The Content Fragmentation
Paradigm: Reshaping the Agent’s Role and Its Relationships with Publishers
and Vendors
Tina Feick, Swets
Abstract:Today’s
e-world has dramatically changed how content producers generate, package and
supply information—creating an environment where content fragmentation
is becoming more commonplace. As a result, libraries must find new methods and
tools to manage this information to serve the changing priorities of their end-users.
Our program will examine how content fragmentation, and its resulting complexity,
is reshaping the agent’s role as a neutral, definitive data “conduit”
serving the needs of both digital content users and producers. We will explore
how it is driving new relationships between agents, publishers, vendors and
industry associations for initiatives to drive interoperability, standards,
transparency and efficiency for greater digital access. We will look at how
the agent is utilizing new methods and relationships to develop standards that
streamline data transfer to ILS and ERM systems, and how we are uniquely positioned
to provide libraries with e-data elements and publisher and library profiles
to dynamically manage and develop their information resources through these
systems. Our program will also examine our new role to help customers make informed
evaluations of their content by providing aggregated data for usage analysis
and peer comparison.