Electronic Resource Management Systems

• Collins, Maria (2006). ERM systems: Background, selection and implementation, Managing the transition from print to electronic journals and resources.

This chapter from the ERM tome, Managing the Transition from Print to Electronic Journals and Resources puts in to perspective the challenges of selecting, implementing and managing an Electronic Resource Management System. Collins outlines the current products on the market, some of which we covered in the group discussion on the Against the Grain journal articles. I noticed that many of the products play on the name of the Greek God Hermes, which I believe is fitting due to the meaning of Hermes as a messenger or guide. It is not clear if they are able to capitalize on the play on words, or if it would be better to differentiate their products from others on the market. One interesting point is to see the products that no longer exist, or those with planned obsolescence and some of the reasons for this. For instance, Collins reports that the parent company of Ex Libris purchased Endeavor, and that they will no longer selling this product as of 2008.

Collins' chapter from 2006 mentions a figure of 50% of most libraries' collections being electronic. With recent budget cuts and journal subscriptions, I wonder what the figure for 2010 would be? I believe it would be higher than the 50% figure offered in today's article. There are now E-Books to contend with, as well as an increasing amount of online-only journals.

Collins considers the most difficult part of the process of implementing an ERM system as selecting the system. This may be true for the administrative team, who would be in charge of the decision-making process. After planning the in-class exercise for this week, I believe the hardest part for the librarians responsible for the ERM would be implementing the system through data entry and changing over the system. This process requires hours of manual data entry, or the ability to write scripts to accurately map the information to the correct fields. One situation requires time and mind-numbing effort for the librarian or student workers, the other a higher level of software and programming knowledge. Since many of the pieces of information may be spread out over different files, formats or documents, this process is anything but easy, even when using a script.

I believe Collins' article was a very good introduction to this week's topic and I would recommend parts of it to anyone needing a primer on the subject of ERMs.