Category: E-Books

"Assessing the User Experience of E-Books in Academic Libraries"

College & Research Libraries has released an e-print of "Assessing the User Experience of E-Books in Academic Libraries" by Tao Zhang, Xi Niu and Marlen Proman.

Here's an excerpt:

We report findings from an assessment of e-book user experience (search and information seeking) from usage data and user tests. The usage data showed that most reading sessions were brief and focused on certain pages, suggesting that users mainly use e-books to find specific information. The user tests found that participants tended to use default keyword search and browse the search results. Experience levels with e-books and features of e-book platforms influenced users' information seeking in e-books. The assessment results have significant implications for designing e-book features to support users' reading strategies and help libraries create a consistent user experience.

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OAPEN-UK Final Report: A Five-Year Study into Open Access Monograph Publishing in the Humanities and Social Sciences

OAPEN-UK has released OAPEN-UK Final Report: A Five-Year Study into Open Access Monograph Publishing in the Humanities and Social Sciences .

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

Examining the attitudes and perceptions of funders, researchers, publishers, learned societies, universities and libraries, our study reiterated the deep strength of feeling and connectedness that each group has with the monograph, especially in terms of identity and reputation. It also found that while many think open access is a good idea in principle, there is uncertainty about how easy it would be to implement the necessary policies and systems to support OA monographs.

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"E-book Use and Value in the Humanities: Scholars’ Practices and Expectations"

Tina E. Chrzastowski and Lynn N. Wiley have published "E-book Use and Value in the Humanities: Scholars' Practices and Expectations" in Library Resources & Technical Services.

Here's an excerpt:

The data showed a split in acceptance of electronic versus print. The data also show that although humanists may lag behind other disciplines in incorporating e-books into their research, they believe e-book availability and use will increase. . . . The e-book format is appreciated, but scholars may also want the full text along with the print because of the varied types of reading employed by humanities scholars.

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"What Cost and Usage Data Reveals About E-Book Acquisitions: Ramifications for Collection Development"

Steven B. Carrico et al. have published "What Cost and Usage Data Reveals About E-Book Acquisitions: Ramifications for Collection Development" in Library Resources & Technical Services.

Here's an excerpt:

To better determine how e-book acquisitions might affect future collection development decisions, a team of librarians from the University of Florida (UF) launched a project to assess cost and usage of e-books purchased using three different acquisitions methods: e-books acquired in large publisher packages; single-title e-books selected through firm orders; and e-books purchased through two patron-driven acquisitions (PDA) plans. . . . The authors compared the cost-usage data of e-books acquired by the acquisitions methods across the three subject areas and describe how the findings are affecting current and future acquisitions, traditional collection management, and budgeting at UF.

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University of Minnesota Press and GC Digital Scholarship Lab Get $732,000 Mellon Grant for Manifold Scholarship

The University of Minnesota Press and GC Digital Scholarship Lab of Graduate Center of the City University of New York have received a $732,000 Andrew W. Mellon Foundation grant for Manifold Scholarship.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

Moving beyond the digitization of scholarly books, based primarily in siloed, read-only analogues to print such as Adobe Acrobat PDF and Epub, Manifold will define and create the next phase of scholarly publishing: monographs that open the boundaries of separate formats like "print" and "e-book." Foreseeing an emerging hybrid environment for scholarship, Manifold will develop, alongside the print edition of a book, an alternate form of publication that is networked and iterative, served on an interactive, open-source platform. . . .

In Manifold, a digital scholarly work would not be a static replication of the print book. From the beginning it is dynamic, revised, and expanded to reflect the evolution of academic thought and research, incorporating access to primary research documents and data, links to related archives, rich media, social media, and reading tools. Manifold seeks to encompass the growth and refinement of academic work as it is discussed, reviewed, and analyzed.

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"5 Million Public Domain Ebooks in HathiTrust: What Does This Mean?"

Rick Anderson has published "5 Million Public Domain Ebooks in HathiTrust: What Does This Mean?" in The Scholarly Kitchen.

Here's an excerpt:

A week or so ago, a monumental thing happened: the number of public-domain books in the HathiTrust digital repository topped 5 million. And since no one (including HathiTrust, so far) seems to be making a very big deal about this, it seems like a good moment both to recap the achievements of HathiTrust and to consider a few of its implications for the future of reading and scholarship.

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"What We Got Wrong about Books"

Joseph Esposito has published "What We Got Wrong about Books" in The Scholarly Kitchen.

Here's an excerpt:

This is where we have gotten into trouble. The apparent fixity of a book, the tendency to think of a book as something stuck inside an inflexible container, has led us to imagine that books are used the way they are written, or how we assume they are written—that is, from beginning to end. The prominence of the novel as a literary form over the past two centuries reinforces this. Who would want to break off in the middle of Tom Jones? The traditional novel is linear, which has created an expectation that all books are linear. That expectation is simply wrong, as Kobo and our own reading experience tell us.

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UC Press and the CDL Given a $750,000 Mellon Grant to Develop OA Monograph Publication System

The University of California Press and the California Digital Library have been given a $750,000 grant by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation "to develop a web-based, open source content and workflow management system to support the publication of open access (OA) monographs in the humanities and social sciences."

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

The proposed system will increase efficiency and achieve cost reduction by allowing users to manage content and associated workflows from initial authoring through manuscript submission, peer review, and production to final publication of files on the open web, whether via a publishing platform or an institutional repository. The system will streamline production so publishers can redirect resources back into the editorial process and disseminate important scholarship more widely.

During this two-year period, the system will be designed and built to support the new open access models being pursued by UC Press as well as CDL's current publishing programs. Throughout the two-year grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, UC Press and CDL will engage other university presses and library publishing units to ensure the system will meet the needs of a range of organizations. UC Press and CDL have built in a plan for long-term sustainability to ensure that this resource will continue to serve these communities and will realize its potential to re-invigorate the domain of monographic publishing within the humanities and social sciences.

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"The Case of the Disappearing E-book: Academic Libraries and Subscription Packages"

College & Research Libraries has released "The Case of the Disappearing E-Book: Academic Libraries and Subscription Packages" by Helen Georgas.

Here's an excerpt:

This study begins with a one-year analysis of "disappeared" titles from ebrary's Academic Complete™ collection at Brooklyn College of the City University of New York (CUNY). Were certain subject areas particularly affected? Which publishers were removed? Were the removed titles mainly scholarly, or were they titles published by popular presses? Were the removed monographs older publications, or were recent titles deleted as well?

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JEP Publishes Books in Browsers V Proceedings

The Journal of Electronic Publishing has released its latest issue, which presents the Books in Browsers V proceedings. The articles are primarily in video format

Here's an excerpt from "Editor's Note [18.1]":

While there are a few changes, what remains is the mission of the conference and the consistently high quality of its programming. As Peter Brantley, the driving force behind Books in Browsers, notes, the conference intends to and does "explore how rapidly evolving open web standards can support advanced digital publishing, and in turn how the frontiers of digital publishing design, supporting highly customized authorial intentions, push on our understanding of the nature and corpus of web standards."

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Monographs and Open Access: A Report to HEFCE

The HEFCE has released Monographs and Open Access: A Report to HEFCE.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

  • Monographs are a vitally important and distinctive vehicle for research communication, and must be sustained in any moves to open access. The availability of printed books alongside the open-access versions will be essential.
  • Contrary to many perceptions, it would not be appropriate to talk of a crisis of the monograph; this does not mean that monographs are not facing challenges, but the arguments for open access would appear to be for broader and more positive reasons than solving some supposed crisis.
  • Open access offers both short- and long-term advantages for monograph publication and use; many of these are bound up with a transition to digital publishing that has not been at the same speed as that for journals.
  • There is no single dominant emerging business model for supporting open-access publishing of monographs; a range of approaches will coexist for some time and it is unlikely that any single model will emerge as dominant. Policies will therefore need to be flexible.

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CNI Executive Roundtable Report: E-Book Strategies

CNI has released CNI Executive Roundtable Report: E-Book Strategies .

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

During two separate convenings of this roundtable, we explored questions that these new directions raise for institutions, the strategies that institutions are using to make choices among the available paths, the stakeholders involved, and the new programs and projects that CNI’s members are planning or have implemented. Our emphasis was on breadth rather than deep explorations of very specific issues; often we were most interested in understanding how institutions were shaping the questions and how they were exploring them, since many of these questions are far from resolution. Roundtable participants included representatives from academic libraries and information technology units from research institutions and liberal arts colleges, library associations, publishers, and aggregators/intermediaries.

Digital Scholarship | "A Quarter-Century as an Open Access Publisher"

Innovation in E-book Lending

The International Publishers Association has released Innovation in E-book Lending.

Here's an excerpt:

This special report assesses recent developments in e-lending, both in the trade and the academic sector, studying innovative approaches from the US, France, Sweden and Brazil. What these different projects have in common is that they are based on licenses which provide libraries with the conditions to acquire and lending e-books while putting publishers in control of lending terms. This allows publishers not just to protect their revenue streams, but to expand them.

Digital Scholarship | "A Quarter-Century as an Open Access Publisher"

Preserving eBooks

The Digital Preservation Coalition has released Preserving eBooks.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

Written by Portico's Amy Kirchhoff and Sheila Morrissey, and published in association with Charles Beagrie Ltd., this report discusses the current developments and issues with which public, national and higher education libraries, publishers, aggregators and preservation institutions must contend to ensure long-term access to eBook content.

Digital Scholarship | "A Quarter-Century as an Open Access Publisher"

"A Comparison of E-book and Print Book Discovery, Preferences, and Usage by Science and Engineering Faculty and Graduate Students at the University of Kansas"

Julie Waters et al. have published "A Comparison of E-book and Print Book Discovery, Preferences, and Usage by Science and Engineering Faculty and Graduate Students at the University of Kansas" in Issues in Science and Technology Librarianship.

Here's an excerpt:

The availability of science and technology e-books through the University of Kansas Libraries is growing rapidly through approval plans, e-book packages, and electronic demand-driven acquisitions. Based on informal conversations with faculty, questions still lingered as to the acceptance of books in the electronic format by faculty and graduate students in the STEM disciplines. To learn more about book format preferences, a survey was distributed via e-mail to 1,898 faculty and graduate students in science and technology at the University of Kansas. The survey included questions focused on print book use, e-book use, format preferences, and demographics. A majority of the 357 respondents indicated a preference for print books indicating many of the oft-repeated comments about the disadvantages of reading books on a computer. Patrons using tablets were more inclined to access e-books. The survey indicated a continuing need to purchase books in both print and electronic formats, and to market the availability of e-books to University of Kansas patrons.

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"E-Book Platforms for Academic Librarians"

Audrey Powers has self-archived "E-Book Platforms for Academic Librarians."

Here's an excerpt:

The goal of this issue is to provide a succinct overview of e-book platforms for academic librarians as well as insights into where e-book platforms are headed in the future. Most of the authors work in academic libraries and their job responsibilities include developing, procuring, promoting, and educating users about e-books. The topics covered include an overview of e-book platforms including technical aspects and business models, lending platforms, aggregator platforms, commercial publisher platforms, and university press platforms. It is our hope that when you read these articles it will add to your knowledge base about the current and future state of e-book platforms in academic libraries.

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"E-Book Monopolies and the Law"

Angela Daly has self-archived "E-Book Monopolies and the Law" in SSRN

Here's an excerpt:

This article will examine the legality of the digital rights management ("DRM") measures used by the major e-book publishers and device manufacturers in the United States, European Union and Australia not only to enforce their intellectual property rights but also to create monopolistic content silos, restrict interoperability and affect the ability for users to use the content they have bought in the way they wish. The analysis will then proceed to the recent competition investigations in the US and EU over price-fixing in e-book markets, and the current litigation against Amazon in the US for an alleged abuse of its dominant position. A final point will be made on possible responses in Australia to these issues taking into account the jurisprudence on DRM in other scenarios.

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E-Reading Rises as Device Ownership Jumps

The Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project has released E-Reading Rises as Device Ownership Jumps.

Here's an excerpt:

The percentage of adults who read an e-book in the past year has risen to 28%, up from 23% at the end of 2012. At the same time, about seven in ten Americans reported reading a book in print, up four percentage points after a slight dip in 2012, and 14% of adults listened to an audiobook.

Though e-books are rising in popularity, print remains the foundation of Americans' reading habits. Most people who read e-books also read print books, and just 4% of readers are "e-book only." Audiobook listeners have the most diverse reading habits overall, while fewer print readers consume books in other formats.

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Stop the Presses: Is the Monograph Headed toward an E-only Future?

Ithaka S+R has released Stop the Presses: Is the Monograph Headed toward an E-only Future?.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

Can we expect the print monograph to disappear anytime soon?

While the road to a fully digital future for scholarly monographs is not clearly in sight, the widespread availability of e-books is already transforming researchers' reading habits. As librarians and publishers consider their options, they must take into account how the usage behavior of academics is evolving. In this Issue Brief, Roger Schonfeld explores the challenges and possibilities if we "Stop the Presses."

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"Books, E and P"

Walt Crawford has published "Books, E and P" in the latest issue of Cites & Insights: Crawford at Large.

Here's an excerpt:

You might think of this discussion as Part 3 of WORDS: THE EBOOK MARKETPLACE. It is another set of notes and comments on material ranging back as far as May 2010 and related to ebooks, but it's really about books and the media in which they appear.

Note another key distinction from previous discussions in this area: E and P, not E versus P. Sure, some of these items make the digital-triumphalist assumption that print books will die out within the next generation (or next five years!) or become irrelevant collectibles, and there may be a few suggesting that ebooks will disappear or become a niche segment (although that seems unlikely). But my sense—not yet tested, since I'm writing this preface before beginning the essay—is that much of the discussion is now more nuanced and plausible, starting with the real-world fact that old media rarely die and the likelihood that there's room in this world for both print books and ebooks, in very large quantities in both cases, for the foreseeable future.

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"Cost Differentials between E-Books and Print in Academic Libraries"

College & Research Libraries has released an e-print of "Cost Differentials between E-Books and Print in Academic Libraries."

Here's an excerpt:

A survey conducted at Auburn University at Montgomery (AUM) has confirmed for academic libraries the work of Gray and Copeland on e-books being more expensive than print for public libraries. For AUM, the mean cost for e-books are significantly higher than for the print counterpart of those titles. The cost differentials between the two formats show e-books as being consistently higher than print in initial price. This consistency holds true across all LC classifications, regardless of whether or not the title is published by a university press or a commercial press.

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OAPEN-NL: A Project Exploring Open Access Monograph Publishing in the Netherlands

SURF has released OAPEN-NL: A Project Exploring Open Access Monograph Publishing in the Netherlands.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

Between June 2011 and November 2012, fifty Open Access monographs in various subject areas were published in Open Access by nine participating publishers. For every Open Access title, the publishers provided a similar title that was published in the conventional way. Data were collected about usage, sales and costs, to study the effect of Open Access on monographs. OAPEN-NL consisted of a quantitative and a qualitative research component, measuring the effects of Open Access publishing and the perceptions and expectations of publishers and authors.

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"A Perspective on the Merits of the Antitrust Objections to the Failed Google Books Settlement"

Pamela Samuelson has published "A Perspective on the Merits of the Antitrust Objections to the Failed Google Books Settlement" in the Harvard Journal of Law & Technology Occasional Paper Series.

Here's an excerpt:

This Article responds to critics of the antitrust objections to the ASA [Amended Settlement Agreement] by making three main points. Part II explains that Judge Chin's incomplete and unpersuasive analysis of the antitrust objections to the proposed settlement agreement is best understood as an effort to encourage the settling parties to adopt more competitive terms in any revised settlement agreement. Part III points out that the DOJ did not reach definitive conclusions on antitrust issues posed by the ASA. The DOJ was, however, obliged to submit an interim analysis because Judge Chin wanted the government's input before he ruled on whether the settlement should be approved and the DOJ did a creditable job under the circumstances. Part IV contends that there was more merit to the DOJ's antitrust concerns about the proposed settlement than some commentators have recognized.

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Perception Analysis of Scholarly E-Books in the Humanities at the Collegiate Level

ACLS Humanities E-Book has released Perception Analysis of Scholarly E-Books in the Humanities at the Collegiate Level.

Here's an excerpt:

At present, there is significant market confusion regarding e-book selections in the academic marketplace, particularly in the humanities. University acquisition librarians, unsure of what the offerings actually are, have found themselves unsure of where to allocate funds, which has resulted in the postponement of e-book purchases. This paper provides a current assessment of the status of e-book offerings in the humanities.

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"A Pilot Using OverDrive: E-lending in Academic Law Libraries"

Nina E. Scholtz has published "A Pilot Using OverDrive: E-lending in Academic Law Libraries" in the latest issue of AALL Spectrum.

Here's an excerpt:

With these increasing signs of a strong future for e-books, and possibly for e-lending as well, in spring 2012 Cornell University Law Library decided to pilot OverDrive for the Cornell Law School community. . . .

Exploring the future of e-book lending was a natural fit for us. And by embarking on a pilot of the OverDrive service, we could test the waters of e-lending in a cost-efficient way that would not be prohibitive in terms of staff time and library resources. The service would allow us to see specifically how our users would respond to an e-lending program. The library had already successfully introduced a popular small-print reading collection. Trying out an online component to this simple but well-liked outreach program seemed like a logical progression. With these thoughts in mind, in June 2012 we signed a contract with OverDrive for a one-year pilot period.

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