[WEB4LIB] Docutek, Blackboard, and other e-reserve systems

[Mark Gooch]

I don't know that you can make an apples to apples comparison.
Docutek's system (I'm assuming you mean ERes) is primarily just that, an
electronic reserves system.  It does have some "online course site
wannabe" features but it isn't the same as Blackboard (although I have
had limited experience with it).

Blackboard is intended to be an all encompassing tool which (in theory)
would allow faculty to build a course site with a variety of materials
(tests, documents, grades, etc.) in electronic format.

ERes on the other hand is primarily designed to scan and manage
electronic documents such as reserves.  The system itself isn't too bad,
its relatively intuitive.  You can incorporate links and even set up a
discussion board although it is up to an administrator to add the new
discussion topics.

While you can put documents up in Word and WordPerfect formats it
becomes rather clunky as even with their plug-ins it is not clear that
the document is being downloaded rather than launched for the user.
Even if you have the word processing application on your machine it
still doesn't automatically launch and display the document.  The best
route is to put the documents into PDF format.  Some problems I
experienced with ERes at another library were the file size which
sometimes took a long time to load for the users.  We also had some
trouble getting the PDFs to print.  We had to adjust the printers to
handle postscript files.

The biggest problem with ERes, and this is probably true of any
e-reserve system, is the copyright issue.  From my understanding,
because the documents are now in electronic format the copyright issues
may be different (Insert disclaimer here: I am not a lawyer and this is
not legal advice).  For example, if you have the same reserve item in
both print and electronic reserve this would count as two uses in which
case payment should be made for the second use.

I hope I have given you some helpful information.

Thanks
Mark

Stacy Pober wrote:

> I'm looking for input and reviews of document reserve
> systems.  Our college has Blackboard (though the library
> has not been using it), and we are being offered
> consortial access to Docutek's system.
>
> Does anyone here have experience with both systems?
> Or can you point me to comparative reviews?
>
> If you've used only one of these but have a strong opinion,
> please share that.  We would like to move towards digitizing
> a larger proportion of our course reserves this coming
> year.
>
> Advance thanks,
> Stacy Pober
> Information Alchemist
> Manhattan College Libraries
> http://www.manhattan.edu/library/
> spober at manhattan.edu

--
Mark D. Gooch
Technical Services Librarian
The College of Wooster Libraries
1140 Beall Avenue
Wooster, Ohio 44691
Phone: 330/263-2154
FAX: 330/263-2253
mgooch at wooster.edu