Developers of Shared E-Resource Understanding (SERU) Receive Coutts Award for Innovation in Electronic Resources Management
SERU Recommended Practice from NISO Offers an Alternative to E-Resources Licenses
Baltimore, MD - July 22, 2009 - The National Information Standards Organization (NISO) is pleased to announce that Judy Luther, President of Informed Strategies, and Selden Lamoureux, Electronic Resources Librarian at North Carolina State University Libraries, are the recipients of the Coutts Award for Innovation in Electronic Resources Management for their work in developing SERU: A Shared Electronic Resource Understanding, a NISO recommended practice.
The award, sponsored by Coutts Information Services, is given by the Collection Management and Development Section (CMDS) of the Association for Library Collections & Technical Services (ALCTS). It was presented to Luther and Lamoureux in an awards ceremony at the American Library Association Conference in Chicago on July 12, 2009.
"Selden Lamoureux and Judy Luther brought together librarians, publishers, and subscription agents to address the labor-intensive process of negotiating licenses for electronic resources, a process that has increasingly overwhelmed both libraries and publishers," explained Andrea Imre, chair of the selection committee and Electronic Resources Librarian, Morris Library, Southern Illinois University Carbondale. "SERU offers a congenial and painless method for achieving a mutual understanding between publishers and libraries. With the potential for drastically reducing the amount of time and money it takes to bring resources to users, SERU is a significant step forward in the electronic resource acquisition process."
"It's amazing to realize that the idea for SERU was first shared at the Charleston Conference a little more than three years ago," stated award recipient, Judy Luther. "Thanks to Karla Hahn's leadership as co-chair with me of the working group and the support from NISO, consensus was reached among librarians, publishers, and agents, leading to the adoption of a best practice that can streamline acquisition of electronic products."
"The experience of working with SERU has delivered on its promise of fast, effective turnaround time for ordering e-journals from what used to take months to what can now take as little as an afternoon," confirmed award recipient Selden Lamoureux. "A number of organizations have been quick to sign on and the value of SERU will continue to expand with the growing number of participating publishers and libraries."
"This is wonderful recognition of the contributions that the SERU project has made to the community," Todd Carpenter, NISO Managing Director, declared. "Licensing is a significant bottleneck in the information distribution supply chain. Through its consensus process, NISO is able to bring together libraries and publishers to address these inefficiencies and SERU is a great example of the results that are possible. Hopefully, this award and the recognition of its impact will continue to spur adoption of SERU."
NISO hosts on its website (www.niso.org/workrooms/seru/) the free SERU recommended practice and related support materials, including the SERU registry of publishers and libraries who have indicated interest in using SERU for electronic resources. Currently, the registry lists 35 publishers and content providers and over 100 libraries and consortia.
About NISO
NISO fosters the development and maintenance of standards that facilitate the creation, persistent management, and effective interchange of information so that it can be trusted for use in research and learning. To fulfill this mission, NISO engages libraries, publishers, information aggregators, and other organizations that support learning, research, and scholarship through the creation, organization, management, and curation of knowledge. NISO works with intersecting communities of interest and across the entire lifecycle of an information standard. NISO is a not-for-profit association accredited by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI). More information about NISO is available on its website: www.niso.org. For more information please contact NISO on (301) 654-2512 or via email on nisohq@niso.org