As any librarian knows, libraries of all size and type invest a significant portion of their budgets in the acquisition of electronic resources.  In addition to implementing and administering these resources, ibrarians are responsible for analyzing and demonstrating their cost-effectiveness.

In the August/September issue of Library Technology Reports (vol. 46; no. 6), Rachel Fleming-May and Jill Grogg cover state of the art of electronic resources use measurement, offering guidance on presenting clear and meaningful measurement in research, assessment, and standards creation.

Topics Covered Include:

• Assessing Use and Usage
• Standards, Tools, and Other Products
• Improving Understanding of Electronic Resources Usage
• Practitioner Responses on the Collection and Use of Usage Statistics

Rachel A. Fleming-May is an assistant professor at the School of Information Sciences at the University of Tennessee. She received her PhD from the University of Alabama in 2008, and she has published and presented about use and usage, including in Portal: Libraries and the Academy.

Jill E. Grogg is the e-resources librarian at the University of Alabama Libraries. Grogg has widely published on topics such as reference linking, e-resource management, and digital libraries. She was named a 2007 Mover & Shaker by Library Journal.

Texting. The cloud. E-books. Location-based services. Mobile devices, virtual worlds, microblogging, wikis, social media, and so on. What do these things have in common? They have all taken their turn as “the next big thing.” There’s never a been a shortage of up-and-coming library technologies, but while some prove to be revolutionary, others flame out just as quickly. Confusing matters even more, the next big thing might pan out great for Library A, but crash and burn for Library B. We all work with limited resources, so when we invest in a new tool or service, we want confidence our time and funds go towards something lasting and useful (rather than a lot of hype).

In the July 2010 issue of Library Technology Reports, Char Booth turns the next big thing on its head. By examining the “hype cycle” trajectory of a well established technology, Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), Booth offers more substantial insight into the rise-and-fall library innovation process over the long haul. In addition to providing a wealth of guidance on how librarians can use VoIP tools such as Skype to provide services and cut costs in everything from professional collaboration to video consultations and distance instruction, Booth explores how the same tools have been adopted, adapted and rejected throughout the field. “Hope, Hype and VoIP: Riding the Library Technology Cycle” provides guidelines for how librarians can evaluate emerging technologies critically, creatively and with an eye toward sustainability.

Char Booth is E-Learning Librarian at the University of California, Berkeley. A 2007 ALA Emerging Leader and 2008 Library Journal Mover and Shaker, Char blogs about library futures, instructional design, and technology literacy at informational (www.infomational.com), and tweets @charbooth.

In 2009 she published Informing Innovation: Tracking Student Interest in Emerging Library Technologies at Ohio University (ACRL Digital Publications) and has a book on teaching and technology effectiveness forthcoming in Fall 2010, Reflective Teaching, Effective Learning; Instructional Literacy for Library Educators (ALA Editions).

If your job involves working with digital content, your need to make sense of interoperable digital information by managing resources with care and quality metadata and by connecting users to resources—and resources to resources—is greater than ever. In the May issue of Library Technology Reports, Michael Witt helps you do just that. If you are an Electronic Resources Librarian, Digital Archivist or work with Digital Catalogs in any capacity, this report is a must-read for you.

The Open Archives Initiative Object Reuse and Exchange specification defines a set of new standards for the description and exchange of aggregations of web resources. This presents an exciting opportunity to revisit how digital libraries are managing. ORE and its concept of aggregation—that a set of digital objects of different types and from different locations on the web can be described and exposed together as a single, compound entity—may present the next major disruptive technology for librarians who develop and manage collections of digital information. This technology could change your job.

Michael Witt is the interdisciplinary research librarian and assistant professor of library science at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, and an expert on the technology behind digital content management.  Through real-world examples, extensive diagrams and careful explanation, he details the potential of this exciting new technology, and how it can make the management and searching of your digital content more effective and efficient.