Purpose The paper sought to investigate the landscaping of electronic system through the use of the functional patient’s records management activities. The rationale is to share views and guide organisations that are struggling with providing specification for a functional records management system. Design/methodology/approach The study used qualitative approach to apply the literature in supporting the views about landscaping electronic system using functional patient’s records management activities. Findings The study revealed that without consideration of records management activities the likelihood is that the system may be not properly functional. The best way to landscape electronic system for records management is using records management activities. This will assist in avoiding critical omission for inclusion of all records management system operational activities. Originality/value The paper is proposing a new way of landscaping the electronic system by using the records management functional activities. It also provides a framework to guide the implementers or electronic system developers. The paper was partially extracted from the author’s Ph.D. thesis completed in 2016, to develop a framework for landscaping the electronic system by using the records management functional activities.

PurposeThis paper aims to study the organisation and management of grey literature (GL) to select social science libraries. Further, the study is an attempt to make known the types of GL; extent of demand and the frequency of use of GL; GL collection in other languages; workshops or training programmes or seminars for GL; bibliographic control for GL, etc., in select social science libraries.Design/methodology/approachA survey with the help of a questionnaire followed by interviews was conducted among the social science libraries understudy to explore the issues and challenges involved in organizing and managing GL.FindingsThe study finds that 83.3% of libraries have a separate wing for the management of GL and the majority of the GL acquired by the library are accessed through compact disc and are present in digital form access via online public access catalog.Originality/valueThe paper explores the organisation and management of GL by social science libraries, which is a unique study on its own as the management of GL is not much popular here in India. The study paves the path for more issues to be explored in the area i.e. GL.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to spotlight the research output in the field of grey literature (GL) during the 13-year period between 2007 and 2019 as reflected in the Scopus database.Design/methodology/approachThis study has used Scopus, an abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature, to collect data for the specified 13-year period. The sources, which had “grey literature” in their titles, were considered for the study and the period was from 2007 to 2019. The downloaded results were analysed using specific parameters. The SPSS and Excel have been used for analysing the retrieved data. The VOSviewer has been used for visualizing the network.FindingsScopus indexes different kinds of documents such as articles, books, chapters, conference papers, editorial, erratum, letters, notes, reviews and short surveys. There were 345 publications, which received 309 citations. GL-Conference Series: Conference Proceedings published the most number of articles. The majority 51.9 per cent of the articles were published in collaboration with authors from European countries. The term “grey literature” occurred most commonly as author keyword and index term.Originality/valueThe present study highlights how the area of GL has evolved during the 13-year period. The findings of the study pave the way for more detailed exploration of GL, which has relevance for the researchers.

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to investigate the decision-making process of librarians at the University of Western Ontario who attempted to cancel the Wiley Big Deal. The aim of the study is to reveal the underlying factors that affected their decision-making process. By understanding the decision-making process of librarians, it may be possible to devise a system that takes into consideration not only quantitative factors but also the subjective or qualitative factors that impact librarians’ decisions and thus make it easier to cancel these Big Deals.Design/methodology/approachThe study involved administering an online survey to 25 librarians involved in the cancellation project. Follow-up interviews were conducted with 13 of these librarians to understand at a deeper and more nuanced level the factors that influenced their decisions.FindingsThe main finding was that the librarians who participated in the study could be divided into two groups – a data-driven criteria group and a subjective criteria group – based on their ranking of the factors used to make their cancellation decisions. Most librarians interviewed used a mixture of quantitative factors and qualitative factors when making their cancellation decisions. The authors found that those participants who had greater professional experience and a closer relationship with the faculties in their subject areas had more difficulty in cancelling journals. Very few librarians relied on quantitative data alone.Originality/valueThis study is one of few that have examined the subjective factors that influence librarians’ decisions regarding cancellation of Big Deals. It has implications regarding the movement towards centralized collection management and reliance on quantitative data alone when making collection decisions.

PurposeThe purpose of the study is to review the e-books collection, namely, Ebrary Academic Complete, by understanding its features, cost and usage at Vikram Sarabhai Library, Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad (IIMA). The study attempts to understand the usefulness of Ebrary in terms of its currency of titles, publishers, subjects and cost.Design/methodology/approachThe paper is based on five-year usage data of Ebrary Academic Complete at Vikram Sarabhai Library, IIMA. The data on usage of Ebrary was downloaded and analyzed on different parameters to find out the overall value or use of Ebrary Academic Complete package from the perspective of a management library.FindingsThe research concluded that there was an increase in usage of Ebrary Academic Complete over time. The subject analysis revealed that titles from “Business and Economics”, “Computers” and “Social Science” were the highest used. The publisher analysis indicated that John Wiley & Sons topped in both the highest number of titles in the package and highest used titles. The annual subscription fee model of Ebrary Academic Complete adopted by Vikram Sarabhai Library was working well with a gradual increase in usage bringing down the per title access costs.Originality/valueThe study helps in understanding the approach to evaluating e-book collections in terms of currency of content, subjects covered, publishers included and costs involved. The detailed analysis would assist libraries in decision-making with regard to e-book collection development.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to investigate the authorship patterns and the relationship between them based on some statistical indices for the role of libraries in promoting education at the global level.Design/methodology/approachThe Education Resources Information Center (ERIC) database was searched for the peer-reviewed and full text available journal articles that contained specific words related to either libraries and education or libraries and e-learning in. Data were analysed based on certain statistical calculations to find out the degree of collaboration, collaborative coefficient, Shannon index, Simpson’s indices, Spearman’s coefficient and co-authorship pattern.FindingsThe criteria were met by 262 publications by 517 authors. The highest number of articles related with the role of libraries in education was published in the year 2013, and the highest numbers of articles were authored by a single author rather than multiple authors. The degree of collaboration was found to be highest in the year 2015 and 2016 with a value of 0.66, whereas the collaborative coefficient was highest in the year 2016 with a value 0.42. The Shannon’s diversity index was found to be 2.73705 with an evenness of 1.24568. The Simpson’s index, Simpson’s index of diversity and Simpson’s reciprocal index were found to be 0.299, 0.701 and 3.3444, respectively. The Spearman’s coefficient was found to be highest with a positive correlation of value 0.95 in the year 2013. Furthermore, six co-occurrences by eight authors were found.Research limitations/implicationsOnly the ERIC database was chosen for the study and only articles published from the year 2012 to 2016 were included in the analysis.Originality/valueThis study will be useful for researchers to get an insight into the collaborative research patterns demonstrated by the authors in understanding the role of libraries in education using different statistical approaches.