Developing Partnerships to Create Electronic Reserves at the University of Kansas Libraries

Abstract

Today, it is advantageous for academic libraries to look outside their own organizations to other potential campus and commercial partners when considering new services. This case study describes the planning and implementation of electronic reserves at the University of Kansas Libraries, including the integration of two commercial partners, XanEdu (provider of electronic course packs) and Blackboard (a courseware management package). Docutek was chosen as the electronic reserves software package because it offers copyright management and faxing capabilities (when hosted locally). There is also a discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of centralization versus decentralization of different aspects of electronic reserves when multiple library locations are involved.

Key Words:

• Electronic reserves
• Docutek
• XanEdu
• Blackboard
• academic libraries
• library vendors