E-books are an ever-increasing staple in academic libraries, where 24/7 desktop delivery of content has become a standard user expectation. Early e-books became available to academic libraries around 1999, from NetLibrary and Project Gutenberg. NetLibrary contracts held by the University of Texas at Austin and others signaled a bold step into the burgeoning information age and kicked off a decade of digital growth that included e-books, e-journals, openURL technology, expanded wireless access, and social media. Indeed, ten years ago e-books were viewed as a passing fad with little attention paid by the general readership and mostly negative mention in the media. As of Bowker’s 2008 annual statistics, e-books were a $67 million segment of the publishing industry; now, more publishers are offering content each year, and significant research and development money is being poured into competing portable e-book reading devices (R. R. Bowker 2008).
Today, e-books are sold in a wide variety of formats, genres, interfaces, and pricing models, as is seen in table 5.1. Types of e-books now available include popular reading, scholarly monographs, monographic series, reference works, downloadable audiobooks, collections based upon scholarly bibliographies such as EEBO (Early English Books Online), and free classic texts that are out of copyright such as those in Project Gutenberg.
E-book vendors include third-party aggregators such as NetLibrary, E-book Library Corporation (EBL), ebrary, Safari, Humanities E-book, Gale, and MyiLibrary as well as a variety of individual publishers such as Springer, Elsevier, Cambridge University Press, Duke University Press, Palgrave, and Wiley-Blackwell. Some third-party aggregators, such as Gale, offer both in-house publications and titles from partner publishers; others, such as Elsevier, offer their titles through direct contracts or through aggregators like EBL. The transferability of digital content, and in particular e-books, makes them extremely agile products to package and repackage as the market dictates.
Pricing models also vary from publisher to publisher. Early e-book models were based on the traditional title-by-title selection by librarians, similar to contemporary practices with print books. This model is still used by some vendors today; designated librarians can select from an online title list—updated each month by the vendor—after which an invoice is generated and MARC records for the selected titles are delivered electronically for downloading into a local OPAC. The MARC records provide OpenURL links to the e-book content.
The next pricing model to hit the e-book market was subject-based subscription packages. These packages typically contain anywhere from 100 to 1,500 titles based on broad common subject areas such as business, computer science, or health science and provide a mix of new and standard titles in that field. Some packages add new titles each year while retaining the backlisted titles while other packages swap out older titles in favor of new or revised content. These subject-based packages are paid on annual subscriptions to accommodate the addition of new material each year.
The newest pricing model to hit the market is pay-per-view, or what some call patron-driven purchasing. The point of this model is to provide patrons with a wide variety and volume of content while charging them only for materials they actually use. In these models, MARC records are loaded into a local OPAC, and when a library patron opens the content, a charge is generated on the library’s invoice. The parameters for these charges vary greatly and must be carefully negotiated to contain costs up front. Indeed, one of the biggest concerns librarians have with adopting this model is the fear of runaway costs generated by users indiscriminately opening the e-books. Careful planning during the implementation stage can avert this kind of worst-case scenario. Negotiable points include:
Some vendors solidify these parameters at the start of an annual contract; others allow libraries to adjust the parameters as needed throughout the contract period. This kind of flexibility allows libraries to control costs instantaneously and make adjustments during unpredictable budget years. Pay-per-view options are currently offered by NetLibrary, EBL, Elsevier, and Wiley-Blackwell as well as some foreign-language vendors such as Chinamaxx and Eastview; ebrary’s pay-per-view program is in development.
In addition to the various pricing models, vendors offer different access models. The checkout model is based on the traditional print library where one book can be used by one patron at a time and multiple copies of the same e-book can be purchased to accommodate high demand. The checkout model for access is commonly associated with title-by-title purchase models. The unlimited-access model allows multiple users to open the same title simultaneously and is more commonly used alongside a package or pay-per-view purchase model.
Finally, e-books are delivered in a variety of formats, the most common being HTML, which can be read through a standard Internet browser, or PDF, which can be accessed through Adobe Acrobat or a vendor’s proprietary interface. Some such interfaces require a user to download additional software, drivers, or plug-ins—something to consider before contracting with an e-book vendor, since these technical requirements may impact the setup of library computer workstations or require additional instruction for patrons using e-books on personal laptops. Access to e-books, both in the library and remotely, is also affected by issues such as whether the vendor offers IP address recognition or individual user log-in/passwords. Another consideration is whether the vendor offers OpenURL linking that can be run through local link resolvers such as SFX (ExLibris), 360 Link (Serials Solutions), or WebBridge (Innovative Interfaces). The presence of OpenURL linking significantly increases the discoverability of e-books, not only through the library’s OPAC but also through licensed databases, Google Scholar, and other web-based research tools.
The University of Texas at Austin has taken a highly experimental approach to collecting e-books over the past decade and now offers access to over 600,000 e-books. Its first e-book contract, with NetLibrary in 1999, provided access to five hundred titles. Soon the experiment grew to include both title-by-title and subject package contracts with companies such as ebrary, Safari, and IT Knowledge. Later it added disciplinary databases with e-book content such as EEBO (Early English Books Online), ECCO (Eighteenth Century Collections Online), Sabin Americana, Early American Imprints, and many others. In 2007 it began a pay-per-view pilot with EBL, and today it continues to look for ways to integrate e-book purchasing into its larger collection building by adjusting print approval plans and budgets to work in concert with the e-book endeavors. The university has been fortunate to participate in several consortial arrangements for e-books. Although it has never formally marketed e-books, it has incorporated them into undergraduate information literacy curricula, instructed faculty in incorporating e-books into course management software (Blackboard is used on the UT Austin campus), and featured e-book products on the library website’s spotlight section.
Another unique feature of the university’s e-book program is its involvement with the Google Books project. The Google Books project made its public debut with five partner libraries in 2004, with a goal of digitizing the contents of the world’s best libraries for public use. Those libraries, Oxford University, Harvard University, University of Michigan, Stanford University, and the New York Public Library, were originally estimated to contribute fifteen million volumes to the project. UT Austin joined the project as a partner library in 2007, committing up to one million unique works from the Benson Latin American Collection to the massive digitization project. The motivation for joining as a partner library was to improve the discovery of these unique works and support public domain access.
The partnership is ongoing and the results have been quite successful. The top-viewed title contributed by UT receives approximately 3,500 hits per week. The Google Books project is undoubtedly the largest digitization project ever undertaken and has created quite a stir in both the publishing and library worlds. Everything from the project’s standards for digitization and metadata to Google’s approach to copyright law has encountered close scrutiny. Only time will tell the outcome of the legal challenges Google faces over the project and the global impact of the sea change Google has imposed on the publishing and library industries.
The funding of an e-book collection from existing library budgets is no small consideration. Careful planning and negotiation with the selected vendor or vendors is required to make sure library users get access to the most content for the library’s money. Perhaps the first step in planning an e-book budget is to identify subject/genre areas that will support the success of the program. By looking at existing user patterns, librarians can target areas of content users are already seeking online. Many libraries have noticed a decline in use of print reference materials, with most patrons preferring the convenience and speed of online answers. In this case, offering a selection of reference e-books, either selected title by title or in a package such as Oxford Reference Online, Sage Reference Online, or Credo Reference, is one way to supplement the authoritative content library patrons require in an online format.
Another target area might be classic literature for English classes, where assignments may focus on close reading. E-books in this area offer a convenient way to perform keyword and proximity searches for textual analysis. Yet another common pattern is the desire of those in the sciences to access the latest publications in the field, perhaps using single chapters from several new volumes but rarely needing books published more than three years earlier. In this case, a subject-based e-book package with annually updated titles could best suit these users. Once the target audiences, subjects, and format needs are identified, the library can search for a customized e-book plan to best suit its needs.
The next step is to determine whether the new e-book content will replace print purchases or duplicate them. If the library cannot afford to duplicate content, then it is likely to reallocate the funds previously used for print content in the target area to the new e-book plan. If duplication is desired, the funds used for print can be cut in half, with half redirected toward e-books, or funds from another area can be used to supplement the new e-book plan. Of course, funds can also be diverted from subject areas identified as no longer needed or receiving too little usage. A reasonable starting target for e-book expenditures is 10 percent of a library’s total collection budget, working up to 25 percent as users demand it.
In addition to identifying target areas for e-book success, libraries can modify existing approval plans to help fund e-book initiatives. For example, many e-book aggregators offer titles from publishers that are duplicated on print approval plans. Thus, the library may elect to block certain publishers on the approval plan in favor of online access through the chosen e-book provider. Because some patrons prefer print over e-books, provisions can be made to allow the supplemental title-by-title purchase of print books when a patron specifically requests it in lieu of an e-book. One challenge to be considered if you rely upon an e-book provider in lieu of receiving print for certain subjects or publishers is that the e-book edition of a title is often released on a six-month delay. Publishers cite this release strategy as a way to retain print sales in an ever-declining market. However, the strategy poses serious concerns for libraries wishing to provide up-to-the-minute content to users, particularly those who are well aware that the content is available, if only in print.
In e-book budget planning, usage statistics can be the most useful tool for determining target areas of low and high priority. Such statistical data can be pulled from the print approval plan and the acquisitions and circulation modules of the ILS on publishers, prices, subject areas, and quantities. After analysis, certain publishers may stand out as high cost and low use, perfect candidates for a user-driven e-book plan rather than automatic purchase through a print approval plan.
E-books can create the need to alter purchasing and processing workflows within the academic library, for they are a unique product with qualities similar to both print books and online journals. Thus, the requirements for managing e-books are a hybrid of these two more familiar worlds. E-book vendors are sometimes the same publishers with whom the library already has established relationships, like Gale, ProQuest, or Springer, but they can also be relative newcomers like EBL. As discussed above, there are many options for purchasing, and thus for the invoicing of e-books—from one time purchases of individual titles or packages, to annual subscriptions of new titles in subject-based packages, to quarterly invoicing of pay-per-view e-books. The myriad options become confusing to traditional acquisitions and cataloging units set up on the monograph/serial binary workflow. Add in the question of who is responsible for cataloging the titles and establishing online linking through the OPAC or link resolver, and assume the library will be purchasing e-books from more than one vendor—the scenario quickly becomes a tangled web. A few basic adjustments prior to purchasing e-books can alleviate some of the confusion:
Most academic libraries, and state-funded libraries in particular, are required to undergo periodic audits. Therefore, it is essential to be able to answer the questions “Did we get what we paid for?” and “What, exactly, do we own?” as they relate to online resources. Differing requirements for detail in this area dictate the kinds of data the library will want to retain, how long to retain it, and who is responsible for retaining the information.
Creating buy-in for an e-book program is critical to establish before the contract is signed. One of the biggest attitudinal challenges to implementing an e-books plan may not come from patrons but rather from library staff. Librarians in particular may object to the acquisition of e-books for a variety of reasons, including the reallocation of funds away from traditional print collections, the perceived lack of librarian control over titles in e-book packages or pay-per-view plans, the lack of tangible items in exchange for money spent, the seeming dereliction of a library’s archival duty, the anecdotal “evidence” that patrons do not like or want to use e-books, and the supposed withdrawal of trust in the librarian’s or subject specialist’s selection expertise.
One strategy to create staff buy-in is to share the aforementioned statistics regarding circulation, publishers, cost, and subjects. It is difficult to oppose a rational cost/benefit analysis of low-circulating materials. Additionally, a frank discussion about the evolving role of the library as a just-in-time collection rather than a just-in-case collection can be helpful in developing support for e-books. A rational presentation of the cost of purchasing and maintaining a print collection versus the cost of purchasing and maintaining an e-book collection can assist in building buy-in. Finally, make sure staff understand that, although acquiring e-books requires the reallocation of some funds, it does not have to be an all (print) or nothing proposition.
Sharing e-books through consortial arrangements can be a highly cost-effective way to introduce them to a collection. Since the management of the contract and invoicing are typically handled by the lead facility in the consortium, the burden of training local staff with new skill sets is reduced. Often the downloading of MARC records to the OPAC is handled centrally as well, further relieving consortium members of added work. In addition to the obvious benefits of competitive pricing through consortia, group selection of title-by-title e-books can create a diverse and rich collection. UT Austin participates in both the University of Texas System consortium (fifteen campuses), purchasing NetLibrary e-books through a title-by-title program, and the state-funded TexShare program, which acquires NetLibrary e-book packages. With the University of Texas System plan, over forty librarians make monthly title selections, which are reviewed by the director of research services at the Austin campus before a final decision and purchase. This arrangement guarantees an e-book collection built collaboratively and with the needs of all members taken into consideration. The TexShare program includes the acquisition priorities of participating academic, public, and school libraries, so the collection includes many fiction, mystery, romance, do-it-yourself instruction, and other nonfiction titles that would not typically be purchased through UT’s print approval plan but receive high usage from the academic population. In both consortial arrangements, duplication of titles can occur but is not viewed as problematic, since the NetLibrary contracts include a single-user model and duplicate copies allow for broader access.
Another example of consortial e-book purchasing is the OhioLINK consortium. OhioLINK purchases e-book collections directly from publishers. Collections usually contain all frontlist titles for the given year and include reference and monographic titles. But rather than link to publisher platforms for access, OhioLINK purchases the content to host locally on its own servers and interface. OhioLINK’s interface is the OhioLINK Ebook Center, or EBC, which is run on open-source software. Maintaining an e-book platform requires a considerable amount of technical support but has many advantages, including cross-searching of all publisher content, customizing interface features and help screens for the local user group, eliminating annual access fees to multiple platforms, guaranteeing perpetual access, and selecting the metadata to include in the searchable index.
Marketing e-books can be as formal or informal as needed, depending on the culture of the library. Most library vendors offer on-site training and webinars that can be customized to the needs of local library users. Links to e-books can be embedded within course management software such as Blackboard and Desire2Learn or linked from online course reserves. Posters and bookmarks can often be obtained from e-book vendors. Some libraries add an “e” sticker to the spine labels of corresponding print editions of e-books or place tear-off e-book advertisements with URLs and database names alongside the print. The library website can be used to promote e-books through homepage search widgets, features, and spotlights as well as in the electronic resources section of the website. Perhaps the most effective way to promote the use of e-books is to incorporate them into the library’s information literacy initiatives, discussing them alongside print books as another valuable tool in one’s research repertoire. If e-books are new to a library’s offerings, they can be marketed as a pilot or beta test. Subsequent usage statistics can be generated to justify further purchases.
Discovery and access are key to informal marketing tactics, so OpenURL linking should be maximized in addition to loading MARC records and cover images into the library OPAC.
There are, of course, challenges that accompany the purchase and use of e-books in the academic library, some of which have relatively easy solutions and some that are part of the ongoing discourse in scholarly communication and digital information. Below are some of the more common issues that arise with the use of e-books.
Patrons who still want print. Inevitably, some patrons will complain about the library’s purchase of a title in electronic format when a print copy is not also available. It is natural for people unfamiliar with e-books to be uninterested in learning to use them and even to demand a print “replacement.” These patrons can be offered one-on-one instruction in using e-books, or the library may decide to maintain a small fund for the purchase of print copies of titles otherwise available only in online format. At UT Austin we have such a fund and a policy to purchase any print title requested by a patron. This policy is consistent with our overall customer service philosophy, and we have found that, although the number of these requests is very low, the goodwill generated with our patrons is quite high.
Digital rights management (DRM). Vendors apply various technologies to prevent unauthorized access and duplication of copyrighted multimedia files (Hawthorne Direct 2009). Every e-book vendor employs a different version of DRM with its products, and it is incumbent upon the library to investigate this portion of the contract and its implications for e-book accessibility before licensing.
ADA compliance. Many universities are required to comply with Section 508 of the Americans with Disabilities Act. The provisions of this law extend to the accessibility of web-based research tools provided by the library. ADA compliance varies across e-book interfaces, and vendors may not be willing to upgrade their products at the libraries’ request. Therefore, it is imperative that library staff investigate the accessibility of an e-book interface prior to licensing. Most universities have an office on campus that can assist with the assessment by offering screen-reading software and accessibility consultations.
Portable devices. Libraries may wish to offer portable e-book reading devices such as Amazon’s Kindle, Sony Reader, or the nook. Keep in mind that these devices may require proprietary software to display e-books or require e-books sold by a single vendor in a proprietary format to operate properly. Not all e-book vendors allow downloading of their content to such devices, nor can all devices utilize such downloads. Additionally, portable e-book devices are expensive and difficult to repair should they break, all issues to take into consideration when calculating the cost of an e-book plan. For a detailed study of one such device, see “The Penn State University Sony E-book Reader Project” in this chapter. The majority of e-book vendors currently in the academic library market offer e-books intended to be read on computers with Internet connections. Of course, the ongoing development of devices such as G3 network phones and MP3 players (for audiobooks) continues to push the boundaries of possibility with regard to e-book content provision.
Licensing. Most e-book products require a license, and the library should ensure that the license contains language that allows for the maximum benefit to library users. The top concerns include:
What content is included and how can it be accessed and used?
A recent alternative to the traditional license is SERU (Shared E-Resource Understanding; see NISO 2008). SERU, approved by NISO and now being adopted by many vendors, allows libraries and vendors to come to agreement on basic contractual obligations without the exorbitant overhead of a formal license negotiation.
Printing. One of the longest-running challenges with regard to e-books is printing. Publishers have long tried to protect their content copyright through the restriction of printing in e-book interfaces. Vendors often claim they are caught in the middle between protective publishers and the desire to improve customer experience with the product. Adding to the frustration is the lack of uniformity with regard to e-book printing allowances. Some vendors allow printing up to a certain percentage of the total text while others limit printing to a specific number of consecutive pages. All such limits are an imposition to library patrons who may wish to print a whole chapter or undetermined number of pages from various sections of an e-book. The great debate over printing is ongoing and something that should be discussed with vendors during contract negotiation.
ANNE BEHLER
Prompted by the emerging popularity of electronic reading devices and the continued migration of academic content from paper to electronic format, the Penn State University Libraries partnered with Sony Electronics during the 2008/9 academic year to study the utility of electronic readers and e-books in the higher education environment. In conjunction with the project, Sony donated one hundred model PRS-505 Readers to the University Libraries, which we used in several different test scenarios. The overall goals of the Sony Reader Project were to investigate the utility of portable e-books in a research library collection; the effect of reading devices on teaching, learning, and reading; the utility of such a reading device for individuals needing adaptive technologies; and how our licensed and locally created digital content could be repurposed for use on portable reading devices.
To carry out this investigation, the Sony Readers were deployed in several scenarios: in library lending, in both first-year Honors English and first-year Library Studies seminars, and in the Library Services to Persons with Disabilities office.
The University Libraries supported the project by coordinating all content acquisitions, loading, and cataloging, a process that required logistical ingenuity. Because the Sony Reader is a consumer market product, the Sony licensing and DRM models were not ideal for the academic setting. Content purchased through the Sony e-book store requires creation of a title library on a personal computer. Each of these libraries can be used for up to five Sony Readers, with a USB connection between the devices and the computer as the vehicle for loading the content onto the devices. In addition, only one library can exist per computer, because the device-to-computer link is based on hardware-to-hardware recognition. To accommodate the hardware limitations this model presents, the project team used VMware software on two dedicated computers for the project. This software allows for the creation of several virtual machine profiles on a single computer. For the purposes of supporting the one hundred Sony Readers, the team created twenty virtual machines, half on each of the two dedicated computers. A spreadsheet was created to track the accounts associated with each machine, and as Sony store content was purchased for the lending scenario, both the readers and the content were cataloged. Specific titles were noted in the contents field of the catalog record, so that the readers were discoverable by device or by their content. Library users who checked out the readers were invited to participate in an online feedback survey.
In the classroom setting students were issued readers preloaded with the content for the course. Students were also instructed on the process for loading their own content onto the readers, an endeavor that sometimes required the assistance of free software called Callibre, which can be used to reflow many different content formats, including PDFs and RSS feeds, into the proprietary Sony Reader file format or into an optimized PDF form for better viewing on the devices. The students shared feedback on their experiences through periodic surveys and video interviews, and the students in the Honors English classes gave end-of-semester presentations to a representative from Sony Electronics and members of the Penn State faculty at the close of the fall 2008 semester.
Readers were issued to library users with disabilities with the hopes that there was some application for individuals with sight impairment or dexterity limitations. Unfortunately, these individuals did not find the Sony Readers easily navigable; the buttons and text size were too small, and the process for navigating from one title to another was not easily recalled by memory.
Feedback received from participants in all scenarios revealed that, in general, users admired the sleekness of the Sony Reader and were enthusiastic about the portability it offers. Users found the E Ink grayscale technology to be easy on the eyes, and many users appreciated that the Sony Reader is a unifunction device that does not distract them from the process of reading.
On the other hand, users were not shy about expressing their criticisms of the devices. The PRS-505 had major issues with battery life and ease of charging, which have been addressed in later iterations of the Sony devices. In addition to battery trouble, users noted a slow refresh time when turning pages and a general lack of interactive features such as annotation and highlighting capabilities. Although many people noted that they enjoyed the single purpose of the device, equally as many expressed a preference to read texts on a multifunction device that supports web browsing, computing, and so forth. Other salient findings were in relation to students’ habits while using the devices. Although the e-book readers are promoted as mobile devices, 92 percent of students polled reported using them only in their dorm rooms. They were not specifically asked why, but the project team guessed that this might be due to their need to be near note-taking tools, such as their computers, while reading. Students were also asked whether they focused strictly on reading while using the PRS-505s, and their responses overwhelmingly illustrated that they continued to multitask while reading.
From a library perspective, the DRM on the Sony e-book content was a handicapping issue. Because of the extremely complicated VMware logistics, only one person was authorized and able to load content onto the readers, making something like an on-demand service for patron borrowing of titles impossible. Beyond the specific experience with the Sony Readers, it is essential for the library to turn its focus to content more generally. Although users had a wide variety of opinions about whether the readers were useful, or would be in the future, all participants expressed the idea that it is important for them to be able to use content any way they need or want to. This is going to be the driving force behind what the Penn State University Libraries do in taking this project forward. The project team plans to continue working with vendors and publishers to provide feedback on their products with an eye to what our users need and a focus on issues of accessibility and portability of e-content.
Interlibrary loan. The purchase of print books automatically conveys the right to lend those books through ILL services. This right is not, however, automatically implied with the purchase of e-books; access to e-books is typically governed by a license that restricts use to registered library users (current faculty, staff, and students). The right to provide access to e-books through ILL services is yet another area that must be investigated and negotiated prior to contracting with an e-book vendor. Publishers are hesitant to allow ILL for e-books because of the loss of control once the e-book has been distributed beyond the initial purchaser. Fearing the kinds of content vulnerability experienced by the music industry with the advent of MP3 file sharing, publishers are keen to control copyright and cost recovery on e-books and have largely failed to take advantage of distribution breakthroughs made possible by current technology. Such breakthroughs include the ability to distribute individual pages or chapters of electronic content and the ability to link to content and increase visibility through OpenURL linking. Costs associated with traditional print-based ILL are the cost and speed of delivery as well as the return condition of the book. All of these concerns are made obsolete by e-books, and the funds budgeted by libraries for traditional modes of delivery could be redirected toward publisher lending fees if an appropriate model were offered. Pay-per-view models may be one viable option for allowing libraries to share content beyond their licensed primary user group.
MARC records and loads. MARC records may or may not be automatically included with an e-book contract, and they may be available for an additional fee. Some vendors do not provide “full” records but instead offer an abbreviated form of MARC records that includes bibliographic information but not LC subject headings, tables of contents, or notes. As is the case of some pay-per-view e-book vendors, these brief records are available for rental books, and full records are provided after purchase of specific titles. In such arrangements, electronic batch loads of records for purchased titles are delivered on a periodic schedule and locally loaded into the library’s OPAC, replacing the associated brief records. Locally established load profiles can be created to automate this process more efficiently, and the records can be delivered along with an EDI invoice.
Discovery. Discovery, in the modern library context, refers to a variety of strategies employed to enhance the user’s ability to locate resources through improved search interfaces, metadata, resource linking, and access. Traditional discovery methods for print collections revolved around the library’s catalog, in which librarians created access points (author, title, subject) that directed users to appropriate parts of the text, since the text itself was not accessible. Book indexes, concordances, and journal abstracting services provided further discoverability in the print-only world. In contrast, with an e-book the full text itself is accessible. Entire new areas of research are possible because the text is immediately accessible and not hidden behind confusing or incorrect pointers. Future discovery tools should allow a user to search across all texts in a platform-agnostic manner and drill down seamlessly to specific parts of a text. This could be delivered through a combination of pay-per-view, open source, licensed content, local digital copies, and even print, without having to navigate the current confusing library bureaucracy.
Plagiarism. As digital content becomes more prevalent, so too increase the opportunities for plagiarism. Wholesale copying of text is easier with e-books in HTML than it is for those in PDF format, though newer versions of Adobe Acrobat are capable of copy-and-paste functionality. Although there is little libraries can do from a technological angle to prevent plagiarism, it is nevertheless important to inform faculty of this heightened possibility and to offer anti-plagiarism strategies to interested library users.
Textbooks. Academic library users are increasingly interested in obtaining course-assigned textbooks in e-book format. Some vendors offer packages of textbooks to universities, and the distribution and financial management of such packages are sometimes placed under library oversight. These online textbooks can be delivered through compatible course management systems or selected/purchased by students on a title-by-title basis and downloaded to compatible portable reading devices. Current challenges with e-textbooks include determining whether the library is the most appropriate campus entity to manage the textbook contract and, if so, how to address the payment, access, and distribution of textbooks for the entire student body. The price structures for these contracts are still very much in development, making contract negotiation difficult in a market with few opportunities for comparison shopping or established best practices.
E-books constitute a fast-growing segment of the publishing industry and a rising percentage in library collections budgets. Library users have demonstrated their voracious appetite for e-books through high usage statistics and sales figures for portable reading devices. The market offers a wide range of products, price models, and titles to suit virtually any library collection and budget. After a decade of growth in the e-book market, some publishers are still slow to offer their content in electronic format or offer e-books only with highly restrictive DRM limitations. Additionally, print and electronic editions of books are not always released simultaneously, creating a challenge for libraries to offer the latest content in the timeliest fashion without duplicating purchases. Despite these challenges, e-books are sufficiently entrenched in the desires of library users, and the market will only grow as interfaces, pricing models, and reading devices continue to improve.
Hawthorne Direct. 2009. “Digital Rights Management.” Hawthorne Videoactive Report Glossary of New Media, www.videoactivereport.com/glossary/2/letterd.
NISO. 2008. “Shared Electronic Resource Understanding.” National Information Standards Organization, www.niso.org/workrooms/seru.
R. R. Bowker. 2008. Bowker Annual of Library and Book Trade Information. New York: R. R. Bowker.