Description of and Access to Electronic Resources (ER)

Abstract

SUMMARY Traditional description and access of library materials has undergone a transition for over a decade now as catalogers and librarians as well as information and computer scientists have worked with the challenges to identify and provide access to various types of digital resources such as electronic journals; electronic books and reference resources; electronic government publications, Web sites and databases; and geospatial maps and digitized special collections. Along with the provision of measures to internationalize and accommodate the nature of electronic resources (ER) to Anglo-American cataloging description and standards, catalogers have assessed workflow and technology issues and now look ahead to new ways to describe and catalog resources, i.e., the Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records (FRBR) concept model, various metadata schemes, and management tools called electronic resource management systems (ERMS). The goal is to continue to identify, manage, and preserve digital materials today and into the future in order to provide the best access to information for library users.