Systematic Mapping

The unweildy and replete nature added to the ripple-effect of the Internet Resources calls for modern information-management skills to classify, filter and group the authentic sources so as to develop Subject Gateways. A suject gateway may generally be defined:

A Web-based mechanism for accessing of high quality, evaluated resources identified to support research/study in a particular subject discipline. How to ensure high quality: It is suggested that for information gateway a high quality Internet resource is one that meets the information needs of the user.

It may not be possible for Librarian alone to develop subject gateways without minimalizing the coordination and advisory role of subject experts. But he could stack up all existing subject gateways for the benefit of scholar community. Librarians should take up this task as a self-rewarding one. Best practices for managing e-resources are critical--two decades after the advent of electronic journals and databases, librarians are still grappling with how to effectively manage these resources in conjunction with their print resources. Now e-books have become yet another stream of purchasing and management, while economic pressures mean that librarians have to justify every penny spent on collections and resource development.

As libraries build ever-larger collections of electronic resources, finding ways to manage them efficiently becomes a major challenge. The number of electronic journals, citation databases, and full-text aggregations held by most libraries has grown rapidly. Managing these electronic resources involves providing the library's user with convenient ways to find and access them and providing library staff with the tools to keep track of them.

Learning E-Resources

Libraries subscribe to electronic content in a number of different ways. Some publishers offer packages that include many electronic journals, some products may include electronic journals from many different publishers, and libraries acquire some electronic journals individually. Abstracting-and-indexing (A&I) products include citations to articles in journals from many different publishers. And since not everything is in electronic form, print resources cannot be neglected.

But that doesn't mean we shouldn't recognize the importance of this format or the benefits of it's use. It's also important we recognize that slowly but surely our trusted print standbys are being eked out by their cheaper (and arguably more convenient) electronic counterparts, whether we like it or not.