FEATURE
E-book aggregators
relaxed. That’s an advantage that publisher platforms hold over aggregators, control over when and where DRM is imposed. Ingram offers purchase models to libraries through our MyiLibrary platform, and does not currently offer rental or short-term loan models. We are aware, of course, that the models are popular among libraries. We’re aware, too, that publishers at the moment are reviewing the terms of these arrangements, which have been very favourable to libraries to date, and will likely encourage more purchasing under revised terms. Patron-driven acquisition (PDA) or demand- driven acquisition (DDA), where purchases or loans are triggered by actual patron use and not by traditional selection, is a significant force among academic libraries.
The idea of patron selection started small, has been growing for years and currently rests between the late stages of experimentation and the early stages of institutionalisation. The balance between those two stages varies a great deal by library, but today it is not unusual for some large libraries to devote a high percentage of their book budget toward PDA. With budgets under such pressure, speculative buying, in case there will be usage, is a harder case to make than purchasing based on actual usage. Consortial PDA plans, where members of a group pool
funding and provide access to a selected group of titles and share ownership of the resulting purchases, is a growing sub-trend. The
rise of e-books enabled PDA
arrangements to spread, since the mechanics were straightforward and patrons had instant access to the book they wanted. While the mechanics are less straightforward and patron
‘Aggregation has been a powerful force in the growth of e-books among academic libraries, and we see no sign of this changing’
access is not instant, PDA arrangements for print books are growing too, although are much less widespread. We expect PDA to continue to grow, and believe that this method of acquiring e-books will co-exist with more traditional methods.
On the publisher side, working with content aggregators expands content reach. Publisher resources are best spent creating new content, not setting up e-book accounts, uploading
metadata or managing DRM. Working with a solid aggregator, publishers can connect content with hundreds of libraries worldwide, with one point of entry.
Ingram works closely with publishers, and contracts with each one that offers titles on our platforms, so business terms on the financial, technical, marketing, and DRM side of things are established and maintained.
Although this is now more the exception than the rule, occasionally publishers are wary of working with aggregators, so a publisher might become the object of a sales effort, which is nearly the opposite of their traditional stance with booksellers.
Aggregation has been a powerful force
in the growth of e-books among academic libraries, and we see no sign of this changing. There is no doubt that a demand for e-books from many hundreds of different publishers through a variety of workflow, selection, access, and purchasing arrangements will continue to be needed. It’s not hard, in fact, to see the aggregator role expanding, by growing their title offerings well beyond English, or by getting more involved in online non-book formats, or by helping to organise the growing phenomenon of self-publishing, just three examples of possible new roles.
Ken Breen, vice president of product management, EBSCO eBooks
B
udgets continue to be under pressure at most research libraries. Librarians want to choose books that will be used by their patrons. An aggregator offers a research library the opportunity to build a multi-publisher e-book collection on a single user experience platform, integrated with other aggregated research databases (scholarly journals, and the like). Aggregators are able to offer a variety of access models at affordable prices (single-user, three-user, unlimited simultaneous access, for example). Aggregators partner with established book wholesalers to make e-book purchasing a convenient part of the acquisition workflow. The role of an aggregator is to complement a publisher’s direct sales efforts – whether the publisher has their own platform or not. Libraries make their choice
24 Research Information APRIL/MAY 2014
of where they desire to build their e-book collection – on an aggregated platform or on a combination of publisher and aggregator platforms. A publisher platform will often have functionality that is optimised to the publisher’s particular content type where an aggregator has the same functionality available across all e-books on the platform. Most librarians understand that publishers are at different places with respect to formats and DRM. Aggregators strive to offer whichever format or formats the publisher makes available and to accommodate the DRM requirements each publisher requires. Today, e-book subscriptions have grown in popularity but perpetual purchase continues to be the dominant model preferred by libraries. Patron-driven acquisition (PDA) and demand-driven acquisition (DDA) models are implemented in different ways across libraries that experiment with them. The role of DDA in the future is unclear at this point; there likely is a role for DDA in building e-book collections, but it may not look like the offerings available today.
‘Aggregators partner with established book wholesalers to make e-book purchasing a convenient part of the acquisition workflow’
@researchinfo
www.researchinformation.info
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33