Date: Sun, 2 Nov 8:16 AM
From: Cecilia Harel (Univ. of Haifa) <harel_at_univ.haifa.ac.il>
Subject: E-book Collections
Dear Deborah,
I, too, am just beginning to order ebooks and am interested to know how
other librarians are "developing" and "managing" their ebook selections. We
recently began a subscription to Proquest's Safari Techbooks Online, which
allows you to select books for fulltext viewing online from their database
based on payment for a total number of points (the more books and/or
simultaneous users, the higher the cost). Libraries can switch undesired
titles for desired ones on a monthly basis, as long as they do not exceed
the total point value for which they paid. While we have just begun to
purchase ebook access online, it seems to me that a whole new mind set and
mechanism are required to develop and manage ebook collections of this kind.
Some issues that come to mind are listed
below:
How do we:
1. Regularly notify users/selectors of new e-book titles that are available?
2. Identify unused titles and how long to subscribe to them before
"unsubscribing" to them?
3. Catalog "active" e-books in the catalog?
4. Mark as cancelled or delete catalog records for "inactive" e-books
(subscription to them has ceased)?
5. Which titles/subjects are candidates for e-book collection development
(reserves, reference sources)?
6. Accept gracefully the fact that we can no longer access a book for which
we have paid?
7. Manage e-books ordered from various vendors?
8. Evaluate e-book vendors (quality/depth/timeliness of collection
available,
user friendliness of website)? (Proquest does provide online reports of the
number of times a book was accessed and email notification of new titles.)
I would be happy to hear from others about their concerns and how they
have addressed these and other issues of which I may be unaware.
Regards,
Cecilia
_______________________________________________________
Cecilia Harel
Head of Foreign Languages & Collection Development
University of Haifa Library - Technical Services Branch
Haifa, Israel 31905
email: harel_at_univ.haifa.ac.il
tel: +972-4-8249324 fax: +972-4-8249170
-----Original Message-----
From: Eleanor Cook [mailto:cookei_at_appstate.edu]
Sent: Friday, October 31, 2003 12:12 AM
To: acqnet-l_at_listproc.appstate.edu
Subject: ACQNET: E-books
Date: Wed, 29 Oct 2003 07:18:31 -0500
From: Deborah Curry (SUNY-Oswego) <dcurry_at_Oswego.EDU>
Subject: E-books
[Ed. note; We'd love a summary of the responses - thanks]
Hi,
We have ordered a number of Netlibrary sets of e-books. Now we have
librarians who want to order individual e-books from other vendors. Has
anyone on the list done much of this? I'm wondering what problems, if any
you were faced with. Please answer directly. thanks
deborah...
Deborah Curry Coordinator, Technical Services
Oswego State University
dcurry_at_oswego.edu
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Received on Mon Nov 10 2003 - 10:29:24 EST