E-Books: Selected Readings- EBooks in Libraries

An online community for publishers and their partners. Provides information, white papers, industry news and developments in the digital book world.

"EContent is a leading authority on the businesses of digital publishing, media, and marketing, targeting executives and decision-makers in these fast-changing markets. By covering the latest tools, strategies, and thought-leaders in the digital content ecosystem, EContent magazine and EContentmag.com keep professionals ahead of the curve in order to maximize their investment in digital content strategies while building sustainable, profitable business models."

"The Digital Digest is maintained by the Association of University Presses’ digital committee and serves as a gathering place for electronic publishing news and information."

Provides eBook, EReader, Tablet and Slate PC News. Provides updated reviews of EReaders and Tablets, video tutorials that teach you how to load ebooks in specific e-readers. advice on hardware purchasing and gadget news and previews.

This paper presents the results of an analysis of COUNTER e-book usage reports for SpringerLink e-book collections purchased since July 2008 at the University of Liverpool. The study concludes that this big deal approach has worked well but the challenge remains to find pricing models that allow more libraries to acquire e-book collections when budgets may be largely committed to journals.

"This ECAR research bulletin analyses the potential impact of e-books on higher education. It draws evidence from a series of small qualitative studies and focus groups with faculty and students undertaken at Gettysburg College between the fall of 2008 and the summer of 2009."

"This bulletin presents an update to the rapidly changing e-book and e-textbook landscape and provides some higher education stakeholders with a clearer view of the road ahead."

"In a partnership between Colorado State University and Poudre River Public Library District, Director Patrick Burns of CSU and Poudre Libraries Executive Director Holly Carroll formed a team to look at the current state of the eBook and eReader Market and make recommendations for next steps for each institutions."

"The University of California's California Digital Library (CDL) formed an Ebook Task Force in August 2000 to evaluate academic libraries' experiences with electronic books (e-books), investigate the e-book market, and develop operating guidelines, principles and potential strategies for further exploration of the use of e-books at the University of California (UC). This article, based on the findings and recommendations of the Task Force Report, briefly summarizes task force findings, and outlines issues and recommendations for making e-books viable over the long term in the academic environment, based on the long-term goals of building strong research collections and providing high level services and collections to its users."

Results of a study undertaken by Elsevier from market research and personal intervews with over 500 researchers and librarians incorporating consulting industry data on how researchers work and intereact with e-books.

This white paper seeks to identify the characteristics of a successful e-book supplier and how suppliers, publishers aggregators and others involved in the eBook industry, all seek to place themselves in a viable position in the eBook economy.

"The survey captures strong enthusiasm for ebooks tempered by frustration with publisher policies, staff resistance to a changing model, and confusion over multiple interfaces and platform access."

Results of a global study conducted by Elsevier "on the usage, application and value of Online Books on ScienceDirect. This study seeks to better understand how online books are used by researchers, teachers and students within an academic environment."

In 2008, the University of California Libraries initiated the Springer e-Book Pilot Project with the goal of developing appropriate system-wide processes for acquiring and managing licensed e-books, as well as informing future licensing activities. Evaluation of the UC academic community’s experience utilizing the Springer e-book collection began in 2010, and a UC systemwide survey was launched by the UC Libraries in October 2010 for the purpose of assessing the user experience.

This presents "an overview of the status of e-books from multiple perspectives—publishers and other content producers, librarians, and the many vendors who support their creation, management, sales, and distribution. Not coincidentally, it also illustrates the scope of the NISO (National Information Standards Organization) community."