Academic E-Books

Description

Academic E-Books: Publishers, Librarians, and Users provides readers with a view of the changing and emerging roles of electronic books in higher education. The three main sections contain contributions by experts in the publisher/vendor arena, as well as by librarians who report on both the challenges of offering and managing e-books and on the issues surrounding patron use of e-books. The case study section offers perspectives from seven different sizes and types of libraries whose librarians describe innovative and thought-provoking projects involving e-books.

Read about perspectives on e-books from organizations as diverse as a commercial publisher and an association press. Learn about the viewpoint of a jobber. Find out about the e-book challenges facing librarians, such as the quest to control costs in the patron-driven acquisitions (PDA) model, how to solve the dilemma of resource sharing with e-books, and how to manage PDA in the consortial environment. See what patron use of e-books reveals about reading habits and disciplinary differences.

Finally, in the case study section, discover how to promote scholarly e-books, how to manage an e-reader checkout program, and how one library replaced most of its print collection with e-books. These and other examples illustrate how innovative librarians use e-books to enhance users’ experiences with scholarly works.

Foreword, by Roger Schonfeld

Introduction to Academic E-Books, by Suzanne M. Ward, Robert S. Freeman, and Judith M. Nixon

Publishers’ and Vendors’ Products and Services

1 An Industry Perspective: Publishing in the Digital Age, by Nadine Vassallo

2 The Journey Beyond Print: Perspectives of a Commercial Publisher in the Academic Market, by Rhonda Herman

3 Production, Marketing, and Legal Challenges: The University Press Perspective on E-Books in Libraries, by Tony Sanfilippo

4 Delivering American Society for Microbiology E-Books to Libraries, by Christine B. Charlip

5 Platform Diving: A Day in the Life of an Academic E-Book Aggregator, by Bob Nardini

Librarians’ Challenges

6 University of California, Merced: Primarily an Electronic Library, by Jim Dooley

7 Patron-Driven Acquisitions: Assessing and Sustaining a Long-Term PDA E-Book Program, by Karen S. Fischer

8 Use and Cost Analysis of E-Books: Patron-Driven Acquisitions Plan vs. Librarian-Selected Titles, by Suzanne M. Ward and Rebecca A. Richardson

9 E-Books Across the Consortium: Reflections and Lessons From a Three-Year DDA Experiment at the Orbis Cascade Alliance, by Kathleen Carlisle Fountain

10 The Simplest Explanation: Occam’s Reader and the Future of Interlibrary Loan and E-Books, by Ryan Litsey, Kenny Ketner, Joni Blake, and Anne McKee

11 Developing a Global E-Book Collection: An Exploratory Study, by Dracine Hodges

Users’ Experiences

12 A Social Scientist Uses E-Books for Research and in the Classroom, by Ann Marie Clark

13 The User Experience of E-Books in Academic Libraries: Perception, Discovery, and Use, by Tao Zhang and Xi Niu

14 E-Book Reading Practices in Different Subject Areas: An Exploratory Log Analysis, by Robert S. Freeman and E. Stewart Saunders

15 Library E-Book Platforms Are Broken: Let’s Fix Them, by Joelle Thomas and Galadriel Chilton

Case Studies

16 A Balancing Act: Promoting Canadian Scholarly E-Books While Controlling User Access, by Ravit H. David

17 Of Euripides and E-Books: The Digital Future and Our Hybrid Present, by Lidia Uziel, Laureen Esser, and Matthew Connor Sullivan

18 Transitioning to E-Books at a Medium-Sized Academic Library: Challenges and Opportunities—A Feasibility Study of a Psychology Collection, by Aiping Chen-Gaffey

19 E-Books and a Distance Education Program: A Library’s Failure Rate in Supplying Course Readings for One Program, by Judith M. Nixon

20 Mobile Access to Academic E-Book Content: A Ryerson Investigation, by Naomi Eichenlaub and Josephine Choi

21 E-Reader Checkout Program, by Vincci Kwong and Susan Thomas

22 Out With the Print and in With the E-Book: A Case Study in Mass Replacement of a Print Collection, by Stephen Maher and Neil Romanosky

Epilogue, by Michael Levine-Clark

Contributors

Index

Sujets

• Publishing Industry
• Publishers
• Disciplines
• Language Arts

Informations

• Publié par: Purdue University Press
• Date de parution: 15 novembre 2015
• Nombre de lectures: 3
• EAN13: 9781612494296
• Langue: English

Extrait

Academic E-Books
Publishers, Librarians, and Users
Charleston Insights in Library, Archival, and Information Sciences Editorial Board
Shin Freedman
Tom Gilson
Matthew Ismail
Jack Montgomery
Ann Okerson
Joyce M. Ray
Katina Strauch
Carol Tenopir
Anthony Watkinson
Academic E-Books
Publishers, Librarians, and Users
Edited by Suzanne M. Ward, Robert S. Freeman, and Judith M. Nixon
Charleston Insights in Library, Archival, and Information Sciences
Purdue University Press West Lafayette, Indiana
Copyright 2016 by Purdue University. All rights reserved.
Cataloging-in-Publication data on file at the Library of Congress.
Contents
Foreword
Roger Schonfeld
Introduction to Academic E-Books
Suzanne M. Ward, Robert S. Freeman, and Judith M. Nixon
PUBLISHERS’ AND VENDORS’ PRODUCTS AND SERVICES
1 An Industry Perspective: Publishing in the Digital Age
Nadine Vassallo
2 The Journey Beyond Print: Perspectives of a Commercial Publisher in the Academic Market
Rhonda Herman
3 Production, Marketing, and Legal Challenges: The University Press Perspective on E-Books in Libraries
Tony Sanfilippo
4 Delivering American Society for Microbiology E-Books to Libraries
Christine B. Charlip
5 Platform Diving: A Day in the Life of an Academic E-Book Aggregator
Bob Nardini
LIBRARIANS’ CHALLENGES
6 University of California, Merced: Primarily an Electronic Library
Jim Dooley
7 Patron-Driven Acquisitions: Assessing and Sustaining a Long-Term PDA E-Book Program
Karen S. Fischer
8 Use and Cost Analysis of E-Books: Patron-Driven Acquisitions Plan vs. Librarian-Selected Titles
Suzanne M. Ward and Rebecca A. Richardson
9 E-Books Across the Consortium: Reflections and Lessons From a Three-Year DDA Experiment at the Orbis Cascade Alliance
Kathleen Carlisle Fountain
10 The Simplest Explanation: Occam’s Reader and the Future of Interlibrary Loan and E-Books
Ryan Litsey, Kenny Ketner, Joni Blake, and Anne McKee
11 Developing a Global E-Book Collection: An Exploratory Study
Dracine Hodges
USERS’ EXPERIENCES
12 A Social Scientist Uses E-Books for Research and in the Classroom
Ann Marie Clark
13 The User Experience of E-Books in Academic Libraries: Perception, Discovery, and Use
Tao Zhang and Xi Niu
14 E-Book Reading Practices in Different Subject Areas: An Exploratory Log Analysis
Robert S. Freeman and E. Stewart Saunders
15 Library E-Book Platforms Are Broken: Let’s Fix Them
Joelle Thomas and Galadriel Chilton
CASE STUDIES
16 A Balancing Act: Promoting Canadian Scholarly E-Books While Controlling User Access
Ravit H. David
17 Of Euripides and E-Books: The Digital Future and Our Hybrid Present
Lidia Uziel, Laureen Esser, and Matthew Connor Sullivan
18 Transitioning to E-Books at a Medium-Sized Academic Library: Challenges and Opportunities—A Feasibility Study of a Psychology Collection
Aiping Chen-Gaffey
19 E-Books and a Distance Education Program: A Library’s Failure Rate in Supplying Course Readings for One Program
Judith M. Nixon
20 Mobile Access to Academic E-Book Content: A Ryerson Investigation
Naomi Eichenlaub and Josephine Choi
21 E-Reader Checkout Program
Vincci Kwong and Susan Thomas
22 Out With the Print and in With the E-Book: A Case Study in Mass Replacement of a Print Collection
Stephen Maher and Neil Romanosky
Epilogue
Michael Levine-Clark
Contributors
Index
Foreword
Roger Schonfeld
One of the great scholarly publishing success stories of the past decades has been the systematic transition from print to electronic that major academic publishers and libraries alike have conducted for scholarly journals. We tend to focus on the limitations of this transition, such as bundled pricing models and challenges such as smaller publishers still clinging to print or richly illustrated titles that do not always display well in digital formats. At the same time, the overall transition has been remarkably orderly and responsible, yielding meaningful improvements in discovery and access. Compared with journals, the possibility of a format transition for books presents a different set of opportunities, and far greater complexity, for academic libraries and publishers alike.
In this book, contributors review some of the exciting initiatives that are being mounted in an effort to incorporate e-books into library acquisition, discovery, and access channels. As has been the case for e-journals, we are developing institutional licensing models, allowing for the creation of library “collections” of e-books often spread across a variety of platforms. Although publishers try to retain the revenues associated with heavily used materials, libraries seek to manage expenditures by maintaining sharing models and responding to community demand with greater sophistication. Even if e-books are growing unevenly, libraries and content providers can take much satisfaction in the progress that has been made to introduce this valuable new format for books.
Readers have another perspective. 1 For journals, their perspective initially was shaped largely by ecosystems created by scholarly publishers and libraries; for books, their perspective is shaped as much by Amazon and Google. Amazon’s pervasive reading interfaces, robust cross-device syncing, seamless delivery from numerous publishers, and familiar discovery environment set high expectations for book discovery and delivery. Scholars, at least, regularly pay out of pocket to read e-books through the Kindle and similar ecosystems. In academic e-book environments, scholars and students have the fragmented experience of numerous platforms, the unavailability of many titles, discovery limitations, multiple confusing digital rights management (DRM) solutions, and poor device support. Since most academic readers have had at least some experience with both ecosystems, they have the ability to evaluate them comparatively. Even without out-of-pocket costs, the academic e-book ecosystem poses comparative barriers for readers.
Reading is not the only, and indeed perhaps not the most important, use for scholarly books. Search and browse functions, enabled in print books through tables of contents, illustrations, and indices, are vital to humanists who only sometimes read a book cover to cover. Although there is some evidence that scholars and students alike have continued to prefer reading in print, these other functions are eased tremendously by using e-books and online tools (Housewright, Schonfeld, & Wulfson, 2013; see especially the discussion around Figure 14 on pages 31–32). Notably, Google Books offers an outstanding discovery experience, not only in searching for books but perhaps even more importantly in searching for phrases and ideas within books, offering a powerful supplement, if not a substitute, for the traditional index. Google Books may not be widely used as a source for reading, but for many scholars it is an outstanding complementary resource that indicates another important way in which scholars and students use e-books (Rutner & Schonfeld, 2012; see especially pages 17–19 and 44). At this early stage in the development of scholarly e-books, there is every reason to believe that expectations for discovery, reading, and perhaps other uses are being set by one major ecosystem (Kindle) and a small set of other major initiatives (especially Google Books). If this is true, there may be other approaches that libraries and content platforms should consider. For example, they might determine that it makes more sense to find ways to work as a part of this consumer ecosystem, or they might create a more coherent user experience that offers an academic alternative to the consumer ecosystem.
Ultimately, librarians should bear in mind that user experience does not begin and end with a single content platform. Even when the experience is strong on a single content platform, readers experience the often-awkward transitions across platforms and challenges moving books seamlessly into reading-optimized interfaces. Libraries may find it helpful to consider these issues more systematically rather than as a part of a selection and procurement process. Indeed, these processes often show their limits in trying to manage a format transition no less fundamental than that from scroll to codex. Content platforms, too, may find that by interoperating more seamlessly and serving the reading experience more richly, they will attract more readers to digital formats.
The introduction of e-books offers some very exciting opportunities for the academic community. Recognizing the place of academic e-books in relation to a broader consumer e-book ecosystem may suggest opportunities to embrace this new format more fully.
NOTE
1 . I use the term “reader” in this piece to indicate individuals whose objective is to read a book, in whatever format. Individuals who have other objectives with books, such as skimming the illustrations, consulting an index, or conducting text mining, are grouped generally as “users.” Readers and users alike take many steps, and have many needs, in order to find and use one or more books.
REFERENCES
Housewright, R., Schonfeld, R. C., & Wulfson, K. (2013). US faculty survey 2012 . New York, NY: Ithaka S+R. Retrieved from http://www.sr.ithaka.org/research-publications/us-faculty-survey-2012
Rutner, J., & Schonfeld, R. C. (2012). Supporting