Re: A comment (RE: Accession suggestion)

[ml1047@columbia.edu]

Dear Dr. Anderson,

Thank you for taking the time to examine NSDL and consider it for 
your online catalog. I only recently got to your note as I was 
away.

Whereas the vast majority of collections and individual items 
NSDL describes and links to are indeed free/unrestricted, the 
database also holds some metadata associated with resources that 
require authorization, as well as records associated with 
products available for purchase, including print books, software, 
and articles in periodicals. This is true as NSDL encourages 
academic and research publishers and educational software 
development firms--in addition to university- and 
organization-based digital libraries--to contribute to the 
Library.  NSDL in this way seeks to present the largest and most 
diverse representation of materials from STEM research and 
educational communities.

The three groups that coordinate activities related to the NSDL 
central portal and metadata repository are in the process of 
discussing on how best to illustrate the the division between 
open resources, products for sale, and materials for which only 
summary information is available without authorization, as well 
as the technical challenges of the various options.

Perhaps we could alter the MARC record description to indicate 
that NSDL consists of free and restricted materials.

Please advise and thank you for your comments.

Sincerely,

Michael Luby



Quoting Rick Anderson <rickand@unr.edu>:

> An initial reaction:
>
>> The Library's main interface, http://nsdl.org, as well as the 
>> vast majority (>95%) of content resources described in the 
>> database, are free of charge.
>
> This looks like a great resource at first, but I'm concerned 
> about the "95% free" part.  It's not obvious to the first-time 
> user which parts of the content are actually freely available 
> and which are not.  The first title on which I clicked (Emerald 
> Engineering) pops up with a message saying that its content 
> will be available to the public only until September of 2006.
>
> It appears to me that if I have a record for this resource 
> placed in our online catalog, we're going to be giving patrons 
> the appearance of access, but that actual access to its content 
> will be spotty and unpredictable.  Am I mistaken about this?
>
> ----
> Rick Anderson
> Dir. of Resource Acquisition
> University of Nevada, Reno Libraries
> (775) 784-6500 x273
> rickand@unr.edu