Access for students and educators to ERES topics presented in a Digital Library

On the occasion of the 2009 Annual ERES conference, a newly established Digital Library - consisting of previous ERES proceedings - was presented. Meanwhile, all ERES conferences since 1993 have been recorded and the total output in this ìcollective memoryî amounts to over 2,800 recorded entries. Further events are already scheduled for the coming years and an annual increase of ERES-related presentations by more than 300 entries is to be expected. It has to be noted that the quality of the metadata is only as good as the data delivered by the acting conference and seminar chairs. The available initial content is vast enough for this Digital Library to serve as an important source of information for both researchers and educators. The focus of this contribution is placed on the latter. When trying to convey the state of the art to students working on a master thesis or dissertation, eres.scix.net should provide a more than suitable information source. Due to the fact that bibliographical information (for example for contributions to a conference or seminar) is made available shortly after an event, the community enjoys access with a very short delay. It is hoped, however, that a switch to (pre-) publishing the entries shortly before the conference or the seminar will occur in due time. In the spirit of ìopen accessî, no barriers are erected and, similar to Google, the current solution can be regarded as an uncomplicated and trouble-free gateway to information. The argument of ìspeedî for retrieving information should also be considered. A classical library with books on the shelf seems to be easily ìoutgunnedî in this context. Many libraries have therefore successfully adapted to these changing user needs, as will be shown by using the example of the Vienna University of Technology. For instance, collections of books related to real estate can be retrieved by simply clicking on a link on a website. An online up-to-date listing of finished MSc-thesis work has also been made available, thus allowing access to a body of knowledge and diminishing the danger of this type of academic work being under-utilised due to limited visibility.