Design issues in the development of an electronic reserve system Available to Purchase

Towards the end of 1993, the University of Adelaide Library began looking at the implementation of an electronic reserve system. At that time, a number of other libraries in Australia and overseas were looking at similar projects. Our first useable electronic reserve system was built in early 1995, using scanned exam papers in TIFF format. Later we tried a different approach. We sought original machine‐readable copies of exam papers from the departments (i.e. in word‐processor formats), and converted them into PDF using Acrobat Pro. A further change in procedures has come about in 1998, due to improvements in Microsoft Office that allowed easy conversion of Word documents to HTML. Some lessons we learned were: a variety of methods are available for the creation of content; do not underestimate the level of effort required; and the need for commitment from all parties involved is of prime importance.