2010 ALA Annual ERM Interest Group ALCTS/LITA Program Announcement

["Chan Li" <Chan.Li@ucop.edu>]

Dear Colleagues:

You are cordially invited to the Electronic Resources Management 
Interest Group ALCTS/LITA meeting at ALA 2010 Annual Conference 
in Washington, DC. We are also calling for volunteers to serve as 
Co- Chair for 2010/2011. Please feel free to contact us if you 
are interested or if you have any questions.

Date: Friday, June 25th, 2010
Time:  4:00pm---5:15pm (Our meeting time changed this year)
Location: Hilton Washington-Fairchild Room

Program: Challenges of Implementing eBooks for Publishers, 
Libraries and End-Users

1. Speaker: Aaron Wood, Director of Software Product 
Management, Alexander Street Press. Former Metadata Librarian 
and Assistant Head of Technical Services at the University of 
Calgary.

Summary:

To provide as much immediate online access as possible, and to 
overcome increasing constraints in physical space, libraries have 
dramatically increased their acquisition of ebooks and ebook 
packages. However, the sheer number of titles involved has made 
providing digital access to and discovery of ebooks through 
traditional methods extremely challenging. At the same time, 
cataloging and technical services departments are increasingly 
constrained by shrinking budgets and fewer staff.

This session will review the approach taken by the University of 
Calgary to manage ebook discovery and access. The results of a 
broad survey of discovery and access management techniques in 
academic libraries across Canada and the United States will also 
be reported. The results of this survey will be discussed in 
terms of how the discovery and access challenges of today can be 
met and how the future landscape may be formed to better meet 
users' needs.

Underlying all discussion is the growing need for libraries to 
work with vendors to align library discovery and access systems 
with external knowledge bases and services in order to maximize 
ebook, and other electronic resource, use with a minimum of 
effort. By thinking about and implementing multiple methods of 
discovery and access, including those outside of traditional 
catalog search, libraries can better position themselves to meet 
the current and future needs of library users

Bio of Aaron Wood:

Formerly, Aaron Wood was a cataloging specialist and web 
applications designer for Canadian federal government agencies. 
Until very recently, he was Metadata Librarian and Assistant Head 
of Technical Services at the University of Calgary, a position 
which allowed me to have my hands in almost every aspect of 
technical and information technology services, from EDI setup and 
catalog management to unified discovery platforms and OAI 
metadata harvesting.  And now he has taken up a position with 
Alexander Street Press as Director of Software Product 
Management, a position which will see him championing the user 
perspective for discovery projects (openURL, federated search, 
library discovery services, Google, product-to-product linking 
between vendor systems) and overall search functionality and 
leading developments in these areas.

2. Speaker: Sue Polanka, Head of Reference and Instruction, 
Wright State University Libraries

Summary

eBooks have come to the marketplace in full swing and brought 
with them many challenges for publishers, libraries and end 
users.  During this session, several of these challenges will be 
discussed and debated including, eBook formats, access to and use 
of eBook content, eBook readers, digital textbooks, and future 
directions for eBooks.

Bio of Sue Polanka

Sue Polanka is the moderator of No Shelf Required, a blog about 
the issues surrounding e-books for librarians and publishers. 
NSR received 1st place, academic blog category in the Salem Press 
Library Blog Awards, 2010.  Sue has been a reference and 
instruction librarian for 20 years at public, state, and academic 
libraries in Ohio and Texas and is currently the Head of 
Reference and Instruction at the Wright State University 
Libraries in Dayton, Ohio.  She has served on Booklist's 
Reference Books Bulletin Advisory Board for 10 years, serving as 
Chair from 2007- 2010 and writes a column for RBB, Off The Shelf, 
discussing electronic reference issues. Her first book, No Shelf 
Required: E-books in Libraries, will be published in summer 
2010.


Ronna A Davis
Ronna Archbold Davis, M.Ed.  Sales Manager - North America
Co-Chair Electronic Resources Management Interest Group
ronna@tdnet.teldan.com

and

Chan Li, Data Analyst, California Digital Library
Co-Chair Electronic Resources Management Interest Group
Chan.Li@ucop.edu