Constant Disruption

Key Points

In this section, we're going to address the following points:

1. Constant Disruption: ERM is an area of librarianship that faces constant technological changes, making it challenging to find continuity. This disruption is what makes the field dynamic but also complex.
2. Conceptual and Practical Knowledge: Conceptual understanding of relevant technologies is as critical as practical skills, and both are interconnected.
3. Library Types: Much of the ERM literature and resources focus on academic libraries, but ERM principles apply to public, school, and other library types. Differences arise due to contextual factors like organizational structures and user communities.
4. Historical Development of ERM: ERM has roots in early library automation efforts, beginning with circulation management in the 1930s-1960s and evolving through the 1980s and 1990s with the rise of digital information access. The core mission remains the same: organizing information to provide access.
5. Key Terms in ERM: Importance concepts include knowledge bases, OpenURL link resolvers, ERM systems, library service platforms (LSPs), and integrated library systems (ILS). These systems manage aspects of digital resources.
6. Emphasis on Workflows: Workflow management is central to ERM, especially during system migrations, which are complex, costly, and time-consuming projects. Frameworks, like NASIG Core Competencies, provide methods for reasoning through these migrations.
7. Technological Evolution: The migration from print to digital resources reflects broader trends in librarianship, including the shift to managing electronic records, full-text search, and the use of the web for information/document retrieval.

Introduction

I think we might conclude at this point that there are different ways to frame the role of the electronic resource librarian. In The ERM Librarian chapter, Stachokas (2018) showed how the electronic resource librarian works across technical services and collection development and how this requires a holistic view as well as a specialized understanding of the processes involved. Huleberg (2016) illustrated how framing electronic resource librarianship as a technical communicator yields important insights into the work and profession. Zhu (2016) used the licensing aspect of electronic resource management work to show how central this activity is to the field's identity.

In the Desperately Seeking an ERM Librarian section, we reviewed a list of qualifications from current job advertisements for electronic resource librarian positions. In Macaulay (2018), we saw how collaborative ERM librarians must be with others in their libraries, and in Murdock (2010), we learned how these kinds of qualifications are tied to technological developments. As the technology changes, and it changes a lot (see aside below), so do the qualifications, at least with respect to specific products. One of the big takeaways from Harnett's (2014) article, for me at least, is that conceptual knowledge of the relevant technology is as important as the practical knowledge, although the two are not always so easily divorced from each other.

Aside: See The Library Technology Guides' page on The History of Mergers and Acquisitions in the Library Technology Industry to get a sense of how much change has taken place in the last 40+ years.

Based on the literature so far, I think it's safe to say that the work of electronic resource librarianship is one of as themed in Burns (2025). And by that I mean, it might be more difficult to find a thread of continuity, from its early days to now, in this role than it would be in other areas of librarianship. That might be part of what makes this area so interesting, but it does present some challenges.

Framing

Marshall Breeding (2018) makes several important observations in his discussion of electronic resource management. First, the rise of e-resources has increased dramatically in recent years (specifically the last two decades), and this has had uneven effects on different library types (that exist to this day). For example, academic libraries have responded by collecting more e-resources, since digital publishing has become the dominant mode of publishing, especially for journals. This has had broader effects on other products, too, such as the tools used to manage and provide access to e-resources. Public libraries, however, have continued to build print collections, even as they expand other collections, such as audio- and e-book lending.

Breeding then provides a historical timeline of electronic resource developments that begin with the launch of Integrated Library Systems (ILS) in the 1970s. The key thing to remember is that the ILS was invented before the transition to electronic or digital publishing (and before the web), and therefore when it was invented, the model it used was a simple extrapolation of the card catalog system to an electronic form, as well as various indexing services (e.g., newspaper indexes, etc). Those who grew up using libraries from and before the 1990s (or even early 2000s) might remember using the OPACs that came with these systems in libraries at the time. These OPACs were not capable of searching much more than what could be found in a basic MARC record or various periodical indexes (see Figure 1).

For a traditional OPAC that searched only subject, author, and title (modeled after the card catalog), see Glendale Community College, Instructional Materials Center, GCC Library Online Public Access Catalog. Arizona Memory Project, accessed 09/04/2026, https://azmemory.azlibrary.gov/nodes/view/210418

I understand some terms Breeding uses and the technologies he describes might still be new to us. Let's spend some time providing some additional background information and highlighting some things to look for in these three articles.

Even though the ILS was available in the 1970s, this work begins much earlier and is entirely connected with the development of computer and related technologies more broadly. For example, in Burns (2014), I provide a historical account of the first library automation project that took place in the 1930s with Hollerith punched cards, via the work of Ralph Halstead Parker. By the 1960s, Parker's work led him to the use of early computers to manage circulation and patron records. These were both key components of ILS products today, which now function as separate modules in modern ILSes.

In the early 1970s, tools became available to manage and search bibliographic records. Hence, computers were first used to manage the circulation of books, then patron records, which allowed patrons to check out works electronically. Then we had the ability to search for works via early OPACs. If a work of interest was located using an OPAC, the work could be retrieved from the shelves or ordered via interlibrary loan by snail mail. Full text search came much later with the introduction of better storage media, like CD-ROMs, in the 1980s. This period saw major growth when access to the internet to more institutions grew in the 1980s and the web in the early 1990s, which at its heart is nothing more than a big document retrieval system.

In the process of migrating from print to electronic, all sorts of things had to change, but all that change rests on the major premise of librarianship: to provide access by organizing information in order to retrieve information. Although you may have heard that libraries are ancient entities, libraries and librarianship as we understand them today did not modernize until the late 1800s but more so starting in the 1920s and 1930s. It was during this later time frame when some in the profession began to hone in on the major complexities and challenges, social and technological, involved in organizing and retrieving information in order to provide access. The challenges with organizing and retrieving information that they identified nearly 100 years ago were indeed major and problematic. Fortuitously, it gave rise to what we now called library science: the rigorous study of libraries, librarianship, collections, users, communities, and so forth. What this all means is that not only did we need to develop the technologies to automate libraries and its practices, but we also had to have research-based practices in place to make use of those technologies. And much of that early research focused on the organization of information (1930s), information/document retrieval (1960s), and then later, primarily in the 1980s, user information seeking behaviors (thus marking the turn to psychology in library and information science, from a more computer science position).

If interested in the early research years of librarianship, much of that began in the early 1930s with the launch of The Library Quarterly, the first research based journal for the field. You can read my notes on the first four volumes.

Even though the groundwork for a library science started in earnest nearly 100 years ago, the primary means of accessing print collections was through a physical building. With the introduction of computer systems in the 1960s and with better networking technologies in the 1980s and 1990s, the web in the 1990s and in greater scope in the 2000s, issues with organizing and retrieving information to provide access to it grew exponentially. This exponential increase created new complexities and launched an entire new field, what we now call information science.

Breeding also accounts for other developments that include:

• Finding aids
• Knowledgebases
• OpenURL link resolvers
• ERM systems
• Integrated library systems (ILS)
• Library service platforms (LSP)

Some of the above terms are defined in ODLIS: Online Dictionary for Library and Information Science, a good resource to bookmark.

Finding aids (not used like archivists use this term) and knowledgebases were created to manage, track, and access electronic journals. This lead to A-to-Z journal listings, which could generally be found on the home page of library websites. Products like BrowZine are quickly taking over the place of these prior products, mostly because they provide a more modern and mobile friendly way to locate and access relevant journal titles.

If copyright law were a bit different, then libraries might only have to link to a journal or journal article's main publication page. But linking directly to these sources is problematic for literature that is behind a paywall. This is because in order to make the access seamless (clicking a link to a subscribed item), users have to be authenticated and authorized to gain access through identity management systems. The OpenURL link resolver technology was created to make that process seamless. This technology essentially encodes the metadata for an item in a URL and passes that URL as a search query to a discovery system, which can then handle identity management. We will cover link resolver technology in Section 2.3.

Finally, as noted above, the ILS has been around for about fifty years, and as noted, it was created before the advent of electronic publishing. It was useful because it functioned as a truly online public access card catalog, but as such, it did not have the capabilities (or modules) to manage electronic publishing, since that did not yet exist. And as Breeding notes, managing electronic and print subscriptions are two entirely different processes (mainly because libraries buy print but subscribe to e-resources, and that involves managing contracts). Thus, in the early 2000s, when journals and other resources became more online, it became obvious for the need to manage these kinds of titles and their subscriptions. This led to the creation of electronic resource management systems (ERMS), which were generally tacked on as extra products to existing ILS systems.

ERMS products were designed to help manage the financial aspects of e-resource subscriptions and to work with ILS software. Until then (and even after) librarians had used other software, like spreadsheets, to manage their e-resource collections. That solution does not scale up very well for large libraries and can lead to duplication and data errors (e.g., not knowing what's in a collection, when to pay invoices, or renew contracts). ERMS products solve that issue. As Breeding notes, NISO (National Information Standards Organization) led the development of a recommended practice to help vendors create software that allowed for data transfer between an ILS and an ERMS (more about NISO in Section 2.2). The protocol (CORE: Cost of Resource Exchange) outlined a data model and a data exchange model that allowed librarians to track purchase order numbers, costs, start/end dates, and more when the protocol was implemented in the ILS and ERMS products.

Standalone ERM products continue to exist, and we'll cover them in Section 2.1, but just as link resolver technology was integrated into ILS products, ERM products also eventually were integrated into the ILS. This, and in conjunction with discovery systems (as opposed to OPACs), led to what Breeding termed Library Service Platforms (LSP).

LSPs are considered different from the ILS in those two ways: in how they manage e-resource subscriptions and in how they search collections. Regarding the latter, they provide more comprehensive abilities to search most or all of a library's collections, regardless if those collections are native print, digitized from print, or born digital. For example, the old OPAC was designed to search MARC records, but the practice of analytical entry stopped at the title level for journal titles and did not include journal articles in those titles. Thus, OPACs could not access digital collections. Recording specific titles in periodicals (journal articles, news articles, magazine articles, etc.) was the responsibility of indexing and abstracting services (e.g., Reader's Digest Index , New York Times Index, the Social Science Citation Index, etc.), which started off as print. The LSP solved this problem by building in the ability to connect to a library's subscribed databases and provide better search across all the catalog and the databases through a single search box. Instead of having to locate one or a few from the hundreds of databases a library might subscribe to, the LSP therefore unified the collection.

Given all this, we might wonder if the ILS will go away. However, as noted at the start of this section, the growth of e-resources (or digital content) has had different effects on different library types, and this pertains to LSPs, too. For those types of libraries that might rely heavily on periodicals, then the LSP makes sense, because it allows for users of those libraries to search a library's catalog and databases from one interface. This means we find adoption of LSPs more common among academic and health libraries. But public and school libraries continue to be book centered, and thus adoption of LSPs is much slower in those spaces because the ILS works fine in that context. Of course, this all depends just as much on the size of the library as its type. Some major public libraries have vast collections that include traditional public library collections but also scholarly ones, too.

We will revisit Breeding later, but I can point out now that Breeding is the owner of the Library Technology Guides website. If you would like to keep abreast of the recent news on the electronic resource industry, Breeding's website is a must.

Workflow

Cote and Ostergaard (2017) and the Fu and Carmen (2015) each document migrations from traditional ILS platforms to LSP platforms. The key idea common between each article is that workflows matter. Fu and Carmen describe a multi-year process with three distinct, well-planned phases. Since migration from one system to another involves the transfer of a substantial amount of data and types of records (patrons, circulation, collections, etc), planning and documentation are essential for a successful migration.

Cote and Ostergaard's article focuses less on the specific migration process and more on how the NASIG core competencies and the e-resource lifecycle can provide a framework for reasoning about migrations. The authors highlight the importance of key competencies, which will be useful in future revisions of those competencies. Most importantly, using the core competencies in this way allows librarians to predict and perhaps mitigate specific pain points and know what to anticipate in their migrations.

The Focus on Academic Libraries is Misleading

One caveat, though: many e-resource topics seem centered on academic library contexts. However, the terms, concepts, and processes described in these articles are relevant to other types of libraries. These include public librarianship, school librarianship, and so forth. Differences in processes and in some details will arise due to organizational or other contextual differences among these library types. Organizationally, for example, public libraries are connected to municipalities, county governments, state libraries, and to public library consortia. This presents unique organizational challenges, and it highlights the fact that municipal, county, or state laws define how some processes must be handled and who must handle them. The same is true for public schools. In such cases, school boards and school districts will likely be involved (see aside below). Contextual differences that shape electronic resource management include user communities. An academic library serves its students, faculty, staff, and perhaps the public to some degree. However, a public library serves its local community, which can be more diverse. Such differences will shape ERM workflows and other choices, like the chosen vendors and publishers. For example, academic libraries provide more scholarly sources, and public libraries provide more ebooks and audiobooks and less e-journals. This means that we might find services like OverDrive/Libby, Epic, and Hoopla offered by public libraries but not in academic ones, and that we will rarely find more advanced scholarly resources in public libraries (depending on the public library, of course). These differences in needs, due to different communities, will change the emphasis on some aspects of the ERM workflow and lifecycle.

Aside: As an example, see the impact that the recent book bans are having on ebook providers and note all the parties involved in these situations, including: superintendents, county officials, county school system, school district employees, etc. Ingram, 2022.

In other recent development, ChatGPT has been used to satisfy the legal requirements Iowa school districts (Opsahl, 2023) must follow to remove books that contain any sexual content from school libraries (Paul,2023). There's a worthwhile response to criticisms about this and about the overall law in a recent New York Times article (Exman,2023).

Another reason why ERL research leans toward the academic setting is not because electronic resource management is not relevant to public or other types of libraries. Rather, it is because academic librarians publish more about electronic resources than public librarians. For example, I conducted a search in LISTA with the following query, which returned just three results in 2021 when I first ran the query, four results in August 2022, and four results again in August 2023, August 2024, August 2025, and five in September 2026. In fact, a new article wasn't published since the 2021 query. Rather, LISTA just added an addition item from 2015.

(DE "ELECTRONIC information resources management")  AND  (DE "PUBLIC libraries")

It does not get much better if I expand the query to include some additional thesauri terms. This query returns only six results in 2021, seven in 2022, eight in 2023, eight in 2024, eight in 2025, and nine in 2026:

(DE "PUBLIC librarians" OR DE "PUBLIC librarianship" OR DE "PUBLIC libraries") AND  (DE "ELECTRONIC resource librarians" OR  DE "ELECTRONIC information resources management")

However, if I focus that query on academic libraries, then the results increase. The following query returns 51 hits in 2021, 57 in 2022, 61 in 2023, 64 in 2024, but 59 in 2025 (unclear why there's a drop), and 73 in 2026:

(DE "ELECTRONIC information resources management")  AND  (DE "ACADEMIC libraries")

And this query returns 82 results in 2021, 90 in 2022, 97 in 2023, 100 in 2024, 91 in 2025, and 112 in 2026:

(DE "ACADEMIC librarians" OR DE "ACADEMIC librarianship" OR DE "ACADEMIC libraries") AND  (DE "ELECTRONIC resource librarians" OR  DE "ELECTRONIC information resources management")

We could continue to explore LISTA or other databases for relevant material on ERM and public libraries, and we would find more. For example, more results in LISTA are retrieved when I attach terms like the following to a public library query:

• e-resources
• integrated library systems
• discovery platforms
• electronic information resource management
• electronic information resources
• electronic information resources software, or
• ebooks

But the results are nearly always much less than academic library searches.

Another example, my local library system, Lexington Public Library, uses the CARL.X integrated library system, but there doesn't appear to be any articles in LISTA about it since 2015. This either suggests that an ILS like this has been fairly stable or public librarians publish less on their work with these systems.

Anyway, you get the picture. There simply isn't a lot of material on electronic resource management from the public library perspective. A quick search in the school media sphere mirrors this issue, too. The following search return zero results from 2021 through 2026:

(DE "LIBRARY media specialists")  AND  (DE "ELECTRONIC information resources management")

If you go into public librarianship or school media librarianship, I'd encourage you to publish on electronic resources. It would greatly benefit your peers and those of us who teach courses like this.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the field of electronic resource management is defined by its constant evolution and disruption, which is driven by rapid technological advancements within various contexts. ERM librarians must navigate a complex landscape that requires both conceptual and practical knowledge. They must develop and apply workflows and systems because the latter are in constant flux. While much of the focus has been on academic libraries, the principles of ERM extend to public and school libraries, too. However, these areas lack sufficient scholarly exploration. Ultimately, the mission remains unchanged: to organize and provide access to information. This challenge grows more intricate, though, as technology progresses. Understanding the historical development and current tools, which we will begin to explore in the next chapter, is essential for adapting to the future of library services.

Readings / References

Breeding, M. (2018). What is ERM? Electronic resource management strategies in academic libraries. Computers in Libraries, 38(3). https://www.infotoday.com/cilmag/apr18/Breeding--What-is-ERM.shtml

Burns, C. S. (2014). Academic libraries and automation: A historical reflection on Ralph Halstead Parker. Portal: Libraries and the Academy, 14(1), 87–102. https://doi.org/10.1353/pla.2013.0051

Burns, C. S. (2025, February). Constant disruption in electronic resource management. Against the Grain, 37(1), 33-35. https://issuu.com/against-the-grain/docs/against_the_grain_v37_1_february_2025_full_issue

Cote, C., & Ostergaard, K. (2017). Master of "complex and ambiguous phenomena": The ERL's role in a library service platform migration. Serials Librarian, 72(1–4), 223–229. https://doi.org/10.1080/0361526X.2017.1285128

Exman, B. (2023, September 1). Opinion | A word on censorship from the book-banning monster of Iowa. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/01/opinion/book-ban-schools-iowa.html

Fu, P., & Carmen, J. (2015). Migration to Alma/Primo: A case study of Central Washington University. Chinese Librarianship: an International Electronic Journal. https://digitalcommons.cwu.edu/libraryfac/30/

Glendale Community College, Instructional Materials Center, GCC Library Online Public Access Catalog. Arizona Memory Project, accessed 09/04/2026, https://azmemory.azlibrary.gov/nodes/view/210418

Ingram, D. (2022, May 12). Some parents now want e-reader apps banned - and they're getting results. NBC News. https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/library-apps-book-ban-schools-conservative-parents-rcna26103

Opsahl, R., May 26, I. C. D., & 2023. (2023, May 26). Governor signs education bills, including ban on school books depicting sex. Iowa Capital Dispatch. https://iowacapitaldispatch.com/2023/05/26/governor-signs-education-bills-including-ban-on-school-books-depicting-sex/

Paul, A. (2023, August 14). School district uses ChatGPT to help ban library books. Popular Science. https://www.popsci.com/technology/iowa-chatgpt-book-ban/