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Announcements and Updates INFOhio Core Collection of Electronic Resources Changes for 2008-2009 Message from INFOhio Central April 28, 2008 Libraries Connect Ohio (LCO) Collaboration and Core Collection Development The LCO collaboration has resulted in an increased understanding of the roles the three networks and the State Library can play in providing access to electronic resources to all citizens of Ohio. The pooling of resources by the LCO partners has resulted in an efficient, equitable and cost effective model for delivering access to resources across library community lines. At this time, the Core Collection of Electronic Resources is intended to provide a basic foundation for a collection that will be greatly enhanced in the future. An effort has been made to create a balanced collection that supports the needs of all three communities. This has been accomplished through an open and supportive dialogue between the selection teams from all three networks. The result is a collection of resources that has a broad appeal while addressing some of the key areas of the K-16 curriculum. The Advantages of a Five Year Perspective Having an established collection provided a base from which to review, explore and evaluate the wide variety of resources submitted through the Invitation To Negotiate (ITN) process. The charge to the reviewers was to find opportunities to build on the strengths of the current collection while being open to the possibility of finding more appropriate resources that could better meet the needs of each community. Changes in the marketplace over the five years of the project have resulted in a larger number of resources being available today. This allowed choices to be made between resources that could not have been made five years ago. It was also very evident that some of the resources had greatly improved their quality, depth of information and usability as well. There were also some changes in the cost structures of some of the resources that made them more affordable than they had been in the past. The reviewers took guidance from the results of the INFOhio Users Survey, evaluation of the usage statistics for the current resources, and suggestions and comments from users that have been collected over the years regarding resources and possible changes in the collection to better address student needs. Many of these comments have focused on the need to provide more resources for students in the lower grade levels. Use of the Available Funding as Creatively as Possible The reviewers worked hard to create a collection of resources that will offer variety, high quality and have appeal to all communities within the financial constraints of the LSTA grant funds. Attempts were made to use our current subscriptions to leverage additional content from these vendors. Changes in the marketplace and vendor awareness of the success of the LCO project encouraged some new vendors to be more open to working with us on pricing this time. This resulted in the changes in the encyclopedia, biography and science databases to World Book, H.W. Wilson Biography Reference Bank and Facts On File Science Online. Opportunities to Enhance K-16 Curriculum Support After a review of the current collection, usage information, comments from users, and evaluation of the resources submitted by vendors in the ITN, the review teams felt that there were opportunities to make some changes to the collection that would better support specific areas of the K-16 curriculum. The teams further based their decisions on the results of research with these specific resources using topics commonly assigned in their schools and encountered at reference desks at public libraries.
INFOhio Announces Core Collection of Electronic Resources for 2008-2009 (Message from Theresa M. Fredericka, April 28, 2008 |
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| Last Updated on May 20, 2008 |
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