Electronic Library and
Information Resources
Introduction and overview
Objectives
To review and define what electronic
library and information resources are
and consider
– their features and functionality
– their strengths and weaknesses
– why you might want to use them
• To consider other electronic resources
Electronic library resources
• Any library or information resources that
can be accessed electronically, e.g.
– electronic journals
– scholarly databases
– electronic books
– hybrid digital collections
– Internet gateways and search engines
• Free or fee-based access
Electronic journal formats
• Full-text—whole journal available
– Electronic version of print
– Electronic only
• Partial full-text—selected articles only
• Table of contents/abstracts only
Why use e-journals?
• An up-to-date resource
• Convenience
• Extra features—e.g. search facilities,
links to other databases, supplementary
information
• Access to a wider range of material than
might otherwise be available through
your local library
Types of electronic resource
• Academic
–
–
–
–
Refereed journals
Review journals
Pre-prints
Bulletins
• Non-academic
– Professional/trade journals
– Magazines
– Newspapers
Academic journals
• Example: African Crop Science Journal
– www.inasp.org.uk/ajol/journals/acs/about.html
• Used to
– disseminate research findings
– find out about research being carried out
by others in your field
– identify methodologies that might be
relevant to your own work
Academic journals
• Features
–
–
–
–
written by researchers and experts
aimed at researchers and experts
articles always cite sources
peer reviewed
• Strengths/weaknesses
– high-quality, reliable information
– may be slow to be published due to lengthy review
process
– often fee-based access
Review journals
Example MathSciNet
– http://www.ams.org/mathscinet/search
Used to give an overview of the current literature in
a specific research area or discipline
• Features
– Give an overview of the current literature in a specific
research area or discipline
– Titles usually contain ‘Review’, ‘Reviews’, Advances
in, ‘Current opinion in’, ‘Progress in’, ‘Trends in’
– Have already done much of the literature searching
for you
Bulletins
• Example: Africa Research Bulletin
– http://www.africa-research-bulletin.com/
• Used for:
– making announcements to a specific audience
– up-to-date information in a very specific area
• Features
– written by in-house staff, or staff writers
– may be issued as required, sometimes intermittently
– contain short reports
• Strengths/weaknesses
– very up-to-date
– standard very variable
Pre-prints
• Example: The Physics Eprint Archive
– http://xxx.lanl.gov/
– now includes more than 70% of the current
physics literature world-wide
• Used to:
– circumvent lengthy journals publication
process
– solicit and provide informal prepublication
feedback on new ideas and findings
Pre-prints
• Features
– written by researchers for researchers
– accessed online from a pre-print server
• Strengths/weaknesses
– very up-to-date
– allow rapid communication of results and
ideas and instant feedback
– lacking the quality control process of a
peer-reviewed journal
Non-academic resources
• Professional/Trade journals
– Example: The Architects Journal
http://www.ajplus.co.uk/
– Written by staff writers and experts in the field,
aimed at members of a trade or industry,
contain advertising, articles do not usually cite
sources
– Good standard maintained by editorial board,
ephemeral nature of the information
Non-academic continued…
• Magazines
– Entertainment, information about popular culture,
product information
– Easy to read, entertaining, information is
lightweight and not always reliable
• Newspapers
– Up-to-the minute information, current affairs,
debate
– Can be valuable sources of certain kinds of
formation but inherent problems of all newspapers
Types of scholarly databases
• Bibliographic—references to published
material
• Numeric—e.g. statistical tables
• Full text—complete publications
• Audio—collections of music
• Image—e.g. collections of slides
• Multimedia—audio-visual, animation etc
Why use scholarly databases
• To search for information for a specific
project or essay
• To provide an overview of research
activity in a given area
• To keep up-to-date with a specific
subject area through regular scanning
Other e-resources
• E-books
– e.g. http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/ebooks/
• Internet search engines
– e.g. http://www.google.co.uk
• Internet gateways
– e.g. http://www.inasp.info/health/
Summary
• The range of electronic resources is
considerable and growing all the time
• The type, quality and usefulness of
resources varies enormously (especially
for academic users)
• There are both free and fee resources
• New users should be made aware of the
differences, benefits and drawbacks of
various kinds of resource
Thank you
Any questions?