{"id":60282,"date":"2014-02-04T10:30:06","date_gmt":"2014-02-04T15:30:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/?p=60282"},"modified":"2014-02-04T10:45:05","modified_gmt":"2014-02-04T15:45:05","slug":"digital-monographs-theres-still-a-long-way-to-go","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/?p=60282","title":{"rendered":"Digital Monographs: There\u2019s Still a Long Way to Go"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Clayton Hayes, Head Editor, INALJ North Dakota<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Digital Monographs: There\u2019s Still a Long Way to Go<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n

\"inaljpic\"<\/a>In many libraries, especially academic libraries, remote resources have become more or less a standard.\u00a0 It has come to be expected that an academic library will have access to a wide variety of scholarly materials, both in the form of articles and in the form of monographs.\u00a0 This isn\u2019t surprising; as more and more of our lives revolve around the internet and online or digital materials, it only makes sense that library and scholarly resources would follow suit.\u00a0 It\u2019s not just a matter of satisfying patron needs, either.\u00a0 New developments in collection development, like demand- or patron-driven acquisition systems, have made it much easier and much more cost-effective for libraries to collect monographs digitally.\u00a0 What, though, are the costs of this shift towards digital monographs?<\/p>\n

In my experience, library users understand the rules governing the access of journal articles available online.\u00a0 Most online resources operate under similar rules: if the library has purchased access to a journal, then the articles in that journal can be read online or downloaded by library users.\u00a0 The number of simultaneous users often makes no difference, and this makes sense to users.\u00a0 They understand that digital resources are not commodities; if they purchase and download a song on iTunes, they know that it doesn\u2019t prevent other users from doing the same.\u00a0 This is how they understand digital resources to work, and is perhaps why so much confusion surrounds digital monographs.<\/p>\n

Digital monographs do not follow the same rules as most online resources.\u00a0 Publishers have, in order to preserve their revenue streams, equipped most of the digital monographs licensed to libraries with strict limitations on the number of simultaneous users (referred to as \u201cseats\u201d) and on downloads.\u00a0 The fact that users aren\u2019t allowed to download these monographs is not a complete surprise, since services like Netflix and YouTube don\u2019t allow their hosted videos or movies to be downloaded.\u00a0 It is instead the first limitation on simultaneous users that causes so many problems for users.<\/p>\n

First and foremost, library users don\u2019t expect such limitations to exist.<\/b> \u00a0Though there are popular online services that do limit the number of simultaneous users, the individuals using them rarely run into these restrictions.\u00a0 As far as they\u2019re concerned, these restrictions may as well not exist.\u00a0 The limitations are meant to imitate the use of physical monographs as much as is possible, but library users expect digital monograph services to operate in the same way as digital resources like journal articles.\u00a0 To make matters worse, each publisher or platform has its own rules, and the number of seats rarely agrees from platform to platform.<\/p>\n

Second, once users are familiar with the limitations surrounding digital monographs, there is no way for library users to know whether or not they will be able to access a particular monograph.<\/b>\u00a0 A platform\u2019s interface often gives no indication of the number of seats, nor does it inform the user of how many seats are already filled.\u00a0 Users have no way to know if or when a particular monograph will be available.\u00a0 Librarians, though they may know more about the service\u2019s restrictions, often do not have information beyond the most basic guidelines provided by the publisher.<\/p>\n

Libraries are meant to serve the needs of their patrons.<\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Though the patron-driven acquisition model of collection development can help the library to save money, serious questions should be raised as to the usefulness of the titles provided through these digital content platforms.\u00a0 As it stands, restrictions placed on the use of these titles prevent them from being as useful as journal articles distributed online.<\/b>\u00a0 The move towards digital monographs is not likely to stop anytime soon, though, and it is the responsibility of librarians and other information professionals to push for licensing agreements that further the usefulness of these resources as opposed to restricting them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Clayton Hayes, Head Editor, INALJ North Dakota Digital Monographs: There\u2019s Still a Long Way to Go In many libraries, especially academic libraries, remote resources have become more or less a standard.\u00a0 It has come to be expected that an academic library will have access to a wide variety of scholarly materials, both in the…<\/p>\n

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