assigning subjects to e-resources (not just serials) in pursuit of a library's collection profile

In pursuit of exposing inequities in library monies invested to date in the different subject areas of our collections, it seems to me any work on serials/electronic serials, mentioned in my previous post, may be augmented by work we've already done with other e-resources.

Think about all those subject webpages at our respective higher education institutions. Many of us have already listed the most important, or categorized all of our electronic databases (and other e-resources?) into subject assignments on these subject based webpages. So recording all e-resources in an excel spreadsheet, [excluding serials/e-serials(?) and books/e-books(?)], and recording what e-resources belong to which subject pages already tells us something about where our monies have gone.

And it has already been broken down by subject expert librarians. Neat.

It will also tell us what e-resources are not being used/promoted as valuable by the subject experts on those subject webpages. I'm not sure if this may be the equivalent of also telling us where purchasing/subscribing went awry, for those librarians with little control over what gets purchased/subscribed regardless of your subject expertise recommendations. I suspect this is where investigating your usage statistics will come in handy. Pairing usage stats, FTE and Head Count with the categorized e-resources my be very enlightening on a number of fronts.

We will also find out what e-resources have broader use/promotion than other e-resources (also requiring a pairing with stats for the best picture results) based on their presence on multiple subject webpages. Where before we purchased/subscribed (and may still) to broad, encompassing databases for the best one-search capacity for undergraduates, it may be that our mix of "most commonly referenced on subject webpages" combined with where the stats reflect best usage, will cause us to rethink how we provide services/resources. Or not.

I'm still mulling this over even as I create these profiles of e-resources on our subject webpages. I'll try let you know how it goes.