Schedule

• Submission deadline: 18 October 2002
• Publication date: February 2003

Scope

The effective utilization of resources is one of the most important management activities in developing digital content and establishing digital libraries. The new market economies faced by today's manager means that, even in those few scenarios of generous funding, every last drop of value must be squeezed from the available resources to maintain that funding now and in the future. Senior managers are confronting ever more difficult decisions on resource allocation, with the significant issue of opportunity costs to contend with.

There are several aspects to the effective utilization of resources in relation to digital information. The immediate start-up costs of either creating or purchasing digital content; the further implementation costs for establishing a digital library or even just basic access to bought resources; which are followed by the costs implicit in managing and maintaining a digital resource in the longer term.

Hand-in-hand with resource expenditure is the value and benefit derived from the resource itself, and how these are measured and offset against costs - can going digital ever become cost effective? Whether there are intentions to recover costs in its use or to seek profit in the future remains a key strategic question that every library manager will have to address in developing digital information resources or digital libraries. Anne Kenney states that "cost-recovery solutions have been advanced, but to date there is little hard evidence that they will succeed" (Kenney, A. R. and Rieger, O. Y. (eds) (2000) Moving Theory into Practice: Digital Imaging for Libraries and Archives, Research Libraries Group).

Papers are invited for this issue of JoDI that can deliver new insights and research findings related to the economic factors of managing digital content and establishing digital libraries. Some suggested areas of focus are:

• Costs of establishing digital libraries
• Economic effects of digital resources on the institution
• Digital preservation - the economics of preservation
• Economic impact of technology trends
• Methodologies for building sustainable funding of digital activities
• Tools or research in economic evaluation
• Cost surveys
• Case studies

Submission

Authors should submit their papers electronically using the submission form. Selecting the title or editor for this issue from the Theme or Editor drop-down box will alert the editor to your submission automatically. Before submitting please take note of the journal's Guidelines for submission: notes for authors. Authors who wish to submit a paper with unusual features are requested to contact the Guest Editor prior to submission.

The Journal of Digital Information is an electronic journal published only via the Web. JoDI is currently free to all users thanks to support from the British Computer Society and Oxford University Press.