eBooks on DemandA European Network

Background

For the first time ever one can imagine that all books (in the public domain) are available in digital format

Global initiatives: Google, Microsoft, OCA, European Commission,…

Publishers will follow for the 20th century Orphan works and out-of-print books:

special regulations will allow commercial and non-commercial use

Long tails…

Bass-Diffusion-Model

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Consequences

80% of all books will be digitised within a relatively short time-period

The rest will need as much time and effort as the first 20%

Public interest will decrease, other hypes will come

Willingness to pay for the rest will decrease But the user will demand for digital versions of

every book or library item – and the more will be online – the higher will be the demand for accessing the book here and now

Situation in Europe

27 countries, 23 official languages, but at least 10-15 other important languages and literary cultures

E.g. German speaking communities (and their books) existed or are still existing in at least 12 countries

Digitisation is until now a national task, only a very few countries have a real strategy and are ready to invest money

EU commission supports mainly R&D projects, but does not pay for digitisation efforts

In some countries there are political reservations against global digitisation initiatives

In short: A big part of the long tail can be found in Europe

Consequences

It will take some time – at least 15-20 years – until all books are available in digital format

Users will not know when exactly a book will be available in digital format

Until that users have only the chance to use „traditional access modes“ if they need a historic book here and now:– Interlibrary loan– Travelling to the library– Buying a book via a second hand book shop

But: Demands of users will grow, books which are not digital, are „not existing“

eBooks on Demand

EOD is a service where books are digitised according to the individual demand of a user

The user gets a PDF eBook The digitised item is incorporated into a

digital library and preserved for the long term

General advantages

A user needs a specific book and he gets it here and now in digital format.

All mass-digitisation projects need to select, but who does the selection and with which justification?

The digital library grows according to the needs of users

After the „on-demand-digitisation“ the digitised items are available for everybody

The library portfolio is enlarged: From now on all our books are – on request - available in digital format

General disadvantages

On-demand services are principally more expansive than mass-production processes

The user has to pay for the digitised item Reservations may arise at users side: I have to

pay, the next one gets it for free. The decision for digitising „the whole library“ is

made once, on-demand services are more complex with respect to the political situation in libraries (rare book collection departments)

Pros over cons

The advantages are higher if– the price is fair and moderate– the user understands that he does not pay for

the whole digitisation process but only for the extra costs of the on-demand service

– the whole on-demand process is organised in a highly efficient and standardised way so that the library does not run into unexpected difficulties

EOD approach (1)

Organise the eBook-on-Demand service in a distributed manner

A central service provider takes over all general tasks: – Solving contractual issues– Running a web-based database for tracking the whole

business process– Providing the infrastructure to manage orders and

customers– Creating PDF eBooks from scanned images– Managing online accounting (credit cards,…)– Delivering eBooks or DVDs to customers

EOD approach (2)

EOD libraries need to perform only three main tasks on local level:– Using their account in the central database for

managing their orders– Scanning the books– Delivering the scanned images to the central service

provider Conclusion: As many tasks as possible are

provided by the central service node, only the basic services such as communicating with the user and scanning are performed locally

Advantages of EOD

Efficent and standardised workflow Standardised product: PDF eBook Libraries need not to care about software,

servers, etc. Libraries and end-users will benefit from

growing acknowledgement: EOD as brand name

Libraries and end-users will benefit from advertising and marketing

User‘s look and feel

Rare books are marked

eod button

… order with one click …

Order form

eBook for download or DVD

Online payment

eBook

EOD service

Ordering a book from a library via EOD is as easy as ordering a book in an online bookshop.

Target groups are mainly historians and researchers from the humanities

Operator‘s view

Libraries view

Background

EU Project grant– 2 Mill. EUR budget– Duration: 18 months, started on 1st of October 2006– Coordinator: University Innsbruck Library

13 partners, 8 countries Trial implementations Market validation

– Several market surveys

Self-sustainable network

Where we are?

Austria: University Libraries Graz, Innsbruck, Vienna YES

Germany: Bavarian States Library, University Libraries Greifswald, Regensburg, Berlin

YES

Slovakia: University Library Bratislava YES

Estonian National Library YES

Royal Library Denmark Soon

National Library Slovenia Soon

National Library Portugal Autumn

National Library Hungary Autumn

Expected figures

University Innsbruck Library– Experiences since 2004: 250 orders per year

Bavarian States Library– Experiences since 2005: 1200 orders per year

But these presuccessors had – no advertising so far– no direct integration into the catalogue– no branding, no online accounting, etc.

Expectations: – Large libraries: 2000 orders per year– Medium libraries: 500 orders per year

A network of 15-20 libraries would digitise/deliver some ten-thousand books per year

Business model

Objective: To set up a self-sustainable network

Ownership is at the 13 libraries Operative costs of the central service

provider should be covered by the income made

„It will be a long journey and an adventure!“

Thank you for your interest!

The network13 libraries from 8 European countries

ULGraz

UL Vienna

NLPortugal

NLDenmark

NLEstonia UL

Bratislava

NLHungary

NLSlovenia

ULRegens-

burg

BSBMunich

HUBerlin

UL Greifs-wald

UL Innsbruck

Interested?

Become member of the EOD network!

Beispiele

For example: UL of Innsbruck: OPAChttp://aleph.uibk.ac.at/ „Coldstream Austria“

For example: UL of Graz: Image cataloguehttp://webapp.uibk.ac.at/alo_cat/card.jsp?id=4097871&pos=5&phys=

Search a book in the library catalogue of an EOD partner…

Background

Every copyright free book in Europe accessible as eBook on Demand!