eBook Discovery and Access: We
Want It Now!
Corey Davis
Technical Services Librarian
Royal Roads University Library
Corey.4davis@royalroads.ca
Aaron Wood
Director, Software Product Management
Alexander Street Press
awood@astreetpress.com
former Metadata Librarian
University of Calgary Libraries and Cultural Resources
Canadian Library Association/Association
canadienne des bibliothèques 2010
National Conference and Trade Show
June 4, 2010
www.arl.org/bm~doc/monser06.pdf
Monographs in scholarly communications
• “In 2002, ARL libraries acquired 28% fewer
monographs and 8% fewer serials per student
than they did in 1986.”
• http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/Collections/crisis.html
American Association of Publishers (AAP) statistics
2009
• Total book sales: $US23.9 billion
▫ Down from$US24.3 billion in 2008
• Total ebook sales: $US313 million
▫ 176% growth over 2008
• http://www.publishers.org/main/PressCenter/Press_Issues/press_
Issue.htm#industryStats
Al Greco (Professor of Marketing at Fordham University’s
Graduate School of Business Administration), 2009
• “Professional and scholarly publishing titles
represent 75.9% of the U.S. e-book market”
• http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=buh&AN=
47267796&site=bsi-live
Association of Learned Professional and Scholarly
Publishers (ALPSP) 2009
• Ebook sales now account for almost 10% of total
book sales
• Two-thirds of academic publishers are creating
ebooks
• http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=buh&AN=
48872952&site=bsi-live
Institute of Education Sciences (US Dept. of
Education)
• “Academic libraries held approximately 102.5
million ebooks at the end of FY 2008”
• Added 23 million books, serial back files and
other paper volumes
• Added 20 million ebooks
• http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2010348
Institute of Education Sciences (US Dept. of
Education)
•
•
•
•
Total spending on resources $US2.6 billion
$US1.7 on serials
$US788 million on books, etc.
$US133 million electronic books, etc.
• http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2010348
Primary Research Group Library Use of EBooks (2008-09 Edition)
• Increased spending between 2006 and 2008 for
libraries overall
• US colleges and university libraries are spending
about $US15,000 per year on ebooks
RRU Library: Have you ever used ebooks?
11
JISC National E-book Observatory Project
• 65% of faculty and students use e-books
• 50% of these users said the last e-book they read
was from their university library
• http://www.jiscebooksproject.org/
2008 Global Student Ebook Survey (ebrary)
2008 Global Student Ebook Survey (ebrary)
Issues
•
•
•
•
Usability
Findability
Licensing
Management
Our survey
Themes re: collection development policies
• Many ad hoc or informal policies
• “The ebook "landscape" is in such constant change, and there are so
different many acquisition, access and licensing models on offer,
pinning down policies doesn't make sense to us at this point.”
• “Our consortia is looking to make major ebook deals and local
buying will depend upon what the consortia does.”
• “…Not duplicating print if ebook is available or access will come
through consortial agreements”
• “…one of the biggest challenges is how to budget for and track
ebooks (are they serial or mono; subscription or one-time purchase,
individual or package?)”
Themes re: cataloguing
• “…we want to have access to all of our ebooks through our catalogue.”
• “…we use vendor supplied MARC records,
which we tweak as needed”
• “For one-off ebook purchases, will do
original if necessary.”
Thoughts on link resolvers
• “The first job of a link resolver is to link a source
(most of the time a database) and a target (the
ebook, in this case). As there's not so many
books in databases (at least for now), the link
resolver is close to useless for this type of
documents.”
• “Serials Solutions charges too much for us to
activate the e-books in their product!”
Final comments
• “Our experience with ebooks has been
disappointing because the two platforms we
have for ebooks (ebrary, myilibrary) are hard to
use. The problem isn't getting people to the
ebooks, but getting them to use the books once
they find them.”
• “I hope in the future the vendors will provide
targets that we can link to, so we can avoid the
whole process of cataloguing e-books into our
catalogues, but instead link to them like online
journal packages, when we purchase a whole
package.”
• “I'm surprised you aren't asking about patroninitiated selection. Many librarians still oppose
this, yet it works very very well.”
• “E-book management is more complicated than
most would think. It involves license
agreements, POs, cataloging, Proxy servers,
persistent URL, authentication, etc. The use is
greater than print books but the work is more
involved and requires a different skill sets.”
• One word for managing ebooks: Arghhhhhhh
eBook Discovery
SpringerLINK Structure & Bonding
SpringerLINK Studies in Computational
Intelligence
SpringerLINK IFIP International
Federation for Information Processing
eBook Discovery
SpringerLINK Studies in Fuzziness and
Soft Computing
SpringerLINK Lecture Notes in
Computer Science
SpringerLINK Topics in Organometallic
Chemistry
Academic Search
SpringerLINK Lecture Notes in Control
Complete
and Information Sciences
SpringerLINK Tracts in Advanced Robotics
SpringerLINK Tracts in Modern Physics
SpringerLINK Lecture Notes in Earth
Sciences POIESIS: Philosophy Online
Serials
SpringerLINK
Lecture Notes in
Mathematics
Knovel Library: Engineering, Life Sciences &
Chemistry collections
LGBT Life with Full Text
MasterFILE Premier
MD Consult Core Collection
Military & Government Collection
Oxford Reference Online: Premium
Biblical
Archaeology
Oxford
Reference
Online: Western
Society
Civilization
Books@Ovid Purchased
eBooks
Oxford
Scholarship Online Biology
Books24x7 BusinessPro
Collection
Oxford
Scholarship Online Business and
SpringerLINK
Understanding
Complex
Oxford Scholarship
Online Economics
and Finance
SpringerLINK Lecture Notes in Physics
Systems
AccessScience
Management
Oxford Scholarship Online History
PsycBooks (Ovid)
SpringerLINK
Progress
in Colloid
Safari
Technical
Booksand
Oxford Scholarship Online Classical Studies
Oxford Scholarship Online Law
Alt-HealthWatch Polymer Science
SocINDEX
Full Text Literature Index with
Filmwith
& Television
SourceOECD
Oxford Scholarship Online Linguistics
Full Text
Communication & Mass Media
Complete
Oxford Scholarship Online Literature
Health Source: Consumer Edition
Computers & Applied Sciences
Oxford Scholarship Online Mathematics
Complete
Synthesis Collection One
Business Source
Complete
Oxford Scholarship Online Music
Ebrary-hosted Wiley Synthesis Collection Two
Cambridge Histories
Wiley-InterScience Online Books InterScience Online Books
Online
Oxford Scholarship Online Philosophy
Medical,
Medical, Veterinary and
HealthVeterinary and Health Sciences
Canadian Reference
Sciences collection collection
Oxford Scholarship Online Physics
Centre
Oxford Scholarship Online Political Science
Oxford Scholarship Online Psychology
Oxford Scholarship Online Religion
Oxford Scholarship Online Social Work
World Bank e-Library
Education Research Complete
ENVIROnetBASE
Environment Complete
World Tourism Organization
The Difficulty of Managing Ebook
Cataloguing
Sheer volume of titles involved
Varying cataloguing and metadata standards
Number of channels for eBook records
Maintaining volatile collections and keeping up
with website changes
Lack of a reliable unique identifier  eISBNs
just don’t work
Systemic Problem
Duplication  But is it really a problem?
YES
• Large backlist packages available on multiple
platforms: publisher platform, EBL, ebrary,
MyiLibrary, Netlibrary, etc.
• Individual frontlist and backlist titles available
for purchase through various book vendors on
the same multiple platforms
• Select titles part of eBook subscriptions on
specialized platforms
Number of records added to the catalogue over time for
ebrary's Academic Complete and Canadian Electronic Library
eBook packages
45000
40000
Number of records
35000
30000
25000
Canadian Electronic Library
20000
Academic Complete
15000
10000
5000
0
Date
eBooks ordered through Yankee Book Peddler
added to the catalogue over an overlapping period of time
450
400
Number of records
350
300
250
200
150
100
50
0
May-Jun 08
Jul-Aug 08
Sep-Oct 08
Nov-Dec 08
Jan-Feb 09
Date
Mar-Apr 09
May-Jun 09
Jul-Aug 09
The Complexity of Having Lots of eBooks and
Multiple Platforms
Percent coverage of eBook packages in catalogue as
enabled through Serials Solutions MARC service
Database/Package Name
Coverage in Catalogue (%)
Database/Package Name
Coverage in Catalogue (%)
AccessPharmacy
96
Scholarship Online Business and
Management
100
AccessScience
100
Scholarship Online Classical
Studies
100
Books24x7 BusinessPro
Collection
87
Scholarship Online Economics
and Finance
100
Histories Online
98
Scholarship Online History
100
Ebrary-hosted Wiley InterScience
Online Books–Medical, Veterinary
98
Scholarship Online Linguistics
100
ENVIROnetBASE
100
Scholarship Online Literature
100
Health Source: Consumer Edition
77
Scholarship Online Mathematics
100
HeinOnline Supreme Court
Library
100
Scholarship Online Music
100
Knovel Library: Engineering, Life
Sciences & Chemistry collections
94
Scholarship Online Philosophy
100
MD Consult Core Collection
100
Scholarship Online Physics
100
MIT CogNet
100
Scholarship Online Political
Science
100
Reference Online: Premium
94
Scholarship Online Psychology
100
Reference Online: Western
Civilization
100
Scholarship Online Religion
100
Scholarship Online Biology
100
POIESIS: Philosophy Online
Serials
100
Percent coverage of ebook packages in catalogue activated in
Serials Solutions MARC service as of August 2009 – Contd.
Database/Package Name
Coverage in Catalogue (%)
Coverage in Catalogue (%)
PsycBooks (Ovid)
46
SpringerLINK Studies in
Computational Intelligence
100
Safari Technical Books
79
SpringerLINK Studies in
Fuzziness and Soft Computing
100
SourceOECD
78
SpringerLINK Topics in
Organometallic Chemistry
100
SPORTDiscus with Full Text
SpringerLINK Advances in
Biochemical
Engineering/Biotechnology
14
SpringerLINK Tracts in Advanced
Robotics
96
SpringerLINK Tracts in Modern
Physics
64
SpringerLINK Understanding
Complex Systems
100
Springer Protocols
100
Springer Series in Optical
Sciences
96
Synthesis Collection One
91
Synthesis Collection Two
Wiley InterScience Online Books Medical, Veterinary and Health
Sciences collection
62
World Bank e-Library
97
SpringerLINK eBooks English/International Collection
SpringerLINK IFIP International
Federation for Information
Processing
83
96
99
SpringerLINK Lecture Notes in
Computer Science
98
SpringerLINK Lecture Notes in
Control and Information Sciences
93
SpringerLINK Lecture Notes in
Earth Sciences
100
SpringerLINK Lecture Notes in
Mathematics
97
SpringerLINK Lecture Notes in
Physics
86
SpringerLINK Progress in Colloid
and Polymer Science
86
SpringerLINK Structure & Bonding
66
99
Number of titles in select eBook packages compared with
number of records in the catalogue over the first eight
months of ebook MARC services with Serials Solutions
800
700
ENVIROnetBASE - Number of records in
catalogue
Number of records
600
ENVIROnetBASE - Number of titles in
package
Oxford Scholarship Online Philosophy Number of records in catalogue
500
Oxford Scholarship Online Philosophy Number of titles in package
Oxford Scholarship Online Political Science
- Number of records in catalogue
400
Oxford Scholarship Online Political Science
- Number of titles in package
Springer Protocols - Number of records in
catalogue
300
Springer Protocols - Number of titles in
package
200
100
0
Jan. 2009 Feb. 2009 Mar. 2009 Apr. 2009 May. 2009 Jun. 2009 Jul. 2009 Aug. 2009
Date
Title Normalization through Serials
Solutions
Not Quite There Yet
Beyond the Catalogue 
Federated Search
Serials
Solutions’
360 Search
ExLibris’
MetaLib
LibraryFind
dbWIZ
EBSCO’s
Integrated
Search
TDNet’s
Searcher
Analyzer
OCLC’s
ZPORTAL
Federated
Search Portal
Keystone
DLS
27 % (17/62) of respondents facilitate discovery
through a federated search product
Beyond the Catalogue  Discovery
Services
Summon
Primo Central
Encore
EBSCO
Discovery
Service
WorldCat
Local
43% (26/61) of respondents facilitate discovery
through a discovery service
Access
Points of Access (print)
Paths of Access (electronic)
Open-Link Resolvers
56% (35/63) of respondents provide or attempt to
provide access to eBooks through an open-link
resolver
But Open-Link Resolvers Don’t
Work with eBooks!
“[eBooks lack] sufficient match points
and metadata for discovery”
“Some [eBook] collections are not
“Do notand
use methods
a link resolver
forupload
eBooks”
available
used to
collections are not intuitive”
“We [use the open-link resolver for
eBooks] to some extent but not
systematically”
WorldCat: eSerials Holdings Service –
eMonographs Holdings Service
United Kingdom Serials Group and National
Information Standards Organization – Standards
for Knowledge Base and OpenURL Compliance
• Insist on adherence to standards
• Communicate
• Collaborate
Questions?