Session W235
Hot Topics Round Table: No Shelf Required
Sponsored by
Booth
804
ConnectNY Ebooks
Linette Koren
Engineering Librarian
Rochester Institute of Technology
2013 ASEE Conference, Atlanta, GA
Wednesday, June 26, 2013
Glossary
• CNY
– Connect New York
• PDA / DDA
– Patron/Demand Driven Acquisitions
• Pbook
– Print book
• STL
– Short Term Loans
ConnectNY
“ConnectNY is a consortium of
independent academic
institutions in New York State.
The mission of ConnectNY is to
share collections, leverage
resources, and enhance services
through cooperative initiatives
and coordinated activities.”
• Started in 2003
– Funded by Melon
Foundation
• 18 Academic Libraries
• Union Catalog
– Driven by Individual
Catalogs
• Unmediated Consortial
Borrowing
Why Ebooks? Why PDA?
• Why Ebooks?
–
–
–
–
Already Succeeding Sharing Print
Coordinate Ebook Collection Development
Pool and Share Ebook Expertise
Leverage Consortial Purchasing Power
• Why PDA?
– Mirrors Unmediated Direct Borrowing
– Print Usage Declining
• “End of Academic Library Circulation?” by Will Kurt
– Stretch Our Dollars
The CNY Ebook Pilot (2009 – 2010)
• Coutts
• Purchase-Only
– No Short Term Loans
– 2-3 Uses Triggered a Purchase
– 581 Titles Purchased
• Lessons
– PDA is feasible on the consortial level
– Cost effective
– Usage Continues
Technical Challenges
• Varying Expertise
• Experience with ebook records
• Union Catalog (INN-Reach)
– Fed by each library’s catalog
• Do we need 17 holding entries and URLs for
each ebook?!
– 1 and Only 1 Record per Title
– Coding Challenges
Communication Challenges
• Committee Communication
– Wikis, Blogs
– CNY Executive Committee
– Periodic Reports
• CNY Stakeholders
– ListServs
– FAQ Developed
– Troubleshooting Steps and Emails
Selection Criteria
• Subject Breadth
• Profiling Options
–
–
–
–
–
Imprint Date
Publisher
Price
Subject
Easily deployable
• Flexible Pricing
Models
• Preview Content
Freely
• Direct Linking
• Interface
– Intuitive
– No additional
software
– ADA Accessibility
• MARC Records
– High Quality
– Regular
– Timely
• Accessible Stats
• Purchases “In
Perpetuity”
Evaluation Process
• Selection Criteria Developed
• List of Desired Publishers
• 4 Vendors Invited for Demonstrations
–
–
–
–
Coutts
EBL
EBSCO
Ebrary
• Committee Recommended…
And the Winner Is…
•
•
•
•
•
•
EBL
Competitive Pricing
Short-Term Loans
Flexibility of Purchase Trigger
Unlimited Simultaneous Use
No-Fee Perpetual Access
Publishers
• Berghahn Books
• Continnuum
International
• Wiley
• M.E. Sharpe
• McGraw Hill (UK
Only)
• Policy Press
• SAGE (UK and India)
Cambridge UP
Edinburgh UP
New York UP
Oxford UP
Princeton UP
Stanford UP
University of
Minnesota Press
• UP of Florida
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
The Profile – Ever Evolving
Includes
• All Subjects
• Print Imprint
• Titles < $300
Excludes
• Exclude Popular Audience
Level
• Formats:
–
–
–
–
Textbooks
Travel Guides
Instructor’s Manuals
Workbooks
• Non-English
• Series
– Frommer’s
– Dummies
– Cliff Notes
Costs and Participation
• All Libraries Participating
• 1% of Materials Budget
• STL
– % of List Price Based on Publisher
• Purchase
– List Price X Consortial Multiplier
• 3 STLs, 4th Use = Purchase
Patron Experience
• Found through
catalog
• Login Required
– Using local
authentication
• Searchable Platform
• Downloads
Available
– Adobe Digital
Editions
– Bluefire
• Print up to 20%
• Copy and Paste up
to 5%
Staff Experience
• Reports Robust
– …but require Excel/Access magic
• Local PDA Profile(s)
– So You Think You Can Juggle?
• Cataloging
• Downloading
– Practice Makes Perfect
Usage by Month
5000
4500
4000
3500
3000
2500
2000
1500
1000
500
0
Pages
How Are They Read?
“Read” are pages read through
the web browser.
“Copied” are pages copied, as in
“copy and paste.”
1432
41276
Read
Copied
Printed
418100
Free Use vs. Paid Use
Time Spent
“Free Use” consists of ebook
viewing that does not trigger a
STL or purchase; “Paid Use”
consists of anything that
triggers a loan or purchase.
Count
89%
57%
43%
11%
Free
Paid
Titles Used vs. Titles Available
80%
69%
70%
60%
50%
40%
31%
30%
20%
10%
0%
Used
Unused
Use of Purchased
Titles
Number of Libraries Using a
Purchased Title
6%
9%
1 Library
2 Libraries
24%
3 Libraries
61%
4 or More
Lessons Learned
Challenges
• Publisher Negotiations
• Changing Landscape
• Coordination and
Communication
• Continual Evaluation
and Refinement
• It’s a Trap!
Success
• Access / Collection
Balance
• Funding Model
– 1% of Materials
Budgets
• Cooperation
• Sustainable?
NY 3Rs E-book Pilot Phase 1
• 27 page report released last week
• Total of 17 academic & public libraries in
NYS
• Used EBL as vendor
• Phase 2 beginning and looking for NYS
participants
• http://www.ny3rs.org/wpcontent/uploads/EBLWhitePaper.pdf
“EBook Business Models for Public Libraries,”
Digital Content & Libraries Working Group (DCWG), August, 2012
• Collection Congestion – Buy all or nothing
• Selective Inclusion – All does not mean all
“EBook Business Models for Public Libraries,”
Digital Content & Libraries Working Group (DCWG), August, 2012
• Subscription Based Models
• Concurrent Access options
“EBook Business Models for Public Libraries,”
Digital Content & Libraries Working Group (DCWG), August, 2012
• Usage did not justify high cost
• Could not purchase individual titles
• Title availability was sporadic
• Some titles are not available elsewhere
Engineering Society eBooks & Archives
and New Commercial Packages:
Determining Consortia Adoption
34
JULIA GELFAND
APPLIED SCIENCES & ENGINEERING
LIBRARIAN
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, IRVINE
JGELFAND@UCI.EDU
ASEE – ATLANTA - 26 JUNE 2013
Engineering Publishing Summary
35
Products
 Books & eBooks
 Textbooks
 Reference Works – multivolume









sets; databases
Journals & Journal Articles
Conference Papers & Proceedings
Technical Reports
Specifications
Standards
Working Papers
Backfiles / Archive
Patents
Digital Library platform
Sources
 Commercial Publishers
 Professional Societies
 Aggregators & Providers
 Governments & Public
Agencies
 Non-profits
 Academic Units
 Private Industry
Commercial vs. Society Publishing:
General Conclusions
36
Society
Commercial
 Usually has own platform
 May use aggregators
 Receptive to consortia
deals
 Profit incentivized
 Offers larger range of
access & services
 Pricing can be negotiated
 May have independent




platform
Likely to use aggregator
or alternative publishing
platform
More reluctant to
consortia deals – price
reductions
Usually maintains nonprofit status
Pricing less negotiable
Observations
37
 Every title can be categorized multiple ways – used
differently (ie, can function as a textbook or
reference work)
 Libraries respond to products differently than
individual consumer
 Engineering content is multidisciplinary (ie, policy,
environmental, hard science, clinical, computational,
etc)
 Work is often updated & reissued with new edition
Society Publishing Challenges
38
 Size / scope of publishing program
 Number of products released annually
 Emphasis on journals, proceedings, & then books, standards
 Competition for authors
 Licensing – concerns about differences between industry and







academe; global scope
Authentication
Perpetual access
Packages, individual records, on demand
Pricing – depends on size of consortia & adoption rate
Open Access
National publishing mandates (NSF, data inclusions)
DRM
Common Goals of Libraries
39
 Follow “Best Practices” in Scholarly Communication including Licensing:

Perpetual access















Ownership vs subscription models
Concurrent users
Users don’t register – honor privacy/anonymity yet still get customization if requested
Resource sharing – ILL
Reporting of usage data by individual member; via entire consortia
Front List vs archive
Scholarly Uses: Library Reserves, classroom use, course management systems
De-selection rights
Author retains rights to scholarship – can repost
Treating data
Sustainable pricing
Homogeneity of consortia
FTE for campus is different than coverage for actual interested readers/users
Multi-year acquisition
Integration with Approval Plans when treated by book vendors
Big Commercial & Hybrid
Engineering “Houses”
40
Scale means everything – determines products, platform options,
pricing, customer service – journals/books
 Cambridge University Press
 MIT Press
 Springer
 Wiley
 Elsevier
 Taylor & Francis (includes CRC Press)
 IEEE
 McGraw-Hill
 World Scientific
 IGI
 Nova Publishers – major front-list, spanning wide subject scope
New Engineering Publishers
on the Horizon
41
 Morgan & Claypool – expanding Synthesis collections
 NowPublishers – online Foundations & Trends journals
 Momentum Press – ebook line began 2008
 Sage – entering subject area, began with iMECHe archive –




adding books, reference works
Emerald – journal list; expanding book acquisitions
Scrivener Publishing – began in 2009;Wiley distribution
partner for books; launched first 3 journals in 2013
Several additional international units in UK, India, China
(DEStech Pubs, etc)
Many traditional publishers expanding output in engineering
& technology related areas, ie) green, biomedical, etc
Books, Journals & Standards:
Common Packages,42Issues & Concerns
 Books




Individual Titles or Subject Packages from book vendors, publisher
direct or via aggregators
Own, subscribe, DDA options, STL
Cataloging records & discoverability
Residing platform or agnostic
 Journals


Open Access – widely different models
By subscription or by article
Perpetuity
 Database inclusion – fulltext or links to holdings
 Discoverability


Links to data
 Cost – seems to drive decisions
Brief Survey Conducted, Spring 2013
43
Focused on 12 primary societies. 11 responses. Questions asked:
1. How do societies respond to serving consortia when
libraries expect savings & deep discounts for participating in
such memberships



Single invoice/payment
Local processing control point
Competitive renewal terms
2. In the eBook market, do you currently participate in DDA or
expect to in near future – seek comments about this book
buying method
3. How are societies responding to OA
4. What are the licensing issues that most concern societies?
5. What is biggest challenge in library markets?
Lessons Learned:
Quotes about Library Markets
44
 IEEE – “volume keeps pricing competitive; always improving










platform performance”
ASCE – biggest challenge is keeping up with emerging technologies
and responding to members’ priorities
ASME – “respond to members’ & users’ needs”
AIAA – “keep pricing fair for academic markets”
MRS – “still learning from different experiences”
SAE – “have learned from customers’ input”
SPIE – “perfecting product line to enhance search & reading
experience”
ACM – “realizing that customers are as different as publishers”
IET – “markets are very different around the world”
ASTM – “we need to make money but customer service is critical”
SIAM – “keeping up with content is always a challenge”
Additional Societies Critical
to US Academic Libraries
45
Most release journals but also reference works and books:
 American Academy of Environmental Engineers
 American Ceramics Society
 American Concrete Institute
 American Institute of Chemical Engineers
 ASM International
 Audio Engineering Society
 Institute of Industrial Engineers
 Institute of Transportation Engineers
 Society of Manufacturing Engineers
 Society of Petroleum Engineers
 American Chemical Society
 American Institute of Physics
 etc
Responses to Survey
46
 Question 1 : How do societies respond to serving
consortia when libraries expect savings & deep discounts
for participating in such memberships

8/11 very interested in working with consortia; confusion about
multiple memberships encourage shopping best deal;




One society had concerns that ELD would become an independent
itself
Problems may exist with pricing expectations – the margins are slim,
savings may not be as great as expected; institutional composition
varies making pricing a challenge (11/11)
Customer service needs to be aligned to support consortia on both
sides (2/11)
Threatens potential revenue that can be redirected to improving
product and digital library website (7/11)
Question #2 Summary
47
2. In the eBook market, do you currently participate in
PDA/DDA or expect to in near future?
 Only one respondent currently engaged in DDA; but
others are looking to commercial publishers to
understand impact
 Every respondent understood trend
 May be more interested in Short Term Loans (STL) – see
that as fast growing segment in eBook sales
 All indicated that they are being courted by eBook
aggregators
 Experimenting with subject based packages
Question #3 Summary
48
3. How are societies responding to OA




Societies with Journal lists are increasingly discussing this –
also regarding conference papers/proceedings
4/11 respondents are well aware of campus initiatives to
subsidize Open Access funding requirements
6/11 reminded me of value-added components publishers
contribute to work
4/11 mentioned concern about users depending on Google or
Google Scholar as first search choice
Question #4 Summary
49
4. What are the licensing issues that most concern
societies? No real consensus but following issues
raised:
 Indemnification
 Access to industry via academic channels - concerns
about authentication and public institutions being
open door to walk-in users
 Mobile optimization – another expense
 Embargos for database access
Question #5 Summary
50
5.
What is the biggest challenge in serving library markets?
 Relationship of membership and library subscription usage – declining







membership in zip code ranges demonstrate greater use at nearby
institutions
Little new money to invest in new products
Stakeholders (Boards/officers) appear convinced that libraries have more
money than they claim
Editors not always aware of library concerns – part of ongoing education
process
Impact factor should influence adoption but does not seem to always follow
Concern how usage dictates adoption
Conflicted about just in time vs just in case – anticipating needs of students
Seeing increases in individual document supply, even from subscribing
institutions – worried about how libraries promote products
Conclusions
51
 Hard to summarize – wide range of practices/opinions/highly






diverse
Societies want to please members/customers, but concerned
about costs associated with “stepping up” to meet new
expectations of users
Have to consider US vs global competition, customer base
Cost is a serious issue – production of multi-formats &
challenge of making any profit with library sales declining
Keeping up with technology is big challenge
Uncertain of where library priorities are
We need to conduct more systematic surveys and continue
dialogue between libraries, publishers, vendors, societies and
authors/editors
Comments / Questions?
Thank you for your attention.
52
eFADA: United Arab Emirates
Library Consortium
Vanessa Middleton, Petroleum Institute, UAE
Dorothy Byers, Khalifa University, UAE
Consortia and eBooks and in the
international context: opportunities
and challenges
• Setting goals
– Sharing resources
– Collective negotiation and purchase
– Nation-wide repository
• Getting buy-in
• Creating infrastructure
• Developing collections
eBooks in the UAE
• Upside
– Most institutions are new
– Quick way to expand collections
– Most students computer literate
• Downside
– Reading not part of culture
– Will eBooks make it easier?
Takeaways from other consortia:
Top Ten Challenges and Benefits of eBooks within a Consortium
• ICOLC surveyed
• 18 respondents
• 88% subscribe to eBooks
Challenges - Pricing
• Important but difficult
• Avoid “buying club” model where all have to buy copy of
a triggered book
• Prefer “shared access” model where all members have
access to specified number of copies
Challenges - Savings
•
•
•
•
Some say everyone benefited
Yes if keep publisher multipliers low (1.5-4.5)
Some say no savings
Hard to calculate for institution if consortium strikes the
deal. Compare
– Price per book
– What you would have collected
• No saving if duplicate in print anyway!
Challenges - Selection
•
•
•
•
Some publishers won’t play ball
Some have too-high multipliers
Some withhold top titles
Librarian selection role changed
– Lack of individual title selection – collection vs title
– Challenge to meld local selection with ebook
consortium purchases
• Duplication in consortium vs approval plan
• Non-English speakers not served well
• Hard to please consortium with multiple types of
libraries
Challenges - Licensing
• Process difficult – esp if no legal staff
– Time
– Understanding terms
• Insist on ILL in license even if technology not there yet –
be ready for future
• Go for perpetual licensing
• Market geared more to consumer than libraries – need
models that work well
Challenges - Access
•
•
•
•
Decisions re hosting vs using vendor’s host site
Some members have problems setting up access
Authentication can be problem if no union catalog exists
Problem in UAE where telecom monopoly controls access
to internet
• Determining number of simultaneous users needed
• Multiplicity of platforms confusing for patrons
• What happens if vendor disappears
Challenges – Discovery tools
• Not sufficient for ebooks, esp for accessing images,
tables, graphs in STEM fields
• No discoverability if not cataloged
• Difficult to catalog without accurate title lists
• Discovery tool costs
• Lack of union catalog
• SFX integration an issue
Challenges – PDA
(patron driven acquisitions)
• Important to have but can cause duplication among
libraries
• Some ebook vendors view PDA as revenue loss
• Mostly happens at institution, not consortium
• Control of cost an issue
• Negative notions about patron behavior
• Not a full solution
Challenges - ILL
•
•
•
•
DRM protection – insist on liberal DRM
Variety of circ policies among institutions
Purchase vs. rent among institutions
Licensing
Opportunities - Pricing
•
•
•
•
•
•
Huge discounts on older materials
More flexibility on pricing than in print world
Save even with “buying club” model
Power in joining forces to negotiate
Good to find sustainable own vs rent model
Publishers are still finding their way – opportunity for
intervention
Opportunities - Savings
• More participants leads to more savings
• Big deals reduce cost per book
– Even if some books aren’t used
– Not all print were used either!
Opportunities - Selection
• Work with vendors that have good selection
• Overall getting better selection
• OP material becoming available
Opportunities - Licensing
•
•
•
•
Hope for standardization!
Get ILL included
Allow more copies during first few months of release
Data mining opportunities
Opportunities - Access
•
•
•
•
Gives access to many
Mobi format possibilities
Platform standardization possibilities
Broadens access, especially for smaller schools
Opportunities – Discovery tools
• Can make platform issues seamless for patrons
• Must be affordable
Opportunities - PDA
•
•
•
•
•
Working well in some consortia
Enhances collection development
Direct response to patron need
Keeps patrons more involved
Offers concrete data for financial support
PDA Experiment
• BLC (Boston Library Consortium) 2013
– 7 participants thus far
– Ebrary/YBP
– Selected the publishers together
– Set the purchase triggers together
– 705 titles in pool
• 397 unique titles used
• 143 purchased = 20%
• $114,413 list vs $58,963 consortium = 50% savings
Opportunities - ILL
• Ability to lend across platforms and outside consortium
• Get permission into licenses
• Leverage the power of many to achieve
Other Issues
• International licenses for content still not
consistent with US & Canada
• Book vendors (YBP, Coutts, etc.) cannot
provide all collections through their order
platform
• Content sensitivity matters
E-book Value Statements
Tony Aponte
Science and Engineering
Librarian
Photo from Wikimedia Commons user Maximilian Schönherr.
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:EBook_between_paper_books.jpg
UC E-Book Value Statement
• http://bit.ly/ucebookvalue
• University of California Libraries
Collection Development Committee
E-Book Value Statement – Why?
• “…develop the marketplace in ways that support
our core values and the university’s mission.”
• “…help shape the scholarly publishing
landscape…”
• “…responsive to the needs of our primary
users…”
• “…to be effective stewards of our libraries’
collections…”
E-Book Value Statement – Why?
• “work with publishers, aggregators, and others
within the academic community to develop
appropriate standards and best practices that
implement these principles”
UC E-Book Value Statement
Photo from Flickr Commons user teclasorg.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/teclasorg/5679910760/
Content Supporting
Research and Instruction
UC E-Book Value Statement
Fair Use & Scholarly Communication
Photo from Flickr Commons
user cseeman.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/cse
eman/8246161562/
UC E-Book Value Statement
Positive User
Experience
Photo from Flickr Commons user libraryman.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/libraryman/5052936803/
UC E-Book Value Statement
Product Platforms
UC E-Book Value Statement
Product Platforms (cont.)
UC E-Book Value Statement
Sustainable and fair business models
Ideal
• Currently, engineering e-book collections fall
somewhere on this continuum
• Using statement in negotiations with publishers and
aggregators
Photo from
Flickr Commons
user
davidyuweb.
http://www.flickr.
com/photos/davi
dyuweb/868268
2944/
Questions?
Photo from flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/marcobellucci/3534516458/
Acknowledgements
The preceding slides are based on the work of the UCLA Library Scholarly
Communications Steering Committee AND E-Book Task Force