PurposeLibrary resources evolve daily with ongoing expansion of electronic offerings by publishers and vendors. Collection development policies have long been employed to guide decision making and inform stakeholders, but how are these policies serving libraries and their users as our collections continue to move online? This paper aims to discuss the role of collection development polices, past and present, and the challenge of collections moving to an electronic format.Design/methodology/approachThe authors performed a content analysis to discover how academic libraries are addressing this change in collection development.FindingsThe paper finds that virtually all libraries do an excellent job of addressing the traditional elements of collection development. About half of the libraries mentioned electronic licensing issues in the policy, but most of those were general statements.Originality/valueAlthough the library profession is well aware of the changes that electronic resources bring to libraries, there is not a lot of research on how collection development policies should guide electronic resource management. As shown in this research, it is often completely left out of the collection development policy process.
This article recounts a project at the Middle Tennessee State University library to include records for electronic databases in the online catalog. Although electronic databases are accessible via the library's DatabasesA-Z list and related subject guides, cataloging these resources also provides access via the online catalog, allowing more of the library's resources to be accessible in one place. The project is a collaborative effort between the User Services and Collection Management departments, where there is shared responsibility for the acquisition, service, and maintenance of electronic databases. The benefits of cataloging electronic databases are discussed as well as workflow and processing issues.
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