ebooks indest

47
Daulat Jotwani Librarian, IIT Bombay 10 th Annual Meet and Workshop of INDEST-AICTE Consortium, NIT Silchar, 5-6 May 2014 E-Books in Libraries : Issues & Challenges

Upload: kishor-satpathy

Post on 17-May-2015

270 views

Category:

Education


0 download

TRANSCRIPT

Page 1: Ebooks indest

Daulat JotwaniLibrarian, IIT Bombay

10th Annual Meet and Workshop of INDEST-AICTE Consortium, NIT Silchar, 5-6 May 2014

E-Books in Libraries : Issues & Challenges

Page 2: Ebooks indest
Page 3: Ebooks indest

What is an E-book?

An e-book is a term used to describe a text analogous to a book that is in digital form to be displayed on a computer screen (Cox and Mohammed, 2001).

According to Ana Arias Terry “ an e-book consists of electronic content originating from traditional books, reference material, or magazines that is downloaded from the Internet and viewed through any number of hardware devices.” These include PCs, laptops, PDA’s (personal digital assistants), palm PC’s or palmtops, or dedicated e-book readers.

An e-book (also: eBook, ebook), sometimes called an electronic book, is an electronic (or digital) equivalent of a conventional printed book. The term has occasionally been used ambiguously to refer to either an individual work in a digital format, or a hardware device used to read books in digital format, more specifically called an e-book device or e-book reader. (Wikipedia)

Page 4: Ebooks indest

An Electronic book is an integration of the classical book structure, with features which can be provided within an electronic environment. This can be used as an interactive document which can be composed & read on a computer or another electronic device.

text in digital form, or a book converted into digital form, or digital reading material, or a book in a computer file format, or an electronic file of words and images displayed on a desktop, note-book computer, or portable device, or formatted for display on dedicated e-book readers

What is an E-book?

Page 5: Ebooks indest

Development of E-books

The electronic book (ebook) was born in 1971, with the first steps of Project Gutenberg, a digital library for books from public domain.

The internet went live in 1974, with the creation of the protocol TCP/IP by Vinton Cerf and Bob Kahn.

It began spreading in 1983 as a network for research centers and universities.

It got its first boost with the invention of the web by Tim Berners-Lee in 1990, and its second boost with the release of the first browser Mosaic in 1993.

From 1994 onwards, the internet quickly spread worldwide.

Page 6: Ebooks indest

Skkk

Ebooks have been around in some form for decades, but it has only been in the last several years that a significant market for them has emerged, driven largely by the introduction of next-generation ebook readers like the Amazon Kindle, the Sony Reader, the Barnes & Noble Nook that have made ereading convenient, comfortable, and relatively inexpensive.

• Ebooks exist alongside printed books, and serve a variety of needs for library patrons. Easier to navigate and search than their printed counterparts, making them favored among students and academic researchers.

• Allow libraries to serve and offer books to remote users— helpful for academic libraries that serve institutions that offer distance learning.

• Ebooks don’t wear out or get damaged, can’t easily get misplaced and don’t require physical storage.

Development of E-books

Page 7: Ebooks indest

Availability of Scholarly Titles as E-books

Many academic titles are not available in any e-book format. This has been a major factor in librarians’ reluctance to commit to e-book collections.

Most e-book publishers and vendors focus on popular titles rather than the academic market. Scholarly titles account for just one-tenth of all e-books.

Major library e-book vendors offer just a fraction of the titles that academic librarians are likely to need. In 2004, no more than six percent of the most popular academic titles were available through NetLibrary.

The situation has improved in recent years, but not as much as e-book proponents might hope. In 2011–12, the largest library e-book vendor, ebrary, offered just 31 percent of the print titles profiled by YBP Library Services.

Page 8: Ebooks indest

Delays in the Release of Academic E-books

Digital distribution has the potential to reduce the time between the acceptance of a book manuscript and its delivery to the public. That potential has not been realized.

Many academic e-books are released three to eighteen months after the corresponding print editions to protect print sales.

Timing of each release [hardcover, softcover, and e-book] is based on a schedule that publishers hope will maximize profit.

Some publishers release the e-book at the same time as the print edition, but only to consumers who acquire the title directly from the publisher. Those who use library vendors or other third-party channels must wait several months before the e-book is available. Such embargoes reflect the fact that direct sales tend to generate higher profits than sales through vendors.

Page 9: Ebooks indest

E-Book Leasing & Licensing

Unlike print books, e-books are leased rather than purchased. Publishers and vendors offer three kinds of e-book leases:

•Annual access: The library pays an annual fee for one year’s access. The lease can be renewed each year.

•Perpetual access: The library pays a one-time fee. There may also be an annual platform fee.

•Pay per use: The library is billed, or debited from a prepaid account, based on the number of uses (titles viewed, pages viewed, etc.). There may be an annual platform fee.

Page 10: Ebooks indest

Implications of Leased Access

Shift from ownership to leasing—from product (printed book) to service (online access)—has major implications for libraries and their patrons.

Purchase of a printed volume gives patrons permanent access to the content of the book. With leased e-books only the perpetual access option allows patrons to view the content once the library has stopped making payments.

Even then, many perpetual access licenses require the payment of annual platform fees of several thousand dollars or more.

Up until now, a library could buy a book and own it forever. For e-books, the concept of long-term ownership is currently not offered by publishers, leaving libraries the choice between losing access to content they paid for once or paying a fee for as long as they wish to maintain their access.

Page 11: Ebooks indest

Implications of Leased Access

In both the US and the UK, annual access payments are a major factor in librarians’ dissatisfaction with e-books.

E-book distributors are not in the business of providing access to information. Instead, their aim is to package and market information in ways that generate revenue.

Many publishers and vendors have strong economic and legal incentives to limit access to information—in particular, to lease information rather than transferring ownership.

They also have an interest in maintaining control over the products they lease, through DRM and other restrictions. Although e-book technology offers the potential for unrestricted access to information, the possibilities inherent in the technology are often at odds with the economic goals of those who control it

Page 12: Ebooks indest

Legal Aspects of E-book Licensing

The notion that everything is different in the online environment has helped publishers strengthen their own standing through legislation such as the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which allows vendors to restrict the use of digital content in ways that would otherwise be permitted under copyright law.

Even without the adoption of new legislation, two fundamental characteristics of e-book licensing limit the rights of libraries and their patrons.

First -- that e-books are leased rather than sold. For that reason, they are not covered by the First Sale Doctrine, which was first recognized by the US Supreme Court in 1908. The First Sale Doctrine allows the owners of printed books to lend, rent, resell, or otherwise transfer them without restriction. It does not apply to leases. In fact, many e-book contracts specifically prohibit the transfer of content to anyone other than the original lessee.

Page 13: Ebooks indest

Second, many e-book licenses require libraries and end users to give up rights that would otherwise be theirs under the Fair Use and Educational Use provisions of US copyright law.

For example, nearly all e-book licenses prohibit interlibrary lending, and many restrict the use of e-books for course reserves.

Likewise, the Fair Dealing provisions of the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act do not apply to leased e-books. Activities such as copying for long-term preservation and reformatting for patrons with disabilities are therefore disallowed by most license agreements.

Legal Aspects of E-book Licensing

Page 14: Ebooks indest

Need for Standardization of License Terms

There is wide variation in the access and pricing models offered by e-book distributors, and an equally wide range of restrictions on the viewing, downloading, printing, and sharing of e-book content.

Of the large commercial publishers, only Springer distributes e-books in PDF format without DRM restrictions.

The standardization of license terms might help allay librarians’ concerns about the large-scale acquisition of e-books.

Under current conditions, the need to manage a wide and conflicting array of license provisions increases the overall cost of acquiring and maintaining e-book collections

Page 15: Ebooks indest

E-book Publishers, Aggregators, & Vendors

Publishers that offer content directly to libraries. These include Elsevier, Oxford University Press, the Royal Society of Chemistry, and Springer.

Specialist aggregators that package and present e-books—often reference works—in particular subject areas. Knovel offers engineering titles from nearly 100 publishers. Likewise, Safari offers e-books in management and technology from about 50 publishers. Alexander Street Press provides access to more than 90 collections in the social sciences and humanities.

Large aggregators that offer e-books in many disciplines from multiple publishers. The largest aggregators include dawsonera, EBL, ebrary (a subsidiary of ProQuest), EBSCO (formerly NetLibrary), and MyiLibrary (a subsidiary of Ingram). Recent nonprofit initiatives, such as those of JSTOR and Project MUSE, also fall into this category.

Library vendors that provide print volumes as well as e-books. For example, Blackwell, Coutts, Swets, and YBP each offer e-books from both aggregators and individual publishers

Page 16: Ebooks indest

E-book File Formats

There is no standard format for e-books.

In 2001, at least 21 e-book file formats were in use.

The latest Library and Book Trade Almanac lists sixteen file formats that are currently in use, and other sources list up to 27.

Many librarians regard the multiplicity of e-book file formats as a major disadvantage.

It limits the cross-platform compatibility of e-books. Many formats are readable only through a particular publisher’s web site or device. For example, Kindle e-books can be read only on a Kindle.

In 2007, the International Digital Publishing Forum developed the EPUB file standard in an attempt to increase the extent to which content can be transferred from one system to another.

Page 17: Ebooks indest

E-book File Formats

Theoretically, an EPUB-compliant book can be read on any computer or mobile device.

However, EPUB does not ensure consistency in the presentation of text and images. A file may be readable on many different platforms, but it will not necessarily look the same on each one.

Another drawback, from the library’s perspective, is that even EPUB-compliant files can be “locked down”—restricted to a single platform—if the publisher or vendor chooses to add DRM restrictions

For fear of piracy and lost revenues, nearly all publishers add DRM to e-books, even those in EPUB format. Purchasing an e-book locked down with DRM limits its use to a particular reader or platform, thus rescinding the benefits of EPUB.

Survey responses from 364 American universities reveal that PDF format is preferred by most academic librarians (53%); other formats preferred by respondents are HTML (32%) and ePub (16%).

Page 18: Ebooks indest

Acquisition of Individual Titles vs Packages

Academic e-books can be selected and acquired either as individual titles or as e-book collections (packages) that represent particular subject areas or publishers.

The available options vary by publisher/aggregator. For instance, ebrary allows libraries to select individual titles or to choose from more than fifty subject-based packages. EBSCO offered only title-by title selection until the release of their first e-book collection in early 2012.

British universities spend more on e-book packages than on title-by-title acquisitions. This may reflect a desire to build a critical mass of e-books at the outset, or to keep per-title costs as low as possible.

In American academic libraries, e-book collections and title-by-title acquisitions are equally important.

Overall, librarians have expressed a strong preference for title-by-title selection. For example, nearly ninety percent of British academic librarians with an interest in e-books report that they would prefer to select each title individually.

Page 19: Ebooks indest

Acquisition of Individual Titles vs Packages

Many packages include backlist titles that publishers offer to only because they know that print sales have already run their course.

In recent years, at least some publishers and distributors have been more open about this. In 2009, ebrary offered backlist titles from more than twenty publishers at half off the usual price.

Nearly all e-book collections—like Big Deal journal packages—require libraries to pay for titles they don’t want in order to get the ones they do want. The consequences of this can be seen in libraries’ use statistics; e-books acquired through packages generate far less use per title than those selected on a title-by-title basis.

Marketing of e-books as collections rather than individual titles (or individual chapters) is directly contrary to the technological capabilities of the format, as in the electronic environment, where the physical package—the title—is no longer necessary for purchase, our aim surely should be to increase the granularity of decision making, not decrease it

Page 20: Ebooks indest

Acquisition of Individual Titles vs PackagesThe inclusion of unwanted titles in e-book packages is of special concern in the

academic setting, where librarians have a responsibility to guide patrons toward high-quality resources and away from those that are unlikely to serve them well.

Low-quality books, in any format, reduce the value of the collection by lowering the precision of searches, wasting students’ time, and leading them away from more valuable titles that would better meet their needs. This is of concern not just to librarians, but to faculty.

Although instructors’ recommendations are central to many collection development programs, most e-book packages provide no way for librarians to act on the faculty’s requests for particular titles.

In comparing e-book packages, selectors may want to evaluate a random sample of titles from each package, determining (for instance) how many of the titles would be selected if each e-book were acquired individually.

.

Another model, patron-driven acquisition (PDA), allows patrons to select ebooks for the library collection without staff mediation or oversight.

Page 21: Ebooks indest

E-book Pricing

When acquired individually, academic e-books cost more than printed books. Few scholarly e-books sell for less than the hardcover list price, and prices fifty percent greater than print retail are not uncommon.

Perpetual access e-books typically cost 20 to 100 percent more than the equivalent hardcover editions, and many vendors charge annual platform fees as well.

For the Menlo College titles, the average EBSCO e-book price is 57 percent higher than the print list price. The average ebrary price is 53 percent higher, and the average EBL price is 47 percent higher

Page 22: Ebooks indest

E-book Packages and Short-term Rentals

On a per-title basis, e-book packages generally cost far less than e-books that are acquired individually.

However,and such low prices come with a major disadvantage: the inability to control which titles are included in the initial package or added and deleted by the vendor over time.

Moreover, even low-cost e-book packages may result in a higher cost per relevant title.

Many packages include a substantial number of backlist titles that would not otherwise generate income for the publisher, and even high-quality packages are likely to include titles that do not meet the usual selection standards.

The prices of individual e-books can usually be found through publishers’ web sites and vendors’ databases. In contrast, the prices of e-book packages are based on the characteristics of each institution—the number of students etc—and many license agreements are negotiated confidentially by individual libraries or consortia.

Page 23: Ebooks indest

E-book Packages and Short-term Rentals

The fees associated with short-term e-book rentals varies from 15% to 84 percent of list price.

In any case, e-book rentals are not popular among academic libraries.

Most rental programs focus on textbooks and mass market titles rather than scholarly e-books

Some vendors provide a rental option, which allows for short-term access to e-books.

Page 24: Ebooks indest

Production Costs

There is widespread assumption that e-books are less expensive for publishers to produce.

That assumption is not usually valid. Writing, editing, and formatting processes are the same whether the final product is issued in print, in digital format, or both.

Although print editions require printing, binding, and shipping, e-books have their own unique costs: online hosting, server and network maintenance, reformatting for multiple platforms or file formats, customer service, and technical support.

For many e-books, even this small savings is offset by the cost of supporting multiple e-book formats, hosting and transmitting files, and maintaining the infrastructure needed to sell and deliver e-books. Among other things, they provide COUNTER-compliant use statistics, maintain a secure web site, and deal with the wide range of access problems that customers are likely to encounter.

In fact, a switch from print to digital format often results in little or no cost savings for the publisher.

Page 25: Ebooks indest

Sustainability of E-book Collections

E-books are not going onto the shelves of thousands of libraries and individuals; rather, they are residing in files encumbered with digital rights management (DRM) software on proprietary appliances and on vendor-held and-maintained computers.

Those responsible for the preservation of e-books must maintain the long-term usability of content (through the migration of file formats, for instance), the authenticity of content (including text, images, and page formats), discoverability (the preservation of metadata within the e-book or its package), and accessibility (through the maintenance or emulation of e-book readers, interfaces, and other access mechanisms)

Page 26: Ebooks indest

Sustainability of E-book Collections

While preservation focuses on the resource itself, sustainable access refers to reliable, long-term access for a particular group of users, such as the students and faculty at a particular university.

a comprehensive sustainable access policy would ensure long-term access not just for the vendor, but for the subscribing library.

There are three primary threats to sustainable access: the impermanence of the physical media on which e-books reside, proprietary software and file formats, and restrictive license provisions.

Page 27: Ebooks indest

Impermanence of Physical Media

Every online or “electronic” resource is embedded in tangible form on a mechanical device and cannot escape the material constraints of the physical devices that manipulate, store, and exchange them.

Digital resources such as e-books are susceptible to the same kinds of corruption and decay that characterize other media.

In fact, the medium most often used to store e-books—the magnetic disk drive—is far less reliable than print.

All such media profusely signal their materiality, through mechanical noise, slow speed, poor reliability, and sensitivity to wear.... The defining characteristic of these devices is their reliance on mechanical motion.

Page 28: Ebooks indest

Proprietary Software and File Formats

27 e-book file formats are currently in use, and many of them can be read only by proprietary software that is specific to a particular platform or device.

Today’s e-books are often tied to a specific piece of software, and even though an individual or library may own the bytes that compose the e-book, it is impossible to move those bytes from one platform to another. Thus it may be impossible to open those bytes and read the book in five or ten or fifty years.”

File formats sometimes change due to decisions made by publishers or aggregators. In other cases, formats are abandoned as e-book suppliers merge or go out of business.

Absence of a clear market leader for academic e-books makes it difficult to gauge which file formats are likely to remain viable in the long term.

Most e-book formats have lasted just a few years, and today’s readers are incapable of reading the formats that were in widespread use just a decade ago.

Format migration is one possible solution, although it requires both expertise and staff time, thereby adding to the indirect cost of e-book collections.

Page 29: Ebooks indest

Restrictive License Provisions

Of the three types of e-book licenses described earlier—annual access, perpetual access, and pay per use—two are incompatible with the principle of sustainable access.

Both annual leases and pay-per-use agreements allow library patrons to use the e-book collection only during the period for which fees have been paid.

Librarians who choose annual access agreements are essentially betting that they will have adequate funds to pay for online access in every subsequent year. Inability to pay in any particular year results in the loss of all content.

An institution that subscribes for five years before canceling is left with nothing in return for its five-year investment.

Perpetual access licenses do sometimes meet sustainable access criteria, but only if there are no recurring platform fees and no requirement to acquire additional e-books each year.

Page 30: Ebooks indest

Restrictive License Provisions

Many e-book packages preclude sustainable access, since they allow suppliers to remove titles from the database or collection without notifying the licensee.

This practice makes it impossible for libraries to provide reliable, long-term access to the individual titles within the collection.

Another difficulty is the absence of archiving rights. Even those e-book contracts that guarantee perpetual access seldom provide any mechanism by which libraries can deliver e-books to patrons if the supplier goes out of business.

Although the absence of archiving rights is a major factor in librarians’ dissatisfaction with e-books, even nonprofit publishers are reluctant to agree to any provisions that might cause them to lose permanent control over content.

American Association for the Advancement of Science has provided archiving rights only in response to the requirements of major library consortia—not when dealing with individual libraries.

Page 31: Ebooks indest

Influence on reading comprehension, eyefatigue, and perception

Korean students studied herein, who have had a higher level of exposure to technology than those in other countries, did not show positive behavioral intentions toward e-books.

Overall, the responses from the students suggest that there was general satisfaction with reading e-books on screen. However, it also found a discordance in the students’ perceptions of e-books.

Most students grew tired of reading on the screen; this tiredness could have an adverse effect on both reading comprehension and the perception of e-books.

In further analyzing user responses, many of the critical remarks were found to refer to the screen/text size or clarity rather than to the e-book itself.

Suggest improvements in the legibility of e-books are critical to making them more usable and efficient. Improvements in device capabilities could enhance users’ overall impressions of e-books

(Hanho Jeong,Department of Education, Chongshin University, Seoul, South Korea, The Electronic Library Vol. 30 No. 3, 2012 pp. 390-408)

Page 32: Ebooks indest

Survey of Ebook Usage in U.S. Academic Libraries 2012

Ebook adoption has plateaued in academic libraries, with 95% currently carrying ebooks. This has remained unchanged in the last three years.

The number of institutions adopting ebooks in general may be flat, but the number of ebooks offered continues to rise. The overall percentage hike in number of ebooks from last year to this was 41%.

Among academic libraries in general, 69% have seen an increase in demand for ebooks.

In 2012, the top influencing factors are “24/7 access”—selected by 74% of respondents—and “supports distance learners,” cited by 72%. “[Allows] multiple users at one time” is third at 70%.

Page 33: Ebooks indest

Survey of Ebook Usage in U.S. Academic Libraries 2012

The average amount spent on ebooks by respondents during the 2011–2012 academic year was $67,400 (median $16,600). Last year, academic libraries spent on average $65,000 (median $17,500). If projected over the library universe (and accounting for libraries not offering ebooks), academic libraries nationwide spent $293 million on ebooks in the 2011–2012 school year, up from $249 million in the previous year.

Currently, ebooks represent an average of 9.6% of academic libraries’ total acquisitions budgets, while last year they represented 7.5% of the total acquisitions budget.

On average, institutions that offer ebooks predict that ebooks will represent 19.5% of their acquisition budgets by 2017. About one-fourth of respondents speculate that ebooks will account for >25% of their acquisition budgets in 2017.

When libraries purchase ebooks, (83% of all respondents) they purchase “perpetual access.” The second most popular option is subscription (71%).

Page 34: Ebooks indest

Survey of Ebook Usage in U.S. Academic Libraries 2012

• User-driven acquisition is a growing option for many libraries, up from 16% two years ago to 31% in 2012. The primary advantage, for three-fourths of libraries that have adopted user-driven acquisition, is that it helps focus acquisition precisely on student/faculty needs.

• By far the largest categories of ebooks carried by academic libraries are general non-circulating reference materials and scholarly monographs. Interestingly, etextbooks continue to lag in the fifth position (30%) in the current acquisitions race.

• Library users confront a variety of barriers to ebook access in academic libraries. The top factor remains “unaware of ebook availability,” “users prefer print” “Limited titles available” and “complex downloading process” .

• The personal laptop or computer remains the top hardware device on which students/faculty read ebooks, but other devices used to read ebooks are starting to make a challenge. Dedicated ebook readers continue to grow, and the iPad (or similar tablets), added to the 2012 survey, debuts at 40%.

Page 35: Ebooks indest

Survey of Ebook Usage in U.S. Academic Libraries 2012

• PDF remains the preferred format for academic users, while those optimized for ereading devices and mobile are at record highs in the three-year history of this survey. Full-text HTML is declining, but it is still a player at 23%.

• EBSCOhost (which acquired NetLibrary in 2011) is the top vendor employed by academic libraries for ebooks, while a somewhat distant second is Gale Virtual Reference Library (aka Gale/Cengage in previous surveys), followed by Ebrary.

• More than half of respondents (57%) are dissatisfied with the discounts they receive (or don’t receive) from ebook vendors—nine percent of those are “very dissatisfied.” Not one said it was “very satisfied.”

• Ease of use, multiple device support, and timely receipt of MARC records to support discovery top the list of what academic librarians want.

• The fairly negative data regarding satisfaction with discounts—combined with other challenges and concerns expressed quantitatively and qualitatively in this year’s survey—suggest very strongly that the cost of ebooks is the number one issue for academic libraries.

Page 36: Ebooks indest

• Students using e-books for academic coursework experience problems with access, insufficient context in search results, awkward navigation tools, an unpleasant reading experience and interfaces that are not intuitive to use. Despite these, e-books are regarded as being a potentially valuable educational resource.

• While new e-book platforms offer possible solutions to some of these issues, major studies undertaken by JISC point to the need for improvements in the end-user experience to be linked to changes in the whole e-book business model, with the onus on publishers to focus on workable pricing models, better availability of texts, and well-designed e-book platforms.

• For librarians and academics, the onus is on developing skills for effective use of e-books. This study has revealed that current approaches to training students to use e-books effectively for scholarly activity is generally lacking. Instruction tends to be focussed on locating the e-books for study rather than on their use to achieve students‘ study goals.

• The Case for e-Book Literacy: Undergraduate Students' Experience with e-Books for Course Work byLaura Muir , Graeme Hawes, The Journal of Academic Librarianship 39 (2013) 260–274

E-books in UK - Survey

Page 37: Ebooks indest

Indian scene

• The survey was carried out during January-March 2006.

• All the respondents were Bachelors degree holders, of which 40 per cent were BTech degree holders, 14 per cent MCA degree and rest were having BA, MTech, PhD, and other degrees. The sample covers a range of professionals including software professionals, teachers, research scholars, professors, etc.

• Among the users nearly 42 per cent of the respondents had been using computers for the past 6-10 years, 10 per cent had 15-20 years experience and 20 per cent had 11-15 years of experience.

• majority of the users (82 %) are daily computer users. Slightly less than half (48 %) of them use computers only for surfing the internet, and another group of 16 percentage use for sending e-mails.

Page 38: Ebooks indest

Indian scene

• Among the respondents, most of them (90 %) own a PC. Out of the remaining, 6 per cent users owned a laptop, PDA, WAP phone, and an e-book reader.

• It was found that 48 per cent use internet almost everyday, 44 per cent use a few times a week and rest of them (6 %) use once in 1-2 weeks.

• The majority of the respondents (72 %) have used but slightly over quarter of them (28 %) have not used before.

• Respondents do not lack adequate access to e-books, as most of them are known to have frequent access to the internet and online publications also. None of the respondents indicated lack of access as a reason for preferring to use printed version of books.

• Among the respondents who have not used e-books, 54 per cent said they would use in the next 6 months, 15 per cent said they will be using within 1 year and 31 per cent do not know if they will use e-books in future. Of the total, 69 per cent of the respondents indicated that they are eager to start using e-book.

Page 39: Ebooks indest

Indian scene

• Among the respondents who have used e-books, 21 per cent have been using for more than three years, about a third (32 %) for 2-3 years and 44 per cent varies from six months to one year.

• Users are generally willing to use e-books though print books are predominant in today’s world. Presently, the choice of the users to use e-books or print books depends on the availability of required information easily whether it is an e-book or print book.

• However, it is also found that users are generally not using e-books as extensively as print books. Majority of the users indicated that it was due to the fact that e-books have not become as portable, flexible, and readable as their print counterparts and still much more costly than of print books.

• However, users in India are willing to use ebooks provided that e-books are available for reasonable price in the market.

Page 40: Ebooks indest

Glance of e-books of Central Library of Glance of e-books of Central Library of IIT Bombay IIT Bombay

40

Page 41: Ebooks indest

E-book searching formats used in Central E-book searching formats used in Central Library of IITBombayLibrary of IITBombay

41

Page 42: Ebooks indest

View of Catalogue format of E-book of Central View of Catalogue format of E-book of Central

Library of IIT BombayLibrary of IIT Bombay

42

Page 43: Ebooks indest

Accessing of E-book in Central Library of IIT BombayAccessing of E-book in Central Library of IIT Bombay

43

Page 44: Ebooks indest

Conclusions

Although the goals of e-book providers are sometimes inconsistent with those of colleges and universities, librarians are well positioned to guide vendors’ efforts.

After all, customers—not suppliers—ultimately determine which products (and which license terms) will prevail in the information marketplace.

Academic e-books will be successful only when three conditions are met—

when publishers and vendors adopt a business model that maintains their revenue while meeting the needs of libraries and their patrons;

when the e-book becomes “as elegant and attractive as the e-journal,” without idiosyncratic features or formats that stand between readers and the content they seek; and

when librarians make e-books easier for patrons to identify and access

Page 45: Ebooks indest

Conclusions

Research on e-books is still in its early stages, and the absence of objective evidence on many e-book issues can be traced to the kinds of articles that have appeared in the literature.

Librarians ought to stay informed—not just about new technologies, but about the economic and legal contexts in which information products are developed, marketed, and used.

Decisions about e-books should be based on solid evidence, especially with regard to costs and benefits. The compilation and evaluation of evidence can inform local decisions while contributing to the work of the profession as a whole.

Finally, librarians should be prepared to help shape trends as they occur—to work with publishers and consortia to develop and modify e-book licenses and platforms in ways that benefit libraries and their patrons.

Page 46: Ebooks indest

Refrences

• Walters, W H. 2013. E-books in academic libraries : challenges for acquisition and collection management. Portal:Libraries and the Academy 13 : 187-211.

• Muir, L. and Hawes, G. 2013. The case for e-book literacy. Journal of Academic Librarianship 39 : 260-74.

• Survey of Ebook usage in US Academic libraries 2012

• Jeong, H. 2012. A comparison of the influence of electronic books and paper books on reading comprehension, eye fatigue and perception. The Electronic Library 30(3):390-408.

• Ashcroft, L. 2011. Ebooks in libraries. Library Management 32(6/7) : 398-407.

• Schroeder, R. and Wright, T. 2011. Electronic books : a call for effective business models. New Library World 112(5/6):215-221.

Page 47: Ebooks indest