Traditional and electronic study packs: a case study of the production process

This paper reports on research undertaken at University College London (UCL) for two projects funded by Higher Education Funding Council for England’s (HEFCE’s) Teaching Quality Enhancement Fund (TQEF). This paper documents the production processes, costs and resources for both traditional (printed) and electronic study (course) packs. We concentrate on a comparison of in‐house and outsourced copyright clearance and digitisation services for electronic study packs. UCL’s use of the HERON service is evaluated. The paper concludes electronic study packs would provide a valuable addition to teaching support services, but there are implications for equipment and staff which are discussed. Although this paper is based on a case study from UCL, we hope that other academic libraries considering introducing an electronic course pack service or electronic reserve will find some useful evidence of the integration of electronic and traditional library activities.