Date: Mon, 19 Jul 2004 00:30:20 -0400
From: Sandra Beehler(Lewis & Clark College)<beehler_at_lclark.edu>
Subject: ALA ALCTS PVLR Forum in Orlando: When are E-books THE Books?
Here's a brief report from the PVLR (Publisher/Vendor Library Relations
Interest Group) Forum that took place in Orlando on Monday, June 28, 2004.
The panel offered perspectives on what makes e-books work.
Kimberly Parker (Yale University)
Yale started adding e-books in 1991; there was little initial use; use
increased slightly when a specific web page was added for online e-books,
but jumped dramatically when e-book records were added to the catalog.
The types of e-books that work best for Yale are reference,
historical collections, textbooks and reports. Content tends to be
used in digestible chunks rather than read "cover to cover." Tables
of contents provide a useful tool to getting what users want quickly.
A 2004 campus survey showed use of e-books nearly as high as use of
e-journals and databases. Parker suggests a policy on buying e-books
is useful. Usage statistics also proved very helpful in decision-making.
Some of the barriers to e-book adoption included intellectual property
concerns--too many authentications discourage users--a lag in loading
MARC records, which reduced initial use, and the impact on budget of
format duplication--print titles already in the collection were
repurchased as e-books.
Mark Sandler (University of Michigan)
Michigan saw e-book publishing as a way to leverage its collections
resources & budget and its intellectual resources. They started with
_Making of America_ which now includes 23,000 titles freely available
online, with option to purchase hard copy (print on demand). Through
text creation partnerships with publishers, they are working on creating
enduring digital collections including _Early English Books_,
_Evans Early American Imprints_ and _Eighteenth Century Collections
Online_. Benefits for the library are access to images and marketing,
as well as subsidized conversion of titles in the collection and full
rights to the text. Publishers gain valuable text files that can be
used in a variety of markets and great public relations. The
Scholarly Publishing Office at Michigan provides an outlet for
faculty work and campus publications; it also manages revenue-
generating projects such as LLMC (Law Library Microform Consortium)
and ACLS (American Council of Learned Societies) history e-books.
Sandler currently sees a tough time for all in the scholarly
communication chain: scholars, libraries and publishers. Publishers
still have the benefits of brand recognition and market penetration.
Educational institutions are faced with rising costs at both ends -
for page charges and subscription. Recognizing what libraries value and
partnering with libraries to solve scholarly communication problems
are winning strategies for the future.
Greg Giblin (Wiley InterScience)
Giblin talked about how e-books fit publishing strategy, how
publishers assess the market for e-content, opportunities and
challenges with e-content and whether or not to aggregate. From the
publisher's point of view, e-books provide new ways of making content
widely available to customers and adding value to content. Wiley
sees them as a way to extend the customer base and create new content
packages. To assess the market Wiley held focus groups, did surveys,
consulted a Library Advisory Board, talked to customers at
conferences and in sales visits and worked with distribution partners.
E-books enhance accessibility and usefulness of content: searching,
linking, 24x7 access, rapid updating and integration of different
types of content (primary, secondary, tertiary). The challenges to
the publisher include reconfiguring workflows, the financial
investment, providing training, raising awareness, and developing
customer-friendly sales models. Wiley has partnered with a wide
variety of aggregators to make its content available. When
considering aggregators to partner with, Wiley looked at capabilities
and resources, as well as ability to test new markets, to enhance
product visibility and encourage traffic to Wiley's other content.
Points to remember: listen to customers, be flexible, test a lot, and
provide a range of pricing choices.
Bob Brand (Knovel)
Knovel provides a content management system that enhances access to
content from science and engineering publishers. Their approach is
to identify important data elements in technical books--tables, graphs,
equations, chemical structures, etc.-- and make them interactive.
Brand sees the new librarian as a key project team member, database
literate, who serves as an important link between online content and
library users. Finally, Brand offered a "top ten list" for technical
e-books.
The session closed with a brief Q&A period. Interesting questions:
What will happen to the concept of "editions" in an online environment?
How will publishers and libraries cope with the shift of library budgets
to ongoing costs represented by e-books?
PowerPoint presentations will soon be available at:
http://www.ala.org/ala/alcts/divisiongroups/ig/
publishervendor/publishervendor.htm
Sandra A. Beehler
Acquisitions/Collection Development Librarian
Aubrey R. Watzek Library
Lewis & Clark College
0615 SW Palatine Hill Road
Portland, OR 97219
Phone: 503-768-7268
Fax: 503-768-7282
beehler_at_lclark.edu
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Received on Tue Jul 27 2004 - 08:39:17 EDT