ebrary Ordering System Adds Alerting Features for Patrons and Libraries

  • By Dian Schaffhauser
  • 11/15/10

ebrary has released a new ordering system that provides "instant" fulfillment and real-time collection management. The company acts as a distributor of digital content products, such as books and reports, from 450 publishers worldwide to institutional libraries and other organizations.

The new service includes several facets. Librarians can select and acquire titles under multiple models--subscription, perpetual access, and "patron-driven acquisition"--and then make the content instantly discoverable and accessible to library patrons.

The new ordering system also has tools that support the acquisition process workflow, including fund codes, de-duplication for electronic titles, and profiles that can be created and updated by the library with automatic alerts as new titles become available.

The service also can help libraries promote their collections by giving their users the ability to create and save searches and then be notified automatically when new titles have been acquired that match their interests.

A collaboration service, called Lists, lets librarians select titles of interest, create and manage individual collections of their choice, and collaborate with others to evaluate and create shared collections. Librarians with an administrative access account can use these Lists to create orders, add titles to their collection under ebrary's new patron-driven model, and request quotes for subscription access to particular titles.

About the Author

Dian Schaffhauser is a former senior contributing editor for 1105 Media's education publications THE Journal, Campus Technology and Spaces4Learning.

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