Since I am moving on from electronic resource management, I thought it would be a good time to share what I’ve learned over the past six years.
1. The more usage a particular e-journal gets, the greater the chance that the holdings statement will be incorrect.
Corollary: Journals used by faculty/board members on the library’s advisory committee are more likely to have inaccurate holdings than journals used by other library patrons.
Corollary: If the holdings are accurate, the faculty/board member will be looking for a pre-Tasini article by a freelance journalist.
2. As soon as you compliment an industry executive on the high quality of the company’s technical support service, the quality of that service will decline precipitously.
3. The chances that a journal will be cancelled increase in proportion to the time and effort you have spent ensuring that it is configured correctly in your link resolver and/or e-journal management system.
4. Usage reports are available only for those resources whose renewal was never really in question.
5. The product with the most problematic licensing terms is the one must-have database in its subject area.
6. Thorny technical problems occur at 4:45 the Friday before your vacation is supposed to start.
Corollary: Thorny technical problems happen to patrons at the extreme ends of the networking knowledge bell curve.
7. The more time and energy you spend documenting purchasing decisions to demonstrate institutional savings and fiscal responsibility, the more likely that your documentation will be returned to you for additional information and justification.
8. If a journal provider confirms your e-journal holdings prior to March 1, the holdings on March 1 will be exactly the opposite of what you were told.
9. Databases go down 10 minutes prior to an instruction session and 10 minutes after a class assignment is given out.
10. Once an electronic resources librarian, always an electronic resources librarian.
I enjoyed reading this post. LOL.