Statement of Principles Guiding Purchase of Electronic Products

The following principles are to be applied when evaluating electronic products for purchase.

Mandatory features

1. Cost effectiveness

  • Access to electronic information via the service should provide value for money.
  • Access is free at point of use.

2. Adherence to Collection Development Policy

  • The service should add to the Library’s strengths in social sciences and humanities and be consistent with the Collection Development Policy.
  • Percentage of titles which match the Library’s current holdings.

3. Licence conditions

  • Terms and conditions for access should meet the Library’s mandatory requirements as outlined in Statement of principles guiding licence negotiation for National Library of Australia. These requirements include:
    • the ability to provide document supply
    • the facility to measure use and provide reports to the Library on a regular and timely basis
    • IP address authentication or other seamless mechanism for authorisation.

4. Access via connection to publishers’ or aggregators’ sites.

  • 2.The Library will not host datasets.

5. Ease of use

Desirable features

6. Persistence

  • 1.The service should manage for persistence.

7. Continuity of access

  • Includes stability of content, number of titles with embargo periods, timely loading of data etc.

8. Perpetual access

  • The service should provide the Library with perpetual access to electronic information to which it has subscribed.

9. Access after cessation of subscription

  • It is preferable that access should continue to be provided through the online site, rather than in CD-ROM or other format.

10. Packaged service

  • The service should provide access to a package of titles to reduce the need for the Library to manage multiple individual subscriptions and licences.

11. Full Content

  • Prime emphasis is on full content with the resource directly and simply accessible to the user, ie. complete journal title not simply individual articles.

12. Intellectual Content

  • The electronic version should contain at least the same intellectual content as the print version.

13. Direct links to catalogue record

  • The service should provide the means to enable the Library’s catalogue record to link directly to the title described rather than a generic page for the electronic resource.

14. Cataloguing records

  • Preference may be given to a service which offers bibliographic records and bibliographic updates as part of its service.

15. Remote access

  • The service should provide the facility for use by offsite users should this be negotiated by the Library

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