The Work of Library with Free Electronic Resources: Selection and Organization of Access

Abstract

Involving free online resources in the library services improves the information support for users. The terms “free resources”, “open” are used for designation of free resources, which do not require financial compensation. In practice, however, Russian libraries have not yet developed a unified approach for understanding the terms “free resources”, “free access”, “open access”. ISO 5127 and ISO 2789 International Standards recommend including in the library’s collections these free Internet resources, which could be catalogued by the library in its online catalogue or some other library database. It’s necessary to define the groups of networked resources which the library can include in its collections, and those resources that are of interest to users, but couldn’t be included in the library stock. Organization of access to free resources shall be carried out in two ways: entering information about the resources in the library catalogue or other database and providing common search or the development of navigation tools based on the links grouped by any attribute on the library website. Processing of all kinds of free resources for users is part of the technological scheme of the network resources collection development and has various specific characteristics that affect the selection, registration, administration and management of the electronic resources.