Target Audience: Collection development, information technology and public services librarians Learning Outcomes: 1. Participants will be able to identify cross-departmental responsibilities and workflow issues involved in acquiring, maintaining and disseminating digital library resources. 2. Participants will be conversant with the life-cycle model of digital collection development and will be able to articulate the important differences in managing digital collections, as opposed to print and microform collections.
As digital resources increasingly dominate law library budgets, it is necessary to have guidelines for the acquisition and maintenance of the various forms of electronic holdings. Digital collection development activities challenge the traditional division of responsibilities within a library, affecting work flow and requiring new staff competencies. This program will cover issues with which every library is dealing by following the life-cycle model of electronic resources: selection, acquisition, licensing and copyright, discovery, and access and preservation. What is the difference between perpetual access and outright purchase? Can special collections be digitized and made freely available on the web? Are catalogs and cataloging obsolete? Is metadata tagging in a database sufficient? How do end users know what a library's digital holdings really are? What are the options and responsibilities concerning the preservation of digital content? Speakers will address these and other questions relevant to digital collection development policies. Program materials will include a bibliography and sample policies.