The authors recount experiences of the variety of problems and issues involved in providing access to electronic journals in a large academic library. The paper excludes concerns emanating from decisions to subscribe to aggregations such as those produced by vendors like EBSCO, but concentrates on scholarly journals ordered individually, or as…

The purpose of traditional copyright law was to encourage the creation of works based on and to ensure reasonable access to original thought. Despite this harmonious intent, an intrinsic tension exists between libraries and copyright holders, as the former promotes "free" access to information that ultimately reduces the income of the…

Lippincott Library's Historical Corporate Annual Reports Collection contains useful primary sources of information for several disciplines, including applied accounting and business history. They also are reflections of the societal and cultural mores of the times. Unfortunately, these reports are fragile, difficult to locate, and hard to access.…

Provides a case study of the acquisitions processes that were necessary when Cardiff University's School of Engineering made a decision to subscribe to electronic-only versions of journals where such subscriptions were less expensive than the print equivalent. In doing so, addresses issues of electronic subscriptions management in UK academic…

Approval plans are used by many libraries as an adjunct to title-by-title selection, and sometimes as a substitute for it. The author examines this approach to purchasing library materials, considering positive and negative effects approval plans may have on collection balance as well as on acquisitions budgets and workflow. The article also…

This essay explores some of the conflicts faced by the author, a liaison with book-selection responsibilities to a university English Department. These conflicts include: trying to fill gaps missed by profiles set up with our book vendor; trying to achieve a reasonable balance between canonical and non-canonical texts; between primary texts and…

The number of electronic resources has climbed up steadily in recent times. Some of these e-resources are reference sources, mostly in Science, Technology and Medicine (STM), which publishers convert to electronic for obvious reasons. The library budgets for materials usually have two main lines, budget for one time purchase (monographs) and…

Libraries and catalogers face choices in the treatment of the growing collections of electronic journals. Policies issued by CONSER and the Library of Congress allow libraries to edit existing print records to accommodate information pertaining to the electronic versions (single record option) or to create new records for them. The discussion…

Using the London Room of the London Public Library in London, Ontario, Canada, as an example, this article will examine the nature of local collections, the sources and methods of acquiring genealogical and local history materials and the constraints related to such acquisitions. This article will also present a brief history of the London Room…

Developing a library collection is one of the most important pursuits in medical librarianship. A library's collection is its foundation, and the collection is the central information resource upon which most library activities rely. Today's vision of the medical or health sciences collection must incorporate a broader range of materials,…

Public health librarians face many challenges in collection development because the field is multidisciplinary, the collection's users have varied needs, and many of the essential resources are grey literature materials. Further, little has been published about public health selection tools. However, librarians responsible for these areas have a…

The development of the Internet and the online collections accessed by it has created major adjustments in all library functions, including collection management and budgeting. The authors share how two public libraries have come full circle in electronic collection management, beginning with early selection, followed by current weeding programs…

As technology is shaping today's art world, parallel changes are happening in the ways art book collections are identified and acquired. The purpose of this article is to identify the changes transpiring in the worlds of the artist and library acquisitions, and to evaluate the ways in which the changes effected by technological applications in the…

Media selection and acquisition is highly dependent on a number of variables, perhaps the most important of which is changing technologies. New technology is a wonderful and frightening thing, with a high level of impact on media collection development. New technologies can improve sound and visual quality, but can also play havoc with established…

The New Thought movement is the focus of an exercise in developing a core collection to support research in a defined subject area. The authors outline the New Thought movement's conceptual and historical development and apply this outline to the selection of library resources. A sample collection development policy is included; such a policy is…