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Today's electronic resources have evolved from indexes that mimicked their print equivalents to whole new forms of information that were never available before. So, we need a new plan to present these new resources.
Like many librarians working in small to mid-sized libraries, I perform a multitude of professional tasks. Although my title is automation librarian and the bulk of my responsibility lies with managing the integrated library system, staff and public workstations, and our Web site, I also work regular shifts at the reference desk, as well as teach library instruction and literacy classes. It is at the reference desk and in the information literacy classes that I get a daily reality check on how users handle our library's information technology. This allows me to more effectively monitor how the Web site functions as a resource and access point for our users. Because of what I experience at the reference desk, much of my activity is centered on our ever-increasing number of electronic resources and what we are doing as librarians to present these resources to our users. This article explores the conclusions that I have reached regarding these issues and how I've tried to present this information to our users more effectively.
What Makes Electronic Resources So Different?
Since electronic databases and resources have become accessible through the World Wide Web, librarians have tried to integrate them into their Web pages so that users can access them in an easy and effective manner. Resources have been divided into three main categories: books, journal or article indexes or databases, and reference resources. For librarians, it is easy to see why these categories are used, as this is what we have traditionally done with our print resources. Today's electronic resources have evolved from indexes and other resources that mimicked their print equivalents to whole new forms of information that were never available to us before. Because new full-text, crosslinked, multimedia resources do not fit the traditional categories we have assigned to them, I believe we need to rethink how we present these resources to our users.
One example of a resource that does not fit our traditional categorization is an online biographical database and index. This contains a brief biographical description of an individual...