Resource Update: Free Version Replacing Licensed Version

On July 1 the licensed versions of Books in Print and Encyclopedia Britannica will no longer be available.  The Collection Development Committee (CDC) with input from the Joint Steering Committee (JSC) and campus staff have chosen to not renew contracts for these resources.  Following extensive discussion and review, committee members were persuaded by the cost savings and the minimal impact, or even improvement, in functionality and quality provided by free versions.

NOTE: If you have created links to EB & BIP by linking first directly to the CDL Directory records, you will need to update those links to point to the new records that will be installed on July 1.  (Unfortunately there is no way to redirect your old links to the directory records to the new records).  The Directory records for the licensed versions will be replaced by the free versions (listed below) as of July 1.

a. Books in Print

Reports from campus staff from around the system uncovered many problems with OCLC’s BIP (such as chronically out of date material).

Since there is no single resource that replaces BIP, listed below are a selection of suggested alternatives:

On the “UCSD Reference Shelf” page on publishers catalogs [http://sshl.ucsd.edu/refshelf/publishers.html] is a collection of alternative BIP resources. Some additional resources include: Bookfinder [http://www.bookfinder.com] and Association of American University Presses [ http://aaup.pupress.princeton.edu/ ].

Each of these resources will be evaluated and added to the CDL Directory as appropriate.

b. Encyclopedia Britannica

The Encyclopedia Britannica Resource Liaison, Dawn Anderson, conducted a thorough evaluation of the free vs. fee versions.  This evaluation was extremely helpful to the JSC in making their recommendation to the CDC.

The free version of Encyclopedia Britannica is available at: [http://www.eb.com/]