Ebooks Notes

eBook Notes
November 9, 2012, 1:30-2:45
Facilitated by Bill Jacobs, Notes by Karen Berryman

At the e-book session, most of the attendees were using PDA as a model.  They felt that with print books they were “selecting in a vacuum” but with e-books they had usage stats.  ProQuest’s largest model for e-books is PDA, but not all ebrary titles are available as PDA.  Many of the packages contain too many unwanted titles.

We agreed that there is still a need for a gatekeeper in the library directing acquisitions even in the PDA model.

They all like the Knovel platform because the data can be massaged; one or two levels up from just reading the text.

We discussed own vs. lease.  It depends on the subject, e.g. computer science books lose relevance after a year.

Librarians are looking for flexibility and good customer support.  We stressed the need for good search interfaces.  As an example, searching a general interest eBook package returned hits for civil war when searching for civil engineering.

Publishers need to develop “best practices” for eBook offerings.