After eight years of working to create a digital library where books, periodicals, indexes, and abstracts can be found digitally rather than in traditional print media, RPI Research Libraries spends approximately 75 percent of its 1.6 million dollar resources budget on digital resources. The resources in the libraries used to be self contained collections of print, but now one can access many resources online via subscription services for which the RPI Research Libraries pays.
Regarding the availability of digital resources, Loretta Ebert, director of RPI Research Libraries, said, “We were one of the early frontrunners in academic libraries.”
Seventeen thousand journals are available online while only 3,000 print journals exist in the libraries. In addition, 10,000 electronic books are available. According to Ebert, media such as journals are much easier to maintain because they do not have to be bound and sit on a library shelf. Using subscription services also ensures the latest version of a particular resource is available without filling the stacks with obsolete versions of books.
The ability to access resources across a network means that people take fewer trips to the library. Ebert says people still use the library as a place to work as well as a place to receive help in finding the right digital resource. Fewer library staff members process print materials, but they give instruction and perform online and phone reference.
Ebert said, “The physical library is still here and part of education on campus.”
Online resources have made it easier for people to find and collect the information they need. One can search by keyword rather than looking through an index in the back of each book or periodical index. There is no need to stand at the photocopier and feed it dimes as online access allows one to print the parts of resources that the user wants. Digital media also allows a wider selection of sources than could physically be housed in the libraries.
Some online subscription services allow multiple users to view its resources at the same time, while other services require the user to checkout the resource for a certain amount of time. The user can then download a portion of the resource to his or her computer, but not the whole resource, as that is prohibited by copyright laws. Depending on the license, the library may have to buy more than one copy of an e-book so that as many students as there are licenses can check the e-book out at a time.
In addition to subscription services, the library has been working to digitize its archives over the last few years. The library plans to continue digitizing local historical records, microfilm, The Poly, yearbooks, and histories of the Institution. Ebert says that library technology has to be updated with the archives so that they will be accessible in the future as technology changes.
User expectations have changed as they expect to see books on computers rather than on shelves. Ebert said, “I think that’s part of the culture changing—incoming students are more accepting of e-media as a format.”
Besides books, the library maintains a collection of videos, films, tapes, and CDs. Slides have been digitized in the Architecture library so that students do not have to look at slide sets. Library services have also become automated with online class reserves and web-based book searching.
