Electronic Resources

Overview

The universe of electronic resources is indeed diverse, expansive, intimidating, and unstructured compared to the finite, prepackaged print world upon which the information delivery infrastructure has been constructed. Electronic Resources: Selection and Bibliographic Control addresses the resultant concerns of information professionals as they struggle to define, select, and control electronic resources in libraries and information centers today. This book offers readers an overview of issues and provides a common ground for deliberations and decisionmaking.

Librarians and students concerned with the Internet and related issues will appreciate the broad scope and in-depth discussions in Electronic Resources: Selection and Bibliographic Control. From both conceptual and pragmatic standpoints, this book enlightens the reader on such topics as:

• Internet resources
• the relationship between OPAC and Internet
• Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML) versus USMARC
• Text Encoding Initiative (TEI)
• Core Language and the Information Bus
• Dublin Core Metadata as a discovery/retrieval tool
• decision-making matrix model
• e-texts and e-theses
• digital materials and digital libraries

  This book also gives the reader an inside look at a number of specific emerging projects from around the world. Highlighted here are the CATRIONA project from the U.K.—designing an Internet discovery and retrieval system; the ALCUIN project—using traditional infrastructure to handle Internet resources; the Center for Electronic Texts in the Humanities (CETH) and the Electronic Text Center at the University of Virginia; the OCLC Internet Cataloging project; and the National Digital Library Program (NDLP), Encoded Archival Description (EAD), and electronic CIP projects at the Library of Congress.

  Electronic Resources: Selection and Bibliographic Control clearly illustrates the evolving role of librarian from that of gatekeeping in the print world to that of active player in the electronic environment. This transformation calls for alternative strategies in educating future information professionals and reconfiguring traditional infrastructure for providing user services. This book answers that call and helps libraries and librarians as they scramble to define their role against the backdrop of the information-glutted Internet.

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