EVALUATION OF DIGITAL INFORMATION COLLECTIONS: ENSURING THE RELEVANCE OF LIBRARIES IN LEARNING AND TEACHING

Abstract

New educational approaches require that libraries keep abreast of technology through the use of information resource collections and platforms that enable access to such resources. More often than not, digital information collections that academic libraries subscribe are bundles of thousands of resources selected and put together by vendors mainly for commercial motives. Even when the quality of these resources is not in question, the relevance of such collections may not be the best for a given community of users. Furthermore, the sheer size of these collections (which can number thousands or even millions of documents) makes it, at times impossible for some institutions to subscribe them due to financial constraints. Vendors have addressed these problems with new acquisition options such as Patron Driven Acquisition (PDA), Demand Driven Acquisition (DDA) or Evidence Driven Acquisition (EDA). Nevertheless, the acquisition of digital information resources cannot rely solely on these models and a true and comprehensive evaluation in terms of use, pertinence and impact should be carried out. Only in this way, the role that academic libraries have in learning, teaching and research processes in higher education institutions can be assessed. This paper suggests a methodology for evaluating both new and already subscribed digital resources in academic libraries based on a three-fold approach: definition of a clear and consistent selection process, development of an effective user-training program and implementation of a convincing promotional campaign. The goal is to provide general guidelines so that academic libraries can effectively select and assess their digital information resources in order to play an active role in higher education.