Endnotes 1. Jones, David E. “Collection Growth in Postwar America: A Critique of Policy and Practice.” Library Trends 61, no. 3 (2013): 608. doi:10.1353/lib.2013.0002. Jones details the rise of new colleges and universities, the enrollment boom, and the consequent growth of collections in the postwar period. 2. “Bibliodiversity,” Alliance internationale des éditeurs indépendants, June 2, 2023, https://www.alliance-editeurs.org/bibliodiversity-indicators,276-?lang=fr. IAIP indicates that the term was “invented by Chilean publishers, during the creation of the ‘Editores independientes de Chile’ collective in the late 1990s.” For further discussion, see also: Hawthorne, Susan. Bibliodiversity: A Manifesto for Independent Publishing. North Melbourne: Spinifex Press, 2014. Accessed June 9, 2020. ProQuest Ebook Central. “Small and independent publishers contribute to the cultural multiversity through deep publishing of cultural materials (e.g., books that draw on non-homogenised cultural knowledge) as well as producing books that represent a wide range of viewpoints and epistemological positions.” (Hawthorne,14) 3. Kittinger, A., & Vandegrift, M. (2020). A Response to the Call for Bibliodiversity: Language, Translation, and Communicated Scholarship. Triangle Open Scholarship. https://doi.org/10.21428/3d640a4a.48ea4b20. 4. Burt, Stephanie, “The Body of the Poem: On Transgender Poetry,” Los Angeles Review of Books, November 17, 2013, https:// lareviewofbooks.org/article/the-body-of-the-poem-on-transgender-poetry/.
Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) and eBooks: Two Seismic Shifts in Academic Monograph Acquisition By Jon Elwell (Senior Vice President of Books, EBSCO Information Services) <jelwell@EBSCO.COM>
T
he traditional approaches to acquiring academic monographs have been significantly disrupted by two tremendous shifts in the past few years, leaving libraries and publishers navigating an increasingly complex landscape as they seek to adapt to the evolving needs and preferences of the academic community. The first shift is driven by the rapid advancement of digital books. Secondly, with the growing recognition of the importance of diversity, equity, and inclusion in academia, there is a pressing need to identify and disseminate content that reflects these principles. Libraries are increasingly focusing on expanding their collections to include a wide range of perspectives and voices, ensuring that the academic literature available to students and researchers represents the diverse fabric of society. This article delves into the paradigm shift from print books to digital formats and explores the growing emphasis on identifying and disseminating content that promotes diversity, equity, and inclusion within academic literature. Through an examination of the role played by GOBI Library Solutions in this evolving ecosystem, we uncover the implications of these transformations and the challenges they present for stakeholders. Academic libraries have long played a critical role in supporting research and education by curating comprehensive collections of books. Traditionally, print materials constituted the backbone of library monograph holdings. Even recently, print works accounted for more than 70% of libraries’ monograph acquisitions annually. However, in recent years, a noticeable shift has occurred inverting that trend, with academic libraries increasingly spending 65-70% of their monograph budgets on digital content.
26 Against the Grain / November 2023
Several factors have contributed to the shift in academic libraries’ book purchasing habits. Primarily, the rapid advancement of digital technologies and the ubiquity of online access have changed the way information is consumed and shared. Digital resources offer numerous advantages, including instant access, remote availability, and enhanced searchability, which cater to the evolving needs of users. Staffing and support constraints, as well as limited physical space, have led libraries to adopt digital alternatives, as eBooks have little to no maintenance cost and are more space-efficient than their print counterparts. Lastly, acquisition models such as Demand Driven Acquisition (DDA) and Evidence Based Acquisition (EBA), which leverage usage information, are allowing libraries to make more data and outcome driven decisions than ever before. The benefits of the shift to digital come with some downsides. The average digital book costs around $100 for a 1-user version, with multi and unlimited user versions typically costing 1.25-2.5 times that price. Print books on the other hand cost libraries closer to $50 per title on average. Libraries are often facing a decision between the utility of the more expensive digital monograph versus the ability to acquire more unique less-expensive print monographs. Another issue with digital books is availability. Looking at the roughly 70,000 or so titles GOBI profiles annually, which we consider the corpus of English language academic content, only 75% are available for acquisition as a digital book through library channels, including aggregator or publisher-direct platforms. Finally, there are restrictions and vagaries around digital books that libraries
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