Poster Board Number: 20
Title: A Survey of Core Medical Electronic Resources for Medical Libraries in Taiwan
Objectives: Recently, the electronic resources became the primary collections of medical libraries. However, the budgets for e-resources can hardly meet the price increases, resulting in the library operation difficulties. Since 2000, many medical library consortia have formed in Taiwan, and they get better discount than ever before. Hence, if all of the medical libraries in Taiwan are teaming up, we can negotiate with vendors for more reasonable prices. Therefore, in March of 2010, the Medical Library Committee (MLC) of the Library Association of Republic of China decided to conduct a survey of all medical libraries to find out their willingness of participating in the MLC consortium and to identify the core medical e-resources to negotiate prices.
Methods: The researcher collected e-resources lists from the library websites of Taiwan’s medical schools and medical centers, selected mostly subscribed e-resources, discussed on the MLC panel, and came out with a core medical e-resources list. Afterward, the researcher sent out a questionnaire to all 335 medical libraries in Taiwan. The questionnaire was mailed in print in June 2010, after 2 reminders, 180 copies were returned in August. With 153 valid ones, the return ratio is 45.67%.
Results: Analyzing the returned questionnaires: 65.36% of the libraries agree to participate in the MLC consortium. ANOVA analysis shows a significant difference among different types of libraries. The core medical e-resources in Taiwan are also identified, including 10 databases, 9 e-journals, 1 e-book, and 1 bibliography management tool.
Conclusions: From September 2010, the MLC emailed requests to e-resource vendors and received feedback in October. Due to time limit, vendors like UpToDate, MD Consult, BMJ, Wiley InterScience, and SpringerLink could not provide proposals for 2011; Cochrane Library,MicroMedex, CINAHL, and EndNote provided special offers for the small and medium-sized libraries. The MLC plans to accomplish the price negotiation by the year end and continue on more e-resources bargaining in the following years, so more products can be utilized with better price.
Authors: Tzu-heng Chiu, Chairperson/Associate Professor and Associate Director, Library, Medical Library Committee of Library Association of Republic of China (Taiwan)/Taipei Medical University, Taipei, , Taiwan; Yu-Tzuon Chuo, Associate Professor/Adviser, Department of Information and Library Science, Tamkang University/Medical Library Committee of Library Association of Republic of China (Taiwan), Taipei, Taiwan
