Managing Online Research Resources – There are 9+1 Reasons You Should

Organizations of all kinds spend a significant amount of money on electronic content and research tools – but often have no way of knowing if that’s money well spent. Proactive management of your portfolio with an ERM (electronic resource management) application is critical, whether you are a law firm, a nonprofit or a corporate multinational.

Librarians and knowledge managers, and other information professionals who leverage electronic content will always benefit from monitoring the full portfolio. Many people assume electronic resource management (ERM) is all about cost recovery, which might not seem relevant if you aren’t a professional services firm with a chargeback program – but that’s just one of many reasons to stay on top of what’s happening with your research content portfolio. Other equally important (or even more important) reasons include:

• Evidence-based contract negotiation– don’t rely on your vendors’ reporting
• Support for an increasingly mobile/global workforce using your expensive resources on-the-go!
• User/usage analysis spotlights training and marketing opportunities for the library

With an ERM, you can monitor usage – any time, on any device, anywhere; spot trends that help you to better support departments or practice areas; eliminate unused resources and promote underutilized ones; and approach contract negotiations with a strategy for renewals or license restructuring (maybe you should go with a per seat or named user model rather than an enterprise contract). Make it easy for your end users to manage their login credentials and see their saved searches, and direct/redirect them to sources you’ve quality controlled. Sound good? It should.

Special libraries often get blindsided by budget cuts that can occur when people don’t understand the value of services, products, tools and content. Fill a knowledge gap for leadership, and proactively demonstrate ongoing return on your research portfolio investment.

When you leverage powerful software that helps you manage your online research resources, you’ll establish your credibility as a business leader who understands the value of monitoring, measurement, and evidence based decision making – and maybe you’ll get a seat at the table when budgeting season starts.

If you want to explore this topic further, you can join us for a webinar on Thursday, December 3rd, where you’ll learn how your organization might benefit from leveraging a powerful electronic resource management platform. We’ll share 9+1 reasons you should consider it – and we’ll even explain a surprising wrinkle to cost recovery which makes that capability extremely powerful! Trust us, even if you don’t charge back online research usage to clients – or if you don’t even have clients – cost recovery functionality can be like your “+1” at the company holiday party – discretionary, but invaluable once you’re there.