Abstract
The Smithsonian Institution Libraries (SIL) use a locally developed and maintained database for managing electronic resources. Journal and database titles, vendors, interlibrary loan, usage, and SIL persistent URLs are collected and tracked for free and subscribed content in one central access tool. This session discussed the current workflows along with the pros and cons of such an arrangement, and some possible future directions for SIL.
This session was presented by Polly Khater, Serials Cataloger for Smithsonian Institution Libraries (SIL). Khater began her presentation by communicating her most important point—what she called a “fire alarm” point: institutions and cultures must “choose their evils” when it comes to developing and maintaining systems. Or, rather, good systems are good only when they satisfy needs for those institutions and cultures.
When considering systems in general, one must start with considering the institution and culture that the system must serve. The goals of the institution must be kept in mind, as well as current workflows and staffing. Ideally, the system will contribute to the institution by meeting the need for which it was developed, enabling the institution to advance its mission.
OVERVIEW OF SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION LIBRARIES
An overview of SIL best begins with the mission statement:
As the largest and most diverse museum library in the world, SIL leads the Smithsonian in taking advantage of the opportunities of the digital society. SIL provides authoritative information and creates innovative services and programs for Smithsonian Institution researchers, scholars and curators, as well as the general public, to further their quest for knowledge. Through paper preservation and digital technologies, SIL ensures broad and enduring access to the Libraries' collections for all users.Footnote 1
SIL is composed of the twenty libraries in museums and research centers in Washington, DC; Maryland; New York City; and the Republic of Panama. SIL serves a variety of populations, including Smithsonian scientists, curators, historians, visiting fellows, graduate students, scholars, interns, students in affiliated academic programs (such as the Corcoran School of Art and the Parson's School of Design in New York City), educators, exhibition staff, management, docents, and volunteers. Researchers worldwide and the general public are also served by SIL.
These diverse populations are able to take advantage of SIL's extensive print collections through the catalog and open stacks. Additionally, SIL has a scan and deliver program to better serve researchers' needs for the print collection. Print interlibrary loan logged 6,149 borrows and 5,621 loans in the 2008 fiscal year. The same year they had 3,754 exchange and gift partners. Their microform collection consists of 190,368 items. SIL websites and electronic resources show impressive use; of the 3,969,719 Web user sessions in the 2008 fiscal year, 80 percent of the users were identified as non-Smithsonian.
SIL's local electronic resource management (ERM) system serves as an access point connecting SIL's populations to their extensive electronic collections. Their print and electronic collection strengths are as numerous and varied as the population they serve. They include natural history, history of science and technology, anthropology, philately and postal history, African and Asian art, American art and portraiture, aviation and space exploration, botany and horticulture, decorative arts and design, tropical biology, museology, and Native American and African American history and culture. SIL Special Collections include forty thousand rare books, as well as large holdings in World's Fairs and international expositions, manufacturers' trade catalogs, and scientific manuscripts.
In the 2008 fiscal year, 1,354,810 print journal volumes were held in SIL collections, with 4,748 active journal subscriptions. In March of 2009, 132 titles were cancelled for a savings of $55,780. SIL has paid for 1,683 print subscriptions and 437 electronic subscriptions. Additionally, SIL has in its collections 2,628 print and 3,471 electronic gifts and exchange titles. As of May 2009, SIL has 3,908 active e-journals.
Journal expenditures for SIL follow a pattern familiar to many librarians and libraries today. In 1984, five thousand journal subscriptions comprised $385,000 in expenditures. In 2008, nearly three times more was expended for less than half that number of subscriptions ($1,052,048 for 2,120 subscriptions). $276,768 alone was expended for electronic subscriptions in 2008.
SIL's Acquisitions, Cataloging, Digital Services, Interlibrary Loan, Administration, and Development offices are collectively located for all SIL libraries in Central Services, itself located in the Smithsonian Natural History Museum in Washington, DC. The Libraries' staffing levels have been decreasing since the late 1990s. SIL's staffing was at 130 staff members in 1997, and had dropped to 109 by 2008. Currently, SIL has ninety-nine staff to serve the institution's twenty affiliated libraries, museums, and research centers. This attrition in staff numbers is mainly due to retirements and lack of funds to replace staff. Additionally, it is creating serious ongoing issues for SIL's Central Services and the branches. More retirements and fewer funds are expected for the future.
CURRENT E-JOURNAL WORKFLOWS AT SIL
The SIL ERM system development and maintenance has been affected by SIL staff e-journal workflows, and in turn continues to effect staff workflows today. E-journal workflows involve a variety of SIL staff; the Natural History Librarian, branch staff, Deputy Director, Acquisitions Librarian, and Acquisitions Serial Technician are all involved in the selection and acquisition of both purchased and open-access e-journals. Licensing e-journals includes a contracting officer, administrative services staff, and the Acquisitions Librarian. The Serials Cataloger, Natural History Librarian, and branch staff are all involved with the cataloging of e-journals in the Horizon library catalog and OCLC. The homegrown SIL ERM system and A–Z list are used by all of these staff members to track and record e-journal workflows.
E-journals have posed significant challenges for SIL Central Services in more areas than the budget, as previously outlined. Out of 3,908 active titles, less than half (1,627) are represented in the library's online catalog. A significant portion of these active titles SIL has elected to not add to the catalog; however, a backlog of over four hundred journal titles that should be in the catalog are currently in queue.
The A–Z e-journal list was developed in-house roughly ten to twelve years ago. The development of the A–Z list has been ongoing, developed and modified as SIL needs have changed. Eventually, the A–Z list turned into an ERM system with a back-end for Central Services staff and a front-end for users. The ERM system began as an Access database and is now in SQL. The back-end is a central location for information to be added or edited regarding vendors and resources. Information included in the resource records includes resource title, URL, persistent URL ID number (ISSN or OCLC number), resource type (e-journal, database, or Internet resource), if the title is in the catalog, if the title needs to be added to the catalog, vendor, if it is licensed/approved, if it is published to the live site, and for which libraries in the SIL network it is listed.
Vendor records include information on who requested the resource and when, URLs to the vendor's website, what type(s) of resources the vendor provides, notes on the licensor, notes on the subscription (including a title list), interlibrary loan (ILL) terms, authorized user terms, cost information, subscription term, and general notes. Historical information is also maintained in these records.
The front-end of the ERM system, the A–Z list, provides a central access point to e-journals alphabetically by title, by title keyword, and by vendor. The list as displayed on the SIL website shows additions or changes in the last thirty-one days ().
FIGURE 1 A–Z list public display.
The A–Z list pulls most of the information entered into the ERM system by staff into the public display for SIL users. Not only are title lists and links to content available, but also vendor lists and the terms of use for specific resources. Once a user clicks on a link to a journal in the A–Z list, the link goes to an intermediary page with the terms of use regarding authorized users and ILL. Along with a direct link to the journal, the licensor and resource type is shown on this page. A link to “view other titles from this licensor” is also on the intermediary page. The intermediary page is used for all journal links, whether the journal is a licensed resource or not.
PROS AND CONS OF THE ERM SYSTEM
The homegrown ERM system has many pros and cons for SIL users and staff. Among the pros, it is specifically tailored to SIL. The system is designed to be updated easily and quickly, particularly for licensing and vendor information. The intermediary page mitigates breach issues by making use restrictions available to all users and many users find the intermediary page useful. The updates to the homegrown ERM system occur in real time, so staff edits to the system are instantaneously available for users. Persistent URLs specific to SIL are generated by this system, which allow for vendors to make URL changes without users needing to change their bookmarked SIL persistent URLs. The information from the ERM system is used to add e‐journal access and information to print records in the Horizon library catalog, creating a single record preferred by most users.
Among the cons of the homegrown system are that it requires a lot of higher-level staff time and energy for its maintenance. This time is additionally compounded because every edit to the ERM system is done manually, title by title. As SIL's information technology (IT) staff are being pulled away from ERM system development and maintenance activities to concentrate on ever-increasing Smithsonian digital initiatives, equipment and information technology issues are becoming more common, and their resolution is becoming more challenging.
Users of the A–Z list also encounter some cons. There is no link resolver in the system and SIL is relying on users to discover dead links. No holdings information is available in the ERM system. For instance, when looking to access a journal with an archive in JSTOR and current issues delivered through a publisher's website, two entries for a title may come up: one for back issues and one for current issues. There is no way to know which dates correspond to back issues and which are accessible via the current issues link. This is a major issue as the user is left to guess if the needed articles are from current issues or back issues. Although many users find the intermediary page useful, many users also consider the intermediary click-through page to be a waste of time.
FUTURE DIRECTIONS
A group from within SIL is examining how they handle their e-journals, and have come up with three possible recommendations for the future of the A–Z list. The first option would be to continue with the A–Z list, with the understanding that no tweaking of the system will be possible as IT staff move forward with other digital initiatives. The pros and cons of the system will remain long term if this recommendation is followed.
A second option would be for the information in the A–Z list to be moved into the catalog to create a single system with all the information and all of the records. Several issues would need to be resolved with this. As the catalog software used by SIL is no longer supported by the vendor, a migration project is imminent. The “do we wait or do we deal with this now?” question remains with this recommendation. If this information is added to the catalog, it still is not a “one stop shop” for records. Due to the accounts payable system used by the Smithsonian Institution, acquisitions records are not linked to bibliographic records in the catalog. Additionally, users may not be using the catalog to the extent that would make e-journals more discoverable in the catalog than in the A–Z list. Having as many access points as possible is important for users. Also, it is tough to acquire statistics for catalog use. However, this option would prove beneficial to SIL in that the metadata would be specific, valuable, and all in one place. Additionally, as federated searching becomes more popular, if records are in the catalog, they would be more easily cross-searchable with other databases.
Finally, SIL could contract out its e-journal manager to a commercial party as a third option. Staff time and funding are major considerations for these recommendations.
Khater ended her presentation with a quote from Albert Einstein's definition of insanity: “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” As stated in the “fire alarm” point in the beginning of the presentation, a good system is a system developed to serve a need in an institution. Ideally, it can be revised or altered to continue to serve that institution as needs evolve. The cost of developing and maintaining a system must be proportional to how well that system fills the needs of the organization, providing long-term solutions rather than short-term patches. A system that works well for one institution may not meet the needs in another. Systems are not inherently good. It is rare for a system to perfectly satisfy the quickly changing needs of a complex organization, so that organization must choose its evils when designing and developing a local ERM system.
Notes
1. Smithsonian Institution Libraries, Strategic Plan 2009–2013 (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Libraries, n.d.), 1, http://www.sil.si.edu/Strategic_Plan.pdf (accessed December 22, 2009).