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Vol. 28 No. 7 — Jul/Aug 2008

It’s not that our long list of items is overly granular; it’s that you really do need and want all those things—some more than others, perhaps, and some later rather than now, but all of those things nonetheless matter to libraries.

So, I won’t apologize for the long list of companies that is taking up the center pages of this issue. Please hang on to this edition and bring it out when it’s time to buy any kind of library product. Or, better yet, at your moment of need use the electronic version at www.computersinlibraries.com. It’s updated all year long.

Of course, when it comes to making purchases for your library, you may not always have a specific product in mind. Maybe you just know you have a problem, and suddenly you find yourself in the market for a solution.

We’ve commissioned two articles this month in the hopes of minimizing your pain when it comes to finding solutions for some vexing common problems:

• For public, academic, and special libraries that are coping with digital collections and the complex license agreements that govern their use, Marshall Breeding has reviewed for us some leading electronic resource management (ERM) solutions providers.

• For those libraries that must, in addition to managing external resources, also provide access to private or proprietary collections, we invited consultant Theresa Regli to review some selected vendors providing enterprise search solutions for collaboration and discovery.

In addition to discussing the products and vendors, both authors share tips for considering the steps you need to take in evaluating your needs and specifying the solutions that are right for you.

We’ve also invited vendors to submit white papers that help you buy other kinds of solutions. (View our Help Our Readers Buy White Paper here.)

Dick Kaser, VP, Content
kaser@infotoday.com