1. The Mad World of
Ebooks
Tony Horava
University of Ottawa
APLA presentation, May 9, 2008

2. Agenda
 The ‘madness’ and scope of ebooks
 Selection and collection development
 Budgeting
 Acquisitions and cataloguing
 Providing access to ebooks
 Assessing usage of ebooks
 Ontario’s approach to ebooks
 The future of ebooks

3. The ‘madness’ and scope of ebooks
 Ebooks turn our traditional procedures &
paradigms upside down- how are they sold,
acquired, budgeted, catalogued, made accessible
 What is an ebook anyway? No clear equivalent to
print book
 Could include: Book series; reports; reference
works; scanned print books; born digital texts ;
special issues of journals; theses; government
publications.
 Ebooks can be segmented by chapters
(PsycBOOKS) or incorporated with other content
(SpringerLink)
 The discourse on what constitutes publishing

4. Selection and collection development
 Tools:
 Vendor systems such as Coutts, Blackwell, and
YBP.
 Aggregators such as Ebrary, EBL and NetLibrary
 Publisher sites
 How to choose between these tools??
 Selection:
 Selecting title by title, or package by package?
 Do you duplicate print with electronic?
 How do approval plans integrate the ebook?
 Who does the selection?
 Collection development policies
 Faculty and end user input

5. Budgeting
 The many ways of paying for ebooks….
 On book funds by subject
 On a serials or continuations fund
 On an electronic resources fund
 On a consortial fund
 On a special allocation
 Combination of any of the above

6. Assessment of ebooks
 We need to demonstrate cost-effectiveness and
value for what we spend
 What value do ebooks add in relation to print
books, or other library materials?
 How do ebooks contribute to learning outcomes
and are they integrated into instruction and the
teaching process?
 Many ways of measuring value: usage statistics,
focus groups, user studies

7. Acquisitions issues
 Acquisitions practices and procedures based on
traditional formats
 A lot of data required to acquire ebooks: vendor
info, budget code, type of order, vendor code,
payment options, licensing agreement, MARC
records, purchase order, etc
 What order code is available for ebooks?
 Innovative Interfaces: ‘ebook’ or ‘ebook renewal’
 Training of staff

8. A smorgasbord of licensing &
acquisition models
 One-time cost + annual access fee
 One-time cost + one-time platform fee
 One-time cost with no annual access fee (closed
collection)
 One-time cost + MARC records fee
 One-time cost with multiple payment plan
 Annual cost (subscription fee)

9. Licensing 'hot button issues'
 Subscribing vs ownership (perpetual access)
 Unlimited access vs concurrent number of users
 Fixed collections vs expanding collections
 Restrictions imposed by DRM (digital rights
management) systems: limits on printing,
downloading, and coursepacks
 Exclusion of interlibrary loans
 Option to local load on one's own platform
 Portability: being able to migrate the content to
new formats

10. University of Ottawa order form
 An e-resources order form to capture all the data
(is used for ebook collections)
 Is submitted to an e-resources list that includes
Acquisitions staff, Cataloguing, and e-resources
unit
 Ensures key players receive the same information
 Includes: cost, term, fund code, location,
requestor, order type, cataloguing instructions,
license information, and type of resource

11. Cataloguing issues
 Ensuring title-level access in the catalogue is
essential for promoting visibility and usage
 Creating a viable workflow and regular
maintenance, as for print titles
 Direct links or OpenURL links from a link resolver?
 MARC records: from the vendor, or OCLC?
 How to handle records for titles offered by
multiple aggregators, eg NetLibrary, ebrary
 Customizing records, eg URL batch changes
 The big challenge: Keeping the catalogue up-to-
date!

12. Cataloguing issues (cont’d)
 Sampling records for accuracy, eg print ISBN;
original OCLC number; GMD [“electronic
resource”]; supplementary materials notes
 The reproduction model – print record used as
the model….what happens with born-digital
ebooks?
 The advent of FRBR (Functional Requirements for
Bibliographic Records) will change things
 What about sharing vendor records with OCLC?
What are the implications of not doing this?

13. How many doors to ebooks &
ebook collections?
 Via the OPAC
 Via an A-Z Database page listing
 Via subject pages
 Via an ebooks publicity page
 Via OpenURL links (eg SFX, Serials Solutions)
 Via course management systems (eg WebCT or
Blackboard) – durable links
 Via electronic reserves

14. “Approaches such as creating Web pages focusing
on e-books, including e-books on subject guides,
and publicizing new e-books on library homepages
are just a few ways to alert patrons to the availability
of ebooks. Because searching online catalogs for e-
books often has limited success, libraries should
strongly consider enhancing or improving the
functionality of search mechanisms that are used by
patrons to locate all types of electronic resources”
“Accessing E-Books through Academic Library Web
sites” Andrea Dinkelman and Kristine Stacy-Bates.
College & Research Libraries 68 (1) 45-58 Jan 2007

15. Usage statistics
 What are we measuring and how do these
metrics compare?
 For example, number of downloads, number of
searches, number of sessions, combination of
various metrics
 Vendors present data in many different ways
 How does this vary by discipline or type of
resource? (current; historical; chapters; full
works)
 Are there parallels with reserves usage?

16. Challenges in interpreting usage
 Certain subjects lend themselves better to e-book
format
 Does the heavy use of ebooks reflect lack of print
books in various subject areas, or a need for
extra copies?
 Are print & e-books used for different purposes?
 What is the effect of promotion/publicity &
technology barriers on usage?
 Incongruity in comparing ebook access (short)
versus print book circulation (long)
 Do core e-book titles represent large percentage
of use?

17. Canadian Public Policy Collection & Canadian Health
Research Collection – about 8,000 documents

18. More statistics…
 Eighteenth Century  ACLS Humanities
Collection Online: Ebook Project:
Jan – Dec 2007 Sept 2006-Aug 2007
108,423 searches 1,525 searches
10,098 sessions 12,398 page views

19. Ontario’s approach to ebooks
 OCUL: Ontario Council of University Libraries
 Twenty universities, ranging from the very large
(Univ of Toronto – 64,831) to the very small
(Royal Military College – 1,941)
 381,000 FTE (full-time equivalent) students
 Approximately 180 products licensed
 Total annual spend of about 11M
 Voluntary model
 Includes ejournal collections, index databases,
reference tools, and ebooks, and software (eg
RefWorks)

20. OCUL-IR Ebooks committee
 Established in response to a need to deal with the
complexity of ebook offerings
 Ebook proposals are evaluated/prioritized by the
committee
 Information gathering and negotiation
 Creates efficiencies in communication and pooling
of knowledge
 Use of model license
 Co-chairs: Warren Holder (U Toronto) and myself.
Three other members (Mary Ann Jameson,
Janice Adlington, and Carol Stephenson)

21. Accomplishments to date
 Setting standards for a consortial ebook
agreement: a structured process and clear
objectives
 Leveraging our collective power in the wild
marketplace of ebooks
 Acceptance of local hosting on OCUL's ebook
platform
 Springer ebook agreement (all 20 schools)
covering 2005-2008
 Elsevier ebook agreement; several schools
participated
 Ongoing negotiations with OVID re LWW ebooks
(nursing & medicine)

22. The Future of ebooks….
 Will certainly grow in response to various factors:
 Better integration with course delivery
 Better usability of platforms
 Better ebook readers
 More access points and visibility
 Business models that favour the online vs the
print (eg Springer)
 A shakedown in licensing models
 The Google effect
 Greater acceptance of digital content in some
disciplines than others; will eclipse print eventually

23. US Trade Wholesale Electronic Book Sales
(Source: International Digital Publishing
Forum, Statistics)

24. A few caveats…
 The data above represent United States revenues only
 The data above represent only trade eBook sales via
wholesale channels. Retail numbers may be as much as
double the above figures due to industry wholesale
discounts.
 The data above represent only data submitted from approx.
12 to 15 trade publishers
 The data does not include library, educational or
professional electronic sales
 The numbers reflect the wholesale revenues of publishers
 The definition used for reporting electronic book sales is "All
books delivered electronically over the Internet OR to hand-
held reading devices"
 The IDPF and AAP began collecting data together starting in
Q1 2006

25. Ebooks in Asia
 South Korea: The country's e-book market this
year is expected to amount to 140 billion won
(US$144 million), a surge of 220 per cent from
last year, according to the latest edition of eBook
Today
 Japan: The Digital Content Association of Japan
projects that mobile phone sales of e-books will
increase to 11.7 billion yen (US$99 million) in
2007, compared to a projected 9.4 billion yen
(US$79 million) for Internet sales.
 The convergence of mobile device technology and
delivery of ebook content is a key factor

26. Amazon’s Kindle

27. Thanks for listening.
Any questions or
comments?
Tony Horava
thorava@uottawa.ca
(613) 562-5800 ext3645