Making eResources discoverable in Enterprise

You may be aware that SirsiDynix has released a product called eResource Central, which enables e-resources (e-books & digital audio books) to be discoverable in each library's Enterprise site.

When it was 1st released eRC didn't have the connectors for our e-content provider Overdrive fully established.  However over the last 12 months they have progressed their connections with a variety of content providers including Overdrive.  Given this progress PLS has agreed to purchase and install eRC so that the Overdrive content that the consortium currently subscribes to will be made available directly in Enterprise.  This fulfils one of the original intentions of the One Card project - that the discovery layer (Enterprise) would be the single point of access for all library content.

The timing of the deployment of eRC is constrained by the rollout timetable (17 libraries in 5 months).  Therefore we are planning to get eRC up & running soon after our last library joins the consortium in late September.  At this stage we have not done a full project plan to identify all that we need to do & what a realistic deployment date may be. However we are about to get eRC installed on our "test" system, so that we can become familiar with it, and be well placed to install it as soon as we get an opportunity to do so.

At this stage SirsiDynix is working with further expand the range of e-content vendors which are eRC compliant.  Once this happens we will have the opportunity to consider other e-content providers, as we could then integrate all providers' content directly into Enterprise. (Of course there will be the usual procurement processes to go through to get content from others.  I will have more to say about this in a later post.)  However, even before we add additional paid content to the consortium we do have the option of adding free content from places like the Project Gutenberg and the Open Library. 

So - how does eRC work?  You can watch the great simple video on eRC below or find it on the Web here.

And there is a longer conversation with the product manager from SirsiDynix in the video below.

There is also some brief information on the vendor website.  The Swift consortium in Victoria has already implemented and blogged about how eRC works for them.

As we get closer to implementing eRC, and once we've learned more about how it works through working with it in our Test system we will provide more information.  Should there be a need for any training or handouts for the public we will deal with this closer to the event.