Managing eBook Metadata in Academic Libraries

Managing ebook Metadata in Academic Libraries: Taming the Tiger tackles the topic of ebooks in academic libraries, a trend that has been welcomed by students, faculty, researchers, and library staff. However, at the same time, the reality of acquiring ebooks, making them discoverable, and managing them presents library staff with many new challenges. Traditional methods of cataloging and managing library resources are no longer relevant where the purchasing of ebooks in packages and demand driven acquisitions are the predominant models for acquiring new content. Most academic libraries have a complex metadata environment wherein multiple systems draw upon the same metadata for different purposes. This complexity makes the need for standards-based interoperable metadata more important than ever. In addition to complexity, the nature of the metadata environment itself typically varies slightly from library to library making it difficult to recommend a single set of practices and procedures which would be relevant to, and effective in, all academic libraries. Considering all of these factors together, it is not surprising when academic libraries find it difficult to create and manage the metadata for their ebook collections. This book is written as a guide for metadata librarians, other technical services librarians, and ancillary library staff who manage ebook collections to help them understand the requirements for ebook metadata in their specific library context, to create a vision for ebook metadata management, and to develop a plan which addresses the relevant issues in metadata management at all stages of the lifecycle of ebooks in academic libraries from selection, to deselection or preservation. - Explores the reasons behind creating records for our resources and challenges libraries to think about what that means for their context - Discusses the complex nature of academic libraries and the electronic resources they require - Encourages librarians to find their own way to manage metadata

Donna Frederick has worked in libraries since the mid-1980s and has seen the introduction of many new technologies over the years. Since 2010 she has been working actively with various aspects of eBooks in academic libraries and has held the position of Metadata Librarian at the University of Saskatchewan since 2011. Donna's research interest is in studying how technological disruptions impact on libraries and how libraries and library employees adapt to those disruptions. The approach presented in this book reflects the author's ongoing work in the area of assisting libraries to adapt to technological change.