.edu

CUFTS

http://researcher.sfu.ca/cufts

ERMes

http://murphylibrary.uwlax.edu/erm

One thing of note after examining these different systems is that while most of them contain some information about all the aspects of electronic resources management, very few do everything, just as with commercial software. When deciding if a library should develop an in-house system, it is important to consider the need to maintain the knowledge base and avoid duplicating information. It is easy to create a new system only to realize that a new data silo now needs to be maintained, duplicating effort. A library debating creating its own ERMS should carefully consider issues such as whether the library has the ability to support and develop the ERMS going forward and whether the gain in customizability outweighs the disadvantage of doing all the support.

For the purposes of this report, I am defining an electronic management resource system (or software), or ERMS, as any software that helps to manage electronic resources. I find it useful to think more broadly about these resources because doing so allows discussion of all the important pieces for resource management, even if they are not traditional vendor stand-alone ERMSs. Defining ERMS this loosely means that it can consist entirely of home-created databases and spreadsheets, can incorporate pieces of different software such as the ILS, a link resolver, or ILL system, or can be a stand-alone vendor-created system. The important thing is that the library possesses the software systems necessary to manage the knowledge bases of data, the budget and acquisitions process, the administration and contact information, and license information and to compile reports on usage and budget.

My experience implementing an ERMS and my research on product options have pointed me towards an approach that emphasizes the need to rethink workflow within the technical services department when software like an ERMS is introduced. If workflow has not been adjusted significantly since the shift to electronic resources, adding an ERMS will not solve the library’s ERM problems. Therefore, the concept for this report evolved to incorporate my own attempt to learn how to do a workflow redesign and the slow process of figuring out questions to ask during the redesign. Starting without a guide is confusing and requires a great deal of research. This report is an attempt to lay out not only what ERMSs are available, but when an ERMS might be a helpful tool for the library, what questions to ask to see if one would be useful, what criteria to use in selection, and how to determine where in the workflow new tools would be most helpful. I owe a significant debt of gratitude to the librarians who granted me interviews:

• Ian Walls, web services librarian, University of Massachusetts
• Karen Yacobucci, content management librarian, NYU Health Sciences
• Marie Kennedy, serials and electronic resources librarian, Loyola Marymount University
• Alexis Ackel, electronic resources librarian, UNT Health Science Center
• Adam Traub, electronic resources librarian, Rochester Institute of Technology
• Joanne Blais, reference, Hanover Public Library
• Marysue Schaffer, associate director for collection management, Washington University School of Medicine
• Amber Hunt, Marlboro College
• Stephen Kline, digital services librarian, CUNY Graduate Center
• John Maier, head of technical services, Pratt Institute of Art
• Judy Maynes and Cecilia Tittemore, Dartmouth College

We discussed not just ERM systems but also technical services workflow and process. Without their help, this report could never have been written. I would also like to thank Alan Krissoff, Stephen Maher, Jordan Wilcox, and Petya Mattys for their extensive help and expertise.

All interviews were conducted between October 2012 and January 2013 using the following questions:

• 1. What ERM system do you use?
• 2. What systems is your ERM integrated with? ILS, link resolver, ILL?
• 3. What is your electronic resources workflow process? Is the workflow the same for ejournals and ereports? Different processes or departments?
• 4. Has your library done any workflow analysis and redistribution to handle electronic resources?
• 5. What is your general opinion of your ERMS?^*
• 6. ERMS strengths?^*
• 7. ERMS weaknesses?^*
• 8. Have you had to create any work-arounds to compensate for software functionality gaps?^*
• 9. Do you have a process of link checking, statistics gathering or analysis?
• 10. What are your library’s future software plans for ERMS?