My first ALA session proper is an ACLTS session on e-books. Currently our stock of e-books at Imperial is relatively small, but it is growing rapidly, and I think in the next year or so we could easily see an explosion – we are certainly at the point where we would consider the e-book to the print alternative in some circumstances. We’ve also got an e-books day planned for mid-July where some of the major vendors of e-book platforms/content are going to come in and show us their systems etc. so hopefully this session will be good preparation for that.
I’ll be interested if the session includes ‘ebooks’ in
First up, Aline Soules on “Definition, Selection, Users”
Starting off with some questions:
- What is an e-book?
- Who selects e-books?
- What do our users want from e-books?
What is an e-book?
Aline suggestion a definition
- Content presented in e-format in one complete unit
- A print monograph issued in e-formation
- A “material type” GMD [electronic resource]
However, Aline believes we need to ‘think differently’, and consider things such as:
- Digitized materials
- e.g. Google Book Project
- Institute for the Future of the Book – looing at “networked” books through use of blogs, e.g. GAM3R 7H3ORY
- Labyrinth Project (UCLA)
- “Mysteries and Desire: Serach the Worlds of John Rechy” – available as a CD-ROM from Amazon
- Moveable texts
- Flash poetry – something that can’t be represented in ‘static’ print, as it relies on movement of words around the screen.
- Integration of text, images, film clips, etc.
- Test with images vs images with text (digital storytelling) www.inms.umn.edu/elements and www.coe.uh.edu/digital-storytelling
- E-book vs. database e.g. Alexander Press
- Combination creations
- David Goldberg’s forthcoming book – he couldn’t afford the rights to the images he wanted to include, so instead he is providing URLs to the images/content that he is referencing – so a print book at relies on the web to be meaningful
- Web sites
- LC’s American Memory Project
- Whitman Archive
- Although we may consider these websites, Aline says that they are essentially collections of monographs
So – Aline says, “What is an e-book?”, and suggests that there are multiple definitions. When she asked a series of people what they thought an e-book she found that they came up with different ideas focussing on different aspects, but many agreed that what we had now was simply a transition to something not yet invented.
Aline is saying that she feels we are moving from a model of ‘peer-review’ before publication, to a more evolutionary situation, where texts are amended as ‘feedback’ or ‘contribution’ is made.
Who selects e-books?
E-Books may be bought:
- In packages
- by vendor, or by publisher
- by consortium
- Individual titles
- Consortium
- Individual selectors
- Digitized books
- Vendor/Selection committess
- …
Aline is saying that she feels that often selection is based on ‘practicialities’ – i.e. ‘what is attainable’ rather than necessarily ‘what is wanted’ – because of the models of acquistions. She feels this is a problem – I agree…
What do users want from e-books?
What do student users want?
- 2008 Global Student E-book Survey by ebrary (looks like you have to fill in a form to get the survey – what a shame they don’t just let you download it!)
- Aline runs through the responses to question 13
What do faculty users and librarians want? There was an ebrary survey in 2007 which covers some of these points.
Aline now relating what her students want:
- Remote access
- Anytime, anywhere access
- Ability to download, print
- Ability to identify easily the exact text that fits their assignement
- Ability to cut and past as much text as they want
- Ability to email to themselves a citation in their format of choic or at least APA and MEA, just as they do in databases
- Ability to borrow a title that’s not owned by their particular library, either through their consortium or interlibrary loan
Aline concerned that we are ‘giving up’ interlibrary loan, and moving to a model where you absolutely need institutional affiliation to get access.
What does the library want?
- Cost value
- Abiltiy to integrat e-books technically; handshaing among e-books and the catalog, federate seatch tool, web site etc.
- Something that will download to students’ computers without undue difficulty
- Move away from priprietayr platforms
- Easy authentication
- Archiving
- …
- What the students want
Aline making the point that we have a load of priorities which aren’t the same as the students (which I can see, but I think that some of the things we want are implicit in what the students want)
Now Aline coming onto Role of Acquisitiosn with E-books:
- Keeping up with and understanding the evolution that’s underway
- Do we ever give up formats?
- Understanding that the pigeon-holes we’ve used for years aren’t going to absorb all the new inventions that are coming
- Understanding what we’re acquiring
- Somthing fixed in time or evolving
- A book or a byte?
- A purchase, a rental or simple, an acquistion
- Making contracts work with the user in mind
- More of them
- More complex
Aline making some excellent point, questioning whether we will continue to see a distinction between monograph acquisitions and subscriptions – she sees a move (which I agree with) towards subscriptions models across the board. She also makes a point that we call it ‘acquisitions’ not ‘purchase’ – not everything we acquire may be paid for.
A quick but good run through the issues.
Some notes from Aline available at http://libresos.pbwiki.com/ebkwkflows