TY - JOUR
T1 - An assessment of e-book collection development practices among Romance language librarians
AU - Reyes, Betsaida M.
AU - Devlin, Frances A.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2020, Emerald Publishing Limited.
PY - 2021/1/8
Y1 - 2021/1/8
N2 - Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to describe the collection development practices regarding e-books among librarians who manage French, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish (Romance) materials. The authors aim to describe factors that influence acquisition of e-books for Romance language collections to confirm librarians’ perception that humanities researchers prefer print and library administrators’ attitudes toward e-books. Design/methodology/approach: This study collected data using a mixed-method approach of a survey and focus groups. Findings: This study confirms that user preference is the primary consideration of Romance librarians in selecting e-books. Contrary to librarians’ perceptions, this study found that humanities faculty and students are not averse to using e-books for specific purposes such as searching, targeted reading and course materials. While restrictions on lending e-books are a concern, Romance librarians are focused primarily on serving the needs of their core constituencies. Research limitations/implications: The practice of adding call numbers to individual e-books varies among institutions. Individual e-book titles in large packages do not necessarily get added to the catalog, thus making it very difficult to compare e-book collections between institutions. Originality/value: This study endeavors to unify the anecdotal narratives and factors that influence the acquisition of e-books by Romance librarians.
AB - Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to describe the collection development practices regarding e-books among librarians who manage French, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish (Romance) materials. The authors aim to describe factors that influence acquisition of e-books for Romance language collections to confirm librarians’ perception that humanities researchers prefer print and library administrators’ attitudes toward e-books. Design/methodology/approach: This study collected data using a mixed-method approach of a survey and focus groups. Findings: This study confirms that user preference is the primary consideration of Romance librarians in selecting e-books. Contrary to librarians’ perceptions, this study found that humanities faculty and students are not averse to using e-books for specific purposes such as searching, targeted reading and course materials. While restrictions on lending e-books are a concern, Romance librarians are focused primarily on serving the needs of their core constituencies. Research limitations/implications: The practice of adding call numbers to individual e-books varies among institutions. Individual e-book titles in large packages do not necessarily get added to the catalog, thus making it very difficult to compare e-book collections between institutions. Originality/value: This study endeavors to unify the anecdotal narratives and factors that influence the acquisition of e-books by Romance librarians.
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U2 - 10.1108/CC-12-2019-0047
DO - 10.1108/CC-12-2019-0047
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85085902505
SN - 2514-9326
VL - 40
SP - 24
EP - 30
JO - Collection and Curation
JF - Collection and Curation
IS - 1
ER -