The Great ( )omission:

Things we need to know about e-books (that they didn’t tell us or haven’t figured out)

Jason Price, PhDLife Sciences LibrarianClaremont Univ. Consortium

Go out into all the world and acquire e-books (?!)

Christian College Librarians ConferenceMay 29, 2008 Pepperdine University

Genesis of this talk

• (Remember Caviat)

Outline

• Why and why not?• From whom and to where?• Evaluation aspects

– Pricing Models– Collection Profiles– Use Rights (DRM)– Interface Usability & Features

• Next steps & Implications– Immediate– Future

Why? (I’ve got a list, but want to hear yours)

1. ____2. ____3. ____

Why not?

1. _____2. _____3. _____

From whom and to where?

• from publishers directly?• From a Book Jobber?• From an aggregator?• Reality =

• To OPAC? • To publisher platform?• To (a single) aggregator

platform?• To a universal ebook platform?

Conclusion: From whom and to where

• From: anywhere as long as the destination is flexible

• To: as few places as possible• Need to emphasize flexibility for

purchases or… look to lease access

Evaluation: Pricing Models

• Packaged Collections • Title by Title• Lease entire collection• Patron-driven purchase• Consortial collections (?)

Rough ComparisonModel EBL Ebrary My I

LibraryNet Library

Lease NO YES NO NO

Purchase (Unlimited Usrs)

YES(limit is borrow period)

YES(?)(No dwnload

NO1 or (2-3)

NO1 or 2

Patron- driven purchase

YES2nd ‘use’

Coming YES1st view

YES1st view

Title by title Yes Yes Yes Yes

What else(Swap?)

Evaluation: Collection profiles

• Age• ‘Uniqueness’• Match to local collection• Quality (?)

Collection Age as of 04-2008

0

2000

4000

6000

8000

10000

12000

14000

16000

18000

earlier 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008

Publication Date

Nu

mb

er o

f E

bo

oks

EbraryAll = 62969

EbraryAC = 38250

MyILib = 93672

EBL = 65535

Collection Profiles: Age

"Uniqueness"

Titles in all 3, 27469, 21%

Titles only in 2, 38513, 31%Unique to EBL,

14349, 11%

Unique to EBR, 15986, 12%

Unique to MyI, 32214, 25%

Match to the local collections: Claremont Purchased Print titles (FY 2007 and 2008)

vs. ebook availability (from all 3 vendors)

ISBN13 Unmatched Titles, 8580,

43%

(ISBN 10 titles), 9355,

46%

Other, 10814, 54%

ISBN13 Matched

titles, 2234, 11%

(20.6%)

(79.4%)

Evaluation: Use rights

• Simultaneous Use• Copy & Paste/Print• Download• E-reserves / Course

Mngmt• Course Packs• Interlibrary Loan

Use Rights ComparisonRights EBL Ebrary My I

LibraryNet Library

Download YES NO Depends on Pub

MOSTLY ???

Copy&Paste/Print

YES YES10pp/40pp

NOPage at a time

NOPage at a time

Ereserve /Course packs

YES YES Unknown Unknown

ILL ? ? ? ?

Simultaneoususe

YES YES Limited Limited

Interface usability

• Delivery units• Simultaneous use• Navigation

Interface features

• Full text search • Hit term highlighting• Extraction (text & images)• Web services

– External lookups (Dict/Ency)– Export Citation (unit?)

• Personalization– Hilighting– Notes

Next steps (for us)

• Lease Ebrary Academic Complete

• Buy “Multigraphs” (Edited volumes?) as e-only

Implications for the future

• And end to librarian collection development

• Buy them buy the chapter?

• Figure out how to possess the contents

Conclusions (What have we learned?)

1. ___2. ___3. ___

Outstanding questions:

• E-book ordering profiles?• How will they be found?• Features ≠ Effectiveness