E Books

E-books: Defining and Considering the Alien Invasion : 

E-books: Defining and Considering the Alien Invasion ER&L 2008 Ted Koppel Zoe Stewart-Marshall

Who we are : 

Who we are Ted Koppel, ILS Product Manager, Auto-Graphics, Inc. – formerly Verde ERM Product Manager at Ex Libris Zoe Stewart-Marshall, Electronic Resources Librarian, Cornell University, E-Resources Management Unit

Trying to Define E-books : 

Trying to Define E-books Good luck! Industry is far from mature Library e-book management infrastructure is confusing at best Rapidly moving targets

Trying to define e-books – part 1 : 

Trying to define e-books – part 1 Based on broad description: Publisher produced e-books Mass digitized e-books Locally produced e-books

Publisher produced e-books : 

Publisher produced e-books Scanned copies of originally paper? Scanned, OCR’d, and re-typeset copies of originally paper? “Native digital” e-books Delivered as HTML? Delivered as PDF or other digital format?

Mass digitized e-books : 

Mass digitized e-books Google Books, Open Content Alliance as examples, but other projects Digitized from paper from contributing libraries Access, copyright, linking, discovery issues

Locally produced e-books : 

Locally produced e-books Often stored / available in institutional repositories Digitization options as in publisher produced Indexing and access? Copyright management and control? Stability?

Trying to Define E-books, part 2 : 

Trying to Define E-books, part 2 Discovery tools Publisher produced – records in catalog? Locally produced – records in catalog, local effort. Dublin Core? OAI harvesting? Mass digitized: probably no records in catalog unless you’re a contributor, and even then …

Trying to Define E-books, part 3 : 

Trying to Define E-books, part 3 How they are acquired Publisher produced: most often as sets (or packages, like e-journals). Some interesting variations, like: Quantity subscription where titles rotate Purchase/access to e-books by chapter Mass digitized: not purchase; use is generally open for all Locally produced: usually local, no charge – but cost issues with storage, upkeep, maintenance, and stability long term

Trying to Define, part 4 : 

Trying to Define, part 4 Permissions for Use Publisher produced: usually fairly strict rules on use, audience, downstream use, etc. Open Access: free to use, some rules on use and distribution Locally produced: usually but not always Open access. Who manages the license? Mass digitized: wide open … except for titles that aren’t.

Trying to define, part 5 : 

Trying to define, part 5 Interface and platform environments Publisher produced: almost always publisher hosted: many e-publishers means a highly diverse and inconsistent set of delivery platforms Locally produced: on local IR, more-or-less consistent

Platform Environment : 

Platform Environment Mass digitized Dependent on which mass digitization collection is being used Snippet view, no view, partial view, no view

Trying to define, part 6 : 

Trying to define, part 6 OpenURL linking to the e-book Publisher produced: often, especially if record was added to catalog Locally produced: often, if record was added to catalog Mass digitized: not easily, not likely

Trying to define, part 7 : 

Trying to define, part 7 Management in the library Publisher produced: ERM department or some variation of monographic and serials acquisitions Locally produced: depends on who controls the IR – accessioning, de-accessioning, providing access, hardware and software upkeep and additions, cataloging, etc.

Part 7 continued : 

Part 7 continued Management in the library Mass digitized: maybe.

I could go on and on … : 

I could go on and on … Many ways to slice and dice the definition Depends on your point of view There is no one single and immutable definition of an e-book …. As e-books permeate library services, we have to keep these differentiations in mind

Slide 17: 

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f4/24-cell.gif/180px-24-cell.gif

On to the pragmatic : 

On to the pragmatic Chaotic and/or unstructured Fast, fast, fast Unrealistic expectations Overwhelming Whoever said being a librarian was a low stress job, didn’t work with e-resources let alone e-books

User Expectations : 

User Expectations What’s in a name? Expectations of print books Perpetual ownership Cover to cover vs. discrete parts/snippets Fixed and cite-able Expectations of digital resources Available 24x7 Manipulate-able Current and updated

Discovery and Access : 

Discovery and Access Discovery Google WorldCat and WorldCat Local Library Catalogs Title level vs. Collection level A to Z lists

Discovery and Access (cont.) : 

Discovery and Access (cont.) Access From citation to full text Get It Link Resolvers xISBN and other services and standards ILL and cooperative services

Collection Development : 

Collection Development Just in time vs. just in case Title by title Approval plans Subject packages Publisher packages Backfiles Open access/IRs/Open Content Alliance

Acquiring and Managing : 

Acquiring and Managing Subscription vs. Purchase Continuation vs. firm order Purchase plus maintenance Firm order plus continuation Multiple vendors and multiple interfaces Locating and ordering specific titles

Acquiring and Managing (cont.) : 

Acquiring and Managing (cont.) Perpetual access vs Perpetual ownership What happens when you stop paying for access Local hosting vs Remote hosting Licensing – when everything is an exception Staff – mainstreaming vs. separate streams

Conclusions : 

Conclusions You’re kidding, right? You were expecting answers? That said… There is no one single and immutable definition of an e-book …. As e-books permeate library services, we have to keep these differentiations in mind

Conclusions (cont.) : 

Conclusions (cont.) Define the resource and then apply a workflow that works Change is a constant. The agile organization is a must. This is a transitional period The volume is only going to increase. Batch processing will play a role

Questions? : 

Questions? Contact information: Ted Koppel, tpk@auto-graphics.com Zoe Stewart-Marshall, es254@cornell.edu