Podcast/feature: Exploring e-books
Electronic books (e-books) could revolutionise the way in which learners access information. A recent Exploring e-books event provided an opportunity to speculate, disseminate and evaluate the current issues and potential future of the e-book within UK further and higher education (HE). Organised by Virginia Havergal at Jisc's Regional Support Centre (RSC) South West, library and information professionals as well as technical experts and Jisc Collections project leaders shared their experiences and research findings with a view to maximising the benefits of e-books for users and for institutions. Caren Milloy is the manager of Jisc Collections' national e-books observatory project. This is a study of the management and economic impact of e-textbook business models on publishers, e-book aggregators and HE institutions. Milloy singled out the top ten advantages of using e-books and the drivers informing the debate. Listen to the podcast interview.
Advantages of e-Books
- Online access
- Searchability
- Cost savings
- Portability
- Convenience
- Eco-friendly
- Storage
- Easy to navigate
- Multiple users
- Easy to locate
Top 10 drivers of the national e-books observatory project
- Interoperability and better technology
- Student expectations
- Publisher buy-in
- Updated teaching styles
- Standard policy and adoption
- Author buy-in
- Budgets
- Space
- New business models
- Open access
e-books for further education (FE)
Anna Vernon, Jisc Collections project manager, is in the final stages of planning and invitation to tender for an initiative concerning e-books for FE. The aim of this project is to ensure that every FE college in the UK can provide its students with a relevant, usable and accessible digital library, concentrating on core collections of relevance to the curriculum. Listen to the podcast interview with Anna, below.