The problems of merging traditional reserve desk procedures and technology are numerous. More and more, librarians are becoming immersed in moving traditional course reserves into new formats. This brief article will outline some of the questions that need to be answered, relay my current experiences, and discuss some of the resources out there to look at. The list is long, but here is a shot at some of the questions that we are grappling with. Not only does a lot of communication need to occur between library departments and faculty to make anything in electronic format a reality, but there has to be room for trial and error.
Students are much more forgiving when told up front that they are being involved in a pilot project.
Follow up with a survey to help solicit their input. We have been loading most of them on an internal student access network since January of 1997 and are now working on some retroactive conversion. Our own template for electronic course pages is not too bad. With faculty cooperation, I believe we are on the right track for setting up electronic access to many resources for the students. There are a couple of listservs that might be helpful.