Library Technical Services

Electronic Resources Committee Minutes
February 23, 2004

Attending: Nan Hyland, Bill Kara, Marty Kurth, Steve Rockey, Scott Wicks, Ed Weissman

Agenda item: Periodic review of Find Databases contents

We discussed these questions: Should the resources in Find Databases be reviewed and weeded periodically? Who should do the review?

We noted that Find Databases is intended to be a reference collection and that its effectiveness is diminished as it becomes overloaded with resources that are no longer of high interest and use. Given these concerns, we agreed that Find Databases should be weeded periodically using collection scope and use data as criteria. Resources weeded from Find Databases would continue to be available via the CUL catalog. We recommended that public services staff in consultation with selectors conduct the reviews. As ERC liaison to IRPC Steering, Nan will bring the issue of implementing a periodic review of Find Databases to PSEC and later IRPC Steering.

To facilitate Find Databases periodic reviews, ERC would secure HTML lists of Find Databases resources, to include such info as title, selector, and URL. Find Databases connection statistics are available on the CUL Staff Web Site by following the link "Statistics for the Library Gateway."

The current collection scope statement for Find Databases, as adapted from the statement issued by the CUL Networked Resources Redefinition Implementation Group in 2001, is:

We have used the metaphor of a reference collection to characterize Find Databases. That is, Find Databases holds resources that primarily direct readers to information and are useful for supplying authoritative information. Using the vocabulary of the Find Databases genre terms, these resources fall into the categories of indexes and catalogs. The nature of electronic resources expands the idea of reference to include electronic journal collections, since they are accessed by an index. So, for example, Project Muse is part of Find Databases, although its component journals, such as American Imago, are not.

ERC will forward the Find Databases collection statement and an HTML list of current Find Databases resources to the group conducting the Find Databases review.