Recent Developments in Electronic Resource Management in Libraries

Bulletin of the American Society for Information Science & Technology, Aug/Sep 2006 by Kasprowski, Rafal

At the 2005 Annual Meeting of ASIS&T, a panel composed of Ivy Anderson, representing Harvard University and the Digital Library Federation's Electronic Resources Management Initiative (DLF ERMI) steering group; Barbara Weir, representing the Tri-College Consortium (Bryn Mawr. Haverford and Swarthmore); and Ted Fons, representing Innovative Interfaces Inc., discussed the recent advent of electronic resource management (ERM) systems for libraries.

ERM Processes

The steps required for managing e-resources are more complex than those for print resources. A process that consisted of selecting, ordering, cataloging and binding now includes selecting, evaluating, approving, licensing, billing and registering access and is accompanied by a series of technical aspects, such as usability, performance, access technologies, public interfaces, troubleshooting and usage statistics. E-resource management is a time-intensive and iterative process, often requiring more staff with a greater skill set at each stage. As demand for e-resources grew, storing and managing administrative information in spreadsheets, paper files or email folders became increasingly cumbersome, and a more integrated solution was called for.

Home-grown ERM Systems

At first, several libraries began to develop their own eresource management systems (e.g., Colorado Alliance, Johns Hopkins, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Penn State, Tri-College Consortium) to integrate such elements as the relationships between packages and their constituent parts, use permissions and constraints, authentication and contact information, as well as workflows for trialing, licensing, ordering, implementing access and notifying relevant staff.

DLF ERMI Report

Enter DLF ERMI. an initiative composed of librarians and vendors, spearheaded by Tim Jewell from the University of Washington. In 2001, DLF began a project to "develop common specifications and tools for managing the license agreements, related administrative information and internal processes associated with collections of licensed electronic resources" (retrieved June 9, 2006, from www.library.cornell.edu/cts/ elicensestudy/dlf2002fall/home.htm). Ultimately, ERMTs goal was to foster the development of ERM systems by commercial vendors and promote best practices and standards. A final report was produced in August 2004. The key technical aspects addressed in the document were a set of functional requirements, an entity-relationship diagram, a data element dictionary, the data structure and XML (extensible Mark-up Language) schemas.

Functional Requirements

The functional requirements were developed from an initial collaboration between Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the vendor Ex Libris to define the necessary functions of an ERM system. The resulting document covered the information and workflows that an ERM system should integrate in the key areas of selection and acquisition, access provision, resource administration, user support and troubleshooting, renewal and retention. The document contained data elements new to ERM systems at that time, relevant to both users (e.g., license permissions and restrictions, resource availability) and staff (e.g., detailed license information, administrative IDs and passwords, usage statistics, training information). Also addressed were problem-solving activities (e.g., troubleshooting, vendor communications) and business functions (e.g., pricing models, renewal and termination information).

ERD, Data Element Dictionary, Data Structure

The entity-relationship diagram (ERD) is a visual representation of the major entities needed for managing electronic resources and the relationships between them. It is the basis for the database structure of an ERM system. At the heart of the ERD is the relationship of e-resources to licenses.

In the proposed diagram, the electronic product, which is an e-journal package or an article database, is a set of hierarchical relationships between the interface, the resources that use the interface and the child resources that are part of the product. License and access data relate to any level of that hierarchy. For example, the access information may relate to the entire interface or to an individual resource, while the license information may also relate to the entire interface as well as to each constituent product. The terms, governed by the license or acquisitions entity, define the number of simultaneous users, the various participating sites and the license permissions; they may have to be combined into prevailing terms to correspond to specific situations.

While the ERD presents the relationships between the entities, the data element dictionary defines the system's data elements. The data structure document in turn links each data element with the entities and relationships represented in the ERD. ERMI plans to combine the data dictionary and data structure in a future version.

XML Investigation

In its initial attempt to develop an ERM XML schema, ERMI decided to limit its proof of concept to licensing. Digital rights management (DRM) and rights expression language (REL) schemas are related to licensing schemas, but ultimately do not fit library needs. ERMI recommended that a native XML schema be used instead to express license terms.