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Overview of Digital Issues

Digital Responsibilities

In these digital days in which we live, we all have a responsibility to our students to ensure access. The library has a responsibility to keep everyone informed of any changes impacting digital access. Professors have a responsibility to proactively check ALL digital resources on their syllabi. Publishers do have the right to remove a journal from any database anytime they choose for any reason regardless of our budget situation. Also, there can be technical hangups when something changes blocking access. Of course, budget changes could hit at any time and everyone needs to be informed. We all have a part to play ensuring students can access needed resources. Our course developers would greatly benefit from our help as there are too many courses and too many digital resources for them to fix alone. 
 

Why is this so important?
 

Concurrent User Limits with E-books

  • Professors are free to select ebooks from our collection to use for assignments or course textbooks.
  • Few are aware that all ebooks have "concurrent user limits." Just as physical books in a library can only have one user at a time unless they have multiple copies. The same is true for ebooks except licenses govern the number of users. Licenses can be unlimited or restricted to three or four. All ebooks in the EBSCO and ProQuest collections have a limit of four. 
    • Another problem is that those four user limits pertain are global. That means any library that has purchased access to the EBSCO or ProQuest ebook collections has a global limit of four. It is possible that four people anywhere in the world could be using that ebook and blocking access when your students need it; therefore, professors are encouraged to have multiple ebooks available for assignments.


Assumptions

Many professors assume the library has the same resources as other libraries or other libraries where they are currently teaching (adjunct professors). This is simply not true. Please peruse the library's database page to see what is currently available. We have had instances of professors saying, "Just go to the library. They'll have it." Students then come only to discover that we do not, creating issues.
 

Budget

Library and consortial budget changes can greatly impact the availability of resources. As of fall 2023, the State Library of Texas altered its contract with EBSCO after twenty years. They have changed resources to Gale instead. All of the EBSCO resources, excluding the EBSCO databases that we purchase independently, have been removed from course assignments and reading lists. When changes like this occur, professors will need to review their resources for alternative articles and work with course developers. The same is true if the university changes the library's budget and resources have to be cut. We encourage professors to advocate for library resources with their deans and work with us to get (and keep) resources that they need to best help your students.