Managing Your Future EBook Collection:
From the Librarian’s P.O.V.
Beth Avery
University of North Texas
Beth.avery@unt.edu
Acquisitions Issues
Availability
• Few front list titles – 20-30% usually.
• Release time of electronic version delayed,
often more than 60 days.
Acquisitions Issues
Costs
• Prices higher than print.
• Short term loan costs do not count towards
purchase price, not even a percentage.
• Packages “big deals” that we don’t want most
of the content.
– No discounts except in packages .
– Possible solution agreement to spend x amount of
individually selected titles in one year for y%
discount.
Acquisitions Issues
Ordering/Purchasing
• Deduping electronic/print titles.
• Contract issues.
• Accounting department issues.
– Purchasing an unknown future title list.
Acquisitions Issues
Resource Sharing
• Sharing issues for consortia.
• ILL issues.
– Other library may not have appropriate reader
– DRM – self destruct after x days.
Acquisitions Issues
Reporting/Statistics
• Automatic notification of when access denied
frequently so we can purchase additional
titles.
• Easy to retrieve, standardized usage statistics
reporting.
• Better PDA reporting.
– What is rejected.
Cataloging Issues
• Quality Issues
– Absent OCLC numbers
– Missing call numbers and subjects
– Missing 240 field for translations
– 776 field issues, example frequency = “a few”
– Not using Authority control version of names
– Ending 520 field (publisher’s blurb) in midsentence.
– Etc.
Access Issues
• Perception that fewer titles are being made
available for multiple/unlimited access.
• Missing graphics from electronic version.
• Searchability issues – can you do a word
search for entire volume?
• Variety of platforms with no standardization.
– Navigational issues – forward arrow at top and
bottom of page.
Archiving Issues
• What does “perpetual access” really mean?
• Assurance of archiving of earlier editions.
• Lack of archiving puts scholarly publishing at
risk.
Future Issues
• Interfacing with discovery services and tools
such as citation managers, embeded
dictionaries, etc.
• Developing metrics for assessing ebook
vendors and publishers.
• Studies of ebook platform usability.
• Now is the time to work with vendors and
publishers to resolve issues.
EQUACC
ALA's Presidential Task Force on Equitable
Access to Electronic Content
A website, www.equacc.ala.org, was launched on March
28 inviting commentary on the task force’s work in five
areas: 1) issues, trends and education on providing
accessible content to people with disabilities; 2) building
more support and awareness that libraries play an
essential role in the e-content world; 3) model projects,
including case studies of libraries trying different models
for providing accessible content; 4) understanding the
existing market and future trends through an
environmental scan; and 5) licensing, including the
exploration of new and emerging business models for
obtaining content from authors, publishers and vendors.