|
| FTE |
|
|
11,419 |
 |
| Type |
|
|
Academic Library |
| Location |
|
|
Queensland, Australia |
| Implementation date |
|
|
6/28/2002 |
| Collection |
|
|
Academic Complete |
| Contact |
|
|
Alison Hunter
Associate Librarian
Information Access
Library
University of Southern Queensland
huntera@usq.edu.au
+61 (0)7 4631 1524 |
|
What trends impacted your
decision to subscribe
to ebrary? |
|
• |
Growing need by the USQ to respond to needs of off-campus students and especially off-shore students for access to monographs. |
| • |
Growing ability by students to read materials online (i.e. bandwidth getting better) |
| • |
Apparently growing acceptance of e-books by students (though this was just a hunch at the time we started to subscribe) |
| • |
Subscription pricing model, unlike the complicated per title selection and payment models then prevalent. |
|
| What issues or problems has ebrary addressed at your library? |
|
• |
ebrary has made online content in monographic form accessible at a reasonable cost. Students like it and usage has been good - and growing. |
| • |
Students just won't use any resource that is slow or awkward to use: our usage figures show us that they do like ebrary and find it of value. We are sure that they come back to it. |
| • |
ebrary is an easy database to administer from the library perspective. |
| • |
We don't lend monographs to our many students who are off-shore (although we do send photocopies of book chapters and journal articles) - this gives them real and rapid self-service access to real material. |
|
| What do you and your patrons like best about ebrary’s technology? |
|
• |
The ebrary Reader downloads quickly and automatically, and doesn't require specialist knowledge to use. |
|
| Favorite feature(s)? |
|
• |
ebrary’s searching in general is very good, but I like the translation feature best. It’s quick, easy to apply, and Babelfish is the best free translation service on the web. |
|
| What do you and your patrons like best about ebrary’s content? |
|
•
|
ebrary offers a wide variety of content across many subject areas, especially in business and social science. The number of items in the database is a real strength, because students can expect to find academic material of value with some confidence. So the librarians like it too!
|
| |
|
• |
We also like the academic nature of ebrary’s content – i.e. real books that students use for academic work. |
|
| How does ebrary compare to other digital resources at your library? |
|
• |
Very well. ebrary is quick, easy, and effective to use, has excellent quality (both content and technical presentation), is reliable in technical quality and up-time. |
| • |
ebrary’s staff is responsive to USQ support issues, and we really like ebrary’s help with getting quality MARC records that are tailored to our needs. |
|
