Ebooks
Of all the breakout sessions I signed up for at the Ex Libris Mid Atlantic User Group’s conference, which I attended on Tuesday, October 30th, there was only one worth writing about: E-book and the Academic Library. The session was conducted in a form of a panel, and the three presenters (E-service librarians from Ithaca College and Cornell University, and a cataloger from Columbia University) made it clear from the outset that because e-books and O-books are still in their nascent stages, there is a lot of concern regarding such issues as maintenance, licensing, download space, general copyright, preservation, and pricing. However, all three were very enthusiastic about the future of e and o books, and believed that the faster academic libraries adopt to the electronic book market, the easier it will be to manage digital collections in the future.
Main points and highlights:
What is the difference between an E-book and an O-book? An e-book is a digitized version of a print book, usually in PDF format. An o-book is a more interactive and experimental model that abstracts the idea of a book and allows the reader to participate in the book’s creation.
But even though an e-book is a digitized print book, once it’s digitized it is no longer a “book”. It is a database and one has to learn how to manipulate the data.
Most e-books have to be bought in bulk. Several years ago, Ithaca college purchased licenses to 40, 000 titles in ebrary for around $15,000. Now the annual fee is around $12,000. Below is some info about ebrary:
“ebrary® has been serving the global library market since 1999, and we currently have more than 1,000 customers around the world, representing more than 6.8 million patrons.
Based on feedback from the library community, we have developed a single eContent platform that addresses a number of needs. Libraries may use the ebrary platform to acquire authoritative content from leading publishers under their choice of payment and access models, and they may distribute their own PDF content online.
All documents in the ebrary platform can be cross-referenced, are full-text searchable, and integrate with other digital resources in the library and on the web through the ebrary Reader™ and InfoTools™ software.” (http://www.ebrary.com/corp/about.jsp)
Karin Wikoff, the electronic services librarian at Ithaca College Library, said that the purchase was worth every penny. The faculty and the students love ebooks,
and they don’t take up any space.
Most of the e-books are REFERENCE BOOKS. No one wants to read novels from cover to cover online. But when it comes to ready reference, ebooks are much more convenient than print books because they’re similar to electronic journals and databases. The books contain in-text hyperlinks that allow to jump from one part of the book to another in a matter of seconds. In order to read the books a special compiler software (READER) has to be purchased by the library. The reader provides a single interface for all the titles.
Perpetual access vs. Perpetual ownership.
The former refers to the titles parked on the publisher’s site, the access to which the library pays for annually. The latter, to the titles the library purchases from an e-publisher and puts on its website or database.
Most of the time, however, the publishers want the library to have perpetual access. The are several advantages to this: no overhead cost, the ease of cataloging, and 24/7 technical support. But there’s one big disadvantage. Last year a publisher decided to 86 a title that Ithaca College Library had purchased access to. A professor assigned the title to his class of 140 students. In the middle of the semester the syllabus had to be rewritten and the students had become familiar with another textbook.
Pros and Cons
Multiple users can read an e-book simultaneously.
An e-book doesn’t take up space.
An e-book is easy to use.
Preservation over time? Unclear.
Access and licensing may be a problem.
Copyright issues.
Titles have to be bought in bulk.
Useful links:
http://www.obook.org/what.php
http://www.against-the-grain.com/ATG_AnaEbook.html
A.K.
