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VIVA Collections News: Ebooks, Monograph Cooperatives, Cancellations
The VIVA Resources for Users Committee met in early March. Most invoices for the current cycle have now been paid. Overall the budget picture for the next fiscal year looks good but rising subscription costs continue to be a concern. Numerous current products were reviewed and recommended for renewal but there will also be a few changes coming for items previously identified as a low priority based on use and availability of alternate sources. You can see Kathy Perry’s message of March 16 on the VAVIRTUA listserv for the full list of products renewed but the two that will be dropped are Books in Print and Contemporary Women’s Issues. Both cancellations will take effect this summer.
Ebooks are now becoming available to all VIVA public institutions as part of the 2013 frontfile collections through Elsevier and Springer. These titles will be provided by the ScienceDirect and SpringerLink platforms respectively. Work in also progressing on a pilot program making DDA titles from STEM disciplines available to VIVA members. These DDA books will be on the EBL platform. Three VIVA training fairs are being held across the state to better share information about these new resources. Ladd Brown, Dave Beagle, and Ed Lener attended the session last week at Radford University and will report back.
The Resources for Users Committee also recommended funding for two initiatives that will look at cooperative collection opportunities. One of these focus on video materials while the other will concentrate on English language monographs in the Q-T call number range. The VIVA Steering Committee approved the funds for the video project but voted to table the monograph collection development pilot project.