Final Report of the E-Resource Project Team to the SUNYConnect Advisory Council (SAC)

November 15, 2018

Introduction and History

Centralized database subscriptions for SUNY libraries date back to 1998 and before. The cooperative effort involved in such decisions dates to the same time periods. This project team acknowledges the work of the SUNY Library Contract Advisory Team. That SUNY-wide committee provided for both an increasing amount of electronic resources and useful documents and analysis that assisted us in our work.

Over time there has been an increase in the electronic resources that have been made available to all SUNYConnect institutions. Currently, this includes subscriptions to the FirstSearch Base Package, ScienceDirect, a suite of Thomson Gale databases including InfoTrac OneFile, online New England Journal of Medicine, the AP Multimedia Archive as well as purchased content from NetLibrary, electronic books from Gale and a subset of HarpWeek.

The coordinated and centralized purchase of electronic resources has been a foundation of SUNY libraries’ cooperative efforts from the very start of those initiatives. For a university system as large and diverse as SUNY, this process always requires compromise. Yet it is widely recognized that certain core information needs of the system can be met more efficiently and economically when purchased centrally.

Beginning in February 2006, the Electronic Resources Evaluation Project Team, consisting of representatives from various academic sectors, commenced its charge to examine information resources (available via existing state contracts) to see if additional content and/or additional subject areas could be included in the centrally purchased library databases. On April 12, 2006 the Team met to finalize its recommendations which, along with supporting documents, are presented here. The project team is confident that these recommendations continue the trend of increasing the amount and improving the quality and relevance of electronic content that will be made available to all of our libraries and their various user communities through SUNYConnect.

Charge of the E-ResourcesEvaluation Project Team[1]

TheProject Team was established by the SUNYConnect Advisory Council and was charged with the following:

  • To evaluate and provide recommendations on electronic resources for inclusion in SUNYConnect. These resources were to be, preferably, full-text and support research in liberal arts, business, health and education and fulfill core information needs of SUNY libraries.
  • To provide recommendations on how best to utilize the finite amount of financial resources available. These recommendations were to take into account contracts and purchasing agreements currently in place via agencies such as NYLINK and New YorkState contracts.
  • To evaluate selected electronic resources in the context of new technologies such as open URL linking via SFX system.
  • To recommend a process for the ongoing assessment and evaluation of SUNYConnect electronic resources.

The overall goal for the SUNYConnect electronic resource offerings is to provide access to as many core information resources as available monies allow, freeing up SUNYConnect campus funds to be spent on more specialized resources that fit that campus’ educational and research mission.

E-Resources Evaluation Project Team Organization[2]

The Project Team was appointed at the end of January 2006 by SAC, and has been actively involved in the evaluation processfrom February to April 2006.

OLIS staff member John Schumacher acted as the Project Manager for this process. As Project Manager he was responsible for setting meeting agendas, running meetings, establishing decision making protocols, arranging facilities, coordinating demonstrations, investigating and analyzing information, ensuring ongoing communication among the various stakeholders, distribution of assignments, working with the committee members to ensure that the information and resources necessary to meet our objectives were provided. The Project Manager was a non-voting member of the committee.

Project Team members were responsible for setting selection criteria, identifying appropriate products for review, assessing selected products, identifying appropriate products for inclusion in SUNYConnect, regular communication with their constituent group and submitting a final report to the SAC. The Project Team consisted of a SUNY faculty representative, Joanne Curran from Oneonta, and student representative, Stephanie Adika from New Paltz. The following librarians were nominated by their library’s director and selected by the SAC to act as a library representative for the E-Resources Evaluation Project Team for each of the following sectors of the University:

  • Mary Casserly, Albany (University Centers)
  • Dawn Eckenrode, Fredonia (Comprehensive Colleges)
  • Mohamed Hussain, Downstate (Health Science Centers)
  • Dave Lewis, Tompkins-Cortland (Community Colleges)
  • Amy Schleigh, Delhi (Technology Colleges)

In addition,library directors were each asked to name an individual from their staff to be the contact person for each SUNY campus in this initiative.The contacts appointed by the library directors provided a constituent group for each of the Project Team members. Each Team member was responsible for establishing communication with their constituents and gathering feedback pertaining to the database resources that were being evaluated. See Appendix A for individual reports fromeach library representative.

Timeline of the Project Team’s Activities

Februrary 1, 2006:John Schumacher established a listserv that was used as the primary communication tool for the Project Team throughout the evaluation and selection process.

February 10, 2006: The Project Team held its first face-to-face meeting at the SUNYPlaza in Albany, New York. The agenda made provisions for the Team to discuss and decide upon the following: the charge of the team, operating procedures and ground rules, current and possible electronic resources under consideration, the information needs of the team, the evaluation tool and schema, and product demos, trials and vendor presentations that needed to be set up. See Appendix B for the finalized version of the SUNYConnect E-Resource Evaluation Team Considerations and Selection Criteria document. SeeAppendix C-1for the full minutes from this meeting.

March 2, 2006: The Project Team held a meeting via conference call. The agenda included a discussion of the evaluation criteria and decision making protocols. See Appendix C-2 for the full minutes from this meeting.

March 7, 2006:The Project Team met at the SUNYPlaza in Albany, New York in order to view presentations by the following vendors: EBSCO, Wilson, ProQuest and Gale. See Appendix C-3 for a summary of this meeting.

April 12, 2006: The Project Team held its final meeting in Albany todiscuss the feedback from the various campus constituents. Based on this feedback, the team was able to come to an agreement on a recommendation that was presented in its preliminary form to SAC on the same day. The Team also discussed its recommendations to SAC concerning a process for ongoing assessment of the SUNYConnect Resources. SeeAppendix C-4 for the full minutes from this meeting.

Recommendations

Recommendation I.The task force recommends subscribing toEBSCO’s proposed package B which includes:

Academic Search Premier (ASP)

Business Source Premier (BSP)

CINAHL Plus with Full Text (CPFT)

CINAHL Select (free with CPFT)

ERIC (free with ASP and BSP)

MasterFILE Premier (free with ASP and BSP)

MEDLINE (free with ASP and BSP)

Regional Business News (free with BSP)

With the proviso to include EBSCO’s soon to be released database, Education
Research Complete.

Rationale

The decision to recommend the EBSCO databases was based on three factors. First, EBSCO offers full-text databases that cover the range of subjects identified as most important by the Project Team’s charge, i.e., multi-disciplinary, business, education, and health/nursing. Second, the overwhelming majority of SUNY libraries, regardless of institution type, found the EBSCO interface to be either their first choice or an acceptable choice. The interface is seen as being intuitive and includes most of the functionality on the list of criteria used by the E-Resources Evaluation Project Team (See Appendix B). In addition, because of the presence of EBSCO databases in many secondary school, public, and other academic institution libraries, it is familiar to many library users by the time they arrive on the SUNY campuses. Third, the combination of the preferred interface and desired subject coverage on a single platform was the most effective means of leveraging SUNY funds. All of the vendors provided the Evaluation Team with pricing for packages of their databases and for each database in the package if purchased alone. It was clear that purchasing databases by the package was much more cost effective than purchasing them individually. EBSCO’s package offered the needed content, the preferred interface, and an affordable price.

Implications

What does this recommendation mean for SUNY libraries? It does constitute a significant change in the resources provided centrally. The SUNYConnect E-Resources collection will no longer include:

  • AccuNet/AP Multimedia Archive
  • Gale databases
  • Infotrac Onefile
  • Expanded Academic ASAP
  • Investext Plus
  • Opposing ViewpointsResourceCenter
  • OCLC FirstSearch Base Package
  • WorldCat
  • ArticleFirst
  • ClasePeriodica
  • EBooks Index
  • Electronic Collections Online
  • ERIC (will be available via EBSCO interface)
  • GPO
  • MEDLINE (will be available via EBSCO interface)
  • PapersFirst
  • ProceedingsFirst
  • World Almanac

The SUNYConnect package will include the databases mentioned in the recommendation section above, as well as Science Direct, and Gale Virtual Reference Library, LiteratureResourceCenter, and HarpWeek, for each of which we will continue to pay hosting fees.

Regarding the OCLC FirstSearch package, and WorldCat in particular, Nylink has provided preliminary cost estimates for individual campus subscriptions. Given that OCLC has not offered SUNYConnect any additional group discounts, the overall cost to SUNY will be essentially the same.

ILL staff access to the WorldCat Resource Sharing interface will still be available to those SUNY libraries that currently pay for this service. Should individual campuses elect not to subscribe to WorldCat, reference staff and end-users would no longer be able to search the public OCLC WorldCat interface or to initiate borrowing requests.However, other options are available. The SUNY Union Catalog and universal borrowing initiative will enable end-users to initiate their own borrowing requests, albeit limited to SUNY collections. To search collections on a broader scope than SUNY, libraries can use Open WorldCat or the RedLightGreen union catalog.

Content covered by the current Gale databases, with the exception of the OpposingViewpointsResourceCenter, is similar to that provided by EBSCO databases. Since there is no EBSCO counterpart to Opposing Viewpoints, and several SUNY libraries rated it an essential resource, OLISshouldtry to negotiate a group discount for this database.

Recommendation II.The E-Resources Evaluation Project Team makes the following recommendations regarding the ongoing assessment and evaluation of the electronic resources purchased by SUNYConnect.

  1. SUNYConnect Advisory Council working with the SUNY Library Directors should appoint a Standing Electronic Resources Committee.
  2. The Committee members should be librarians representing all SUNY institution types.
  3. The Committee should include one faculty representative who should be a member of the SUNY Faculty Senate.
  4. The E-Resources Evaluation Project Team does not recommend the inclusion of a student representative.
  5. The Committee’s charge should be to review SUNY subscriptions on a regular basis to assure that they are providing effective and useful resources to the SUNY community. In order to do this the Committee would:
  • Monitor and evaluate changes in subscription content, service, and interface features that occur during the subscription period
  • Collect and analyze feedback from SUNY libraries on the adequacy and the value of the SUNY subscriptions
  • Conduct analyses of use and cost of subscribed databases
  1. The Committee would lobby vendors for changes to resources that would benefit SUNY libraries.
  2. The Committee would submit a written report to the SUNYConnect Advisory Council annually.

Appendix A:

Library Representative Reports

Section A-1

UniversityCenter Libraries

Mary Casserly, Assistant Director for Collections and Users Services at the University at Albany and chair of the SUNY Collections and Access Council (SCAC), was the University Center Libraries’ representative on the E-Resources Evaluation Team.

Communication with the University Center (UC) Libraries concerning the SUNY E-resources Evaluation took place using the SCAC listserv. This listserv has been used by SCAC members for about two years. For the purposes of consulting with, and getting input from, the other doctoral granting institution libraries the e-resources evaluation process representatives from NYSCC and SUNY College of Optometry were added to the listserv. In a series of messages to the listserv the libraries’ representatives were informed about selection criteria, availability of trials, and deadlines for submitting their evaluations. Input was sent to either the UC or the HSC library representative.

Three of the University Center Libraries selected EBSCO’s Academic Search Premier as their preferred multi-disciplinary database. One did not see the need to move from Gale to another platform but indicated that EBSCO was acceptable. EBSCO was also the preferred database for business although ABI/Inform from ProQuest was acceptable for most. Investext from Gale was acceptable to, but not preferred by, one of the University Center Libraries. Coverage of education was important to the majority of these libraries. Although not all UC Libraries have nursing programs, coverage of nursing as a subject area was important to the ones that do

Section A-2

Comprehensive Colleges

Dawn Eckenrode, Reference and Instruction Librarian at SUNY Fredonia, was the Comprehensive College Libraries’ representative on the E-Resource Evaluation Team.

Communication with the Comprehensive Colleges took place via email correspondence. Through this venue the constituents were informed of the project team’s charge, the database trials available, and the deadline for submitting campus feedback. Each campus’ representative was encouraged to ask questions and address issues of concern.

Each of the campus contacts were asked to explore the databases under consideration and provide a ranking for what they feltare the "best" databases for each category. In addition, the campus contacts were asked to provide an overall ranking of each vendor under consideration, an overall ranking the subject areas they felt are most essential for their campuses, an overall ranking of the databases that are under consideration, and a description of the evaluation criteria they felt should receive the greatest consideration when the Team was making it's finalrecommendations. For assistance with this portion of the task, I provided them with thedocument called, "Considerations and Selection Criteria Worksheet."(See AppendixB) The contact at each campus was also given a list of current SUNYConnect resources, and they were asked to provide feedback on those databases as well. The following is a summary of the responses received from the Comprehensive Colleges:

Overall Ranking by Vendor:(By average rating)

First Choice: EBSCO

Second Choice: ProQuest

Third Choice: Thomson/Gale

Fourth Choice: Wilson OmniFile

Overall Ranking of Importance by Subject Area:(By average rating)

First Choice: Multidisciplinary

Second Choice: Psychology / Education (these two tied in popularity)

Third Choice: Business

Fourth Choice: Nursing

Other: Criminal Justice/Sociology; Area Studies such as history, art, gender; History, chemistry, biology, art w/ graphic arts

Ranking by Database Type: Multidisciplinary (By average rating)

Ranked #1: Academic Search Premier (EBSCO)

Ranked #2: Proquest 5000

Ranked #3: InfoTrac Onefile

Ranked #4: ProQuest Research Library

Ranked #5: Wilson Omnifile

Ranking by Database Type: Business (By average rating)

Ranked #1: Business Source Premier (EBSCO)

Ranked #2: ABI Inform Complete w/ Intellidocs

Ranked #3: ABI Inform Complete w/out Intellidocs

Ranked #4: ABI Inform Global

Ranked #5: Business and Company Resource Center

Ranked #6: Factiva

Ranking by Database Type: Nursing (By average rating)

Ranked #1: CINHAL w/ Full Text (EBSCO) and CINHAL Database w/ ProQuest Full Text (These two resources were the same in popularity)

Ranked #2: ProQuest Nursing Journals

Ranked #3: Two campuses did not have an interest in any of the nursing titles

Ranking by Database Type: Education (By average rating)

Ranked #1: ERIC (EBSCO)

Ranked #2: ERIC Plus Text (ProQuest)

Ranked #3: Education Index (Wilson) and ProQuest Education Journals were tied in popularity

Ranked #4: ProQuest Professional Education

Selection and Evaluation Criteria Considered Most Important:

  • Addresses a long-term need of a large segment of our users.
  • Breadth/Depth of Coverage
  • Breadth and Depth of coverage (pay attn. to timing of embargos, inclusion of all charts and images, Currency and real depth of back file, absence of filler titles that they all seem to be adding now)
  • Display and graphics (Usability)
  • Breadth and depth of coverage. I included here “fields indexed”.
  • ADA compliance
  • Utility across SUNY (WorldCat is a prime example; if SUNYConnect does not provide WorldCat, every campus will – not might, but will – lose access vital services and access.)
  • Breadth and Depth of Coverage (# of journals indexed/available in fulltext, stability of fulltext (not constantly changing) etc.)
  • Breadth/Depth

When asked to list the databases that SUNYConnect currently subscribes they feel are absolutely essential resources for your library, the following responses were provided:

  • 8 of the 9 respondents listed WorldCat
  • 6 of the 9 respondents listed LiteratureResourceCenter
  • 4 of the 9 respondents listed Opposing Viewpoints
  • 3 of the 9 respondents listed ERIC
  • 3 of the 9 respondents listed Gale Virtual Reference Library
  • 1 respondent listed GPO
  • 1 respondent listed AccuNet/AP Multimedia Archive
  • 1 respondent listed ECO
  • 1 respondent listed EBooks Index

Section A-3