e-Books - Libraries of the Future
The demand for core reading e-books by taught course students in higher education is not being met. Publishers are nervous about licensing these e-books through the library and making them free at the point of use due to a lack of evidence about demand and concerns over impacts on print sales, while publishers, librarians and e-books aggregators are unsure about what the most realistic and sustainable pricing and licensing models are for providing students with access to e-books.
The JISC national e-books observatory project is engaging directly with librarians, publishers and others to assess impacts, observe behaviours and develop new models to stimulate the e-books market, and do all this in a managed environment.
The national e-books observatory project is engaging directly with librarians, publishers and others to stimulate the e-books market
Key aims of the project are to:
- License a collection of online core reading materials in 4 discipline areas (business and management studies, engineering, medicine and media studies)
- Achieve a high level of participation
- Evaluate the use of the e-books through deep log analysis and to asses the impact of the ‘free at the point of use’ e-books upon publishers, aggregators and libraries
- Transfer knowledge acquired in the project to publishers, aggregators and libraries to help stimulate the e-books market