Hi Nadine
First of all, good luck!
I've been an 'elibrarian' (with various titles) since 2004, spending one year with the MoD (science libraries & information service). I then moved to my current job in 2005 in a library that is NHS owned but attached to a university medical school that is a collaboration between 2 universities and the NHS. The HQ of the medical school is based in Plymouth although many students prefer to study in Exeter. They can access the resources of all 3 organisations and some of our own subscribed titles as well. They have to have different passwords and logins for all of them and they behave differently on different networks (yes, it really is that confusing).
I've found that by far the bulk of my work, over 65% of it, is dealing with ejournals and the problems and queries they cause. Some of this is caused by the complications that are unique to us as a shared service, some of it is caused by publishers being obstructive and difficult or simply ignorant, some of it is caused by the fact that users aren't as IT literate as they like to think they are, and some of it is the fault of technology. Within the medical school we do have a virtual learning environment but the library has minimal involvement, it's very much the domain of the IT people in Plymouth. I have looked at this (it runs on Blackboard), as well as at moodle (I've seen it used very effectively at Yeovil College in the art department there but it's not suitable for us in the NHS), and briefly at Second Life (too much bandwidth and faffing about required for the NHS to cope with). Problems with ejournals are compounded when titles change name, or are sold to a different publisher, or are purchased lock, stock and barrel (as with the Wiley takeover of Blackwells recently).
The next biggest part of my job, about 25%, is looking after our web pages, both on our hospital intranet and our external website, hosted on the university server. The intranet uses a content management system (and is just about to change systems), on our external website I have to use FTP and Dreamweaver. My predecessor used FrontPage but I've never been a huge fan of that package. Again, the university is about to purchase a content management system which might or might not affect our pages and the way I update them.
The NHS does support elearning and there is a core learning unit which has various courses available but Hospital Trusts do not necessarily recognise the content (e.g. Fire Awareness is mandatory but our Trust doesn't recognise the online module that covers this). The core learning unit is all that's left of the ill-fated NHS university that was around a few years ago (c£73 million pounds wasted by the time it was closed down). I can find plenty of other examples of very expensive elearning that simply hasn't worked. The OU seems to have a much more successful model of 'blended learning'.
Research support - we do have access to EndNote and Reference Manager and I have some knowledge of both packages, very occasionally we get asked for help on this. Our research department does not have a high profile within the hospital and our support to them is limited, not because we can't support them but because we don't get asked to. We are part of that department at present though we have been part of learning and development and also of operational functions (e.g. laundry and estates) in the past.
Other resources - we have access through the university to various other databases such as Web of Science and Lexis Nexis, and very occasionally we get asked for help on these too. In a purely academic environment I'd have thought you're more likely to get asked about those kinds of resources and/or get involved with negotiating licences etc.
One of the main problems with being an elibrarian is, as you've identified already, that there are relatively few of us and the skills we need to do our jobs are relatively new. Many traditional librarians don't have as good an understanding of what it is we do as they do of traditional skills like cataloguing. Another problem I've found, in a shared office, is concentrating against a background of constant low-level noise and chatter in a role that requires a high level of concentration. I do have a sympathetic boss and I have found working from home one day a week a partial solution. We do have a VPN and almost all of the packages I need can be accessed from home.
Statistical reports - I have been able to get some statistics for our electronic journal usage in the last year; in general usage has been very low and actually it would be more cost effective to obtain articles from the British Library. Users are often astonished when I actually tell them how much it costs for electronic journals - and it's about to get worse as we're going to have to start paying VAT even where it's print with online.
The remainder of my job is random things like trying to automate interlibrary loans, mentoring one of our library assistants who's doing a distance learning degree course, giving presentations to departments, publicising what we have, getting packages like Flash upgraded on our NHS machines, etc. I also do a small amount of cataloguing on both the university library management system (Innovative Millennium), which for historical reasons we use, and on the shared NHS south west library management system (Olib).
In the past 4 years I have had to learn a huge amount about VPNs, links resolvers, A to Z products, the vagaries of Athens, library management systems, negotiating with/badgering publishers, and negotiating with IT departments. If you don't already have the patience of a saint and the endurance of a small but perfectly formed terrier, you will find you develop them!
I'd highly recommend UKSG's annual conference; I attended it in 2004 and it was excellent, I learned huge amounts from the talks and speakers. Though their quiz is the most evil on the planet....!
Hope this helps, and if you have any specific queries that I can help with please don't hesitate to contact me.
Best wishes,
Paula.
Paula Younger
Electronic Resources Librarian
Exeter Health Library
Royal Devon & Exeter Foundation Trust
Peninsula Medical School Building
Barrack Road
Exeter
EX2 5DW
Tel: 01392 406729
Fax: 01392 406728
Email: [log in to unmask]
-----Original Message-----
From: An informal open list set up by the UK Serials Group [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Nadine Edwards
Sent: 23 June 2008 16:22
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [LIS-E-JOURNALS] E-Resource Librarians
I've recently started a new job as an E-Librarian in an academic library.
This is a newly created post and I'm curious about how many other E- Librarians there are out there and what their job entails. The fact that I'm starting a new post enables me to try and develop the job as I wish and this gives me a certain amount of freedom but I'd like to know what other people are doing.
I'm interested to foster links with similar E-Librarians, particularly those working in academic libraries. In addition to dealing with e- resources such as journals, e-books, interlbirary loans I'd like to know if you are dealing some or all of the following:
Learning technology
Educational development
E-learning
VLEs
Web pages
Federated access management
Open source
Blogs and wikis
Research support
Statistical reports
Bid projects
Nadine Edwards
Senior Academic Services Librarian E-Librarian University of Greenwich Dreadnought Library Park Row, Greenwich, London, SE10 9LS Tel. 020 83319781
Email: [log in to unmask]
http://uoglibrary.blogspot.com
____________________________________________________________
lis-e-journals is changing ... to lis-e-resources from the 1st July 2008.
Find out more about UKSG at: http://www.uksg.org/ or join the UKSG facebook network at: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=21810140156
____________________________________________________________
lis-e-journals is changing ... to lis-e-resources from the 1st July 2008.
Find out more about UKSG at: http://www.uksg.org/ or join the UKSG facebook network at: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=21810140156
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