Carl Grant
Associate Dean of Knowledge Services and Chief Technology Officer, Libraries
University of Oklahoma
Tamar Sadeh
Director of Discovery and Delivery Strategy
Ex Libris Group
Academic libraries face sizable challenges in convincing faculty to use library resources and services as part of the online learning environment. In an attempt to overcome this challenge, many libraries try to include discovery system search boxes or LibGuides research guides in course Web pages. Although embedding these services is a valid tactic, it requires more effort and convincing than would an approach that addresses instructors’ needs for practical, easy-to-use resource-list, or, more accurately, resource-list software. The tasks of creating, maintaining, and providing access to resource lists involve many institutional systems, such as course management, discovery, library management, and student services. By streamlining the workflows between such systems, better managing resource lists, enabling users to access them easily, and implementing adherence to copyright laws, libraries can demonstrate and document their substantial added value to the learning environment. In this session, the university librarian of a large university will present a wish list of ways in which resource-list software would be able to provide added value to academia, and a representative of a commercial developer of academic library software will describe a development project that the company is launching to demonstrate such added value.