FEATURE
E-books
Bringing e-book resources together
Last year the Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers (ALPSP) published a study into scholarly books carried out by consultant Laura Cox. Among the many fi ndings, the study revealed that aggregators and e-book vendors were the favoured channels to market for publishers, although publishers’ own platforms and those of their hosting company were also well used. Siân Harris asked some e-book providers about the role of aggregators, their relationships with publishers and the business models being used
Scott Wasinger is the senior director of sales, eBooks and audiobooks at EBSCO W
e continue to see growing interest in e-books. In the face of budget challenges, libraries are increasingly looking to electronic resources including e-books to
return the best value on expenditures. And, as the market matures, libraries expect more from their e-books. They want improved user experience, the ability for users to search across multiple content types through a single interface and improved collection development and collection management resources for the library. They also want more fl exible licensing and acquisition options, and more content. Aggregators provide a way for libraries to
give a unifi ed experience for e-books across any number of publishers. This includes the platform for searching, purchase and access models, collection management tools and more. Aggregators like EBSCO provide the ability for libraries to not only search/ browse e-books on their own, but provide an interwoven experience of e-books and journal- oriented databases. This improves access for users, and effi ciencies for libraries. E-book aggregators and publishers
are mutually interested in providing the best collections of content and licensing arrangements to drive e-book adoption and usage. All of our e-book collections include
22 Research Information APR/MAY 2011
titles from multiple publishers. In response to growing library interest in these collections, we continue adding more every year. Subject Sets are the only ‘pre-packaged’ e-books that we currently provide. All other collection development approaches are on a title-by-title basis, such that libraries can determine which e-books they wish to purchase – from any number of publishers.
E-book aggregators and publishers are mutually interested in providing the best collections of content
We currently offer single and two-user
e-books under a purchase model, for which libraries pay a one-time fee and own the content. In the coming months, we will offer three-user and unlimited-user e-books under a purchase model, as well as an e-book subscription offering. Later in the year, we plan to offer a lease, or short-term access, option and an enhanced version of our current PDA (Patron Driven Acquisition) programme. We have seen some interest in chapter-level licensing and expect to see more. At this time,
there are no options to purchase at the chapter level but, as with ‘whole’ e-books, we will continue to evaluate and explore creative options for purchase. We are preparing the infrastructure to
support this type of delivery in the event that market demand and publisher interest reach the appropriate level to offer this type of purchase option. Being able to search across a collection of
the highest quality, most relevant scholarly monographs from the world’s top publishers, to access them instantly as e-books, and to have the option to combine that search with other electronic resources is a tremendous advantage for research. As such, we see a bright future with e-books for research, with a better experience for using and downloading e-books, and an overall improvement to academic research with databases and e-books in a single, native search environment.
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