An Agent’s Perspective on Issues and Best Practices When Shifting from Print to Electronic Resources

The demand for electronic content is rising within the information community. The growing popularity of e-resources translates to various issues facing library organizations. Library professionals are challenged with multiple content formats, rising costs, cataloging issues and space limitations. Respectively, subscription agents face problematic concerns, including maintaining technology, developing new solutions to help manage electronic resources and effectively relaying correct license information to customers. This article will examine these prevalent issues among librarians and subscription agents, illustrate a comparison of purchasing trends present in Swets North America in 2008 versus 2009 with regard to print and electronic content and provide readers with a list of “Top Ten Best Practices” to follow when making the switch from print to electronic access.