Promoting the uptake of e-books in education

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Promoting the Uptake of E-Books in Higher and Further Education Contents Page

Contents

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Contents

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Lists of Figures and Tables

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Preface: A note on the structure of this report and how to use it.

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Executive Summary

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Chapter One: Academic e-books: an overview of the current commercial, technological, educational and social context 1.1: Definition, history and evolution 1.2: E-books: basic technological information 1.3: E-book readers 1.4: Finding e-books 1.5: Buying e-books 1.6: E-books and e-learning within the current academic context 1.7: Teaching, learning and study factors: social and cultural issues 1.8: Broader cultural and technological factors 1.9: E-books: comparisons with other publishing technologies

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Chapter Two: Who are the stakeholders, and how does the e-book supply chain operate?

2.1: Active Stakeholders 2.2: Passive Stakeholders 2.3: Influencing Stakeholders 2.4: The print and e-book information supply chains: a comparison Chapter Three: The stakeholders: e-books issues considered: the perceived advantages of and barriers to using e-books; where users find them and for what purpose they use them. Anticipations of future usage 3.1: Do e-books need promoting?

3.2: “Active” stakeholder viewpoints: What are the advantages of e-books, either instead of or as well as print books? What are the barriers to promotion?

3.2.1: Authors 3.2.2: Publishers 3.2.3: Distributors of e-books: Aggregators 3.2.3a: Examples of e-aggregator pricing models 3.2.3b: Publishers’ pricing models 3.2.4: Booksellers 3.2.5: Self-Publishers 3.2.6: Librarians 1: Higher Education Institutions 3.2.6i: Why Librarians would like to purchase more ebooks and encourage greater use of them, and their concerns 3.2.6ia: Access 3.2.6ib: Stock Maintenance and Administrative Tasks 3.2.6ic: Quality of Stock 3.2.6id: Economic Considerations

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3.2.6ii: Librarians’ prioritisation of e-book acquisition, with reasons 3.2.6iia: High demand 3.2.6iib: Material types sought 3.2.6iic: Target subjects 3.2.6iid: Specific user groups 3.2.6iie: Constraints 3.2.6iii: Advantages of e-books given by the questionnaire respondents 3.2.6iv: “Neutral” comments given by the questionnaire respondents 3.2.6v: Barriers to uptake given by the questionnaire respondents 3.2.6vi: Barriers to uptake for librarians from previous published and unpublished work, as summarise for the panels 3.2.7: Librarians 2: FE Colleges 3.2.7i: FE Librarians: perceived advantages of e-books 3.2.7ii: FE Librarians: perceived barriers to uptake 3.2.7iia: Materials available 3.2.7iib: Technological problems 3.2.7iic: E-books offer no advantage over print 3.2.7iid: Other reasons 3.2.8: Librarians 3: Consortia 3.2.9: Academics and Lecturers: perceived advantages and barriers to uptake 3.2.9i: Academics 3.2.9ia: Academics: the questionnaire responses 3.2.9ib: Notes on questionnaire analysis 3.2.9ic: Academics: comments from questionnaires 3.2.9ic1: Web resources used for teaching and studying purposes 3.2.9ic2: Other uses for e-books 3.2.9ic3: Where most likely to obtain e-books 3.2.9ic4: On recommending to students 3.2.9ic5: Technical problems 3.2.9ic6: Future use of e-books 3.2.9ic7: Reasons for not using 3.2.9ic8: Views on e-books as a resource for teaching, learning and research 3.2.9ii: Academics: additional information contributed by the focus groups and in-depth interviews 3.2.9iia: Pedagogical and cultural issues 3.2.9iib: Further comments on technical / access issues 3.2.9iic: General issues 3.2.9iid: Price and Publishing issues 3.2.9iii: “Middlemarch” in-depth academic interview responses: extra information 3.2.9iiia: On future use of e-books 3.2.10: FE Lecturers 3.2.10i: FE lecturers: the questionnaire responses 3.2.10ii: Notes on questionnaire analysis FE lecturers: comments from questionnaires 3.2.10iia: Web resources used for teaching and learning materials 3.2.10iib: Technical problems 3.2.10iic: Other problems 3.2.10iid: Comments on future use

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3.2.10iie: Views on e-books as a resource for teaching, learning and research 3.3: Complementary / Supplementary Support Materials for Print Books 3.4: Social and Cultural Issues 3.5: The Students 3.5.1: Group 1: UWE Postgraduate Management Students 3.5.1i: Responses from the e-book users 3.5.1ia: Types of work for which ebooks were used 3.5.1ib: How e-books were obtained 3.5.1ic: Functions of e-books which were used and appreciated 3.5.1id: Technical problems experienced 3.5.1ie: Estimates of future use of ebooks 3.5.1if: Other comments from this subgroup 3.5.1ii: Responses from the e-book non-users 3.5.1iia: Comments 3.5.1iib: Functions of e-books which might be used and appreciated: non-user group 3.5.1iic: How e-books would be likely to be obtained 3.5.1iid: Estimates of future use of e-books 3.5.1iie: Comments from this subgroup 3.5.2: Group 2: First year undergraduates at the University of Middlemarch 3.5.2i: Use of e-books: use of web resources 3.5.2ii: Comments 3.5.2iii: Types of work for which e-books were used or thought likely to be used; how they would be obtained; technical problems; reasons for not using, opinions of future use of e-books and likelihood of buying in preference to print if cheaper 3.5.2iiia: Comments: Technical problems 3.5.2iiib: Other problems 3.5.2iiic: Will use of ebooks increase in future?

3.5.2iiid: Summary comments 3.5.3: Group 3: Six newly graduated third year Business students at Huddersfield University 3.5.3i: Summary of questionnaire responses 3.5.3ii: Comments 3.5.4: The focus groups 3.5.4i: Middlemarch focus group: extra information 3.5.4ia: Opinions on print books accompanied by electronic materials 3.5.4ib: On part books and “slice-anddice�

3.5.4ic: On how e-books should be promoted to students

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3.5.4ii: Huddersfield focus group: extra information 3.5.4iii: Edgehill focus group: extra information 3.5.4iiia: Perceived advantages and disadvantages of e-books 3.5.4iiib: Atttitudes to paying for printing out and downloading 3.5.4iiic: Attitudes to hand-held readers and use of computers at home 3.5.4iiid: Features students would like to see 3.5.4iiie: On “slice-and-dice�

3.5.4iiif: Who should promote e-books?

3.6: Quantitative summary of all student questionnaire responses 3.7: FE Students 3.8: Remaining Stakeholders: issues 3.8.1: Hardware and software suppliers 3.8.2: Systems suppliers 3.8.3: Influencing groups 3.8.4: Media

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Interchapter Summary of the key issues as they relate to the three main user groups, taken from Chapter 3 findings

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Chapter Four: demand for e-books; library evaluations 4.1: Introduction 4.2: Assessment and comparison of the various models on offer 4.3: Assessment of demand

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Chapter Five: How e-books are currently being promoted in Further and Higher Education 5.1: Perceived advantages and the less rosy reality 5.2: How publishers, aggregators and booksellers are promoting e-books 5.3: To whom are e-books being promoted, and by whom? To increase effectiveness of promotion, who should be targeted, and by whom?

5.3.1: Notes on HEI librarian views 5.3.2: Notes on FE librarian views 5.4: Librarians: best practice criteria 5.5: What forms of supplier promotional materials and approaches are available?

5.5.1: Notes on supplier practice

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Chapter Six: Cataloguing and Metadata Issues 6.1: Introduction 6.2: Mechanisms for discovery 6.3: Review of metadata and other relevant standards 6.4: Collaboration / partnerships between librarians and commercial e-book providers 6.5: Integration of e-books into the library acquisition process 6.6: Preservation of e-books 6.7: Digital Rights Management Data 6.8: Recommendations on Cataloguing and Metadata Issues from Panel C

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Chapter Seven: E-books and Teaching and Learning 7.1: Introduction 7.2: Academics and Lecturers: attitudes to e-books 7.3: Determining the effectiveness of e-books 7.4: The use of e-books and e-learning in practice 7.5: Student Experiences

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7.6: Conclusions of this Chapter

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Chapter Eight: Conclusions and Recommendations 8.1: Introductory Notes 8.2: Conclusions 8.3: Recommendations and Future Promotional Plan Publishers and Aggregators Booksellers and Library Suppliers Librarians at all levels Academics and Lecturers JISC

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The Case Studies No. 1: The Academic Author’s Perspective No. 2: Best Practice in E-Book Promotion by a Publisher: Oxford University Press No. 3: Best Practice in E-Book Promotion by a Publisher: Taylor & Francis No. 4: Best Practice in E-Book Promotion by an Aggregator: netLibrary No. 5: Best Practice in E-Book Promotion by a Bookseller: Swotbooks No. 6: Best Practice in E-Book Promotion by a University Library (1): the University of Aston No. 7: Best Practice in E-Book Promotion by a University Library (2): Edgehill College No. 8: Best Practice in E-Book Promotion by a University Library (3): the University of Huddersfield No. 9: Best Practice in E-Book Promotion by a University Library (4): the University of Staffordshire No. 10: Best Practice in E-Book Promotion by a University Library (5): the University of the West of England No. 11: Best Practice in E-Book Promotion by an HEI Consortium of Four Northern Universities No. 12: Best Practice in E-Book Promotion by an FE College (1): Barnsley College: a study in energy and persistence No. 13: Best Practice in E-Book Promotion by an FE College (2): Yeovil College No. 14: Best Practice in Sharing Resources: how Huddersfield University helps its FE feeder colleges No. 15: Demystifying I.T., and Promoting Undersatnding of I.T. Resources and how to put them to Practical Use: the INFORMS Project No. 16: Best Practice in Teaching with E-Books: the FE Lecturer’s Perspective No. 17: Best Practice in Studying with E-Books: Ashley’s Perspective

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Appendix One: Methodology

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Acknowledgements

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Select Bibliography (“Toolkit” Bibliography)

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List of Figures Page

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Figure 1: The traditional academic print book supply chain Figure 2: The academic print book information supply chain Figure 3: The academic e-book supply chain Figure 4: The academic e-book information supply chain Figure 5: Duke Study: Titles used in print or e-book Figure 6: Duke Study: Circulating print titles, before and after introduction of e-book Figure 7: Aston University: netLibrary usage, Oct. 02 – May 03 Figure 8: Aston University: CRC Press usage, Oct. 02 – May 03 Figure 9: Aston University: Wiley Encyclopaedias usage, Oct. 02 – May 03

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List of Tables Page

Table

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Table 1: Ebrary customer endorsement sheet: indicates advantages of product Table 2: Promoting the Uptake of E-Books: HEI Library Analysis No. 1 Table 3: Promoting the Uptake of E-Books: FE Library Analysis No. 1 Table 4: Promoting the Uptake of E-Books: Academic Analysis No. 1 Table 5: Promoting the Uptake of E-Books: FE Lecturer Analysis No. 1 Table 6: Promoting the Uptake of E-Books: Student Analysis No. 1: summary of responses from all students who answered the questionnaire Table 7: Consortium of Irish universities’ criteria for selecting e-books supplier Table 8: Consortium of Irish universities’ matching of supplier attributes against their requirements Table 9: Promoting the Uptake of E-Books: Academic Analysis No. 2 Table 10: Promoting the Uptake of E-Books: FE Lecturer Analysis No. 2 Table 11: Promoting the Uptake of E-Books: Student Analysis No. 2 Table 12: Promoting the Uptake of E-Books: HEI Library Analysis No. 2 Table 13: Promoting the Uptake of E-Books: FE Library Analysis No. 2 Table 14: Promoting the Uptake of E-Books: effective routes to promotion Table 15: Ways in which commercial suppliers promote e-books

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Preface A Note on the Structure and Format of the Report It has been the objective to make this report as entertaining and easy to use as possible. As far as possible, it has been presented in book format, through a series of chapters. Additional information that may be of interest to some groups has been consigned to footnotes, to improve the flow. Diagrams have been used to explain complex processes. Frequent section headings and headers have been introduced to help the reader to navigate the contents, and the main sections are numbered.

It contains a great deal of original research. Anonymity was guaranteed to all the questionnaire and focus group participants, except when they gave permission to be quoted. At the same time, it was believed that the identification of as many organisations and individuals as possible would make the report more interesting to read, and for this reason large sections of the main text and all of the case studies have been vetted by those whose work and organisations they feature. I am grateful to them for their permission, and for undertaking the vetting process.

It is JISC’s intention for the report to be used by all stakeholder groups (except, perhaps, students), and since it is therefore envisaged that not many people will want to read all of it, it is hoped that the division into sections will make it a useful working tool. Again for ease of reading, and because addressing single issues detracts from the presentation of a complex picture, only some of the JISC objectives (such as the consideration of metadata, which obviously benefits from discrete treatment) have been addressed individually. An holistic approach has been adopted when addressing many of the issues in the central Chapter 3, and the key findings then teased out and presented in the grid which follows it. The Methodology is explained in detail in Appendix One. The aim is for the narrative to tell a story, the story of the current status quo of academic e-book promotion in the UK. The case studies, if read in sequence, tell the more optimistic story of how it is being done at its best at the present time.

I should like to stress again my indebtedness to the dozens of people who have made this report possible, by giving freely of their time and advice. I have tried to list them all in the Acknowledgements, and apologise if I have unwittingly made any omissions. Likewise, any errors that still lurk in this final version are entirely my own, and I apologise for them.

Linda Bennett, Gold Leaf, September 2003.

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Executive Summary 1. Within the context of academic publishing, there is not an adequate definition for the term “e-book”, and this is a source of confusion and therefore a barrier to uptake.

2. The wide diversity of software and hardware products associated with e-books are a cause of confusion and therefore a barrier to uptake.

3. E-books, if adopted in a widespread fashion, would provide an answer to some of the challenges currently being faced by higher and further education.

These include a burgeoning student population which must be supported by decreasing per capita resources; a changing student profile, reflected in the increasing numbers of mature, part-time and distance learning students; the adoption of Managed Learning Environments (MLEs) and Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs) at many educational institutions; students’ lack of funds for purchasing books.

4. Social and cultural issues related to expectations of the e-book as a teaching, learning and research resource compared with the print book constitute a barrier to uptake. How e-books are actually being used, and how they might in future be developed for educational use, are areas which are not well understood. Within the contexts of usage and evolution of uptake, it may not be helpful to compare e-books with perceived “related” products, for example, audio books, electronically disseminated music, e-journals, print books.

5. The main “active stakeholder” groups in the e-book supply chain have been identified as authors, publishers, aggregators, booksellers, librarians, academics, lecturers, students and hardware / software providers. Publishers and aggregators consider that librarians occupy a pivotal role in promoting ebooks, and concentrate less on the other user groups. This in itself constitutes a major barrier to uptake. There are two other stakeholder groups, which have been identified respectively as passive stakeholders and influencing stakeholders. “Passive stakeholders” include digital content providers, systems providers and the developers of MLE and VLE systems for educational institutions. “Influencing stakeholders” include professional bodies such as the PA, the BA, UKOLN, and JISC; professional standards bodies such as BIC and OpeneBook; commercial bibliographical information providers such as Nielsen Bookdata and Bowker; local, regional and national training bodies, departments and individuals; the media; and social / political influencers, including the government and its educational initiatives.

6. There are differences between the print book and e-book physical and information supply chains. The e-book information supply chain (for the reason given in 5 above) is imperfect. Awareness of the main user groups, especially of academics, lecturers and students, but also, in some cases and for some products, of librarians, is low. This constitutes a major barrier to uptake.

7. Many publishers are reluctant to make their publications available in e-book format and / or to promote them too strenuously, because they are afraid of the

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effect on their revenues. This is especially true of the major textbook publishers, who have instead invested heavily in producing supplementary / complementary electronic materials to support print books. These related points constitute a barrier to uptake.

8. Both publishers and aggregators have developed a wide range of charging techniques for e-books, some of which are difficult to understand. With many variations, the pricing mechanisms adopt two basic approaches: a charge which bears some relationship to the cost of the corresponding print book, and a licensing fee, based on access by a maximum number of users over a given period of time, which bears no relation to the print book cost. The latter approach in particular makes it difficult for purchasers to understand whether they are receiving value for money. This constitutes a barrier to uptake.

9. Booksellers have experimented with e-books in a limited way, but are finding it difficult to carve out a role for themselves in the e-book supply chain (although some library suppliers are beginning to see that their services are needed, and have responded accordingly). As they are therefore not filling the important role of information providers that they occupy in the print book information supply chain, this constitutes a barrier to uptake.

10. The four major points made in 9 above should be linked to the major point made in 5 and 6 above: promoting awareness of e-books to the right people and through the right people is critical.

11. E-book users - librarians, academics, lecturers and students - have identified a whole raft of barriers to uptake, as well as the advantages that e-books offer to them, which are examined in detail in Chapter Three. It is suggested that from this comprehensive range of issues, the following are the major ones that need to be addressed if uptake of e-books is to reach its full potential in further and higher education in the UK: Availability of the publications that are required in e-book format.

Congenial and appropriate (to the subject matter) presentation of the material, so that it is found to be equal or superior to other formats within the context that it is being used.

A price structure which is viable for all stakeholders (i.e., all suppliers and end-users).

Near-universal access of students to the Internet and appropriate hardware.

12. 46 responses to the HEI librarians’ questionnaire were received, and of these 41 (89%) were e-book subscribers. 90% of the subscribers said that they bought e-books for reference purposes; 61% bought e-books to provide access to material not purchased in print; 63% bought e-books with the intention of providing a distance-learning service; 41% bought them to provide additional copies; and 44% to provide supplementary texts. It should be noted that some of these responses will have been skewed by limitations of availability, and also in some cases by librarians’ imperfect knowledge of what was available.

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13. Actual expenditure on e-books by HEI institution was relatively low. 30 of the respondents gave details of their expenditure per annum on both e-books and print books, and among these expenditure on e-books represented an average of 3% of expenditure on print books. The average spend figure was £10,546 per institution, against an average spend of £316,394 on print books.

The highest and lowest spending “old” universities spent 10% and 0.03% of their print book expenditure respectively on e-books. The highest and lowest spending “new” universities spent 10% and 0.07% respectively.

14. 37 responses to the FE librarians’ questionnaire were received, and of these 7 (19%) were e-book subscribers. The sample of subscribers was too small for any pattern in purpose on e-book acquisition to be identified. Of the 7 subscribers, the average spend on e-books was 5% of the spend on print books. The average spend figure was £2,488 per institution, against an average spend of £50,833 on print books.

15. 24 responses to the academics’ questionnaire were received, from six universities. The responders were “hand-picked” by librarians at their institutions, who identified them as people with an active interest in e-books.

Despite this perception, 6 of the academics (25%) did not know that the university had an e-books collection and 9 (37%) were not using e-books.

Purposes for which the academics accessed e-books were evenly spread: 33% were using e-books for lecture preparation; 38% to prepare course material / handouts; 38% to carry out research; 8% to consult tables and formulae; 42% for general reference; and 42% for private reading / pleasure.

The academics were likely to obtain e-books from a variety of sources. 75% were likely to obtain e-books from the university library; 13% were likely to obtain them from other libraries; 21% were likely to obtain them direct from publishers; 21% from booksellers; and 58% were likely to obtain them free from the Internet. Again, the results may have been skewed by availability issues and limited knowledge caused by poor promotion.

16. 20 responses to the FE lecturers’ questionnaire were received, from 16 FE colleges. The responders answered a request for help put out through the RSCs by Paul Davy of JISC, and therefore comprised a more random sample than the academics. Despite this, it became apparent that most of the responders were enthusiastic users of e-learning applications, and use of ebooks by the lecturer group (55%) was only 8% lower than for the academics.

The sample was too small to be able to assess how typically they represented the FE lecturer population.

Only 25% of the FE lecturers were aware that their college had an e-books collection. It was without the scope of the study to conduct a check on how many of the colleges concerned actually had e-book collections, but at least one of the lecturers was unaware that his college held a (considerable) e-book resource. 25% of the lecturers used e-books for lecture preparation; 45% to prepare course material / handouts; 30% to carry out research; 5% to consult tables / formulae; 45% for reference information; and 10% for private reading / pleasure.

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30% were likely to obtain e-books from the college library; 20% were likely to obtain them from other libraries; 35% were likely to obtain them direct from publishers; 5% were likely to obtain them from booksellers; and 60% were likely to obtain them free from the Internet, making this by far their most likely single source.

17. Three groups of students responded to the questionnaire, and two student focus groups were held. These students were studying at different levels, and in different learning environments, and therefore their responses have been analysed separately in Chapter Three. The following is a summary of all of their questionnaire responses: There were 28 student respondents, from three universities. Each of the universities had an e-books collection, and 54% of the students were aware of this. 88% of the students had attended a library training session, and 58% of these remembered that it included information about e-books. 88% of the students used the web for studying and learning, and 39% of these used ebooks.

3% were likely to use e-books to prepare for lectures and seminars; none were likely to use them to help prepare for examinations; 32% were likely to use them to aid in the preparation of essays and coursework; 7% were likely to use them to consult tables and formulae; 18% were likely to use them for general reference information; and none were likely to use them for private reading / pleasure.

The students were uncertain about where to obtain e-books. As part of the brief for the questionnaire, they were told that the library had an e-books collection, and 75% said that they would be likely to try to obtain e-books from the library. 25% said that they would be likely to obtain e-books from other libraries; 11% said they would be likely to obtain them direct from the publishers; 11% said they would be likely to obtain them from booksellers; 18% said that they would be likely to obtain e-books free from the Internet.

Owing to the time of year at which the study was undertaken, only six responses were received to the questionnaire from FE students, all at the same college. This sample was too small to be of significance. However, 3 of the responding students made the same comment: “E-books should be better publicised�.

18. Some academics and lecturers use e-books in innovative ways: their ideas could be disseminated more widely.

19. Students are confused about e-books and very imperfectly aware of them.

However, most are willing to try them.

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20. It is particularly important that e-books feature on the main vehicle of information used by most students: the reading list. Among the academics and lecturers consulted, most agreed that it would be a good idea to put e-books on reading lists, but few were actually doing this.

21. Among the issues to be resolved by the other stakeholders, the greatest single barrier to uptake with regard to software and hardware is the lack of a common platform for e-books. The Open E-Book Forum is trying to address this. Systems failure or breakdown is also an issue which was raised by librarians, academics, lecturers and students. There is the further important concern of whether there is static or dynamic linking between e-books and the library and related systems. A JISC working group has been set up to examine the last in more detail. Cross-industry influencing bodies such as PALS and JISC itself could help tremendously by taking practical action to promote ebooks. Learned journals read by academics, lecturers and librarians could be encouraged to carry out and publish reviews of e-books.

22. A summary of the key issues as they relate to the three main user groups (Librarians, Academics / Lecturers and Students) is supplied in the grid placed between Chapters Three and Four.

23. Assessing potential demand for e-books is difficult, because of the imperfect information supply chain already identified, and because usage statistics provided by publishers and aggregators are often difficult to understand, and invariably inadequate for determining the quality and extent of usage. Some modest successes and a few spectacular ones have been recorded by referring to such usage statistics as are available. Of more significance in establishing potential demand is that 71% of academics, 80% of FE lecturers and 72% of students taking part in this study said that they would buy the e-book in preference to the print book if it were significantly cheaper.

24. Some detailed analysis of individual e-book products has been undertaken by separate groups of librarians; this work, some of which is reproduced in Chapter Four, was time-consuming to produce, is very useful and could be shared more widely.

25. Librarians, academics and lecturers promote e-books in a variety of ways, which have been recorded in Chapter Five. Some of these constitute best practice, and could profitably be shared more widely. Librarians, in particular, should not blame end-users for poor uptake; should put e-books on the catalogue; should offer targeted e-book training sessions; should work with academics on selecting suitable e-books; and should evaluate user feedback and usage statistics, and act upon them. Publishers and aggregators should also adopt as wide a variety of methods to promote e-books as possible. Examples of methods currently used are also recorded in Chapter Five. This study suggests that the most important things to get right are: a) to ensure that the right people are being promoted to in the right way with the right products (i.e., that the information supply chain issues are being addressed).

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b) that a mixture of print, personal and electronic promotional approaches are used, as being most effective (but that it should be noted that costs of promotion have to be borne, and by the customer). c) that promotional attempts by all relevant stakeholders should be underpinned by the following abstract attributes: enterprising, pragmatic, energetic, innovative, and focused. d) that imperfect (from the librarian’s point of view) provision of cataloguing and metadata for e-books, though important, should not be allowed by librarians to constitute a barrier to uptake in itself.

26. Despite the point made in 18c) above, there is a number of cataloguing and metadata issues which should be resolved in order to achieve maximum uptake. These concern the listing of what is available in e-book format, how it should be described, and how to find it within the context of a library collection The Cataloguing and Metadata panel, which considered these issues, offered the following recommendations as a result of its findings: a) Providers of bibliographic databases should be urged to include ebooks; the benefits of providing information to them should be explained to publishers. b) The e-book intermediary services should be encouraged to work with the bibliographic database services to provide a comprehensive listing of e-books available and from whom they can be obtained. c) OPACs and other bibliographical databases should be searchable by product form, but also provide links between paper and digital versions of the same product. d) AACR2 should take better account of e-books and provide more guidance on their cataloguing. e) The library community should be encouraged to ensure persistence of links by using DOIs or URNs. f) Metadata elements should include the basic Dublin Core elements, Publisher Statement to clarify who is the actual publisher and who is the distributor, Bibliographic History providing information on other formats, publishers’ blurbs and abstracts to facilitate both selection and subject classification. g) The benefits to publishers of Z39.50 compliance should be investigated. h) The use of ONIX to expose metadata for OAI harvesting should be explored and piloted. i) Policies regarding deposit of corrected and updated digital products should be articulated. j) The work of ISO/IETC JTC1/SC29/WG11 (MPEG) in developing standards for a Rights Data Dictionary and Rights Expression Language should be monitored and publicised.

27. Writing on pedagogical issues, Huw Morris identified four types of academic (defined by attitude) e-book user: “synics”, surface adopters, strategic users and systemic believers. He concluded that there are at present relatively few ardent advocates of e-books among the academic community (represented by the last of these groups), because there is still uncertainty about which of the

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technologies labelled “e-books” will become the industry standard; as a result few further and higher education lecturing staff have explored the full variety of ways in which the technology might be used to support teaching and promote student learning. He foresees that it is likely that in the near future an increasing number of educational staff and students will “use e-books alongside hardbacks and paperbacks”; and says that in order to make the most of this, there is a need for planning and development at national, institutional and departmental levels.

28. The following is a headline summary of the recommendations of this report.

(The Cataloguing and Metadata recommendations are given separately in para.

26 above).

A. Publishers and Aggregators: 1. Drive e-book demand by making more content available.

2. Maximise e-book functional potential; follow the print book route and e-journals.

3. Persevere with business model experimentation in immature market.

4. Persevere with usage model, avoid restrictive DRM. 5. Assuage the netLibrary, Betamax, wrong platform jitters.

6. Promote and communicate to HE / FE. 7. Exploit metadata for discovery.

8. Promote and communicate internally within publishing houses.

B. Booksellers and Library Suppliers: 1. Assert your place in the e-book distribution and information supply chains.

2. Think innovatively in order to capitalise on the potential of e-book sales, rather than agonising over the drawbacks.

3. Think innovatively by working with new channel partners.

C. Librarians at all levels: 1. Maximise e-book discovery and access.

2. Promote and communicate to users and patrons.

3. Focus pilot activity.

4. Remember the best practice tenets.

5. Build new partnerships.

6. Help to maintain best practice.

D. Academics: 1. Work towards greater certainty in standards and practices.

2. Promote debate through the commissioning of special features in the educational press.

3. Encourage the establishment of senior management groups within institutions, which bring together all stakeholders to plan development of e-learning and e-book resources.

4. Review possibility of including e-learning specifications in teaching and learning strategies.

5. Incentivise e-book champions among academics.

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6. Ensure that staff are provided with continuous professional development time and resources, including the opportunity to review e-books.

7. Consider making funding available to promote experimentation with use of e-books by regional consortia.

8. Encourage the sponsorship of a nationally recognised qualification for learning technologists.

E. JISC: 1. Generally, make librarians and academics more aware of JISC and its activities, particularly, in this context, in the e-book field.

2. Capitalise on existing e-book initiatives; support wider e-book initiatives.

3. Commission targeted follow-up work based on the findings of this study.

4. Lobby / negotiate within the wider community.

29. A series of case studies, including examples of best practice, has been developed for this study. These are given in supply chain order at the end of this report, and, if read as a continuous narrative, highlight how some of the perceived barriers to uptake can be removed, and how e-books can be promoted more fully by a wider range of institutions and individuals.

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Chapter One Academic e-books: an overview of the current commercial, technological, educational and social context 1.1 Definition, history and evolution What is an “e-book”?1 The question may seem facile, but the confusion caused by the lack of an acceptable definition of what an e-book is has become abundantly clear during the course of the research undertaken for this report, and this confusion in itself also constitutes a barrier to uptake. Conventionally speaking, there are two major types of e-book: the electronic version of a whole text (for example, of a book that already exists in print); or a database of linked materials, some but not all of which may exist in a print version (for example, scientific encyclopaedias which include interactive tables). Although most librarians include database versions when they are discussing e-books, many individuals (lecturers, academics, students, even some publishers) assume that the term refers to electronic versions of discrete books only. The working definition used by JISC is “an online version of printed books, accessed via the Internet”; although this may provide an adequate working tool for the JISC E-Books Working Group, it has variously been described as “too broad”, “too imprecise” and “misleadingly suggesting whole texts only” by contributors to this report. Patently, it does not apply to e-book originals. Other definitions of e-books deliberately exclude the database versions: “I’d describe them as computer files embodying the content of a book that can be viewed on an e-book reader. What they’re not is the sort of product where material that could be published in a book is used within some larger software package – an …. encyclopaedia or an 1 electronic dictionary are probably not e-books.”

Non-conventional thinkers would broaden the term to include almost any electronic resource: they would argue that a website, a CDROM, even an e-mail might in some circumstances be described as an e-book. This report concerns itself mainly with commercially available products that have been named “e-books” by those who supply them; but it is useful when reading it to keep in mind both the lack of an universally accepted definition, and the possibilities that the term might embrace.

Products called e-books have existed in some form for a long time, from perhaps as early as the 1950s, but they first became widely available as a result of Project Gutenberg, which was founded in 1971 by Michael Hart, sometimes described as a “visionary ahead of his time”2, whose ambition was and is to make information, books and other materials available to the general public in forms a “vast majority of the computers, programs and people”3 can easily read, use, quote and search, at little or no cost. The absence of cost means that most if not all of the books available from this source are out of copyright. In 2002, Hart claimed that there were 5,000 e-books in the Project Gutenberg collection, separated into three categories: reference works, light literature and heavy literature.

1

“E-Books: A Traditional Publisher’s Perspective”, paper by Graham Bell, Harper Collins, delivered at “E-Books and the Supply Chain of the Future”, a PIRA conference, on 26th April 2001.

2 The Second Gutenberg, http://promo.net/pg/upi_interview_05_02.html. Accessed 30/06/2003 3 What is Project Gutenberg?, http://promo.net/pg/history.html. Accessed 30/06/2003

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After Project Gutenberg, e-book initiatives gradually gathered momentum: for example, Oxford University Press has been selling reference material via on-line databases since the mid-1980s. HarperCollins, the first British trade publisher to enter the e-book market, launched with the The E before Christmas in December 2000, shortly after the huge wave of publicity caused by Stephen King’s free e-book, Riding the Bullet, which reportedly achieved 5,000 downloads during its first 48 hours of availability.

Among general UK booksellers, W.H. Smith’s and Amazon now sell e-books (both via digital warehouses, which are described later in this chapter), and of the academic booksellers and library suppliers operating in the UK, Blackwell’s (retail and library supply), Coutts, Dawson’s, John Smith’s and Swotbooks all have e-book offerings, though some of them are limited to links to the Taylor and Francis eBookstore and none of them currently claims to be achieving significant e-book sales.

Commercial provision of academic e-books greatly accelerated in the late 1990s, partly owing to the well-publicised founding of netLibrary4 in the United States in 1998. netLibrary is an e-book aggregator. Its vision is to make collections of academic books, both those still in copyright and those out of copyright, available in PDF electronic format to academic institutions. The first British institutional subscriptions to netLibrary began in 2000.

Other collection-based offers from aggregators – for example, books24x75 – have been developed which present the texts in XML format. Some academic publishers have created strong e-book initiatives: for example, Taylor and Francis6, which set up its eBookstore7 in 2001, seeks to sell e-books direct to individuals via its website, to individuals and libraries via booksellers linking to its website and NetLibrary, and direct to libraries via JISC initiatives8. Other academic publishers – including many of the major textbook publishers – are very reluctant to get involved with the e-book market to any significant degree. A representative from a giant international academic publishing house, interviewed for this report, said: “Supplementary / complementary learning materials to accompany textbooks are of most importance to our electronic development strategy. At present … our aim is to secure and improve market share for the business in what it perceives to be a weak market, suffering from economic down-turn.”9

There is a further group of academic publishers that is interested in e-books, but has either not yet worked out its e-book strategy, or is deliberately waiting to see how the market develops before making a commitment.

These first few introductory paragraphs already touch on some of the rich complexity and ambivalence which, because of its mode of evolution, has permeated the e-book 4

www.netLibrary.com. www.books24x7.com.

6 See also Case Study No. 3.

7 www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.

8 A JISC consultation document on licensing electronic books (Taylor & Francis Collections) was issued in May 2003, and at the time of writing is still being assessed by potential takers.

9 Structured publisher interview No. 4.

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market. In the first place (in common with other products accessed or sold via the Internet, but enhanced by awareness of Project Gutenberg and other free e-book initiatives such as Riding the Bullet), there is a user perception that e-books should be either free or cheaper than print books. Secondly, whether or not they agree with this proposition, publishers are not yet in a position to understand how e-books will affect their established revenue streams. Academic publishers, in particular, are afraid of losing sales in their core textbook market: and the larger ones have already invested considerable sums of money in providing on-line support materials to print texts, rather than making the texts themselves available in e-format. Thirdly, there is the lack of a commonly understood definition described at the start of this chapter.

Fourthly – as evidenced by the limited bookseller involvement and low bookseller sales, and by the direct involvement of a major author (the famous example of Stephen King has been taken from trade publishing, but some academic authors are also experimenting with the provision of free e-books) in allowing free electronic access to his work – e-books, in common with many new technologies, have disrupted the traditional book supply chain. One significant result of this disruption, which will be explored in greater detail in the next chapter, is that some of the principal supply chain targets have been displaced, but not necessarily to good effect. For example, currently the librarian, and not the academic, is perceived by many publishers and most e-book aggregators as the key figure to target with academic e-book products, though academics and students, not librarians, are the main end-users of e-books.

Similarly, aggregators are the most wholehearted commercial promoters of academic e-books, but they too are intermediaries and, unlike publishers, neither originators of the material nor, like booksellers, able to offer specialist expertise in the fields of knowledge that they purvey. The roles both of the librarian and the aggregator, and the robustness of the current e-book supply chain within the academic context, will be examined in detail in Chapter 2.

1.2 E-books: basic technological information All of the ground covered in this section may be found in greater detail elsewhere, but since the format and means of accessing e-books invariably baffles newcomers (a further barrier to uptake), a brief explanation of e-book technology is included at this stage.

1.3 e-book Readers In order to access an e-book, a piece of software called an e-book Reader is necessary.

This may be downloaded from the Internet, or supplied by the manufacturer on an installation CDROM. There are several, and have in the recent past been many more, different proprietary ebook Readers. The most successful and well-known are probably Microsoft Reader and Adobe Acrobat e-Book Reader; others have not succeeded commercially and have therefore “died” – examples include Versaware and Franklin eBookman.

However, there are essentially just two formats: 1. Page-based PDF formats, e.g., the Adobe Acrobat e-book Reader (formerly called Glassbook), which preserves the “look” and all design elements of each page of the print book. This has recently been re-branded Adobe Reader 6.

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2. Stream-based XML-type formats, such as those favoured by Open e-Book (OEB), Microsoft Reader, Gemstar (formerly called RocketBook) and Palm Reader (formerly called Peanut Reader) which divide up the text into “screenfuls” as it is read. Re-flowable text is often used to describe this type of format, too.

E-books can be accessed via a piece of dedicated hardware, also often called an ebook Reader (the fact that this term has been applied to both software and hardware products is responsible for much confusion – device is a clearer word to use) – Gemstar is an example; via a Pocket PC or a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) – Palm is an example; or via a desktop or laptop PC. Early adopters are also experimenting with access via mobile phones. At present, the academic community has concentrated on PC access; but a number of experiments which involve using PDAs for electronic learning are currently taking place in the UK, and the vanguard of the education industry is exploring the potential of mobile phones10.

Some (software) Readers are bundled with the Operating System (OS) of the device; for example, a Palm device will come with the Palm Reader on an installation CD: this is a software distribution decision, not a functional outcome. The owner of a Palm will not be able to run Microsoft Reader: there is a program development decision by Microsoft not to support the Palm platform. Others are device-independent, and the Reader can be downloaded for whichever device the user owns. Microsoft and Adobe are all platform independent formats and can run on more than one OS. Gemstar is an example of a software reader that will only run on one proprietary OS. E-books which are accessed via relational databases and large (though discrete) reference works often need specialised software, because the default software is not sufficiently powerful: extra search and display functionality may be needed. For example, for Wiley on-line products11 the user will usually need to be in possession of a device or PC which runs a recent version of Windows and Internet Explorer or Netscape, and some Wiley e-books need “plug-ins” – these are additional pieces of software that make applications work, e.g., Macromedia Flash, which are free with the product and have to work in real time. The full versions of these products can be expensive, but most institutions have a licence for them; the publisher therefore provides a free download of a limited version that will enable access to the text. (“Plug-ins” can cause technical problems, and publishers tend to regard them as a necessary evil.)

For libraries, putting e-books on their computer systems can create complications relating to catalogue integration and user access. Systems failure is still common in some university libraries, which may mean that academics are reluctant to rely too heavily on e-learning products. Technological issues relating to e-books are covered more completely in Chapter 3.

10

See, for example, the book of abstracts published after the MLEARN 2003 “Learning with Mobile Devices” conference, which was organised by the Learning and Skills Development Agency and took place in London on 19th-20th May 2003. www.LSDA.org.uk/events/mlearn2003.

11 Wiley on-line products can be inspected free of charge at http://hecda.wiley.com/WileyCDA/section/id-100272.html.

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Publishers wishing to sell e-books either through booksellers or direct to the customer may choose to obtain an effective and relatively cheap way of offering product, running a transaction and delivery service, and managing digital rights and royalties payments by employing a digital content wholesaler. This has been well described as “a prefabricated electronic retail service.”12 ContentReserve (run by Overdrive)13 and Lightning Source14 are examples of digital content warehouses that operate both in the UK and the US. Each has developed a slightly different model, but essentially their function is to include content in a digital warehouse catalogue consisting of thousands of titles in various e-book formats, from which retail sites can select the titles they will (virtually) sell. Publishers are able to restrict access to their titles to whichever retail sites they choose. They can also use the content warehouse to “back-end” their own branded websites – obviously, in this case they would only feature their own product. Lightning Source currently supplies Powells.com and Booksite.com, Amazon US, UK, DE and JP, and publisher websites such as wiley.com and cliffnotes.com; ContentReserve supplies, among others W.H. Smith and Swotbooks in the UK, and Follett’s in the US. Kluwer is one example of a major academic publisher that uses ContentReserve’s bespoke publisher website option.

It should be emphasised that digital wholesalers are entirely invisible to the purchaser.

Their role is limited to operating an electronic back-office facility, albeit a comprehensive and sophisticated one. They have been mentioned here because of their stakeholder status in the emerging e-book supply chain. Distribution issues are discussed further in Chapter 3.

1.4 Finding E-books It can be a major challenge for a librarian or other would-be e-book purchaser to find out whether the book that they want is available in e-format. There are two reasons for this: the first is that there is no comprehensive commercial bibliographical repository for e-books15; the second is that cataloguing e-books, both from the publisher’s and the librarian’s perspective, is a complex process for which recognised standards have yet to be fully worked out. Chapter 6 examines cataloguing and metadata issues in more detail.

1.5 Buying E-books The individual who wishes to buy an e-book can purchase it either from a bookseller’s or a publisher’s website. If it is a first-time purchase, he or she will need to download the appropriate Reader at the same time. Failure to download the Reader properly, either because the transaction takes too long and the purchaser gets cut off, or because the purchaser fails to perform the action correctly, is the main cause of customer complaints about e-books.16 Most but not all e-books are cheaper than print books, 12

By Ann Lawson of Oxford University Press, in a confidential in-house report written in 2002 which she has kindly put at the disposal of the current project. I am also indebted to her for some of the detail about e-book software and hardware attributes in this section.

13 www.overdrive.com 14 www.lightningsource.com 15 Nielsen BookData lists some e-books if the details are supplied to them by publishers.

16 Both a prominent publisher and a prominent bookseller concurred that complaint rates run at about 10% of all purchases. As the publisher said: “This is far too high, given the small size of the market.”

Publisher Interview No. 4.

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though VAT is a complicating factor17. The role of VAT in academic publishing itself needs to be explored more fully, as educational institutions don’t pay VAT (but private consumers do, even if they are students). Publishers appear not to have made this distinction when establishing prices. Some publishers operate a pricing model that varies according to whether the purchaser wishes to read only, download part of the book or print part of the book.18 Others are considering charging a premium price for certain publications for which they feel the e-version offers added value.19 Whatever the charging structure, it is fairly easy for the individual customer to assess whether or not they think that they are being offered value for money. Conversely, for libraries and other institutional customers, the situation is complex. In a relatively short period of time, the publishing and e-aggregator industries have managed to devise a rich proliferation of pricing models for e-book collections20. These fall into two basic categories: price structures which per book bear a relation to the print price; and price structures based on licensing arrangements, which bear no relation to the print price. The publisher or e-aggregator is also responsible for supplying the library with usage statistics, but often these are difficult to analyse. This combination of factors can make it exceedingly difficult for the librarian to assess whether e-books represent value for money for his or her institution. Publisher issues are discussed in detail in Chapter 3; pricing models and usage statistics are respectively examined further in Chapters 3 and 4.

1.6 E-books and E-learning within the current academic context It is outside the scope of this report to consider in detail the various government initiatives that have shaped further and higher education in the UK during the past decade, but some pointers to the educational context within which academic e-books are being promoted may be useful: •

In 1992, the UK’s polytechnics were given university status, as part of a plan to make higher education accessible to all who wanted it (sometimes referred to as “the massification of education”). Once a common funding mechanism was established for all higher education institutions, many older universities also expanded their student numbers, while across the board there was a declining unit of resource (both from teaching and ancillary support services such as libraries) available per student. More recently, the current Prime Minister has stated that “50% participation” is a government objective, meaning that the government’s aim is for 50% of the 18 – 30 year old age group eventually to be graduates. Since the polytechnics achieved university status, a number of other institutions have been given the right to count themselves universities, and therefore to award degrees autonomously. Many

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“The original pricing principle adopted …. was that e-books would be 20% cheaper than paper books. Now they are the same price as paper, but in effect cheaper. This is because the electronic price “hides” the VAT. Customers don’t appreciate this.” Publisher Interview No. 3.

18 “[We] have a simple model. If someone wants read-only rights, they are charged 50% of the printed book’s cover price. They are charged 80% of the cover price for Read, View and Print. For slice-anddice, there is a sliding scale matrix based on per-page access.” Publisher Interview No. 7.

19 “[We] are looking to increase the price of some products – e.g., some lexical dictionaries which are excellent compared to their competitors.” Publisher Interview No. 9.

20 The fact that they are expected to buy e-books in collections at all is an issue for some librarians.

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•

•

colleges of further education have also begun to teach to degree level under the auspices of a “host” or “parent” university. At the same time, they continue to teach a wide range of courses at a lower level, including Basic Skills courses, “A” levels, National Certificate and Higher National Certificate (HNC), Higher National Diploma (HND), and numerous vocational courses.

Conversely, some universities (mainly the “new” ones created in 1992) also teach HNCs, HNDs and some vocational courses.

In 1997, Sir Ron Dearing presented a report commissioned by the National Committee of Enquiry into Higher Education, Higher Education in the Learning Society21. It recommended the use of Information Technology as a key way forward in addressing the time and cost challenges created by the burgeoning university student population.

Similar points were made by Helena Kennedy in 1997 in a report commissioned by the Further Education Funding Council22.

Also in 1997 came the Fryer Report on lifelong learning.23 This and a government White Paper24, issued the previous year, together represented the British response to the challenges highlighted during the European Year of Lifelong Learning (1996). In the latter paper, lifelong learning is described as follows: “Lifetime learning is not a Government programme, or the property of one institution. It is a shared goal relating to the attitudes and behaviour of many employers, individuals and organisations. Government has a part to play but governments alone cannot achieve the cultural changes involved in making a reality of lifetime learning.”25

The letter sent out to institutions at the time that the report was published highlighted three main points: a growing awareness of the importance of lifetime learning in maintaining competitiveness and employability the effectiveness of government policies in working with partners to promote a culture of lifetime learning the effort and commitment at all levels to deliver lifetime learning on the ground.26 Academic institutions that wished to make lifelong learning a serious objective also noted that it meant working in closer partnership, and in more innovative ways, with business and industry. Once again, I.T. was invoked as a principal enabling instrument.

21

National Committee of Inquiry into Higher Education. “Higher Education in the Learning Society: the Dearing Report.” London, HMSO, 1997.

22 Further Education Funding Council. “Learning Works: Widening Participation in Further Education: the Kennedy Report.” Coventry, FEFC, 1977.

23 National Advisory Group for Continuing Education and Lifelong Learning. “Learning for the Twenty-First Century: First Report of the National Adviser Group for Continuing Education and Lifelong Learning: the Fryer Report.” NAGCELL, 1997.

24 Department for Education and Employment. “Lifetime Learning: a Policy Framework”. DfEE, London, 1996.

25 Ibid., p.4 26 Quoted by Elliott, Lifelong Learning: the Politics of the New Learning Environment, Jessica Kingsley, London, 1999, 1 85302 580 1. p.33

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•

•

•

In 1998, the government introduced annual university tuition fees of £1,000 (thereafter index-linked to inflation), payable by all but the poorest parents of students. By this time, the student maintenance grant had been phased out, except for those from very modest backgrounds or studying in circumstances of especial difficulty, and replaced with a loan, to be repaid in instalments after the student graduated and reached a certain earning level. The effect of this on students’ ability and willingness to purchase books and other learning resource materials has been widely debated, and will be returned to later in the report.

As the twentieth century drew to a close, some of the new universities founded in 1992 and later, and indeed some of the older foundations, found it increasingly hard to remain out of debt. This is a problem that has worsened during the first three years of this century, to the point where some institutions face the prospect of bankruptcy and closure. Temporary teaching contracts, long a feature of the further education landscape, and of pre-1992 universities focused on research, have become increasingly common in higher education, and enforced staff redundancies (almost unheard of in the past) have been made at some institutions. Universities have responded by trying to attract students from more diverse backgrounds, and by offering them more flexible study options. Mature students, part-time students and distance-learning students based both in the UK and overseas have all been targeted, and some have been able to choose courses which involve little or no attendance at the awarding institution.27 As a response to many of the issues and challenges outlined above, universities have become increasingly interested in developing Managed Learning Environments (MLEs) and Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs)28.

For a time, there was a confusing proliferation of these, but it would now appear that Blackboard and Web CT are emerging as the two market leaders.

Installation of these applications heralds an opportunity for new approaches to learning and teaching methods, including the incorporation of (usually in the form of chapters or excerpts) e-books into learning materials.

This very brief account attempts to paint the commercial and educational backdrop against which academic e-books first began to be promoted in the UK in 2000. It is interesting to note that most of the seminal papers on academic ebooks written in this country date from the years 2000 and 2001, shortly after their “launch”.

27

It is perhaps worth pointing out that the Open University pioneered such methods of study in the 1960s. This report will include some insights obtained from its long experience.

28 A brief definition of each may be obtained at http://www.english.ltsn.ac.uk/learninglink/resources/vle/.

The JISC definition of each is as follows: “…the term Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) is used to refer to the “online” interactions of various kinds which take place between learners and tutors … the term Managed Learning Environment (MLE) is used to include the whole range of information systems and processes of a college (including its VLE if it has one) that contribute directly, or indirectly, to learning and management of that learning.” JISC Briefing Paper No. 1: MLEs and VLEs Explained. http://www.jisc.a.cuk.mle/reps/briefings/bpl.html Accessed 05/11/2002.

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1.7 Teaching, learning and study factors: social and cultural issues Response at the institutional executive level to political directives and economic trends by the purchase of enabling technologies and technological products does not, of course, automatically lead to immediate adoption and acceptance from those expected to use the products to carry out their everyday business – in this case, academics, lecturers and students - of teaching, learning and study. The factors which may influence the successful (or otherwise) transition from traditional teaching and learning methods to virtual ones are complex. As well as general issues of time, awareness and training, these include more profound considerations of culture and social interaction and hence of the long-term effect of new technologies on the teaching and learning process29. As an unpublished proposal for a study into the use of handheld readers at the University of Huddersfield (the results of which are referred to in Case Study No. 8) states: “It is now universally acknowledged that technical innovations by themselves do not create learning gains for students, and that before the benefits of using a new technology can be leveraged, there must be close attention paid to the organisational and cultural impacts … The use of PDAs along with the Internet and other digital technology to which students have access creates the condition sometimes referred to as “ubiquitous computing”. In such a rich digital environment, understanding the social and cultural implications of a technology is of paramount importance …”30.

Chapter 7 looks at pedagogical issues in much more detail.

1.8 Broader cultural and technological factors There have also been broader relevant cultural and technological factors at work, some of which have helped to promote e-books, and others which have militated against their adoption. The launch of amazon.co.uk in 1999 resulted in a major increase of on-line purchases of books by people from all walks of life, including students, and encouraged many people who had not purchased on-line before to become familiar with the concept. Most universities, and a growing number of private homes, now have broadband, which makes access to the Internet easier and faster. 54% of UK adults now live in a household containing a PC31 and most of these have Internet access (though comments from students who contributed to this report suggest that at many universities among the second and third year undergraduates, who tend to occupy non-university-owned accommodation, incidence of ownership of PCs or laptops and Internet access are both low.

According to librarians and academics, distance-learning students suffer from the same problem more often than they had anticipated.32) Mobile phones are a fact 29

There is a growing body of work which examines this. The following two journals offer some good insights: Association for Learning Technology Journal. www.alt.ac.uk. Published three times yearly.

British Journal of Educational Technology. www.blackwellpublishers.co.uk/journals/BJET. 30 Pearson, M. “Researching the Use of E-Books for Teaching and Learning: a Pilot Study”. The University of Huddersfield 2002. Unpublished. Accepted and funded by the University. Due to be completed in August 2003.

31 Crabtree, Nathan and Reeves. Reality IT: Technology and Everyday Life. The Work Foundation.

July 2002. 1843730022. p.32.

32 Explained perhaps in both cases by income levels: “Getting on for two-thirds of those in households above the mean income have access, but fewer than a quarter of those in below-mean-income

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of student life (a recent report published by the National Union of Students suggested that the average student spends £300 per year on mobile phone bills), and although they have yet to be capitalised upon to any significant degree for learning purposes, their future potential lies dormant but in place.

Less helpful factors include the “dotcom bubble burst” which began in 2001, and made many people mistrust activities connected with the Internet,33 particularly when they were allied to a new and unfamiliar product, with the attendant risks of volatility and some casualties that all new products experience before the market shakes out. Technophobia, or feelings of helplessness, inadequacy or even an overtly reactionary response in the face of the relentless waves of online information to which they consider that they are being subjected, is perhaps more common among academics, but also not insignificant in the increasingly heterogeneous student community.

Such feelings may indicate that, although to advocates of the use of new technologies in colleges and universities, progress seems maddeningly slow, sometimes attempts may be being made to move too far too fast, with counterproductive results. A little personal reflection will easily test this statement. How many people in your circle had a PC / mobile phone / Internet access / used e-mail ten years ago? Five years ago? Today? Or, to put it more elegantly: “The adoption of new technologies is similar to all change, and may be characterised in the phrase “slowly, then suddenly”. While change is underway, progress always seems to be extremely slow. Looking back at change, its effects seem often to be precipitate.

Change will almost always appear to be incremental and sometimes frustratingly slow whilst one is in the midst of it, but looking back five, ten and particularly twenty years from now the effect of that change will prove to have been very dramatic indeed.”34

1.9 E-books: comparisons with other publishing technologies It is common when exploring the opportunities and problems attendant upon new technologies to compare their development with that of others which seem related or relevant, and e-books have proved not to be an exception to this practice.

What are e-books like? Do the characteristics and promotional development of other products really offer insights into how e-books and their use will be developed, and how issues such as e-book promotion and marketing should be addressed?

In the last year of the twentieth century, when corporate excitement about e-books reached its peak, very senior jobs were created, particularly in the US, for executives who were going to storm the world with the product. Now, some of these executives have already become impatient with the slowness of the market, households, and there are negligible levels of ownership in households below the official half-median income poverty line.” Crabtree, Nathan and Reeves. ibid., p.32.

33 Several librarians have ascribed their cautious approach to e-books to the fact that NetLibrary nearly went into liquidation in 2002, before it was “rescued” by OCLC. 34 Bide, M. and Others. “The Scale of Future Publishing in Digital and Conventional Formats”. The British Library. London, 2000. p.11. Available from http://www.bl.uk/concord/otherpubblpu.html

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and moved on. The product does not feel glamorous any more. Within this context, e-books have been compared to that most staid of publishing products, the audio tape: “The marketplace for e-books will be like the marketplace for audio books twenty years ago. The publishers refused to publish because they thought it would take sales away from paper books. Now audio books represent a comfortable 10% of the industry – and are either bought by people who would never buy paper books, or people who buy the paper book as well.”35

Some librarians and authors of published articles have compared the development and distribution of e-books with that of e-journals. On the face of it, this would appear to be a useful analogy, both because of the close similarity of the technology employed and because the advent of e-journals introduced similar complexities into the supply chain. However, comments gathered from a group consisting of two librarians, two publishers and two academics made the following points: • • •

E-books differ from e-journals, because (with a few exceptions) academics don’t expect to buy e-journals themselves: they are bought either by the main library or the departmental library A book is conceived as an entity, whereas a journal consists of a series of small discrete entities which do not benefit from being read in conjunction with each other The reason that e-journals gained such popularity with academics was because of their fundamental purpose as both toolkit for research and display window for work-in-progress. Academics used to keep a box of offprints from journals on their desk, and give or post them to each other, both to inform others working in the same field of their progress, and to ensure that they claimed credit for new work. Being able to send “offprints” electronically made this process simpler and less timeconsuming. Journal articles are used for teaching, but this is secondary to the main purpose (not as applicable to books) described above.

The possible commercial hazards of disseminating e-books have been compared, especially in the press and by some publishers and authors, with the pitfalls associated with downloading music from the Internet. Comparisons have been made with Napster and instances cited of the pirating of academic material, particularly in the Far East.36 Comparisons like this are calculated to make the most innovative publisher turn Luddite!

Finally, e-books have been heralded as the greatest publishing revolution since the invention of moveable type by Johann Gutenberg, circa 1445. It may be that this is a valid comparison, but it is also one which can backfire. The invention of printing made books more widely accessible, more portable, more sharable, and less expensive. It could be said that e-books also achieve all of these things. However, the reference to Gutenberg is a reminder that the 35

Bookseller Transcript No. 1.

This was a particular concern of Academic Interview No. 1, a heavy e-book user and published ebook author who was otherwise enthusiastic about e-books. He listed in detail examples of pirating.

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printed book has thrived for five and a half centuries: it has bewitched approximately twenty generations. In every period since its invention the book has both symbolised and provided the key to civilisation, learning, progress. Contributors to this report have frequently remarked on their love of the printed book as a physical product.37 From reflecting on what they like about print books, it is but a short step to making adverse comparisons with e-books. “They hurt my eyes”, is a common complaint. “It is uncomfortable being hunched over a screen.” “I can’t read anything of length from a screen – I have to print it out.”

E-books offer different characteristics from all of the publishing products listed above. Use of them, and therefore experience of how best to make use of them, is in its infancy. Comparing them with other products and how they are used is likely to hinder progress towards this goal. To end this chapter on a note of controversy, this report suggests that, within the academic context, it is particularly unhelpful to assume that there are close analogies between how the printed book is of necessity used and how the e-book is or may be used38.

The issues touched on in this chapter attempt to offer an overview of some of the reasons why adoption of e-books by the academic community in the UK has been slower than an optimist might have anticipated in 2000. This report will now identify the stakeholders, examine the barriers to uptake in more detail, and consider how they might be addressed.

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“I like the weight of a book.”[Academic, Swansea] “I like to read a book in bed or in the bath.”

[Academic, Huddersfield] “I like to have a shelf of books – they make me feel safe; they make me look clever.” [Student, Huddersfield] 38 “E-books were never intended to be read wholesale sitting at the computer screen.” Publisher transcript No. 1.

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Chapter Two Who are the stakeholders, and how does the e-book supply chain operate?

The stakeholders who influence the dissemination and promotion of academic ebooks are diverse – more varied, in fact, than the stakeholders of print books, because the technology and distribution mechanisms that have been developed for e-books require extra stakeholder groups. Some of these groups, particularly where promotion is concerned, are much more influential than others. It is therefore possible to identify active stakeholders, whose role is or should be to promote actively; passive stakeholders, whose role is to give seamless support to the e-book supply chain procedure; and influencing stakeholders, whose advice and decisions affect the actions and attitudes of the first two groups.

2.1 Active Stakeholders 1. Authors. Authors of academic e-books are often academics, and therefore also e-book users. Authors may publish e-books through conventional publishing channels, or they may decide to publish them themselves. The ebooks they publish may be electronic versions of print books, or e-book originals.

2. Publishers. They sit somewhere on a spectrum whose two extremes are occupied by major international publishing conglomerates and one-man-band enthusiasts.

3. Distributors 1: Aggregators Distributors 2: Publishers Distributors 3: Booksellers, including library suppliers Distributors 4: Self-publishers These are listed in order of prominence in the current e-book supply chain. It will be noted that booksellers, who represent the most important seller interface between print books and their buyers, only occupy third place in the e-book distribution chain.

4. Librarians. Important of course in the print book dissemination process, they currently occupy a pivotal role in its e-counterpart. Assumptions made by aggregators and publishers about how e-books should be sold and distributed are a major reason for this.

5. E-book Users. In the context of academic e-books, these are students at all levels, academics, lecturers, researchers, some industry professionals, librarians.

6. Software and hardware providers: for example, Microsoft, Adobe Acrobat, dedicated e-book manufacturers, such as Palm, manufacturers of PDAs and mobile phones.

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2.2 Passive Stakeholders 1. Digital content providers. These may simply be companies who put text into digital format; or they may offer a complete back office service for publishers and booksellers (see Chapter One; prominent examples are Lightning Source and Overdrive).

2. Systems providers. These include both suppliers / maintainers of university and college systems, such as OCLC and GEAC, and in-house systems run by publishers and booksellers.

3. MLE / VLE systems providers to universities: for example, Blackboard, Web CT.

2.3 Influencing Stakeholders 1. Professional bodies whose duties are to promote and defend the interests of their members. Examples are the Society of Authors; the Publishers Association; the Booksellers Association; UKOLN; their legal advisers; and JISC itself. Leaders of library consortia also come within this group.

2. Professional standards bodies and the standards that they ascribe. Examples of the former are BIC and OpeneBook; examples of the latter are ACCR2 and MARC. 3. Commercial bibliographical information providers: for example, Nielsen Bookdata; Bowker.

4. Training bodies, departments and individuals. Examples include the UK’s four main postgraduate library schools; trainers at all levels in colleges and universities whose job it is to demystify technology for users; bodies such as the Regional Support Centres [RSCs] and FERL, set up to provide technological support for colleges.

5. The Media, interpreting the term within the academic context: publications, conferences, seminars and other fora which discuss, analyse and publicise ebooks.

6. Social / Political Influencers. The government and its educational initiatives at all levels; the current and developing cultures of further and higher education; the impact of general social trends upon e-learning and e-books.

Chapter Three examines the attitudes, perceived advantages and perceived barriers to uptake of e-books in detail, concentrating especially on the group that has been identified as Active Stakeholders.

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2.4 The print and e-book information supply chains: a comparison In many industries, there are two separate but interrelated supply chains at work: the physical distribution supply chain, and the information supply chain. Figure 1 illustrates the print book physical distribution supply chain. The solid lines show that there are several different routes to the end user, and that these are well established.

But there is also an information supply chain; this mechanism (which extends the concept of promotion of the product beyond the narrower sense of commercial marketing to include all the methods by which potential customers find out about books and make their decision to buy or use specific titles) can be complex.

Different sectors of the book industry have different information supply chains. In the spring of 2001, Gold Leaf was commissioned to carry out a piece of research for Cambridge University Press39 on six university campuses40, to find out how the information supply chain worked in the academic print book sector. Librarians, academics (from a wide range of disciplines) and booksellers were interviewed on each campus in order to understand better how buying and selection decisions are made; how the key parties relate to each other; and the impact of commercial marketing initiatives from publishers and booksellers on academics and librarians.

Figure 2 illustrates the academic print book information supply chain.

The findings of the Cambridge study may be summarised as follows: 1. At only half of these universities was the librarian responsible for the final decision of whether or not to purchase a book41. At the rest, responsibility lay with the academics. At those universities where the librarian was responsible, s/he was influenced by, in order of importance: (i) academic requests (ii) student requests (iii) publishers’ material sent by post (iv) reviews.

2. All of the bookshops sent out reading list requests to academics. On average they sent out 469 reading list requests per year, and on average 75% of these were returned.

3. In order of likelihood, the academics advised students to buy books from: (i) the campus bookshop (38% likely) (ii) secondhand (18% likely) (iii) sharing with other(s) (15% likely) (iv) online (13% likely) (v) direct from the publisher (10% likely) 39

I am indebted to Cambridge University Press for allowing me to make extensive use of this piece of research.

40 The universities chosen were Aston, Birmingham, East Anglia, Essex, Durham and Lancaster. They were all “old” universities, because Cambridge draws its customers mainly from these institutions.

41 There is evidence that librarians in some “new” universities have a greater input to what is bought for the library than librarians in “old” universities. Nevertheless, they are unlikely to influence reading list recommendations; and the point should be made that “old” university libraries, on the whole, have much larger resources funds than “new” ones.

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(vi)

preferred not to recommend

(6% likely).

4. When the academics chose books to recommend, they were most likely, in order of importance, to be influenced by: (i) Personal or library copy (21% likely) (ii) Publishers’ posted materials (19% likely) (iii) Publishers’ proofs or inspection copies (18% likely) (iv) Recommendation from a colleague / student (17% likely) (v) Reviews (16% likely) (vi) Publishers’ reps visits (5% likely) (vii) Bookshop recommendation (1% likely) (viii) “Other” (3% likely).

5. The academics interviewed were very confident book-buyers indeed, and on average (including books for recreation) bought 57 books per year each: typically, 22 from the campus bookshop, 13 from a High Street bookshop, 12 from an online bookseller, 3 direct from the publisher, one by mail order, one or less as an account holder and 5 (mainly secondhand) from other sources.

The information supply chain was felt to work best where there was strong cooperation between faculty, library and bookshop. Durham was a prime example of this. At all the campuses there was strong evidence that the academic was the main driving force behind book selection decisions made by the students, the bookshop and the library.

A separate survey of 300 students undertaken by Gold Leaf in autumn 200142 showed that the reading list was the main vehicle for students’ information about the books that they bought. 79% received their reading lists after arrival on campus. 87% of the books bought were described as “essential reading” (i.e., mostly textbooks). These books were, of course, recommended by academics. 56% of the students said that they would be prepared to order the print book from the campus bookshop if it was not in stock; 32% said that they would buy it elsewhere; 12% said that they would not buy it at all. 75% said that they would borrow from the library and 63% said they would use information from the Internet as an alternative to purchasing books (though this did not imply that they would not purchase some books). 22% said that they would be prepared to buy the book in electronic format as an alternative; these respondents assumed that the e-book would be cheaper.

Two conclusions may be drawn from this: that recommendation from academics is the most significant way of getting students to buy or access print books; and that two years ago, almost two thirds of students from a random sample43 were receptive to the idea of e-learning, although this was linked in their minds with spending less.

The academic e-book physical (perhaps “virtually physical” is a better description) distribution and information supply chains work in quite a different way. The former is illustrated in Figure 3. The diagram shows that, in common with other e-book supply chains, some of the stakeholders in the academic e-book supply chain can and 42

A Survey of Student Book Buying, 2001 / 2002, Gold Leaf, 2002.

Or almost random: they were interviewed as they left the campus bookshop. Therefore, the views of students who did not use the campus bookshop were not captured.

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do choose to ignore some of the others when carrying out their transactions. (Similar choices can be made by stakeholders in the print book supply chain, but they are likely to prove less effective and therefore less routinely chosen, because of the logistical challenges posed by true physical distribution channels.) Thus, e-book authors can choose to supply their works direct to the end-users, by-passing publishers and booksellers; publishers can choose to by-pass booksellers, or they can sell direct to e-aggregators without involving themselves in the rest of the supply chain; or they can use digital platform providers to carry out most of the behind-thescenes transactions on their behalf. The e-aggregator becomes a major player, similar in function to but even more important than the wholesaler in the print book supply chain, and his key customer is the librarian, not the end-user. The bookseller, who in the traditional print book supply chain features as the most important channel to the end-user, is a minor figure in the e-book supply chain. The nature of the e-book transaction itself may not be commercial in some cases: for example, if the author is more interested in dissemination of his work than in generating income, the book is out of copyright, or the author, publisher or e-aggregator think that it will help other sales, the e-book may be supplied free of charge; and (though e-books do generate costs, for example, of digitisation, rights management, platform provider charges) providing e-books free is nevertheless more practicable than in the print supply chain, with its inescapable production and distribution costs. It is also worth noting that, although both print and e-book supply chains are supported by similar bibliographical bodies, and influenced by similar professional bodies, support for e-books from the former is at present very limited and incomplete. Influence from the latter upon ebooks is dictated by a mixture of commercial, political and pedagogical concerns, key ones among which have not at present been resolved to the point where a state of harmony or even of compromise has been reached – hence the conflict symbol. (The nature of these concerns will be explored in more detail later.)

Figure 4 illustrates the information supply chain for academic e-books. The solid lines indicate “good” information links, and the broken ones indicate imperfect or incomplete ones. Imperfect information links are of course to be expected in any new industry. What immediately strikes the eye, however, is first that the academic has been replaced by the e-aggregator, followed by the librarian and then the publisher as the key driver in this information supply chain; and second that, although information links between e-aggregators, librarians and publishers are (on the whole) strong, the only strong information link to academics is from librarians, if they choose to use it; and the academics’ e-book information links to students are not strong. The academic is only imperfectly in receipt, or not in receipt at all, of information on e-books from his accustomed information channels of review copies, reviews, peer group and student recommendations and information from publishers and booksellers. The student is at present unlikely to receive information about e-books via the reading list, which is the single greatest influencer upon student print-book reading; receipt of verbal information from academics about e-books is marginally more likely; but students are unlikely to obtain information on e-books from the campus bookshop, other bookshops or direct from the publisher. Aside from the library, the student’s and academic’s other main route to information about e-books is likely to be via websearches, if they choose to carry them out.

The supply chain diagrams have been introduced at this point both for the sake of clarity, and so that the reader can have an overall picture of the issues that are raised

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when the barriers to uptake and current approaches to promotion of e-books are discussed at micro level, stakeholder by stakeholder, in the next chapter. The assumptions made above and illustrated by Figure 4 will be substantiated during the course of Chapter Three by detailed reference to the primary research undertaken for this report.

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Chapter Three The stakeholders: e-books issues considered: the perceived advantages of and barriers to using e-books; where users find them and for what purpose they use them. Anticipations of future usage.

3.1 Do e-books need promoting?

It is perhaps appropriate to begin this central chapter by asking whether e-books need to be promoted at all! In the words of one publisher, isn’t advocating the promotion of e-books a little like advocating the promotion of fish?44 To put it another way, are not e-books just a commodity which will promote and sell themselves?

There is some evidence to support this view, most of it from the United States, where e-learning technologies and general use of the Internet are more ubiquitous than in the UK. For example, in the public libraries arena, Cleveland Public Libraries (http://dlc.clevnet.org) launched an e-book collection in 2002, using Overdrive as its e-book platform provider, and achieved more than 1,000 downloads of e-books in the first twenty-four hours after the launch, without engaging in any specific promotional activity beyond advertising the e-book collection on its homepage.45 An example immediately relevant to academic e-books is provided by a study made

by Justin Littman at Duke University library in 200246, which compares the issues of e-books with issues of print books of titles available in both formats over a given period, and concludes: “Of the 7,880 titles that were available in print and e-book, 3,158 e-book titles were accessed and 2,799 print titles were circulated during the study period. 1,688 titles were used in print and e-book. 1,484 titles were used in e-book, but not print. 1,125 titles were used in print, but not e-book. 3,597 titles were used in neither format. The results for the titles that were used in either format only are represented in Figure 5. ‌..During the study period, print books circulated 6,998 times, averaging 0.88 circulations per print title held or 2.48 circulations per print title that circulated. E-books were accessed 10,821 times, averaging 1.37 accesses per title held or 3.43 accesses per e-book title that circulated. Results were also computed to permit the evaluation of the impact of the availability of e-books on the circulation of print books. There were 6,139 circulations of print books in the year prior to the introduction of the e-book. This fell to 4,738 circulations of print books in the year after the introduction of the e-book. This represents a decline of 22% in print circulations.

Of the 7,490 print titles available in the year prior to the introduction of the e-book, 1,571 titles circulated in the year before and the year after the introduction of the e-book. 1,149 titles circulated in the year before, but not the year after the introduction of the e-book. 820 titles did not circulate in the year before, but did circulate in the year after the introduction of

44

Comment from one of the publishers attending project launch at the British Library, 27th March 2003.

45 This information was supplied by Loree Potash of Overdrive.

46 Littman, J. A Circulation Analysis of Print Books and E-Books in an Academic Research Library.

Capstone Project presented to the Faculty of the College of Education, University of Denver. Denver, 2002. I am indebted to Stephanie Bean of NetLibrary for drawing my attention to this work, and for obtaining permission to quote from it.

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the e-book. And 3,932 titles did not circulate in the year before or the year after the introduction of the e-book.�

Fig 5. Titles used in print or e-book Used in print, but not eBook 27%

Used in print and eBook 39%

Used in eBook, but not print 34%

Fig 6. Circulating print titles, before and after introduction of e-book

Circulated in year after, but not year before 23%

Circulated in year before, but not year after 32%

Circulated in year before and year after 45%

Overall, Littman concludes that e-books at Duke achieved 11% higher circulation than print books when the title was available in both formats. This usage was entirely spontaneous on the part of the users, without extra promotional effort having taken place on the part of the library.

One of the e-aggregators who was interviewed for the current study47 remarked on the ease with which e-books are adopted and accepted in Scandinavian academic institutions. She said that Scandinavian countries seemed to be very comfortable with the medium, in part she believed because the academic communities are smaller and talk to each other more. Scandinavia also spends more money on its students, and there is a commitment to make all higher education learning virtual, which means that all students have laptops fitted with cables, so that they can log on anywhere. This 47

Aggregator Interview No. 5. Several attempts were made to get responses from Scandinavia to the questionnaires, but without success.

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aggregator tried to organise a seminar for academics in the UK, in the same way that she has organised similar seminars in Scandinavia in the past, but she found it hard to get people to attend, largely because she felt that prospective delegates did not know each other. An English professor interviewed for the study pointed out that if British universities had the technological resources of Scandinavian ones, students’ and academics’ attitudes to e-books and e-learning would be fundamentally altered.

For the launch of the present study, Gold Leaf conducted a straw poll of 68 academics48 teaching in five different disciplines and based at a range of universities throughout the UK, contacted because they had already carried out work with two publishers to help to establish demand for publisher websites to support print textbooks with e-learning materials (and were therefore not unaware of or antipathetic to the latter). The academics were asked whether they used e-books; if not why not; and to add any general comments that they cared to make. Of these 68, only one was an e-book user. Nine had been meaning to use e-books. 38 said that they were totally unaware of the existence of e-books (“What’s an e-book?” was a frequent response).

27 said that they did not know how to find out if the material they wanted in e-book format was available. 30 said that they were interested in finding out more about ebooks.

Putting together the evidence offered in these opening paragraphs, it seems to be clear that, although e-books do sometimes seem to “sell” themselves, the culture and / or the formal and informal information networks that currently prevail in British universities do not foster the spontaneous promotion of academic e-books. Therefore, in order for the medium to reach its maximum potential, it follows that it will have to be actively promoted.

3.2 “Active” stakeholder viewpoints: What are the advantages of e-books, either instead of or as well as print books? What are the barriers to promotion?

3.2.1 Authors Although it was beyond the scope of this project to carry out a representative survey of authors, each of the twelve publishers interviewed was asked about author reaction to electronic publishing and electronics rights deals, and four of the academics interviewed gave their views on e-books as authors; two of these had been published electronically, and one was an experienced producer of his own e-publications.

The response from each of the publishers was similar. Most said that they have now changed author contracts to include electronic rights, and that the royalties offered for e-books are the same as for print book royalties. Occasionally problems arise when the publisher wishes to produce an electronic version of a book that was originally published before the contract included electronic rights, and the author refuses; and a minority of authors do wish to opt out of the electronic royalties part of the contract.

Publishers appear to respond to such objections in a range of ways, from the accommodating to the draconian! Several pointed out that trade publishers can make it difficult for academic publishers by quoting e-book royalties at a much higher rate 48

Hereafter referred to as “Launch Straw Poll”. 107 academics were actually contacted; 68 responded.

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than print, and said that academic publishers are unable to do this, because the economics of trade publishing (often involving heavy discounting on the cover price) are different. Publishers are also aware that the Society of Authors has been less than happy with the principle that the royalty should be the same for all formats.

The Society of Authors has produced a pamphlet49 which offers its members guidelines. It sums up the issues and its own stance succinctly: “E-books differ from traditional books in that a range of costs is eliminated …. and they are often priced lower than their printed equivalent. We therefore believe that royalties should be substantially higher than on traditional books, for example: Sold through the publisher’s own website: 35% of the e-book retail price.

Sold through third party online retailers: 50% of the publisher’s net revenue. … Academic and professional publishers may propose e-book royalties of less than 50% some only pay the same royalties as on the volume-form edition. The reasoning is that digitising often an entire backlist is expensive, but doing so ensures that slow-selling works remain available …furthermore, the publishers will be including word search and other manipulation facilities, and they believe that in their areas of publishing, e-book sales may compete significantly with conventional book sales ….[but] …In our view, if the author has to accept less than 50%, a compromise figure might be in the region of 35%. … The publishers should confirm that the e-book will not be used as a premium offer … or sold at a retail price which is less than, say, 80% of the volume form retail price, without the author’s agreement.”50

The publishers interviewed have naturally not disclosed the actual percentages paid to their authors; but they seem to have resolved the issue in the majority of cases, though they say that working on the backlist has been hard work and time consuming. Few are selling e-books at less than 80% of the print cover price.

The academics interviewed who were also authors (none of whom was a major “blockbuster” textbook author – the views of this affluent minority might be different) were happy with seeing their work published as e-books. Of the two authors already published in e-format, royalties were not a major concern. One said that his publisher had asked permission to make his books available in e-format, and he was happy to agree; he added that he was now pleased to see a payment line from netLibrary on his royalty statement.51 The other is himself actively involved in producing e-books that people want to read on the screen.52 He is therefore an example of an author who will supply e-books direct to the academic community, by-passing the other stakeholders in the supply chain.

The two academics who were authors but not published in e-format were both receptive to the idea. One said that, although she did not expect to write any more books, she would be “delighted if a book I had written was issued as an e-book.

49

Quick Guide 14: Electronic Publishing Contracts. Society of Authors. London, 2002. Free to members, £10 post free to non-members (from Society of Authors, 84, Drayton Gardens, London SW10 9SB).

50 Ibid., pp. 2-3.

51 Academic Interview No. 4.

52 Academic Interview No. 5. Bruce Ingraham’s template for a user-friendly e-book will be reproduced in the manual that accompanies this report.

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Knowledge has got to be shared. Academics can’t make much out of publishing books anyway – most people are more interested in kudos.”53 The other was rather annoyed that he knew so little about e-books, and that his own publisher had not asked him to make his work available in this format. He said: “I’m writing a book for [Publisher X] over the summer, and they haven’t mentioned putting it in eformat.”54 The advantages of e-books to authors are therefore that they may be able to reach a wider audience than by just publishing in print, that they may be able to encourage new readers by producing e-books in an attractive format, that they will gain kudos from the wider dissemination of their publications, and that they will gain revenue from e-books. The main disadvantage would seem to be the possibility that overall their royalty may be reduced, because the e-book may be cheaper than the print book, and e-book sales may erode print sales. However, for many academic authors, payment may not be the first consideration.

3.2.2 Publishers In Chapter One, it was briefly mentioned that a major barrier for publishers to making books available in e-format and then promoting them is a lack of understanding and therefore fear of the effect that e-books will have on their revenue streams. Will e-books cannibalise or augment print sales? Will they lead to fewer or more overall sales? Will they lead to a reconfiguration of the supply chain in which publishers are frequently by-passed? These are all questions that have been raised by publishers many times, both in published interviews and articles and in the publisher interviews carried out for this study. There is also the question of the investment involved. E-books have been slow to catch on in academia; some publishers reason that they may always be a marginal resource. Therefore, is the considerable investment of time and money required to develop and promote them worthwhile?

Agnostic publishers say that the medium itself is still in transition, and its useful application to further and higher education not fully understood: “We are still at the transitional phase. The consequences of being pure “e” have not really hit the market. There is no genuine e-publishing that does not replicate the [print] market. Is the pendulum swinging too far one way? On-line is right for reference, but it is not right for everything. The trick is to put the things that are best for the medium on-line.”55

That there is significant ambivalence both among publishers and within publishing houses in their approach to e-books became apparent as the twelve publisher interviews were carried out. Analysis of these indicates that five of the publishers are currently committed to an e-publishing strategy (but this does not imply a commitment to making all of their publications available in e-format); one is definitely averse to the idea, but releasing a few e-books; three are undecided, and adopting cautious toe-in-the-water approaches which specifically exclude making their big-selling textbooks available as e-books, two have yet to come to a company policy decision on e-books; and one has developed its own very specific customisable e-book model which is unlikely to represent a threat to standard text sales. Even 53

Academic Interview No. 1.

Huddersfield focus group.

55 Publisher Interview No. 5.

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committed e-publishers adopt “safety tactics” such as making the e-text available only after the publication of the print version. The publications that these publishers are currently offering in e-book format are mainly intended for the higher education market, and, to a lesser extent, for the professional market. Currently, relatively few e-books offered by the main academic publishing houses are suitable for the further education market.

The major textbook publishers are particularly wary of e-books. This is not just because of their fear of “cannibalisation”, with the adverse effects that it could have on the major revenue streams generated by the big textbooks, but also because the largest textbook publishers have spent big sums of money on developing websites that host complementary or supplementary learning materials to support print texts. These are made available to purchasers of the texts by means of a password. Sometimes, extra materials are available to cohorts of students whose lecturers make recommendation of the book as the main text for the module. There may also be special resources available to lecturers only. In the words of one very large (conglomerate) academic publisher: “Supplementary / complementary learning materials to accompany textbooks are of most importance to [our] electronic development strategy … [our] long-term aim is to derive an income stream from electronic learning materials in their own right. At present, the shortterm aim is to secure and improve market share for the business in what [we] perceive to be a weak market, suffering from economic down-turn.”56

A second very large textbook publisher (also a conglomerate) expressed a similar view: “[Our] overall strategic approach is to use on-line materials to increase sales of paper books.”57

These two publishers were actually the least upbeat about hoping to make a profit from electronic learning materials. Others, whether their approach was wholehearted, toe-in-the-water, or as yet undecided, said that it was their intention, and the expectation of their shareholders, that on-line learning materials, including e-books, would deliver an independent revenue stream in their own right. Of the five publishers committed to an e-book strategy, three said that they were already making money out of e-books sales. One of these said that the revenue stream from e-books was not yet significant, but that the company had recouped its investment over a twoyear period. The other two had been offering large, expensive (in print) reference works on-line for some time, and selling them primarily to institutions via licensing models. A fourth “committed” publisher sells publications in a specific subject area which require frequent updates. All of its titles are available in e-book format, and new titles are published simultaneously in print and e-book. This publisher regards delivery of e-books as primarily a customer service which also delivers spin-off print sales – it estimates that 25% of customers who buy all or part of one of its books in eformat will subsequently buy the print version. However, its year-on-year sales growth of e-books has been modest – between 15% and 20% - and the initial investment on e-books of £250,000 has been written off as a sunk cost. This 56 57

Publisher Interview No. 4.

Publisher Interview No. 2.

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publisher has also deliberately resisted allying itself with any of the e-aggregators, because: “When aggregators first set up, they took all the problems away from publishers by scanning, digitising, etc., free of charge. Now they are charging publishers to scan and digitise…It doesn’t make sense for [us] to go to an aggregator when [we know our] market – it is bringing a middle person into the supply chain for no good reason.”58

In fact, most of the toe-in-the-water publishers have started their e-books initiatives by making a certain number of publications available via an e-aggregator. A curious result of this, which illustrates their general ambivalence about e-books, is that they often don’t advertise the fact that these publications have been produced in e-format.

It is as if these publications belong to the aggregator’s brand, rather than their own.

As there is no central bibliographical catalogue of e-books, would-be buyers therefore have difficulty in discovering whether the publication they are looking for is available as an e-book or not; they have to resort to searching the aggregator’s catalogue.

Other intermediaries besides aggregators can work effectively in partnership with publishers to promote e-books, notably those engaged in developing VLEs and MLEs. Ten out of the twelve publishers interviewed either had licences with Blackboard and / or Web CT, or were actively engaged in discussions with one or both companies.

VLEs and MLEs are rapidly being set up in British universities, although few are yet using these applications to their full potential. They offer an ideal opportunity for publishers to sell chapters and other “slice-and-dice” material from e-books for online course packs, teaching and study aids, etc.

Pricing is a complicated issue for publishers. This has already been touched on in Chapter One, and will be considered in more detail later in this chapter. Of key importance for the publishers is getting other stakeholders to accept that they perform a service for which they are entitled to charge appropriately, and that making their lists comprehensively available in e-book format is inextricably linked to this.

Otherwise, unproductive conflict between the publishers and other stakeholders is bound to result. To give two examples: “There is .. an uneasy feeling that librarians are trying to get something for nothing – shortsighted, as in the emerging models, publishers will still have to make a living if they are to continue to occupy their current role of information providers and quality controllers.

Refereeing materials, editing copy, etc., all still have to be paid for, unless librarians and academics are prepared to sacrifice these features in the interests of economy, and just pick up the plethora of free stuff on the net.”59 “I think that the availability issues are appalling: publishers should be ashamed of themselves. They’re not supporting the potential [of e-books] properly – for disabled students, etc.”60

Publishers are aware of the technological issues that impede customer uptake of ebooks. Chief among these are the confusion caused by the various types of Reader, which can result in the customer purchasing a book which he or she cannot then read; 58

Publisher Interview No. 8.

Publisher Interview No. 5.

60 Academic, Huddersfield focus group.

59

45

and problems with downloads taking too long or failing. It is for this reason that many publishers prefer to outsource to a one-stop digital platform provider; but they acknowledge that this removes contact with the customer. One publisher said that how to conduct an effective customer service for e-books is an issue for which he “does not have the answer.”61 Another publisher said that, although its sales of ebooks were “tiny”, one in ten of these resulted in customer complaints about Reader or download difficulties, a figure which is “too high, particularly on the current sales volume.”62 Most of these problems relate to sales to individuals, rather than to libraries and institutions.

Bibliographical issues concern some publishers more than others. Most look at the specific cataloguing and metadata issues connected with e-books from a publishing point of view rather than from a librarian’s point of view, which may be why some said that they thought that they had addressed issues that librarians still consider to be a problem (“What is all the fuss about? E-books need a unique identifier. Archiving is the big barrier – not metadata”)63. Others are more engaged (“[Metadata] is a minefield. [We] are still trying to get to grips with it. It is a constantly moving set of problems”)64. These issues will be discussed in more detail in Chapter Six. From this mishmash of related concerns and complexities, it is easy to perceive the barriers to promoting e-books as experienced by publishers, rather than the advantages to them. The main barriers are clearly fear about the effect of e-books on their revenue stream, closely connected with fears of “cannibalisation” of print; investment costs; and attractiveness and consequent saleability and viable pricing structure for the e-book medium. Technological and cataloguing / metadata shortcomings definitely belong to a second league of publisher-perceived barriers, but may still cause publisher reluctance to commit to e-publishing. There is not publisher consensus on whether the intermediary role of the aggregator is a good or bad thing.

The advantages to publishers of promoting e-books can, however, still be discerned within this “rich picture”: in the first place, if the publisher can find a way of developing and promoting the e-book to new or existing markets so that the product is attractive but does not compromise print sales, the revenue streams can be considerable. As one publisher put it, “For the publisher, the electronic version has the advantage that, no matter how many people are being sold to worldwide, the economics of publication are not affected. On the other hand, the costs of a paper print run would be small anyway – since only an easily estimated number would be sold – and the electronic development costs are considerable.”65 In the second place, the nature of teaching and study is changing. MLEs and VLEs, as they become used in a more widespread fashion, will act as a catalyst for this change, thus providing those publishers who are able to offer materials to be incorporated within them either new sales opportunities, or replacement opportunities for print sales which will be lost, not because of e-books, but because the academic community is already or will in the near future be demanding a different type of product to suit its changing needs.

61

Publisher Interview No. 6.

Publisher Interview No. 4.

63 Publisher Interview No. 11.

64 Publisher Interview No. 8.

65 Publisher Interview No. 1.

62

46

Therefore, both push and pull imperatives are at work upon publishers to develop ebooks.

3.2.3 Distributors of e-books: Aggregators It was stated in Chapter One that e-aggregators target librarians as their main customers. A few also target the end user, with models that allow the download of whole books or chapters for relatively small payments. For all the aggregators interviewed, acquiring new customers is a slow process: for example, netLibrary66, probably the most well-known e-books aggregator, currently has twenty-three library subscribers in the UK and Europe (most but not all of these are academic libraries and more than half of them responded to the HEI questionnaire circulated to inform this study); others have far fewer: Knovel67 has five UK academic library subscribers; Ebrary68 has only one subscribing academic library customer (Staffordshire) in the UK (though it has between thirty and forty in Scandinavia and also sells direct to the end-user in the UK).

The e-aggregators themselves try to understand the reasons for the slow uptake of their products. Foremost among barriers to uptake with librarians is a connected cluster of issues relating to cost, the pricing model employed, and lack of flexibility on how much or little to purchase. Connected to these are librarians’ concerns about value for money, in turn associated with the adequate and regular provision of clear and comprehensible usage statistics, availability of publications from key publishers, currency of the publications on offer, ease or difficulty of placing the collections on the library catalogue and difficulties of access for some users. The different pricing models operated by different e-aggregators and publishers regularly cause confusion.

There is frequently debate about their relative merits and defects. As the following sub-section demonstrates, there are many different models in operation.

3.2.3a Examples of e-aggregator pricing models 1. netLibrary. netLibrary’s pricing model is the most “transparent”, because the price charged to the library bears a direct relationship to the cost of the print book. It consists of paying the hardcopy price of the publisher’s list price of the book plus an access fee that is either an annual charge of 15% or a onetime charge of 55%. The library is required to make an initial purchase of a minimum of 100 books, from a catalogue of approximately 55,000 books. It is a one book, one user model: e-books out on issue from the collection can only be borrowed by a second user upon their return. netLibrary provides easily understood usage statistics, and also “turnaway” statistics, that is, information about e-books that would have been borrowed if they had been available to the user when he or she tried to access them. It has forged partnerships with most academic publishers, though some only make a very limited number of titles available, and sometimes some time after the print book is published. It is

66

http://www.netlibrary.com. http://www.knovel.com.

68 A selection of the content offered by subscription to institutions may be viewed at http://discover.ebrary.com.

67

47

adding new titles to the catalogue at the rate of 1200 – 1500 per month. More information about netLibrary is given in Case Study No. 4.

2.

Ebrary has divided its e-book offering into five subject-specific “Aggregated Collections,” arranged under broad headings: Business & Economics, Computer, Technology & Engineering, Humanities Life & Physical Sciences, and Social & Behavioural Sciences. Each collection consists of between 1,000 and 4,000 titles, with a sprinkling of reports, but no journals. An institution can subscribe to one or more of these collections, or can choose the “Academic Complete” collection, which includes all five subject collections together with a series of maps and additional academic e-book titles. The annual fee is a factor of the number of full-time-equivalent (FTE) enrolled students at the subscribing institution. For example, an institution with 5,000 FTEs would pay $1.50 per student or $7,500 for one-year access to Academic Complete. The fee for HEI libraries is lower than for commercial libraries, and there is a further reduction in rate for FE libraries.

Ebrary offers the same pricing structure for a range of “Publisher Collections,” which consist of specialized content from a single publisher. There is also a “Public Library Collection” with over 2,000 titles covering subjects such as biography, health, travel, popular computing and careers. Ebrary has about 175 publishing partners, many of which are UK-based. Some publishers operate under “embargoes” of between six and eighteen months, i.e., a period after the publication of the print book before the e-book will be made available. Ebrary feels that this is “not unreasonable” – it gives the librarians time to work through their normal acquisitions process for print, and therefore mitigates the risk of the publisher or wholesaler losing a print sale. Ebrary also offers a website, known as Discover (http://discover.ebrary.com/), where independent researchers may access many of the publications it offers in its aggregated collections, paying on a per-page basis to print or copy text. To set up an account, the researcher must make a $5.00 deposit and install the Ebrary Reader, but may then search, view and interact with the content at no charge.

The primary purpose of this website is to showcase Ebrary’s technology and content and to encourage researchers to request access to Ebrary's Aggregated Collections from their library.

3. Knovel, which aggregates e-books in Science and Engineering subjects, has also broken down its catalogue into a series of (fifteen) bundled subject collections, and has built partnerships with eighteen scientific and technical publishers. Over 500 books and databases make up the bundles, with an average of 15-20 titles added monthly. Subscribers can either purchase the whole collection, or one or more of the bundles. For academic libraries, the fee is based on the number of relevant users (i.e., scientists and engineers enrolled at the university), not on FTEs. However, Knovel has also come to an agreement with CHEST, which is based on FTEs. As with Ebrary, the Knovel model makes subscription cheaper for academic than for corporate libraries. As well as the five universities which currently subscribe, Knovel is now being trialed by some FE colleges. There is a minimum subscription fee of $15,000.

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4. CRC Press69 also aggregates e-books in Science and Engineering. It has broken its catalogue into a series of thirteen bundled subject collections, which it calls “handbooks”. The most advantageous way for libraries to obtain the collections is via a recently established CHEST deal. For this, the handbooks have been grouped within three “Options”. Option 1, Core Engineering and Chemistry, consists of two handbooks, which may be purchased by a subscription of $5,500 per annum for a three year contract, or $5,000 for a five year contract; Option 2, Popular Subject Areas, consists of six handbooks, which may be purchased by a subscription of $6,500 per annum for a three year contract, or $6,000 for a five year contract; Option 3, ALL Handbooks, consists of the entire group of thirteen handbooks, and costs $9,500 for a three year contract or $9,000 for a five year contract. CRC Press is also prepared to negotiate with libraries that wish to work independently of CHEST and only subscribe to one of the handbooks.

5. Books24x770, a collection of computing books which includes some business and e-commerce titles, operates a “one user” licensing model based on the number of FTEs studying at the university (i.e., if the library wishes to provide simultaneous access to the titles to two or more users, it has to pay accordingly). The collection, which comes as a complete entity consisting of “a rich repository comprising literally thousands of complete and unabridged works representing more than 400,000 ‘knowledge objects’”71including 3000 complete books in XML format, is edited and maintained by the supplier: librarians do not choose individual titles. Because of the difficulty of maintaining up-to-date computer book collections, and the rapidity with which print computing collections become obsolete, Books24x7 provides an instance of “bundling” which is often attractive to librarians.

3.2.3b Publishers’ pricing models Whether they are selling direct to the end-user, or to libraries and institutions, publishers also operate a number of different pricing models. Some examples are given below.

1. Wiley72. Wiley does not use e-aggregators. It sells e-books in “clusters”, or bundles. These are available from four main category areas, a) Life Sciences and Medical, b) Mathematics and Statistics, c) Electrical Engineering and Communications and d) Chemistry. Within these, there are smaller subcategories or packages, and librarians subscribe to these. Wiley allows unlimited consecutive usage, through an IP address authentication system, or ATHENS for people obtaining remote access. It operates a sliding scale of charges, dividing customers into two principal categories: academic / research and professional / government departments. The former are charged at a proportionately lower rate. Price band points are assessed by taking the total number of students and academics at each institution (not just the number studying or teaching the subject; but support staff are excluded). Wiley 69

http://www.crcnetbase.com http://books24x7.com.

71 Books24x7 online promotional material, from http://www.books24x7.com, accessed 27th June 2003.

72 http://www.wiley.com 70

49

believes that the pricing mechanism doesn’t put customers off once they understand it: for example, typically the electronic price of a big encyclopaedia would work out at 20% of the price of a single printed set.

Multiple title discounts are offered in some subject areas. It has recently struck a deal with JISC to supply its collections at an advantageous rate to UK academic librarians.

2. Taylor and Francis73. Taylor and Francis sells e-books direct to end-users, via other e-booksellers, and also to institutions. When selling to end-users, its original pricing principle was that e-books would be 20% cheaper than print books. Now it charges the same price for e-books and print books, but effectively e-books are cheaper, because the electronic price “hides” the VAT incurred (at 17.5%). Taylor and Francis’s Ebookstore is available through the websites of a number of booksellers, aggregators and platform providers, including D.A. Books (Australia), the UK booksellers Coutts, John Smith’s, Dawson’s and Blackwell’s, Overdrive, e-books.com, netLibrary and Baker & Taylor. Together with Wiley and Pluto Press, it has offered a “bundled” deal to academic libraries through JISC74. Libraries taking advantage of this deal can choose their own package of 180 titles from eight subject areas or a “pick and mix” package, from a total Taylor & Francis catalogue of more than 4,000 titles. There are no limits to the number of users accessing each package.

Access is gained either by IP range or library ID number, or by using ATHENS authentication. The institution pays a fee according to its “band” size, established by JISC. See also Case Study No. 3.

3. Cavendish Books75. Cavendish sells e-books to the end-user through its own website, and also does deals, by individual negotiation, with single libraries and library consortia. It is currently negotiating with some booksellers, but does not use e-aggregators. Its pricing model for the end-user is transparent.

If someone wants read-only rights, they are charged 50% of the print book’s cover price. They are charged 80% of the cover price for Read, View and Print. For “slice-and-dice” (i.e., chapters or smaller sections of the book, from one page upwards) there is a sliding scale matrix based on per-page access.

Cavendish’s core e-book customers are the institutional subscribers, and it encourages them to take all of its 600 titles (all law books, and all published simultaneously in print and e-format). Sometimes it will offer incentives for this.

4. Oxford University Press. Oxford University Press operates a number of ebook initiatives, which are described in more detail in Case Study No. 2. Two of these, the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) Online and Oxford Reference Online (ORO) are currently available as JISC details, and Oxford Scholarship Online (OSO) will become available through JISC shortly. Oxford charges by annual subscription fee for its products. Its strategy is to have a wide range of

73

http://www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk Consultation on the licensing of electronic books from Taylor and Francis, John Wiley and Pluto Press, issued by JISC in May 2003.

75 http://www.cavendishpublishing.com 74

50

subscribers paying affordable prices, rather than to sell at a premium to a select few.

Other models incorporate other refinements, but the main variables used to construct pricing models are illustrated in the examples given above. The examples also serve to demonstrate how e-aggregators and publishers, both obliged to find commercially viable ways of supplying their products, present librarians with some tricky decisions to make. The products that e-aggregators and publishers who “bundle” sell are expensive in the sense that they require a hefty initial outlay; and both the requirement of minimum collection sizes and “bundling” limit choice and make low-cost experimentation difficult. The librarian may be misled into buying an e-book when a more recent edition is available in print only. Value for money can only be assessed by comparing usage statistics supplied by the e-aggregators or publishers with the library’s own print usage statistics over a period of time: but this is an arduous and time-consuming exercise, because the librarians may receive statistics irregularly and in hard-to-understand formats, and most statistics do not record the level of access or time spent searching the e-book by the user. On the other hand, e-aggregators are continually working with publishers to make more content available in e-format; both try to supply catalogue records of some kind (though the library may wish to amend these); most are continually trying to improve the products to address recognised technological problems such as “heavy” loading times, downloading latest Readers and difficulties with ISP set-ups. Most have FAQs and searching tips on their websites, and other information for users, such as “troubleshooting access problems.”

When they are pointing out the advantages of e-books, e-aggregators often use existing library customers, with contact details, either to endorse their products, or to contribute to mini-case studies which highlight the features that they have found most useful. For example, Ebrary issues a reference sheet which gives the contact details of three academic librarians in the US, the UK and Africa, each of whom has given bullet-point answers to the following headings: trends that impacted decision (to subscribe); reason(s) for choosing Ebrary; (perceived) content strengths; favourite features. The results of the mini-cases have been summarised in the table below.

51

Table 1: Ebrary customer endorsement sheet: indicates advantages of product Trends that impacted decision to • Reader interest in having expanded subscribe access to electronic resources • Increased focus on distance learning programmes • Growing number of part-time students • Overall rising expectations of students • Students increasingly interested in accessing library databases remotely Reasons for choosing Ebrary • Ability to have unlimited simultaneous users both for the service overall and for any particular title • Unrestricted searching and viewing • Breadth and range of books • “Ebrary allows us to deliver book-content and nicely compliments our extensive online periodocal offerings” • Strong collections • Affordable price Content strengths • Multidisciplinary content, including titles from leading academic publishers • Humanities and History, Social Science • Diversity across subject areas Favourite features • PDF technology offering, for both viewing and printing, maintains the original appearance of the printed book • Capability for full text searching across the entire collection • “Searching across all text and titles provides unprecedented and potentially revolutionary access to information.”

• PDF technology ensures that books and pages within books maintain their original appearance • Remote access • “Excellent support. Maybe the best in the industry at the moment.”

3.2.4 Booksellers E-booksellers divide into several categories: retailers who also sell through websites, “pure” e-tailers, and library suppliers. To whichever group they belong, they have been slow to offer e-books to their customers, and when they have attempted to do so, have achieved only very modest sales. All of the six booksellers (two retailers with transactional websites, two e-tailers and two library suppliers) who were interviewed, all of whom currently sell some e-books, regarded this activity as providing a customer service, rather than a serious source of revenue, although the two library 52

suppliers among them were beginning to gear up to more comprehensive e-book initiatives. That booksellers have failed to identify and give definition to a significant role for themselves in the e-book supply chain is remarkable when, by contrast, their pole position in the print book supply chain is considered. One of them summed up the reasons why he felt that booksellers have been marginalized: “The consensus is that e-books are really pushed by the publishers, and pulled by the universities. Booksellers play a peripheral role. It is a B to C business. However, e-books providers are not driving interest among individuals. There is some interest being shown among younger academics, but there is a feeling that B to C vendors will not get enough demand. The publishers see it as enabling them to create strategic alliances with universities.

The implications are financial / strategic: if the publisher digitises his whole catalogue, what impact does it have on print sales?”76

Three of the booksellers were discounting e-books from the publisher’s recommended price. Estimates of margin varied: one e-tailer said that despite discounting, “it expected more margin from e-books on a sale-by-sale basis, and achieved this.” A library supplier said: “[We] would like to at least match printed book margin, but the publishers have other ideas.”77 Two were offering them via Taylor and Francis’s eBookstore only, and two were using Overdrive as a digital platform provider. Their strategic approaches varied: all were addressing the HE market; two were also trying to serve the FE market. Four were selling e-books direct to end-users; four (the two e-tailers and the two library suppliers) were selling them to libraries and institutions.

Emphasis on types of product offered varied, with some concentrating more on reference works, others on monographs and textbooks.

Aside from their perception that they are being squeezed out of the e-book supply chain, three other major barriers to uptake (characterised by one as a “three-legged stool”) have been identified by booksellers. These barriers are: Right to Property, Standardisation and Cost. Below is the transcript of the response from the first bookseller interviewed (and one of two bookseller respondents operating in the US as well as the UK): 1. “Right to Property. The world trade in digital publishing is confused. Books published prior to 1980 usually carry no digital rights; after 1980, it depends on the contract – so the issue has to be resolved title by title. Post 1990, the rights are controlled by the publishers [note: many publishers addressed the issue of electronic rights after this date]. There is also confusion and fear surrounding digital rights issues – unencrypted formats are seen as a threat – and the difficulties of piracy experienced by the music industry [MP3] warns people off.

Then there is the issue of printing out … there is fear among publishers that in the academic community, which is technology literate, they will be ripped off – people will infringe copyright on the digital version if they possibly can.

2. Standardisation. There is no standardisation of software or devices. This confuses the consumer, who knows how to buy a paper book, and does so. The industry has made it as difficult as can be for people to fathom out how and why they should buy an e-book.

3. Cost. E-books are less discounted [than print books, by the publisher], despite the fact that the public has indicated that it will not pay as much for them because it sees that the shipping / handling / production fees are not there. Upshot: [we 76 77

Bookseller interview No. 2.

Bookseller interview No. 5.

53

offer] less than 10,000 titles available as e-books, whereas [we offer] 1.3 million paper titles. On top of this, there is the perceived high cost of the devices.”78

A point of interest is that the second two barriers to uptake identified above, although recognised by other stakeholders, are emphasised less by them. This may be because booksellers have more direct first-hand experience of the reactions of the end-user.

Booksellers also identify a raft of secondary problems connected with selling e-books similar to those identified by publishers: people trying to download the book when they have not activated or have been unable to activate the Reader; people buying the book online and then finding themselves unsure how to access it; and confusion over catalogue entries, caused by publishers giving different ISBNs to the same title in different e-formats. Like the publishers who deal direct with the end-user, they record a high instance of customer complaints compared to those received about print books.

The library suppliers have become more interested in developing their e-books offer because it has become apparent to them that librarians would like to be able to choose e-books as part of a one-stop-shop approach to book selection79 - i.e., they wish the supplier to inform them on a single list of all the formats in which the publication is available: hardback, paperback, e-book, etc.

Blackwell’s80, for example, specifically states: “…our customers are telling us that they need a simple, single point of contact for their purchases. Purchasing electronic reference books and databases direct presents the same problem found in buying books direct, in that finding the staff, time or money is difficult … Blackwell’s is intent on being able to offer access to electronic reference works, thus providing consolidation to our customers, as more of our books in series, major reference works and database collections become digitised … Although publishers are selling these series based on a subscription model, we are adapting our procedures so that we can facilitate them for our customers.”81

The advantages for all booksellers in promoting e-books are that it gives them an opportunity to add value by increasing customer service and therefore to gain other sales; and, taking a longer term view, that booksellers need to exert an influence in the area of e-publishing as it develops. They can then take an active part in defining their role in the emerging e-book industry, even though the short-term rewards may be small and the demands upon resources relatively high. Library suppliers have the considerable added advantage that their customers are actively asking them for support in the acquisition of e-books. The importance of booksellers in disseminating information effectively should be acknowledged by all stakeholders: this report contends that the fact that they do not at present occupy a major role in the e-books information supply chain (see Figure 4, Chapter One) is one of the reasons for the imperfections of the latter. A crucial question is raised: as e-books become more

78

Bookseller interview No. 1.

That this is correct was confirmed at Meeting No. 3, when the twenty or so librarians present said that it would be regarded as a very useful service.

80 http://www.blackwell.com.

81 Blackwell’s Book Services promotional leaflet, dated “Winter 2003”.

79

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widely used, does the industry expect to gain meaningful sales from end-users as well as from libraries; and if so, how can it stimulate or influence such sales?

3.2.5 Self-Publishers These are largely academics who make their work available to students and groups of colleagues in e-book format. Some may seek to charge for the publication (which may take the form of “slice and dice” style material rather than whole book), but many do not. The work is disseminated through applications such as Blackboard and Web CT, and also via the authors’ own websites82. Aside from the advantage of low or no cost to the recipients, the advantage of self-publishing to the author, his or her counterparts in the same and other institutions and the end-users, is that it allows customisation of work to suit particular modules and interests. The main barrier to uptake of this work is that information about it is unlikely to be widely disseminated (though in some instance the author may prefer this).

3.2.6 Librarians 1: Higher Education Institutions At the preparatory stage of the project, as much material as possible was collected and summarised for the panels in order to provide them with as comprehensive a set as possible of librarians’ perceptions of the advantages of e-books and the barriers to uptake, both from librarians’ own point of view and that of the academics and students that they serve. This information was obtained from published research, formal and informal unpublished research carried out by librarians themselves (including one very comprehensive report from a consortium of business librarians) and minutes from JISC E-Book Working Group meetings. The findings thus collected, synthesised and circulated to the panels are given below:

3.2.6i Why Librarians would like to purchase more e-books and encourage greater use of them, and their concerns 3.2.6i.a) Access • Easier access for users – no need to come to the library • Increased flexibility and availability to more users over a wider area • Helps to address the problems of a multi-site organisation • Helps to increase access to those unable to acquire a print copy • Improves circulation; but only if the user licence reflects the demand • Important for distance learners; but authentication issues may mean it’s more trouble than it’s worth; and they don’t all have access to PCs / the Internet

82

For example, research into electronic learning materials conducted by Gold Leaf on behalf of Butterworth Heinemann in the spring of 2003 showed that, of the 42 academics interviewed, five developed material on their own websites for the use of their students and three used the university website for this purpose. I am indebted to Butterworth Heinemann for allowing me to quote from the research.

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• • •

“If each e-book could have multiple users, it would solve the access problem – IF there was seamless access from the catalogue.”

Electronic versions may have a higher turnover rate than print versions; therefore, more borrowers in a shorter time – i.e., maximisation of usage Increases access to resources outside the institution; but users are dependent on their access to the technology and their I.T. skills.

3.2.6i.b) Stock Maintenance and Administrative Tasks • E-books require no handling and can be issued / returned instantly • They free up staff time from shelving • They ease pressure on physical space • There is less need for stock editing • Issues of vandalism and hidden / missing books solved • Cannot be damaged • If the content goes out of date, the e-book can be removed [but this raises archiving / preservation questions] • Cheaper overall?

3.2.6i.c) Quality of Stock • Could extend access to a wider range of material on individual subjects [but only if the material is available in e-format] • Could give access to a wider range of O/P material [ditto] • Can be easily updated [but note that there are archiving / preservation issues].

3.2.6i.d) Economic Considerations • Might be able to afford a wider range of reference materials (or might not!)

• Might be more cost-effective for short-life titles • Printing out [which both academics and students are likely to want to do] is, on the other hand, a wasteful exercise • Cost effectiveness depends on the publishers’ / aggregators’ models, and level of take-up • Better for part-time students with other commitments, providing they can obtain access.

3.2.6ii Librarians’ prioritisation of e-book acquisition, with reasons 3.2.6ii. a) High demand • High demand materials for speed of turnover and improved access • Areas of stock known to be in heavy demand, particularly where the library serves more than one site • Recommended textbooks • Reading list texts – because of currency and availability of recent editions

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•

Core texts / key texts – to allow greater access [independent user satisfaction survey shows inadequate supply of key textbooks is the second greatest complaint in libraries, after photocopying facilities] • Reference books • E-learning courses • Short term loan collection items.

[Note: much of this material range is currently not available in eformat]

3.2.6ii. b) Material types sought • Reference materials first – especially, using a model which enables them to be regularly updated • Areas where currency is important and e-versions may work out cheaper than buying expensive print copies.

3.2.6ii.c)

Target subjects • Subject areas where users need to gain easy access to shortish “chunks” of material • Subject areas where it is known that the students have high computer usage / ownership rates: I.T., business, e-commerce • Subject areas which attract a high proportion of part-time and distance learning students: business, professional courses.

3.2.6ii. d)

Specific user groups • Distance learning programme reading lists • Textbooks used by distance learning students • Those wanting O/P materials which are currently unavailable elsewhere.

3.2.6ii. e)

Constraints • How does acquisition of e-books fit into the library’s overall acquisitions and budget strategy?

• How will they be marketed / promoted to users?

• How will distance learners obtain site authentication?

• How easy is the material to use?

• How will users [students, academics and librarians] be trained / educated?

• How well do the materials available integrate into the curriculum?

It has already been stated that librarians currently occupy a pivotal role in both purchasing and promoting e-books, and this has been attributed in part to the emerging supply chain configuration. Before examining further the librarian’s role in promoting e-books and exploring the issues raised above within the context of how to address them, it is useful to have some quantitative information about the specific teaching, learning and research applications for which librarians believe that they are buying e-books. The first three questions asked in the questionnaire set out to

57

establish this; the results from the HEI questionnaires collected for this study are tabulated below: Table 2: Promoting the Uptake of E-Books: HEI Library Analysis No. 1 No. of university library Responses 46 100% No. of subscribers to e-books

41

89%

Subscribe to reference works Subscribe to monographs from publishers Subscribe via e-booksellers Buy e-textbooks from publishers Subscribe to monographs from wholesalers / aggregators Subscribe to textbooks from wholesalers / aggregators Buy “grey” e-book literature

37 14 0 9 16

90% (of subscribers) 34% “ 0% 22% (of subscribers) 39% “

15

37%

“

8

20%

“

Buy e-books to provide additional copies Buy e-books to provide supplementary texts Buy e-books to provide access to reference works Buy e-books to provide access to material not purchased in print Buy e-books to provide distance-learning access

17 18 37

41% 44% 90%

“ “ “

25

61%

“

26

63%

“

The table indicates that instance of experimental subscription to e-books by UK universities is good, with 89% of the sample attempting it, though it should be noted that the fact that few non-subscriber responses were received may indicate that nonsubscribing librarians did not understand that these would be appreciated, and therefore did not respond. Just under a third of the mainstream universities in the UK is represented by the sample. Purchase of e-books for reference use (90%) is by far the most popular librarians’ reason for acquiring them. That 61% of librarians is already purchasing e-books to provide access to material not purchased in print is a surprisingly high figure, given the emerging nature of the format (though a high proportion of this is clearly for reference); that 63% of e-books are purchased with the intention of providing a distance learning service is less surprising. That 41% of librarians buy e-books to provide additional copies, and 44% to provide supplementary texts shows consistency with the fact that e-textbook purchases average 30% of total purchases (from publishers and aggregators combined) and emonograph purchases average 37% of total purchases (from publishers and aggregators combined).

Actual expenditure on e-books per institution was relatively low: of the forty-six respondents, 30 gave details of their expenditure per annum on both e-books and print books. Expenditure on e-books by these libraries, in which a good mix of “old” and “new” universities across a varied UK geographical spread was represented, totalled £316,394 per annum; expenditure by the same libraries on print books totalled

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£10,516,299 per annum83. Expenditure on e-books therefore represented an average of £10,546, representing approximately 3% of expenditure on print books. The highest spending three “old” universities, all English, spent respectively £50,000 on ebooks and £500,000 on print books (i.e., 10%); £34,000 on e-books and £1,000,000 on print books (i.e., 3.4%); and £20,000 on e-books and £317,000 on print books (i.e., 6.3%). The lowest spending “old” university spent £2,500 on e-books and £830,000 on print books (i.e., 0.03%). The highest spending three “new” universities, also all English, spent £20,000 on e-books and £200,000 on print books (i.e., 10%); £15,000 on e-books and £380,000 on print books (i.e., 4%); and £11,500 on e-books and £228,630 on print books (i.e., 5%). The lowest spending “new” university spent £700 on e-books and £95,000 on print books (i.e., 0.07%). The highest spending Scottish university (“new”) spent £10,000 on e-books and £316,000 on print books (i.e., 3%).

The highest spending Welsh university (“new”) spent £10,000 on e-books and £190,000 on print books (i.e., 5%). No figures were given by the only Northern Irish respondent. The single Southern Irish respondent spent €7000 on ebooks and €555,000 on print books (i.e., 12%). Although the follow-up research, carried out by contacting nineteen of the HEI library questionnaire respondents who said they would be happy to contribute more and then studying the promotional practices of some of these in depth, did not indicate a correlation between cash laid out and effort expended upon promoting e-books, the following question should still be asked: how much of their time should librarians expect or be expected to spend on promoting a resource which takes up so little of their budget?

Of the different types of e-book subscription listed by the respondents, by far the most popular were Oxford Reference Online and Oxford English Dictionary (19 and 15 instances recorded respectively, several mentioning that they were obtained via JISC deals) and netLibrary (13 instances recorded). 12 also mentioned either Xrefer or Xrefer Plus (also obtainable via a JISC deal). Of the other products mentioned, none achieved a critical mass within this sample, and therefore it should be noted that the librarians’ experiences of e-books and those of their designated / actual user groups will have differed considerably from institution to institution. Case Studies 2 and 4 describe the Oxford products and netLibrary in more detail.

The non-subscribers were asked to list their reasons for not yet obtaining e-books.

Interestingly, a number of the subscribers also took this opportunity to record their difficulties and reservations about e-books (i.e., barriers to uptake), as well as adding some of the perceived advantages. Although there is some overlap in the points made with the summary lists given above, all have been included in order to convey as rich a picture as possible, and because quoting the librarians directly enlivens the points being made: 3.2.6iii Advantages of e-books given by the questionnaire respondents • The need to provide access to book material off campus / out of library is probably our key driver at present • netLibrary had their own authentication system developed, which enabled users to access the material from home. It was administered by netLibrary, so 83

Some of the libraries said that expenditure on e-books had been taken from their print book fund; others had allocated, or successfully requested from their institutions, “development” or “experiment” money for this purpose. In the latter case, it was usually said that such funds would only be granted for a short period of time.

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•

had few staffing or technical problems for us. This service is now ATHENScompliant. Although we prefer the ATHENS route, as it means that access can be limited to library members, both access routes were acceptable, being manageable in staffing support terms.

A very high percentage of our users are dyslexic, and can find reading large amounts on screen difficult – though e-books may have other advantages over print in this area, which might be useful. We are always open to new ideas and resources.

3.2.6iv “Neutral” comments given by the questionnaire respondents • [We] haven’t felt too pressured to use e-books, because [we have] few parttime or distance learning students. [Interestingly, this library was one of the highest spenders on e-books, spending £50,000 per annum (one tenth of its print book budget) on them.]

3.2.6v Barriers to uptake given by the questionnaire respondents • For all subjects and faculties, checks were done previously on high use materials, reading list materials and inter-loan monograph requests. There was very little coverage in any of the e-book services available at the time84 • We’d prefer to select our own titles from a list, rather than be presented with ‘collections’ • We have difficulty in finding undergraduate material, as opposed to research monographs • We subscribe to reference works only, at the moment. The textbooks we use are not available at present • We originally had configuration difficulties with the netLibrary software and our firewall • We have only nineteen computers available for users to access, and no room to expand without using valuable library space, so access would be limited • Licensing is expensive, and we are only a very small HEI (170+ students only), so we just don’t have the funds to purchase licences for this type of resource [Note: this was the smallest responding HEI – most were large universities] • We have more than one campus, and need access for remote users; we’d prefer not to sign up for several years • At present, I don’t see any advantages over print books (just old-fashioned, I guess!), and feel our students might be resistant to using this type of resource • The packages of monographs / textbooks that we’ve looked at simply don’t match up to our reading lists. They are very US-biased and, in some areas, outdated • In general, we’ve found e-books to be over-priced, and the offerings too [in?]flexible and / or difficult to evaluate. However, we are keen to give our users access to e-books, and consider the current JISC Consultation on Electronic Books to be quite attractive

84

Note: this library does not specify when the information gathering exercise took place. More than once the research done for this report has discovered that librarians think they know about e-book availability, when in fact the picture is a (swiftly) moving one. This suggests the need for an effective, time-effective information system.

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“We did not buy the netLibrary titles on a subscription basis, but on a “oneoff” outright purchase basis. One of the principal factors against our subscribing to, or purchasing, more e-books is the subscription model, which binds us to an annual payment. We find that subscription models which are based on institutional size, or institutional FTE figures, are particularly prohibitive financially. Often the texts on offer would be of interest to a small group of users only, rather than to the extended user population. VAT on electronic products is another financial disincentive.

The “bundling” of large numbers of titles, by publishers, is another disincentive. We like to be able to buy the titles we require to support the teaching and research of the University. This was another positive aspect of the netLibrary model: we could select individual titles.

When we first considered purchasing e-books, the content was biased towards American material and publishers. Publishers’ backlists dominated; up-todate titles were excluded. However, this is improving. netLibrary have increased their coverage of non-American publishers, and there are many more e-book suppliers. But we still cannot purchase the specific titles we want, regardless of format.

One publisher informed us that it was not their policy to make new editions of their books available as e-books, until six months or more after the publication date. We were trying to put a package together from this particular publisher, but discovered that we would have to purchase earlier editions of some texts if we wanted them as e-books.”

3.2.6vi Barriers to uptake for librarians from previous published and unpublished work, as summarised for the panels85 These are listed below. Again, there is some overlap, but all the points made have been included in order to convey a well-rounded picture, and to show which concerns emerge most frequently: •

• •

Can’t trace relevant titles – we especially want popular textbook titles, to boost the resources in our short-term loan collections [this, with variations, the most common complaint]. An interesting variant on this, from the librarian’s point of view, is that academics are too inflexible about what they want: “One of the key factors in introducing e-books is to enlist the aid of academics. In the trials we have had of e-book collections (Books 24x7, netLibrary) there have been few if any texts offered which appeared on our reading lists. Until the academics are prepared to alter their key texts or the publishers can be more flexible in the texts that they offer, this will remain an expensive way of providing supplementary reading.”

Some publisher models too restrictive – they don’t allow print / save facilities [this, with variations, the second most common complaint] E-books will only be used if they are the high-demand titles that students are competing for

85

For those interested in this aspect, JISC has also recently accepted a study, shortly to be published, which looks at librarians’ attitude to and experiences of e-books in detail.

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• • •

•

• •

• • • • • • •

86

User access is too restricted – especially by the netLibrary model (one user access per copy), which defeats the objective of providing on-line materials (variation on above) We wanted to buy titles in areas such as Law, Education and Nursing from netLibrary, but the titles were too American in bias We would like to buy titles direct from publishers. We would have liked to buy from X and Y. However, we could not link their catalogue entries to OPAC and they would not let us print, so we decided against them E-books would have to integrate into the catalogue to be useful.

Students are already faced with a bewildering array of electronic sources, and the format would make it difficult to distinguish where the material is coming from We have bought one title from McGraw-Hill and would like to buy more. However, we have to host the title ourselves, which has caused access problems We are currently trialing Kluwer Online. We are waiting to hear whether the comments from academics are sufficiently positive before we decide on a subscription. It is likely that we will move into e-books within the next year, mainly due to our growing distance learning / part-time student population Quality of materials offered by [X] is too low netLibrary is too expensive (1.8 x hard book price): becomes unaffordable when you consider that we want 10 + copies of some texts Currently no suitable supplier service. Of 130 highest-issuing business books in our libraries, OCLC (netLibrary) had only 16 netLibrary allows users to browse indefinitely without borrowing: this seems to defeat the object of having an e-book available, as the first person to access it could keep on using it until we intervened86 Off-campus access (technical issues) worries us Initial start-up costs are a deterrent The financial / organisational uncertainty of the suppliers acts as a deterrent: i. “netLibrary was bought by OCLC – can we have confidence in a firm which has been taken over within 2- 3 years of launching itself?” ii. “The market is still in a state of flux and this makes assessment of their worth difficult; and it undermines their value to the courses, as we cannot ensure stability of content (vital, for example, for a 5 year course)”. iii. “My personal feeling is that we should allow them [publishers and aggregators] sort themselves out, allow a few key players to emerge and let them chase after us.” iv. “We did some preliminary investigation about nine months ago and concluded there wasn’t a sufficient range of titles available (certainly in the business area) to justify a subscription at this

In fact, the library can decide for how long the e-book should be borrowed.

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•

• •

• • •

• • •

stage – the main contender for our business withdrew their UK operations shortly after our demo!

“Reference e-books can be indistinguishable from bibliographic databases and so are easier to promote / handle – textbooks are the real unknown – our students constantly say that they like print materials, so what extra value do e-books give them?”

“We are cautious as there hasn’t been a big demand from academics; but we are offering electronic versions of course materials by default now.”

“We are currently using HERON to digitise selected book chapter from core texts for what we perceive are the most needy student groups (part-time, distance learners). This is OK on a small scale, but could prove very expensive and time-consuming on a large scale. The ebooks don’t yet seem to have made much impact on part- and full-time students, but have been useful for distance learners, in particular those overseas.”

“Most students are very disappointed when they discover that they can’t download the full e-book for use later on, and that they have to keep logging in to the netLibrary system to copy and paste extracts.”

Navigation is difficult – if journal databases can enable the user to see a list of journals through which you can browse, why cannot netLibrary provide a list of titles as part of the package? netLibrary – User Instructions. There are lots of instructions on how to annotate sections of books, but you have to work harder to find the basic instructions on borrowing books, registering, etc. The whole system needs to be much simpler to use.

Elaborate passwords often mean that people stop at the first hurdle.

“We are aware of possible JISC developments, but unsure how they are progressing or how useful they will be.”

“E-books, unlike paper books, need to be budgeted for on a few years’ scale, like journals. Since library budgets are forever shrinking and uncertain, e-books do not allow for the same flexibility as paper book acquisition, and at the same time detract vital funds from other essential library needs such as personnel! Perhaps if e-books had come before e-journals, their fortune would have been completely different.”

3.2.7 Librarians 2: FE Colleges Although response from FE librarians to the questionnaire was good (37 responses were received), overall these librarians had less knowledge of e-books than HEI librarians (the research assistant who helped to analyse their questionnaires commented upon the “general vagueness” found in the responses), and experienced more acutely certain barriers to uptake, particularly ones relating to cost and organisational structure - both lecturers and students seemed to be harder to reach for FE librarians than HE librarians and therefore to offer help to, and less likely to want to use the library or the librarians as a resource. Both the difficulties of cost and creating user awareness are captured in the following response:

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“I’m surprised at how many tutors are e-phobic; many have been here for years! Incentives are needed to get them on board. Our user statistics (we’ve just done a learner survey) prove whether or not tutors are using the Learning Support Centre and / or electronic resources, and they aren’t! The tutors don’t consult the librarians or their students on the issue; the RSC [Regional Support Centre] does appraise tutors, but they aren’t interviewed directly, so the system is flawed – particularly weak tutors avoid it and are thus not accountable. [When considering whether to subscribe to e-books] there are serious budgetary implications here: with a £60,000 total library budget, losing £4,000 to e-books would be serious if they weren’t going to be used: for instance, we spend £700 - £800 on an online database; last year, three people used it! …. Tutors must be made to realise the potential of e-books, but so far they have not been energised!”87

Another FE librarian, contacted by telephone because the e-books collection held by her library seemed to be unusually high, pinpointed another organisational difficulty: she said that the library held a good e-books collection because it had been particularly championed by two lecturers, but that both of these lecturers had been appointed on temporary contracts, and both would be leaving at the end of the academic year. The implication was that, over time, the e-books collection might not be retained without the support that had caused it to be set up.

Lack of the appropriate technology was represented as another key concern. The following e-mail was received from an FE librarian who felt unable to respond to the questionnaire: “I’m afraid we are a long way from using e-books as yet, as we have only just developed an Intranet and have no MLE or VLE as yet. I don’t think that I can be of much help, but the preceding sentence might give you a clue as to the state of some of us in FE!”88

Another factor, not mentioned by the librarians, but which became apparent because many of them described some of the courses on offer at their colleges, was the sheer diversity of these courses, both in terms of subject matter and level of study.

Although they did not say so, one of the factors preventing the major FE publishers from investing in e-books may therefore be that the return on investment would be difficult to achieve, given the relatively low demand that they could expect for each title.

The results of the FE librarians’ response to the questionnaire when asked about their purpose in subscribing to e-books are as follows:

87

At the request of the librarian concerned, who also asked for advice, this questionnaire was completed as a telephone interview, and much extra information volunteered.

88 This response also illustrates the partial understanding of e-books that runs like a thread through the research.

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Table 3: Promoting the Uptake of E-Books: FE Library Analysis No. 1 No. of further education library responses 37 100% No. of subscribers to e-books

7

19%

Subscribe to reference works Subscribe / to monographs from publishers Subscribe via e-booksellers Subscribe to monographs from wholesalers / aggregators Subscribe to textbooks from wholesalers / aggregators Buy “grey” e-book literature

7 1 0 0

100% (of subscribers) 14% “ 0% “ 0% “

0

0%

1

14%

2 5 5

29% (of subscribers) 71% “ 71% “

2

29%

“

3

43%

“

Buy e-books to provide additional copies Buy e-books to provide supplementary texts Buy e-books to provide access to reference works Buy e-books to provide access to material not purchased in print Buy e-books to provide distance-learning access

“ “

It will be noted that the sample of subscribers is far too small to be of significance, or to demonstrate any kind of pattern in FE librarians’ reasons for buying e-books.

Six of the seven FE libraries that subscribed to e-books were able to give details of their spending on both e-books and print books. Total spending per annum on ebooks by these libraries was £14,930, representing an average of £2,488, and total spending per annum on print books £305,000, representing an average of £50,833.

The average spend on e-books was therefore almost 5% of the average spend on print books – higher than the average figure for HE, though the actual spend was less than a quarter as much. The reason for this is most probably that they felt that to spend less than around £2,500 on e-books would not result in a viable critical mass of material.

The two highest spending libraries each spent £3,500 on e-books and £39,000 and £50,000 respectively on print books. All the subscribing libraries were English. Four subscribed to Know UK and Know Europe; three subscribed to Oxford Reference Online; three subscribed to the Oxford English Dictionary; otherwise there was little similarity in their subscriptions. None subscribed to netLibrary (though two had access to netLibrary for degree students via “host” HEIs); the only e-aggregator represented in the list is XRefer.

Little previous work with or by FE librarians on e-books, either published or unpublished, was discovered to give to the panels; consequently the advantages to using and barriers to uptake preventing use of e-books from the FE librarians’ perspective, recorded below, is culled entirely from responses to the questionnaires.

Many of the general advantages of e-books to librarians and barriers to their uptake listed in the section on HEI librarians also apply, of course, to FE librarians.

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3.2.7i FE Librarians: perceived advantages of e-books •

• • •

“Those staff and students who use them comment very favourably, although we do find that Infotrac is not very user-friendly; if you know of a better newspaper site, then we would be very pleased to hear of it. We have difficulty getting students to use our subscribed sites as opposed to a free search; again, if anyone has any ideas then we would be very interested.”89 “E-books (if we could get the right ones) would help solve our problem of resource delivery at remote sites, and the need to support distance learners who are unable to access our resources in person.”

“We will be in partnership with the Universities of X and Y to provide e-books in the future (not next year, however). They can give graduates [degree course students?] access to e-resources, but not students on the lower level courses.”

“The issues are difficult to get your head round; although you tend to be vaguely aware of these things (e.g., government initiatives), you tend to let it filter through. It would be nice to hold a meeting, at regional level, to discuss e-book issues. The publication of the manual [second output of this project] will be extremely helpful; it sounds ideal. Of our seven librarians, only one is chartered.”

3.2.7ii FE librarians: perceived barriers to uptake 3.2.7ii. a) Materials available • “Keeping up with Health and Law books is difficult, as there are lots of new editions. We used to run an ILEX course, which stopped when the lecturer left. I still feel that there are not enough relevant titles, and it’s very difficult to find out what’s available. One of the lecturers pointed out the emphasis on American titles in e-book collections.”

• “Most e-books appear to be aimed at Level 4 courses. The majority of our courses are at lower levels, including foundation level. We might be interested in e-books for Level 3 qualifications courses, e.g., Access / Return to Learning / A2 / AS.” 3.2.7ii. b)Technological problems • “At the college we are currently looking at ways in which a new Managed Learning Environment can be supported by e-learning materials. However, both the actual hardware available to library staff and a lack of support from I.T. staff has meant that this has become increasingly difficult. Therefore, it is unlikely that the library will be buying e-books in the coming year, as they cannot be properly accessed, supported or administrated from within the library.”

• “We are already experiencing problems getting access to our OPAC over the Internet and offering SDI to e-mail addresses outside our college intranet. We have a very small I.T. department, who have as yet been unable to configure our server properly to solve these problems.”

• “The Managed Learning Environment has only recently been set up, and the few students who have attempted to use it have had difficulties in doing so. It 89

Appeals for ideas and help were common from the FE librarians who participated.

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• • •

would not be worth putting a large amount of the library budget into such eresources, as there is not the interest, or demand, from students yet.”

“Many students do not have access to I.T.; we do not wish to disadvantage this (large) group.”

“Many of our users do not have ready access to PCs.” “We would need to provide access to the college intranet / proposed VLE to students at home, to warrant expenditure and maximise usage.”

3.2.7ii. c)E-books offer no advantage over print • “You cannot (physically) move as easily or study in class / away from computer.”

• “The majority of students still prefer to read from paper, rather than from a screen.”

• “I’m still finding it really difficult to persuade learners to use all the wonderful online databases, instead of following the usual, comfortable, general Internet search route. I worry that e-books will be just as difficult to promote.”

• “Currently, e-books have not ‘sold’ themselves as necessary to college library users, although we are looking at ways to provide improved services to distance learners.”

3.2.7ii. d) Other reasons • “Have received very little information about e-books, apart from OED and Xrefer.”

• “Given a limited budget, it is difficult to ‘risk’ taking on a format that may not be fully utilised. We do subscribe to e-journals, because I know they are used, and we will be pushing them even more in the future. It is only a matter of time, I believe, before we do the same with e-books.”

• “In order to create a sufficient amount of e-resource usage, both students and staff would also need further information and training.”

• “I WAIT FOR DEVELOPMENTS.” [Capitals introduced by respondent] • “No chance yet to look into the matter.”

• “I still have mixed feelings about e-books. I have concerns about the issue of ‘ownership’. What happens if the e-book is updated? What happens, for example, if the provider is taken over by another company / provider ..?”

• “We have moved site this year, and the LRC manager is on maternity leave, so we have just not had the chance to look into it.”

• “A barrier to public access; i.e., if the library holds an e-version of a book, anyone, both registered users and the public, can look at it. Lots of reading off the screen / printing.”

• “We have not done any research into e-books, so we do not know what problems we might encounter. We do, however, subscribe to Xrefer and Oxford Online, via ATHENS. We are interested in looking into e-books, but funding could be a deciding factor at this time.”

• “COST!!!!” [Capitals and exclamation marks introduced by respondent] • “The library materials budget has been cut this year by over 25%, and the cuts will continue next year. We do subscribe to journals and other online resources, through ATHENS.”

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A useful way in which some of the problems experienced by FE colleges can be overcome is for them to work in tandem with a “host” university that bears part or some of the cost of the e-book collections that their students use. Three examples of this were found during the course of the research: the supporting HEIs were Huddersfield, Bournemouth and Staffordshire. The Huddersfield initiative, which supports 32 FE colleges, is described in Case Study No. 14. Unfortunately, the benefits of such initiatives are at present limited to students who are enrolled on degree courses. The model offers interesting possibilities if the user base could be extended.

3.2.8 Librarians 3: Consortia Four representatives of consortia were contacted during the course of the research. A meeting held by the SUPC consortium, led by David Ball of Bournemouth University, was also attended. The outcome of the debate on e-books which took place at this meeting was as follows: 1. The consortium members want to buy e-books: they match VLEs and distributed learning (FE colleges, hospitals, etc.).

2. There is a feeling that e-books will turn out to be niche products – for reference, short term loan collections.

3. Content is suspect (latest edition? Time-lag after hard-copy publication?

US bias?).

4. Purchase should be integrated with hard-copy practice (purchased from the same vendors - the library chooses from hardback, paperback, electronic from one list, catalogued in the same way). The consortium therefore feels that it does not want JISC to act on its behalf – it would rather conduct its own negotiations on e-books as part of an overall deal with suppliers.

5. Bundles are not wanted; the consortium wants to buy individual titles or chapters as required.

6. Consortium members expressed general confusion and scepticism about e-books, which led them to want to wait until things “start to gel” before making purchasing commitments.90 The second consortium consisted of a group of Scottish libraries which is at present considering the development of an e-book collection of Scottish materials. Thirtyseven libraries took part in a survey to assess whether they would find such an initiative desirable. Their perceived barriers to wider purchase of e-books, based on their current experiences, were as follows: • Cost (28 out of 37) • Lack of demand (27 out of 37) • Anticipated hardware problems (17 out of 37) • Anticipated software problems (12 out of 37) • Lack of appropriate content for library users (30 out of 37) • Lack of appropriate staff to help provide the service (11 out of 37) • Other comments (each from one respondent): 90

These results are quoted by permission of David Ball. It should be noted that some of the members of the SUPC already buy e-books on an individual basis.

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o o o o o o o o o

Library’s e-book policy currently under development American bias Deals don’t match needs Aesthetics (especially visual / graphic) No time to evaluate content No time to evaluate service Lack of standards Not a priority Lack of knowledge.

The consortium agreed that it was opposed to marketing of any potential deals by the publisher(s) selected (which, its leader pointed out is what has happened in recent JISC deals). HEI institutions were more willing to subscribe to individual titles; others, especially FE s, preferred an annual subscription, because they thought that perhaps it would save time otherwise spent making selections. The smaller libraries were in favour of a banded subscription pricing structure, but the larger ones weren’t.

The third consortium conducted an experiment with e-books which is described in Case Study No. 11. It will be noted that it was not possible for the participating libraries to evaluate the success of the initiative, because the e-book supplier failed to provide user statistics.

The fourth consortium (of seven Irish universities) has conducted a particularly detailed and valuable evaluation of e-books, which will be referred to in more detail in Chapter 4.

Other points which emerged from librarian meetings attended as part of the research for this study: • Training library staff is an issue. Not just the question of who trains the trainers (though this is of course essential), but of ensuring that all the librarians in the library understand how to access and explain the e-books collections91.

• “It may be the librarian’s job to promote awareness of e-books, but not to “plug” them. It is up to the user to decide.”92 • “The chief role of the librarian is to provide access to material required by users, in whatever format seems most appropriate. It is not the librarian’s job to actively promote one format over another.”93 • Lack of understanding of JISC’s role and its initiatives and deals. This point was raised in three of the four meetings of librarians attended. Comments included: o “I thought JISC was a systems supplier.” o “How do I find out about JISC deals?” o “How do I find out about the JISC e-book initiatives?” o “What does the E-book Working Group do?” o “Who is in charge at JISC? I have looked on the website, and I can’t find an organogram.”

91

Librarian meeting No. 4. The point was also raised in a number of individual conversations.

Librarian meeting No. 2.

93 Librarian meeting No. 3.

92

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3.2.9 Academics and Lecturers: perceived advantages and barriers to uptake 3.2.9i Academics The primary research with academics was carried out in four ways: by means of the random “straw poll” already mentioned; by means of a questionnaire, for which responses were elicited from academics by librarians at several of the universities that responded to the librarian questionnaire; by several in-depth interviews, including three at the university of “Middlemarch” and others with the questionnaire respondents; and by means of a focus group at Huddersfield university, followed by two in-depth interviews with academics who had expressed an interest in participating, but were unable to attend the focus group meeting. Some existing research with academics, both published and unpublished was discovered, and combined with the comments from the academics who participated in the original straw poll, to provide some guidelines for the panels on academics’ views on e-books, and barriers to using them. The summary of academics’ views circulated to the panels was as follows: • Lack of knowledge of medium (by far most common reason) • Lack of knowledge of what is available (by far second most common reason) • Lack of suitable available material (the third most common reason: might be the first reason if academics had more overall knowledge) • Lack of time to investigate (the fourth most common reason) • Don’t like the format • Not technologically confident - though students usually are • Technology not yet ready – difficulties in using • Too expensive • The library does not stock • Physically difficult to use – make demands on eyesight, etc.

• Printing out costs make them too expensive • It is not possible to print out – limits their usefulness • Publishers don’t try to sell them • Don’t understand how best to use them – need help from publishers • They give students the wrong idea – that they can get everything that they need on-line • Students won’t pay for them • Advantages over printed books not apparent • “When doing research, it is great to be able to download the books you are using on to a hand-held reader and read on trains; but this only works if you are first familiar with the hard copies of the books. If you came fresh to the publications as e-books, you would be all at sea.”

• “Students can get confused if they dodge about all over the place. I’m not sure of the value of the slice-and-dice model. And if you’re just talking about a straightforward text, what are the advantages of having it in eformat?”

• Slicing and dicing makes plagiarism easier for students – downloading snippets of information and not attributing the sources • How do e-books fit in with Blackboard / Web CT?

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•

Students won’t buy hand-held readers – they cost as much as the average student spends on books each year.

3.2.9i. a) Academics: the questionnaire responses There were twenty-four responses from academics at six universities. The responses were not random: the academics were approached by librarians because they believed them either to be actively using e-books or interested in them. Therefore, the responses illustrate the views of the “great and the good”, rather than those of a representative cross-section of the academic community. The range of subjects they taught was varied: Four taught Business, three taught English, three taught Sports Science, three taught Nursing, and one taught each of the following subjects: Electronic Engineering, Health Policy Management, Archaeology, Education, Dermatology, Modern Languages, Social Sciences, E-Learning, Mental Health and Accountancy. One did not give a subject. Most taught at all undergraduate levels, and postgraduates too.

It should be noted that the academics were asked where they obtained, or were most likely to obtain, e-books and information on e-books, in order to find out which types of promotional effort would be most effective in reaching them. Their answers did not necessarily imply that they had actually found e-books / information from these sources. The objective was that this information would contribute to an understanding of the successes and / or shortcomings of the e-book supply and information supply chains (see Chapter Two), and to give stakeholders involved in supplying information keys to the most effective ways of reaching end-users.

All of the universities concerned had e-book collections. The academics’ responses to their involvement in acquiring e-books, how they use or would expect to use them, and how they find out or would expect to find out about them, are tabulated below.

Table 4: Promoting the Uptake of E-Books: Academic Analysis No. 1 No. of respondents, from 6 universities 24 100% Aware of university’s e-book collection 18 75% Work with librarian on selecting e-books 5 21% Use web resources for teaching and studying 21 88% Use e-books 15 63% Use e-books for lecture preparation Use e-books to prepare course material / handouts Use e-books to carry out research Use e-books to consult tables / formulae Use e-books for general reference information Use e-books for private reading / pleasure

8 9 9 2 10 10

33% 38% 38% 8% 42% 42%

Obtain or likely to obtain e-books from university library Obtain or likely to obtain e-books from other libraries Obtain or likely to obtain e-books direct from publishers Obtain or likely to obtain e-books from booksellers Obtain or likely to obtain e-books free from the Internet

18 3 5 5 14

75% 13% 21% 21% 58%

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3.2.9i. b) Notes: 1. Despite the fact that this group was selected by librarians because the academics were perceived to be interested in e-books, six (25%) did not know that the university had an e-books collection and 9 (37%) were not using e-books.

2. Purposes for which e-books were used were evenly spread – they were not primarily for reference, even though that is librarians’ priority reason for buying them (but results probably skewed by availability issues and the fact that these academics showed a high (58%) instance of finding e-books free on the Internet).

3. That 42% of the academics in this sample said that they used e-books for private reading or pleasure was perhaps surprising, and encouraging.

4. These academics expect to obtain e-books from a variety of sources, not just the library.

Fourteen of the academics are already recommending or would be likely to recommend e-books on reading lists; twelve are already recommending them or would be likely to recommend them verbally.

Three said they had experienced technical difficulties with e-books, and six respondents gave examples of technical difficulties.

Twenty thought that in the future their use of e-books would increase; none thought it would decrease; one thought it would stay the same; two did not answer the question.

Five of the nine academics not using e-books said that they had generally not considered them (although in each case the library thought that they were active in the e-book field); eight said that they were not aware of what was available in their area; none said that they considered that e-books held no advantages over print; two expected to experience access problems; three thought that students would experience access problems.

Seventeen of the total sample of twenty-four said that they would buy an e-book rather than a print book if the e-book were significantly cheaper (several underlined the word “significantly”); two would not buy the e-book even if it were cheaper; five were unsure or said that it depended on the circumstances.

3.2.9i. c) Academics: comments from questionnaires 3.2.9i. c1) Web resources used for teaching and studying purposes • “Blackboard, online libraries, websites, etc.”

• “Web site addresses for students; NHS electronic library for Health in particular.”

• “I am a learning technologist, so I am interested in existing resources, but also create new ones.”

• “On-line teaching for both on campus and off-campus students.”

• “I go on to the Internet and download free ones.”

• “All my modules are supported by Blackboard. Each appropriate session is supported by a WWW link.”

• “Daily use for teaching and research: databases, e-journals, new sites, etc.”

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• • • • • • • • •

“Bibliographical research, reference queries. More for research than teaching.”

“How-to guide for SPSS.” “I am responsible for my University’s eLearning Strategy and a JISC funded researcher into the usability of e-books and electronic text in general.”

“Searches – image capture – etc.”

“Subject specific websites.”

“Blackboard VLE – web links, links to electronic databases for identified articles.”

“Various resources, mainly professional and accounting websites that either provide reading resources or links.”

“To provide information when planning sessions; as a resource on reading lists.”

“Journals, sites attached to text books, teaching information sites, “Bized.””

3.2.9i. c2) Other uses for e-books • “I have created my own to provide conference information; and for creating travel information for use on my PDA while travelling.”

• “I evaluated them for the library here.”

3.2.9i. c3) Where most likely to obtain e-books • “Oxford Text Archive, Uva Ebook Archive, Project Gutenberg, create them myself.”

3.2.9i. c4) On recommending to students • “I’m not likely to.” [Respondent was an active e-book user who mainly reads e-books for pleasure] 3.2.9i. c5) Technical problems • “Systems failure: the system breaks down frequently for long periods, often at the beginning of term: it can’t take the pressure.”

• “I have experienced problems with their creation.”

• “I’ve experienced download problems.”

• “The main problem I have with this kind of resource is reading off a PC screen. Whether or not this is a “technical” problem I can’t say.”

• “I have had problems accessing and also using the search function.”

• “I don’t like to read on the screen: I have to print off. Sites not available for access.”

3.2.9i. c6) Future use of e-books • “Will stay the same. To be more useful, e-books need to incorporate more interactive features that are not available in text versions.”

• “My use will increase, depending on price.”

• “I think that my usage will increase, but within specific areas. I use them for reference purposes mostly. I prefer paperbacks for leisure reading. Mobile learning where people move learning between computers and PDAs may change things – probably, learning objectives.”

• I can only see my usage increasing: it is a cost effective medium.”

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•

• •

• • • •

“My research suggests that within the immediately foreseeable future with respect to academic publication electronic documents, including e-books, are likely to become the norm rather than the exception, although POD [Print on Demand] is likely to provide one important means of accessing documents that are electronically disseminated.”

“I personally spend £450 per annum on e-books.”

“Since I don’t currently use them but they are an expanding resource it seems unlikely that one will be able to avoid their use in the future. Accessibility also seems to be an important aspect – the more there are available, and the “hotter off the press” (a somewhat inappropriate cliché, under the circumstances!) they are – the more likely they are to be used.”

“Not using at present but envisage that will.”

“Libraries are bound to use e-books instead of stocking texts.”

“I don’t know if reading from the screen is an acquired skill, or whether future generations will find this much easier – but personally, this is the biggest problem for me.”

“My use will increase as my knowledge and confidence increases.”

3.2.9i. c7) Reasons for not using • “There aren’t any for my speciality.” [This was not in fact correct: the university in question did have a stock of e-books in the subject concerned.]

• “I have no time to find them, and lots of problems using online e-journals as it is.”

• “Prolonged periods of reading text on a PC screen causes me discomfort.”

• “Don’t like reading on screen. Can’t flick through.”

3.2.9i. c8) Views on e-books as a resource for teaching, learning and research • “An important advantage is that the e-books can always be obtained – they are never out on loan.”

• “On-line journals are very useful because they are available to more than one user at a time. E-books are not generally available in this way [refers to the netLibrary model] and this restricts their value greatly.”

• “Seems a good idea, but I have not a clue how to access them.”

• “Very valuable, because always available.”

• “They can be adapted to meet learning objectives; good for reference; useful for English Literature students.”

• “Potentially a cost effective option for students. Modular formats useful where possible and search and highlighting a great feature; also cut/ paste/ edit/ layering.”

• “They’re valuable. Another but not alternative resource. Basically supplementary – but will become more important because of their functionality.”

• “I think that e-books have a place in teaching and learning which will develop.”

• “I will now make a conscious effort to include e-books on the reading lists.

They are very useful when dealing with large student numbers; very

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• • • • • • • • • •

• •

helpful when included within a VLE; can be used to direct students to specific topics and chapters.”

“Good – as the books could not be stolen. Cheap for students.”

“Will become an increasingly valuable resource in the future.”

“They are already indispensable in the HE environment, for learners, teachers and researchers.” [Comment from a published e-book author] “The chief advantages for me have been (a) the accessibility of some items my own university library does not hold in print form and (b) the facility to search for keywords.”

No training yet. We are inundated with e-mails from the registry and library regardless of our subject specialisation. Most helpful are dedicated communications via the subject librarian (who does a grand job).”

“See http://readability.tees.ac.uk.”

“Potentially of enormous use / benefit. However, potential still to be realised. Unsure as to what’s available in my area of interest. Unsure about cost. Have experienced difficulties downloading.”

“A potentially valuable resource, although care must be taken not to disadvantage those students with no, or limited, access to electronic resources.”

“The main potential is for expensive reference only texts.”

“Advantage would be the ability to customise an existing text to meet specific needs of the syllabus of a module. Text books are very expensive: with an e-book students need only buy and print the specific bits that they may need. Offer interactive features that allow students to annotate, etc. and thereby make materials specific to their individual learning needs.

Offer scope to add in module materials e.g., lecture slides and notes.”

“Another valuable resource, more accessible than other resources, and probably more up to date.”

“Good to widen access – so long as reliable.

Need to ensure that books remain available to students once they have been recommended for a specific module / programme – hopeless to have stopped the licence / access part way through a course.

Printing facilities need to be appropriate to support this mode of study.

Better screens for reading need to be investigated to address health and safety issues of back / neck pain and eye problems.

Training needs to be readily available.

May need paper indexes / contents pages to support the e-book – browsing through something you can’t see the whole of is always frustrating.”

3.2.9ii Academics: additional information contributed by the focus groups and in-depth interviews 3.2.9ii. a) Pedagogical and cultural issues Several of the academics gave fairly detailed consideration to the way in which ebooks might contribute to the teaching and learning experience in new ways. The following interchange from the Huddersfield focus group meeting is the most extensive example. The academic’s discipline is given in bold:

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“Searching, and cutting and pasting, or layering, is an important learning method. It is not plagiarising – you can layer up information from various sources, cannibalise and reinvent it, annotate and extend it, and also pass it on to members of your peer group: this is real research (research is “plagiarising” by another name).” Business / Innovation “E-books enable a new approach to education: use of them illustrates the changing role of the teacher and the learner. It means acceptance that the learner has something to contribute. Reading as a form of communication, not just absorbing knowledge. This is the fascination of the Internet: you are directly engaging, it is a two-way process, not just passive. You can take Blackboard material and change it so that the form suits you as a learner. It is unlikely that the student will read the book, so you take the format, key in what you want, and get students to comment. There is scope for doing this by using some of the database-managed e-book applications.” Business / Innovation “There is the possibility of developing an extended service for health education students – part-time ones – the students would be given more applications and pay for them – it would help them to do assignments if they brought some ideas to it.” Nursing “But this would mean losing a bit of the exploring part of learning, instead of pushing the learning / instruction model further: students should do the investigative work themselves.”

Archaeology / Innovation “I don’t know what’s available in my subject in terms of e-books; but Internet access for students has revolutionised their learning experience. Books take years to come out, and by the time they do, the government has changed its mind – so I use website references in my teaching all the time. E-books would be an extension of this.” Health Management Policy “Database models are of most interest: they revolutionise learning – whereas PDFs are just an extension of “as is”. Archaeology / Innovation “E-books should make people re-evaluate what they do: if the e-books don’t add anything extra, don’t bother with them.” Business / Innovation “Customisation / individualisation of the material is key. What you lift out for students could be spiral bound – the library could help you bind it.” Business / Innovation “It will start adding value to the university if you look at content in different dimensions.

Content is now second to delivery in teaching: this could change.” Business / Innovation

<end of discussion on pedagogical issues from Huddersfield focus group> “I use e-books for lecture and course material preparation, research purposes, consulting tables and reference, but not for pleasure. I did download some poems on to my PDA, but they took up too much memory, and I found it uncomfortable to read them on the screen. For work, I am always looking for new examples to quote, so the wider read I am able to make myself, the better. The net is an excellent resource – I like the ability it offers of flagging up areas to go back to. I can do complicated searches – it’s a good way of working. It is particularly useful to be able to take advantage of interactive tables and formulae – previously, you could only make them available to students through a limited amount of photocopying.” ICT “I would not necessarily buy an e-book over a print book, even if it were cheaper. I tend to want to keep books: I have yards of them at home. I like reading as a physical experience; and I think that young people need to be encouraged to read “real” books too. On the other

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hand, they are a useful tool for effective dissemination, especially if you can think of ways of using them that capitalises on their features and functionality. I think the netLibrary model is poor – I disapprove of the “turnaway” idea. If there are several students wishing to borrow the book, the fact that simultaneous usage has been accessed should just be logged and the library should pay accordingly.

In conclusion: e-books are valuable. They are another but not an alternative resource.

Basically, their application should be supplementary: but within this context they will become more important because of their functionality.” ICT “I don’t buy e-books as yet, but may do in the future. I use e-books as a tool, but I dislike the fact that they are not tactile. The smell, feel and weight of a book is important to me. Ebooks might grow on me, but from a leisure point of view, I like to respond with all my senses.

I have to print everything out in any case – I experience a dislocation from reality when looking at a screen. I have to touch, feel, annotate a document before it means anything to me.” ICT

3.2.9ii. b) Further comments on technical / access issues The Huddersfield focus group also deliberated at length on technological issues and the related questions of fitness for purpose in different disciplines and problems of student access to e-books: • “I think that the functionality needs to be subject specific – to take into account the different requirements of different subjects. One size does not fit all.” Health Management Policy • “Hand held readers are not very useful for reading: I tried reading on the train on mine and I couldn’t – I’ve got a good one, but it didn’t work. But it is useful for transporting chunks of information: taking foreign dictionaries abroad; reference.” Archaeology / Innovation • “Internet access for my students goes up year on year, but it is a slow process.

Approximately 50% of my students have Internet access. Within the NHS it is coming, but very slowly: not in all locations, and often not in a ward or clinic.

Hospitals have firewalls, so it is not easy for the students to get into it. Some wards are beginning to get it: good for student nurses who are doing night shifts, when the ward is quiet. I went to Finland recently, and the student nurses there all have ward access.” Nursing • “That’s like the University of Leyden, where all the doctors use their laptops on the wards, and they have wireless networks in the hospital.” Archaeology / Innovation • “The Engineering department here is developing a wireless network that the students can access: they will do the whole building – have two wireless hubs – so that people can use laptops anywhere. It only costs £10 each.” Business / Innovation • “Some health students use their mobile phones. Mobile phones in hospitals can be difficult: but they seem to have overcome their problems, and the nurses do use them in many places.” Nursing • “Some health students are more likely to use Internet resources than to buy a book. Some of their books are actually less expensive than for other disciplines – around £30.” Health Management Policy • “I do also use textbooks that are accompanied by web support materials, and I find these useful. They can extend what’s in the hard copy, not only in the knowledge base, but also by honing I.T. skills. But I find I have to check the web links regularly, as addresses are changed or weblinks are no longer live.

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Students are supposed to review web-learning materials as part of their assessment for the course, but I have not received a single comment about ebooks from students this year – it is disappointing.” Dermatology • “I talked to a guy from Geography last week – he does a lot of field work. He was looking for on-line help. He didn’t want to carry out random searches – he needed, not a relational database (which is my understanding of how ebook databases are managed at present) but a hierarchical one – for soil, etc.

He said that this was his problem with e-books.” Business / Innovation • “Publishers need to consider in more detail subject specific tools: ways of searching by discipline.” Health Management Policy • “I would like to be able to use both the e-book format and the print text supported by supplementary electronic learning materials. Students who are distance learning and don’t have Internet access certainly need the book.

Also, using technology is still pretty scary for some students: learning a new subject and having to learn technology at the same time is not a good start.”

Nursing 3.2.9ii. c) General Issues • “It’s boring sitting in front of a computer for too long.” Nursing • “But I hate sitting in the library!” Archaeology / Innovation • “You go into the library and find other things by wandering into other disciplines: if you just commit yourself to e-resources, you don’t get the richness of cross-fertilisation – there’s a danger of tunnel vision if you take it too far.” Business / Innovation • “Is there special help for disabled students?” Health Management Policy • “There is software, but its effectiveness is dependent on how you put it together. You could argue that publishers are supporting discrimination: they have the opportunity and they’re not taking it. One thing that should come out of this report is this message.” Business / Innovation • “I’ve had a look at e-travel books: you can compile your own, picking and mixing chapters about the places you are going to. I like this idea.”

Archaeology / Innovation 3.2.9ii. d) Price and Publishing Issues There were several comments from the Huddersfield focus group about price, some offering the opinion that e-books are too expensive, others expressing the hope that ebooks would make texts that are expensive in print more accessible to students because they would be cheaper; and several complaints from the academics that they did not receive information about e-books from publishers, and did not see reviews of e-books, illustrated by the following examples: • “Why don’t we hear from publishers? If they want to, they can contact academics. Some do – I get lists regularly from X and Y. But there is never anything about e-books. I’m writing a book for Y over the summer, and they haven’t mentioned putting it in e-format.” Health Management Policy • “I have never had a direct approach from a publisher trying to sell e-books, though I have had some circulars – flyers – from Churchill Livingstone and Dunnett’s. I try to make the information available to the students as I receive it. I have never seen an e-book review. I and several colleagues review texts,

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but always print ones. I think e-book reviews would be useful.”

Dermatology • “I am not surprised that publishers are chary of making more content available in e-book format. I can see the point when people will actually say that the national library has a copy of every book – use that. It would be downright ripping off as far as the publishers are concerned. I know colleagues whose books have been pirated in the Far East, so I understand publishers’ reluctance.

I have seen e-books reviewed at Amazon, and on various websites, but not in the kind of academic journals that would validate them. There was a feature on them in the Times Ed recently. I should find proper reviews useful.” ICT

3.2.9iii “Middlemarch” in-depth academic interview responses: extra information The identity of the “University of Middlemarch”, which ranks itself among the top five universities in the country, has been protected because of the strong thread of criticism of the library running through both the academics’ and students’ comments94. The three academics who were interviewed from Middlemarch, who taught History, Structural Engineering and Electronic Engineering respectively, were not aware that the library had a stock of e-books, though all were using e-books. One was devising his own e-books. As well as covering many of the points raised by the Huddersfield academics, they added the following observations to the debate: • •

“I only use e-books found through my own research, which are available free on the Net. The library does not keep me informed; I do not yet use e-books in teaching.” Structural Engineering “Mature and part-time (e.g., evening class) students have been the first to exploit electronic resources; getting to the library can be too inconvenient for them, although, ideally, they prefer to own their own copies of texts. Younger students tend to rely too much on the Internet. The danger is that material can be weak – propaganda, for example – and they can fail to spot this. Interesting things, like an undergraduate finals essay, have been turned up, but not necessarily used! The use of material from the web is becoming a tendency, and it is good, in that it breaks down the traditional academic “wholesale” approach into bite-sized bits, but, inevitably, a sense of context, so crucial to history, cannot always survive the process.

Google is very useful for specific date searches, and also good for catching up on recent material, e.g., East European newspapers. But it tends to take too long to sift through the body of material.

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There was a strong contrast between comments from the respective academics on this library and the library at Huddersfield University. The following are comments from the Huddersfield academics: “The library learning centre here is excellent – so helpful. Students always have an induction day in the library, as well as the department training sessions. It annoys me that the students often don’t take full advantage of what the library has to offer. I’m not sympathetic when they say that they can’t find the information – because I know the library would help them if they asked.” “I have to confess that I have successfully evaded the training sessions in the library so far – though they are very good – they prick my conscience now and then – they say things like “Are you sure you want to keep on using this reading list that you developed in 1969?”

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We were persuaded to use electronic content packs prepared by other universities, but they were very thin on History! There has been little recent development of the use of electronic resources, apart from some (useless) training.” History • “E-books can be a useful complement to print books: I recently looked at the e-version of a source, then, when I knew it would be useful, went to Oxford to study the original.” History 3.2.9iii. a) On future use of e-books • “[Will] increase, but the information is not dispersed sufficiently at present.” History • “Much more is appearing, which is very useful, but there is more application at higher degree level; I do not think that my undergraduate teaching will change. A mixture of electronic and traditional methods will emerge; I’m not sure, however, of what proportion to each other the two ingredients will be in!” Structural Engineering • “It’s the way it must go! I wouldn’t publish a conventional textbook.

No one print book ever covers the subject, where smaller, integrated ebooks can. Also, publishers always avoid sophisticated diagrams, and they impose financial constraints on academics and students.

Textbooks also fail to adapt to change, where e-books are updatable.

Copyright is no problem – you can set PDFs to prevent printing / downloads by students!

Between authors, the industry and users, and the various technologies, the interfaces do not appear to exist yet. This is a disadvantage, but understandable and manageable, when you consider the differing pace of developments in the various sectors.”

Electronic Engineering The italics in bold are mine. This seems to be an appropriately perceptive comment on which to conclude the section on academics’ current thinking on e-books.

3.2.10 FE Lecturers There were twenty responses to the questionnaire from FE lecturers at sixteen colleges. These colleges were situated throughout the country. The (incentivised) appeal for responses went out through the Regional Support Centres [RSCs]; therefore, respondents were self-selected at random: they were not “chosen” as the academics were. Consequently, as a group the college lecturers might be felt to form a more representative sample of the community at large than the academics, though the sample is tiny. However, the fact that they took the trouble to respond is likely to indicate a higher than average interest in e-books, and their responses make it clear that the respondents are very interested in using ICT in their work. They taught such a huge range of subjects at different levels that these have not been listed.

The lecturers’ responses to their involvement in acquiring e-books, how they use or would expect to use them, and how they find out or would expect to find out about them, are tabulated below.

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Table 5: Promoting the Uptake of E-Books: FE Lecturer Analysis No. 1 No. of respondents, from 16 colleges 20 100% Aware of collegeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s e-book collection, if it had one* 5 25% Work with librarian on selecting e-books (% of those aware) 2 40% Use web resources for teaching and studying 19 95% Use e-books 11 55% Use e-books for lecture preparation Use e-books to prepare course material / handouts Use e-books to carry out research Use e-books to consult tables / formulae Use e-books for general reference information Use e-books for private reading / pleasure

5 9 6 1 9 2

25% 45% 30% 5% 45% 10%

Obtain or likely to obtain e-books from college library 6 30% Obtain or likely to obtain e-books from other libraries 4 20% Obtain or likely to obtain e-books direct from publishers 7 35% Obtain or likely to obtain e-books from booksellers 1 5% Obtain or likely to obtain e-books free from the Internet 12 60% * It was without the scope of the study to conduct an exhaustive check on how many of the colleges concerned actually did have e-book collections, as not many lecturer responses could be cross-referred with the college librariansâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; responses; however, at least one lecturer was unaware that his college had a (considerable) e-books collection.

3.2.10i Notes: 1. Although it was a more random sample than for the academics, use of ebooks by the lecturer group was only 8% lower.

2. As with the academics, purposes for use were diverse and fairly evenly spread.

3. As with the academics, there was an expectation that e-books would be obtained from a variety of sources. The lecturers were more likely to obtain e-books direct from publishers than from the college library or other libraries.

4. They were more likely to obtain e-books free from the Internet than from any other source.

Fifteen of the lecturers are already recommending or would be likely to recommend them on reading lists; fifteen are already recommending them or would be likely to recommend them verbally.

Four of the lecturers said they had experienced technical difficulties with e-books.

Nineteen thought that in the future their use of e-books would increase; none thought it would decrease; one thought it would stay the same.

Five of the nine lecturers not using e-books said that they had generally not considered them; nine said that they were not aware of what was available in their area; none said that they considered that e-books held no advantages over print; two expected to experience access problems; none said that they thought that students would experience access problems.

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Sixteen of the total sample of twenty said that they would buy an e-book rather than a print book if the e-book were significantly cheaper); one would not buy the e-book even if it were cheaper; three were unsure.

3.2.10ii FE Lecturers: Comments from questionnaires 3.2.10ii. a) Web resources used for teaching and learning materials • “Research to prepare materials; advise students to use web for research; online tests and quizzes; image repositories to illustrate learning materials.”

• “Infotrac, Google, RDN, NLN, KnowUK, Euromonitor, Heritage, etc.”

• “Use various internet sites for students to search for information (I think this falls into the category of web resources!)”

• “BBC website and Google.”

• “Mainly the Internet.”

• “I look at websites relating to aspects of health care and social care, e.g., Nursing Times. Also websites for specific conditions, e.g., National Schizophrenia Fellowship.”

• “Use FSA and other websites for research food hygiene materials.”

• “Infotrac, WHATT.” • “E-books, websites, online presentations, VLE, Intranet sources – all used for Teacher Training for ILT. Examples include VTS tutorials at www.vts.rdn.ac.uk. FERL website, BECTA website, JISC website, BBC (including online tutorials), recommend URLs for others and embed these into learning materials.”

• “Web CT to support teaching inside college, other college / university sites on related topics.”

• “BBC Skillswise, other basic skills sites.”

• “For RBL sessions research list of sites for student subject areas for some online research databases licensed, Croners Catering e-book, reference.”

• “A range of relevant websites and my college is about to fully implement a VLE that will make the use of web resources even more central to delivery.”

• “Public Sector Organisation websites, e.g., UK Government ODPM.” • “Using the Net to study and research articles.”

• “AVLE ICT.” • “City Mutual database, British Tourist Authority reports, reports from staruk.org.uk website (statistics), Springboard database (subscribe to).”

3.2.10ii. b) Technical problems • “Didn’t have ATHENS password – had to get it from librarian.”

• “Crashing out. Files too big to download.”

• “Some require Acrobat Adobe Reader, which some computers in college don’t have.”

3.2.10ii. c) Other problems • “Who holds the budget? Who pays access fees?”

3.2.10ii. d) Comments on future use • “At the current time we do not use e-books and we are not intending doing so.”

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3.2.10ii. e) View on e-books as a resource for teaching, learning and research • “Very useful; could be publicised more widely.”

• “Not all students have computers at home. A book is easier to use within teaching, it can be taken anywhere at any time.

E-books may be a good idea for those with disabilities; I am not sure whether e-books come with audio packages. If this were so, it would make worthwhile taking another look at them.”

• “Not knowing anything about e-books it is difficult to comment; however I would like to know more.”

• “As the vast majority of my students are PC literate, it would be extremely useful as an independent learning tool.

The absence of data projectors in my teaching rooms make the use of e-books problematic as a teaching tool.”

• “More students than ever use the Internet and nothing else to research topics for projects. I would like to be able to guide them in their surfing. I think [ebooks] would help to supplement the information that can be disseminated in a classroom situation, and would be useful for students to go back and read after the lesson if there was something they didn’t understand.”

• “I think they would be valuable, particularly if you could link directly to various sections of the book, e.g., a reference to a particular page, etc.”

• “As always, the key is good information processing skills and it is still less easy to absorb and process information you find on screen than that you physically hold in your hand. I have used e-books very effectively for background work, preparation for classes and for professional development, but I am very e-literate and confident. I also know how to only print or download extracts but many others are not yet this competent and bottle out. I think e-books will be more widely used in the future but the quality of the resource always determines the take-up.”

• “I am actively trying to promote ILT in college and have found the Learnfish e-books (software guides) to be brilliant. I’ve copied nine (with the copyright owner’s knowledge) onto CDs for staff at a cost of 20 pence per CD. I then use the fact that I’ve only utilised 10% of the CD’scapacity and the costs of printing to suggest that the electronic medium for general research and support at least is more cost effective and ticks more boxes (for forthcoming inspection) than printing ever could.”

• “Very useful when working with a VLE.” • “Ease of storage and cheapness are the main advantages of e-books in my area of work (Basic Skills).”

• “Another good resource, as good as printed but easier for students to copy parts and take away. Does searching for you, which may not help in reading skills, but speeds up research. More accessible than going to library, can be accessed around college via network.”

• “If an e-book was particularly suited to a curriculum area, then I would certainly consider using and recommending it.”

• “Often there are chapters rather than whole books, which are useful; often the lecturer “add-ons” like lesson plans and tests look very useful.”

• “If found useful, it is an area I will develop. It may save time with preparation of lessons.”

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• • •

“Could be better than text / reference books in being more widely available.

Easier to extract and print information from e-book. Students appear to like using computers rather than books.”

“Very useful for staff and students. There is an issue with students printing out lots and lots of irrelevant materials.”

“Reports often more up to date – good because can just focus on parts you are most interested in.”

The FE lecturer responses demonstrate that, although e-books have achieved very low exposure in FE colleges, on the whole where they are used they are adopted with at least as much enthusiasm and innovation in teaching as in universities. The practical problems associated with the introduction and widespread use of e-books in FE colleges are clearly greater than in universities.

3.3 Complementary / Supplementary Support Materials for Print Books That some publishers develop complementary or supplementary learning materials to support print books has now been mentioned several times. Gold Leaf has carried out two substantial pieces of research for two different publishing houses on academics’ views on the forms that such materials should take. Although the detailed results of this research are confidential, and belong to the two publishing houses concerned, they have agreed to release some of the general conclusions of the research in order to inform the current study. It will be seen that the types of material that the academics interviewed for the publishing houses (more than one hundred in total, across a variety of disciplines) were looking for match the types of use to which the more innovative academics and lecturers interviewed for the current project are putting elearning materials. The types of support materials requested by academics for the publisher-sponsored projects were: • • • • • • • • • •

Powerpoint presentations Interactive learning materials Short and long case studies Cross-references to suitable (vetted and appraised) websites Self-marking multiple choice questions Video clips Simulated real-life situations Learning games Data sets Managed chat-rooms for learning projects95

One of the publisher projects was about developing appropriate support materials for first year students; the other was about developing appropriate materials for third year students and postgraduates. The findings are commercially sensitive, and cannot be recorded in detail; but they do make it clear that different types of support materials are required for students working at different levels (the “one size does not fit all” theme again).

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I am grateful to Hodder Arnold and Butterworth Heinemann respectively for allowing me to use this information.

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Some e-books are interactive (some of the Knovel collections, for example), but few provide the range of support materials and links in the above “wish-list”. Many ebooks are, of course, straightforward PDFs of print texts.

Two important points emerge: 1. Representatives from three of the major stakeholders (publishers, librarians and academics) have commented that e-books are in a state of transition. If some of the features mentioned above were incorporated in a more wholesale way, uptake of e-books across the potential user base might be much greater.

2. The very large publishing houses, who have already developed sophisticated learning support materials to accompany print textbooks, might find development of e-books more attractive than hitherto if they could link it with further exploitation of these materials (but such an outcome is unlikely to be cheap!)

3.4 Social and Cultural Issues Social and cultural issues relating to the use of e-books have been raised many times, both directly and indirectly, by the academic and lecturer respondents. As well as all of the physical issues concerning the relative discomforts / strangeness of using ebooks, the learning/cultural issues are of great importance. A source of reference which crystallises these issues may be obtained from the twelve academic case studies which were written as part of the University of “Atlantis’s” assessment of its installation of Blackboard. Although the comments relate particularly to the university’s pilot launch of Blackboard, all of the comments are also relevant to the adoption and use of e-books, and of particular interest to librarians and academics interested in the “slice-and-dice” options that are possible for MLEs and VLEs. Some of the comments relate specifically to e-books. All are quoted verbatim from the case studies: • Blackboard learning lacks all the visual cues of a face-to-face environment: for example, the tutor cannot pick up on feedback, cannot emphasise points, and cannot change the pace of a discussion.

• For the student and for the tutor there can be a feeling of isolation.

• It is necessary to get students using the site straight away, using it for assessment, assignments and work for seminars: if students see the facility as an add-on, they won't use it.

• Staff need training and technical support, and they need to agree on how Blackboard is to be used. For them, Blackboard is not necessarily timesaving, and its use requires careful thought.

• The technology must work first time: otherwise, the students lose interest.

• For the student, there are other issues: it is not necessarily their preferred way of learning. Have their tutors made it very clear whether it is embedded in their course or is an optional add on? And do they have the access they need to computers?

• Blackboard enables easier access to more resources, particularly through its Web Sites links and through pointers to particular books and chapters.

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•

•

•

•

As far as the students are concerned, there has been very little feedback – “no real criticism, but teenage indifference. I found some right up to the end who hadn’t been anywhere near it, despite them coming from faculties where I knew they were on other modules that use Blackboard.”

Book chapters. “So for example I’ve put draft chapters of my book as a backing to the lectures – I wanted feedback from students, and said I would cite them in the book, but in fact only one commented. But they did use them. After all, I drew on a very wide range of literatures – it was one year full-time, drawing stuff together for them”.

“It is essential to have someone sit down next to you at the point when you need to do it, particularly in humanities where we are not computer confident, and because where you are overstretched this seems initially to be an extra burden.

You need to demonstrate how very easy it is.” [relates to colleague support] [Lecturer 11] comments that when students are in the faculty, they might have to ‘fight’ to get on to a PC and not all can access at home. Moreover, some students prefer other means of learning. He has had no direct student feedback, but for example was approached by students in Year 1 requesting material to be posted ahead of a lecture. He says “I know that over 50 per cent are using it.”96

Students’ attitudes to e-books represent perhaps the culmination of the research, eve though it is clear at this stage that students’ opinions are not completely independent, but based upon academics’, lecturers’, and to a certain extent, librarians’, recommendations. They are explored in the next section.

3.5 The Students Students’ print book-buying behaviour has been discussed in Chapter Two. The student book-buying study carried out by Gold Leaf also examined students’ use of the Internet in this context, and found that although 97% of the students of this 2001 sample used the Internet and 57% looked up the prices of books online, only 6% actually bought books online97. A very recently published survey of 750 students commissioned by CAPP [ the Committee of Academic and Professional Publishers], which is presented as a follow-up to another student book buying survey carried out in 2001, finds that student use of the Internet for the purposes of study has not increased significantly during the past two years: “Students were asked to estimate how much time in an average week they spent accessing the Internet for their courses, and the average time is 3 hours, though this varies from students not using it at all (9% of the respondents) to those using it for up to 40 hours, with 7% using it for at least 10 hours … We would estimate that one in five students uses the Internet for at least 1 hour a day, while one in three uses it for no more than 1 hour per week. These figures are very similar to those obtained in 2001.

Internet usage is high among: new universities, Science and Technology students, Business and Management students and Law students, though given the wide variety of courses

96 97

“Atlantis” may publish its report in due course.

Survey of Student Book Buying 2001 / 2002. Gold Leaf, 2002. p. 11.

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involved in each grouping there is wide disparity of use within each demographic group.

Usage is higher among newer students, and also among non-book buyers.”98

An educated guess that may be drawn from these findings is that overall, the student population’s use of e-books has not grown by a statistically significant amount over the past two years, since if this were the case, the overall student Internet usage figures would be higher. However, it may also be significant that subjects in which the greatest Internet usage is recorded - Science and Technology, Business and Management, and Law - are subjects which are relatively well represented in the ebook format. Finally, the fact that Internet usage is higher among newer students almost certainly reflects the fact that access is easier for these students, because a higher proportion of them occupies campus accommodation during the first year of study. Although the CAPP study finds that only 7% of students have difficulty in accessing the Internet, it does not further refine this question with enquiries about daytime / evening or on-campus / off-campus access. It has not been within the scope of the current study to carry out a comprehensive student survey on the model of the CAPP surveys and the earlier Gold Leaf survey to provide the answers to such questions: but anecdotal evidence recorded from the students interviewed suggests that students’ off-campus access to the Internet is still limited. The implication to be drawn from this is that second and third year students in particular are likely to find ebooks an inaccessible resource when they are working from their off-campus accommodation.

The CAPP survey finds that students spend on average £133 per annum on books, with the majority of the amount being spent on new and essential books99. This represents an increase of £5 since 2001, i.e., it is broadly in line with book inflation.

It may therefore be concluded from this that student book buying behaviour has not changed significantly over the past two years. Students who contributed to the CAPP survey were not asked whether this figure included e-book purchases.

Some published and unpublished research into student attitudes to e-books was discovered during the literature search for the current study, including unpublished research supplied by librarians who have carried out their own surveys; some of it will be referred to in Chapter 5. However, the detailed answers to the specific questions addressed by the study could only be provided by carrying out extensive primary research, and, as explained in Appendix One, for reasons of brevity the earlier work has not been quoted as well. The panels were circulated with some of the earlier work, and with the results of the new primary student research as they became available.

The primary student research consists of the following: 1. Analysis of responses to a questionnaire which was circulated to three groups of students: a group of mature distance learning Business students based at the University of the West of England; a group of first year students studying a variety of subjects at the “University of Middlemarch”; and a group of newly graduated Business students at the University of Huddersfield.

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CAPP Student Survey: Student Information Sources and Book Buying Behaviour 2003. Prepared for the Publishers Association by Book Marketing Limited, May 2003.

99 Op. cit., p. 21.

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2. Two focus groups, conducted with the Middlemarch and Huddersfield students.

3. A small group of six FE students based at a London college who also responded to the questionnaire.

4. A focus group kindly conducted with ten health and midwifery students by Leo Appleton of Edgehill College on behalf of the study.

5. A study undertaken by students at Strathclyde University, supervised by Dr. Monica Landoni and using as its basis the questionnaires and structured questions devised for this report, will be available shortly, and will be incorporated into the final version of the report.

In order to get the maximum from the students’ responses to the questionnaires, an attempt was made to categorise the students very carefully, by cohort and year where possible, and by whether or not they were e-book users in the case of the distance learners. Therefore, the questionnaires have been analysed in clusters, and not as an entire set. However, a grid analysis of all the student questionnaire results is also provided at the end of this section.

3.5.1 Group 1: UWE Postgraduate Management Students This cohort of students was selected and approached by Elspeth Williams, the Business Librarian at the University of the West of England, because they constitute a group which has had special tuition in e-resources, including e-books, likely to help them as distance-learning students, and because, as mature students, she thought that they would be likely to be willing to help the project. They are all students who work for the same big national company, engaged upon a part-time master’s degree specifically tailored to the requirements of the company. They attend UWE two days per month; the rest of their work is carried out via distance learning techniques. They are widely dispersed geographically: responses were received from Scotland, the Midlands and the South-West. Sixteen responses were received. As far as could be told from the e-mail addresses, they were predominantly from males.

UWE has a netLibrary collection which has been matched against reading lists, and management books are well represented. It also has a number of database e-book applications.

3.5.1i • • • • •

Responses from the e-book Users Eight students (exactly half the cohort) were e-books users Of these, seven knew that the university had a stock of e-books All of the eight had attended the library training session Seven of them remembered that it had included information about e-books Six said that they used web resources for studying and learning purposes (therefore, two of them did not count e-books as a “web resource”).

Comments: • “Particular instruction was given on remote access to library resources as well as the normal on-site use of the system” • “There was a hands-on tutorial mentored by library staff” • “I use UWE Library Search and Google search engine for links”

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• • • • •

•

“We were told about database resources for magazine articles and academic journals articles” “I use the web for coursework research using databases such as Science Direct, Emerald” “I attended a seminar at UWE where I’m working “I use Emerald and Business Premier – both very good” “The library induction included a description of the material available and where / how to access the materials; this was followed by each student completing practical examples of using the electronic search engines etc. within the library to find and access books, periodicals and e-versions [sic]” “Training session given with on-line demonstration”.

3.5.1i. a) Types of work for which e-books were used • One of them used e-books to prepare for seminars and lectures • None used e-books to prepare for examinations • Six of them used e-books to prepare essays and coursework • Two used e-books to consult tables and formulae • Five used them for general reference purposes.

3.5.1i. b) How e-books were obtained • Seven said they obtained e-books from the university library • Four obtained them from other libraries as well • One obtained them from publishers • None obtained them from booksellers • Three obtained them free from the Internet.

3.5.1i. c) Functions of e-books which were used and appreciated • Six had used e-books for straightforward reading or browsing of complete books, and of these two said that they had found it helpful • Four had used e-books for straightforward reading or browsing of discrete chapters, and of these one said that it was helpful • Six had used e-books to carry out keyword searches, and of these two said that it was helpful • One had used the “highlight” function • None had used the “bookmark” or “annotate” functions • Five had used the download facility to download part of the book, and of these one said that it was helpful • One had used the download facility to download the whole book • Four had used the facility which enabled them to print out part of the book, and of these one said that it was helpful.

3.5.1i. d) Technical problems experienced • One had experienced problems with e-books: “The website kept telling me there were no e-books.”

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3.5.1i. e) Estimates of future use of e-books • Seven thought that their use of e-books would increase in the future; one thought that it would decrease • Six thought that they would buy the e-book in preference to the print book if the e-book were cheaper; one would buy the print book; one did not reply to the question.

3.5.1i. f) Other comments from this sub-group: • “I found it quite difficult to use and had problems with the appropriate search criteria” • “As I am involved in a course which requires me to attend UWE for two days a month and study at home (Glasgow) the rest of the month, I find the web resources very useful” • “A very useful studying tool, particularly for distance learners like myself” • “Quick and easy access to information without having to visit library facility” • “What are e-books exactly? … I’m not being funny. E-books is a term I have never heard – I was last at college in 1988.” [this from someone who describes himself as a user elsewhere] .. “even not knowing what they are, I guess paper will at some time have had its day” …. “Its possible that I am using them but just not aware” …. “I’d be happy to summarise my views if given a definition. Is a journal article in PDF format an e-book?”

• “As a part-time remote student e-books are invaluable for general reading and gathering information to complement the course and preparing assignment material. More please” • “For distance learning students, the facility to access e-books is invaluable.

Unfortunately, they are not as available as I would have liked at the moment” • “I have limited use and knowledge to date but have so far found e-books a fast effective way to access information”.

3.5.1ii Responses from the e-book non-users • • •

• •

Eight of the cohort did not use e-books Of these, four knew that the library had a stock of e-books Seven of the eight said that they had attended the library training session [which, from the information provided by the librarian, corroborated by the half of the cohort who remembered, did include an e-books briefing] Of these, one remembered that it had included information about ebooks Six of the eight said that they used web resources for studying and learning purpose

3.5.1ii. a) Comments: • “I used a number of websites for an assignment on Workplace Bullying” • “I intend to log on to the library resources and use the internet, although I haven’t started this yet”

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• • • • • • •

“I use Emerald and other search sites for finding papers” [Note: one of the respondents in the first group counted Emerald as an e-book resource] “Databases and professional body websites” “Not yet but may soon”.

One was not currently using e-books because he had not considered them Three were not aware of what was available in their subject Two thought that e-books offered no advantages over print One thought that he would experience access problems.

3.5.1ii. b) Functions of e-books which were used and appreciated: non-user group Interestingly, this group was more interested in the possible features offered by e-books than the user group: • Four thought that straightforward reading or browsing of the whole book would be helpful • Five thought that straightforward reading or browsing of discrete chapters would be helpful • Three thought that a keyword search would be useful • One thought that a “highlight” function would be useful • One thought that a “bookmark” function would be useful • Two thought that an “annotate” function would be useful • Four thought that being able to download part of the book would be useful • Three thought that being able to download the whole book would be useful • Four thought that the being able to print out part of the book would be useful.

3.5.1ii. c) How e-books would be likely to be obtained: non-user group • Five said that if they did use e-books, they would be likely to obtain them from the university library • Two would be likely to obtain them from other libraries • Two would be likely to obtain them from booksellers • Three would be likely to obtain them free from the Internet.

3.5.1ii. d) Estimates of future use of e-books • Seven thought that their use of e-books would increase in the future; one thought it would stay the same • Six thought that they would buy an e-book in preference to a print book if the e-book were cheaper; one would not buy the e-book; one did not answer the question.

3.5.1ii. e) Comment from this sub-group: • “I think e-books will become more available and used more widely in all areas of work and pleasure”.

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Note: of the whole cohort of sixteen students, therefore, fourteen thought that their use of e-books would increase in the future, and twelve would buy the ebook rather than the print book if the e-book were cheaper Other comments from this sub-group: • “I’ve not had much opportunity to use these, although why not? I use electronic versions of periodicals” • “I prefer to read from paper copies (where text length is substantial) and electronic media would just be a means of transporting information” • “Most of the assignments were based on reading hard copy books from the library. This appeared to be the easiest method of obtaining information. Some journals were used in some subjects in e-book format. The remote access was not always reliable and not clearly explained. Passwords didn’t appear to work always and this made it difficult. Thus I avoided this method” • “Using e-books as a resource for studying would be useful, however if it was something I was likely to use a lot or want to keep then I would wish to have it in print format. As with borrowing a book from a library or finding a paper on the internet, this is not a resource that I would want to pay for even if significantly cheaper due to the short term probably one off use” • A great study aid, but no more than that”.

3.5.2 Group 2: First year undergraduates at the University of Middlemarch This group was studying a variety of subjects (Computing, Modern Languages, Biochemistry, Media, English, English and Creative Writing, History). The students, who on the whole were unfamiliar with e-books, were asked to examine at least one ebook from the library’s collection in detail before responding to the questionnaire and taking part in the focus group.

Note: as for the academics’ responses, the University of Middlemarch has not been identified, because of the generally poor opinion that both the students and academics who participated in the survey have of its library service. The library declined to answer the HEI questionnaire for librarians, even though it was particularly requested to do so, and was informed that Middlemarch students and academics were participating. It subscribes to netLibrary, and has 137 books from this source, which it advertises on the library website, but has not added to the catalogue. In fairness to Middlemarch, it only acquired the netLibrary collection in January, after the main library induction sessions of the year had taken place.

Seven students took part in the survey: four were male, and three female. One of the male students participated in the focus group but did not answer the questionnaire.

The students who participated in this survey have not been divided into “users” and “non-users”, partly because the group was small, and partly because the whole group participated in the focus group.

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3.5.2i Middlemarch students: use of e-books: use of web resources • Two of the students had used e-books before they participated in the survey.

Of these, only one [Computing, F] knew that the library had an e-books collection. She had found out about it with the help of the subject librarian.

The other had “stumbled across an e-book by accident” – not one from the library collection • Five of them had attended the library’s induction session. They agreed that it contained no information about e-books • All used web resources for studying and learning purposes.

3.5.2ii Comments: • “I did use electronic resources for my essay, but I find they are quite often not what I really want, i.e., they are not as helpful as they are supposed to be.”

Computing, F • “I use the German Studies Web Board.” Languages, F • “I use the web for searching educational websites for research and the collection of information on specific subjects related to my course” Biochemistry, M • “Websites, the library online database, online encyclopaedias” Media, F • “Searching for information regarding my course, e.g., poetry commentaries” English, M • “Internet research for essays, secondary criticism, etc., also online dictionaries, thesaurus’ and encyclopaedias” English / Creative Writing, M.

3.5.2iii Types of work for which e-books were used or were thought likely to be used; how they would be obtained; technical problems; reasons for not using, opinions of future use of e-books and likelihood of buying in preference to print if cheaper • The Computing student used e-books to aid the preparation of essays and coursework • All except the Languages student thought that they would be most likely to obtain books via the university library. The Languages student thought she would be most likely to obtain them from a bookshop • The Media and English students would also be likely to try to find them free on the Internet • All said that they thought that their use of e-books would increase in the future • Two had experienced technical problems with e-books • Four were not using e-books because, generally, they had not considered them; three did not know what was available in their subject; one considered that e-books held no advantages over print; one thought that she would experience access problems; one thought that access would not be certain enough at exam times • Three would buy the e-book in preference to the print book if the e-book were cheaper. The other three were clear that they would not.

3.5.2iii. a) Comments: Technical Problems • “If I didn’t make a note of the name of the book (article), sometimes I cannot find it when I want to re-access it” Computing, F

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•

“When accessing via the university network, the contents page could not be displayed”. Biochemistry, M

3.5.2iii. b) Comments: Other problems • “Headaches from looking at a computer screen for extended periods”. Media, F 3.5.2iii. c) Comments: Will use of e-books increase in the future?

• “The real books are getting more and more expensive and the speed of updating is not as fast as e-books” Computing, F [Observation unfortunately not always correct] • “I think it would be sad if e-books became more popular than ordinary books” Modern Languages, F • “If a wider variety of e-books became available to the university with maybe 100+ per subject group and their awareness is increased, the use of e-books could in my opinion become a compulsory part of higher education” Biochemistry, M • “It is a question of availability compared with the actual library equivalent” English, M • “If appropriate books are available from the university – large choice would be needed; much bigger choice” English / Creative Writing, M • “I’m not convinced that it’s substantially better than text unless I should be unlucky enough not to find an appropriate title”. English / Creative Writing, M 3.5.2iii. d) Summary comments from this group • “E-books are convenient and up-to-date; probably they are cheaper as well.

However, the feeling of a printed book is still something that I preferred, you can underline and book mark the things important as you like and it’s generally healthier. I think I have suffered a lot from radiation of the computer screen” Computing, F • “I have never used them and think that given the choice I would go to a library and use ordinary books” Modern Languages, F • “They seem to have a large potential for educational purposes. Maybe the inclusion of web only features that a normal book could not display such as animations would further enhance the e-book range. Downsides seem to be that there is no physical proof of the book, i.e., it is not on your shelf and that might put people off, and that there seems to be little awareness of the existence of e-books” Biochemistry, M • “Saving on photocopying, and would be useful as key books are often in demand among people on the course. There is also a good range of titles, which I was unaware of before” Media, F [Elsewhere, it has been pointed out that saving on photocopying is cancelled out by extra printing out costs] • “Considerably better compared with the actual text equivalents, space saving, money saving, encourages study” English, M • “I am mainly interested because presumably e-books would be available where printed books would not be, maybe out of the library due to high demand. Many of the features named and demonstrated appear to be useful, both those which offer services similar to those possible in print: annotations,

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highlighting, etc., and some such as finding keywords would give the e-book an advantage. The problem for me is that it is slower and more uncomfortable to read on a computer screen, and I much prefer to flick through a solid book.

Perhaps it’s simply the distrust of technology, but practically, if I had to read large quantities of text, I would certainly not choose to read it on a computer screen”. English / Creative Writing, M

3.5.3 Group Three: Six newly graduated third year Business students at Huddersfield University.

Note: these students took part in the focus group arranged for the study immediately after completing the questionnaires. Therefore, their questionnaires do not contain many comments. Five were male and one was female. One (male) student was disabled. He was an extensive e-book user. All of these students were bright and committed; most had just been awarded 2/1s.

3.5.3i Summary of Huddersfield students’ questionnaire responses • •

•

• • • • •

Three of the students knew that the library had a stock of e-books Five of the six had attended library induction session. Three of them remembered that these sessions had included information about e-books [this tallies with the UWE response; each shows the interesting phenomenon of bright, committed students not taking in all the information that they are given] All six used web resources for studying and learning purposes. Three said they used them for journals, two said they used them for general web searches, one said they used them for statistical information, one [F] said that she used the Blackboard system Two [both M] had used e-books for their work. Both said that they had used e-books to aid the preparation of essays and coursework None had experienced technical problems with e-books [but with the exception of the male disabled student, their use and knowledge of e-books was minimal] Four thought their use of e-books would increase; two thought it would stay the same [i.e., nil in both cases] Two were not using e-books because they had not considered them; one considered that they held no advantages over print; one was not aware of what was available in his subject All six said that they would buy the e-book in preference to the print book if the e-book were cheaper.

3.5.3ii Comments from this group: • “I have completed my degree, so there is no need for me to use e-books” • “I have never to my knowledge used an e-book – I don’t really know what they are or where to find them” • “In the past I have only used one e-book and I came across it by chance in the university library. It was very helpful”

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• • •

“I would use if given enough information to make it easy to use and if access was easy and without problems” “More information on their use needs to be given to newer students” “I have found them extremely useful as I can download the book onto my laptop and use it wherever I go”. [response from disabled student]

3.5.4 The focus groups The entire transcripts from the focus groups are not given, as they would take up too much space. The comments recorded below have been selected because they introduce new aspects, or provide extra depth to aspects already recorded in the questionnaire responses. The three focus group facilitators were given a framework set of ten questions to use to foster the debate; again, for reasons of space, these have not been included100.

3.5.4i Middlemarch focus group: extra information • •

•

•

•

Don’t like to sit with an e-book; would rather relax with a print copy.

They seem to benefit science, rather than arts, students All A browsing thing – not for reading a full book. I wouldn’t want to buy one.

I have concerns about the potential failings, usability and cost of technology; I know where I am with a print book!The quality of info. available from the Net can be unreliable English Literature [M] I tend to be pro-technology; although I undoubtedly feel that I absorb a print textbook, just by relaxing and reading it, and I couldn’t do the same with a screen, the Internet has proved to be a phenomenal resource for my subject (but I take the point about being careful with sources from it). I see great potential for e-books to be as, or more, useful: for sourcing out-of-print titles and original documents, for example. If these were available, life would be a lot easier, and less expensive; I could obtain an essential book for one of my essays, this year, only from an antiquarian bookseller in Holland! History [M] There is the issue of portability; I have a laptop, but wouldn’t pay for a handheld reader, and most people find desktop PC-based use restrictive. For me, this condemns e-books to be a technology of the future, when the hardware is affordable!

The index system was very helpful; the link took me straight to the information I wanted.

If a higher degree of animation, e.g. sound bytes, demo. video clips or 3D illustrations, was built-in, e-books would eclipse print textbooks in my subject, despite technological restrictions. Such facilities are sometimes supplied on optional CD-ROMs with print books, but they are prohibitively expensive for something that goes out of date every year, and, obviously, don’t fit in with the text Biological Science [M] The library should always provide support for course work; the student shouldn’t have to pay All

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Transcripts of the entire focus groups are available from Gold Leaf and will be supplied upon request.

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It seems reasonable that additional student research (e.g. extended material for essays, beyond the core texts) could be self-funded; it’s only like buying the odd useful book, which we do already (and it’s cheaper!) History [M] I would use one, for set texts. It could work in parallel with the computer – whilst reading the e-book, I could carry out the exercises in it, on the PC Computer Science [F] [on hand-held readers]Basically, prohibitively expensive at present All [on off-campus access] Especially from outside campus, it’s a pain to have to go to the library, so remote access is a serious advantage All [on reservations about off-campus access, especially Internet accessibility] ebooks tend to be fairly small, and so are easy to download, even without a broadband connection. Surely it’s possible to do part-downloads? Besides, it’s not up to much if you can’t even agree on when you access the Internet, with people you’ve decided to live with for a year!

As regards overseas students, surely they could download at uni. and take home with them? No more difficult than over-holiday print book loans; in fact, easier, as they’re much more portable History [M] Web access would be popular if you couldn’t get hold of a print book; the library reservation system is unreliable, because some users just disregard it.

All What I find stupid is that anyone should turn back to paper [discussion on practice of library of printing out e-books and holding in short-term loan collections] what was previously electronic. The common-sense solution would be to set up web areas, by subject, where the recommended ‘short-loan’ extracts (in my experience, of chapter length), could be uploaded for unlimited access. It would prevent the eager, start of first-year rush to clear out the library, and be economic, and environmentally-friendly (which is always politically astute in institutions, although that triumph would perhaps be sadly lessened by what the library would lose in photocopying charges). History [M]

3.5.4i. a) Opinions on print books accompanied by electronic materials • A combination of both worlds must be best. We’d prefer print books, with electronic supplements, but it would depend on subject All • Any supplements must integrate well with the book. For example, the textbook Biochemistry (W. H. Freeman) has website updates available, which are currently less well-designed than the original book. Diagrams are not reproduced / updated in line with the content. This needs working on – it’s important, because these elements are crucial to essays. Biological Science [M] 3.5.4i. b) On part books and “slice-and-dice” • It’s preferable to have access to the whole book, in whatever format, even if it costs Computer Science [F] • We’ve found that lecturers are not infallible – good material can be found within a few pages of their recommended sections. It’s worth looking at the whole book. Biological Science [M] / Film and Literature Studies [F]

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3.5.4i. c) On how e-books should be promoted to students • Any offers circulated by email are just not subject-specific enough, and are regarded as offensive junk mail All • No-one at the university seems to know about e-books Biological Science [M] [In fact the three Middlemarch academics interviewed were all conversant with e-books and used them for their own work] • I would prefer communications to come from the library (although we receive nothing at the moment), rather than from the publisher or bookseller. Above all, I want advertising to be non-intrusive; I would support poster marketing from the bookshop, for example English Literature [M] • There is a distinct lack of communication from the Library. E-books were posted on the website earlier in the year, but nobody seems to have been informed. I first became aware of the collection when I looked for my e-book for this project, and was annoyed to find a core module text from my course.

If I had known about this sooner, it would have been very useful for exam revision. As it was, I was unable to get hold of a print copy, as the library never has enough stock of even the core History texts (ask any first-year History student here!) History [M].

3.5.4ii Huddersfield focus group: extra information The Huddersfield focus group began with e-book demonstrations on Books24x7, NetLibrary and Oxford Reference Online, which were given by Jane Kaye, Computer and Sciences Librarian, and David Worboys, Business Librarian.

Six students attended. They have been identified by letters of the alphabet, as all were newly graduated Business students. Five were male, one female (Student C). One was disabled (Student A).

•

•

Student D asked if the wordsearch replaced an index in the book. DW replied that a wordsearch was more powerful than an index, because it allowed the user to search across texts. None of the students except Student A had realised this.

JK explained that Books24x7 has “long” pages – i.e., unlike with NetLibrary, they don’t follow the actual book pages. She said that printer-friendly formats were available. She said that she had chosen to subscribe to it because the collection was continually updated and revised – difficult for librarians to do with computing texts.

Students A, B and D all wanted to know how references could be cited when the books did not keep to the printed page. JK said that it would only be possible to use the chapter reference, or the web-page link. The students felt that this therefore made it a more useful as a tool for finding our information than as a reference work for writing essays. [DW said that this was why NetLibrary advertised the “true” page as a good feature: but the drawback of that is that the user then has to click on every page; scrolling is faster.]

•

The students had a hands-on session to explore some e-books for themselves, during which their spontaneous comments were recorded.

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Three of them liked ORO best of the three types of e-book they had been shown. One liked 24x7 best – he liked the layout. Student C would not have chosen to look at an e-book even if the library had no copies of the print book – she felt that she would have preferred to wait for the print book to be returned. She found it much more difficult to read the e-text.

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•

•

• •

Students A and D said that they had used CDROMs although they had not used e-books, and would use e-books similarly – if they were in a rush – for the search facility. They would be useful for writing essays “when you were in a hurry”. However, they would not want to rely on e-books for revision (there was consensus on this from all except Student A).

None had had lecturer recommendations for e-books. The only e-learning materials that they had been recommended by lecturers were Business Source Premier, and journals.

Student A had used e-books extensively for several essays and projects that he had been working on. He had bought several e-books himself, from Amazon. He did not find it difficult to work straight off the screen.

Although he had bought his own e-books, most of the ones that he had used came from the library. However, he had only used the netLibrary titles, and felt that, to be fully effective, the collection should include more of the titles on his reading list. [Huddersfield has matched netLibrary titles to reading lists where possible, so the implication is that the books he was looking for are not currently available from netLibrary.] He thought that books24x7 looked very interesting, but was concerned about the referencing issue – he said that a protocol for the referencing would need to be agreed with his tutor. He proposed to write to books24x7 to ask what they suggested.

Student B said that he thought that the speed of reference offered by ebooks was an advantage. However, he could not envisage just using ebooks. He pointed out that not everyone has a computer at home, and even fewer students have Internet access – of the house of 20 students in which he had spent his final year, only two had Internet access. Therefore, in order to use e-books, he would have had to walk back to the university in the evenings. Even those who could afford Internet access had difficulties setting up and stopping ISP accounts in temporary accommodation.

Student C thought that “Books are easier. You know that all the information is there and you know how to find it and use it. Also, the idea of having to print parts out puts me off. I already spend a fortune printing out lecturers’ course notes.”

Student C said that she would always prefer to buy print books – she would not want to buy e-books. She liked having a row of books on her shelf. “It reassures me and makes me look clever.”

When asked if they would be interested in buying or having access to chapters as opposed to whole books, the students responded as follows:

Student C: “I would not be interested in reading a chapter out of context.”

Student D: “This would be useful for lazy students who just want to get through!”

Student B: “You may not understand the chapter out of context.”

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Student D: “I can see that you might like to read one chapter of an alternative text, to get a different perspective from the textbook.”

Student A said that he hoped that publishers would offer more books in eformat as use of the web for learning became more popular.

Student F said that students “will always buy textbooks: the library will never be adequate for all their needs.”

When asked if they had ever been approached by lecturers, publishers or booksellers advertising or recommending e-books, all of the students agreed that they had not.

The students then went on to discuss their preferred methods of revision.

Student C said that she liked to listen to lecture notes to help her revise – she would make tapes of her own and play them back. Students B and F also did this.

Student C: “If there were a reading out loud option on an e-book, I would use it then.”

Student A confirmed that it was possible to get the software to do this.

Three of the students were very enthusiastic about this idea: they thought it was a very effective way of learning. Student D had sat up all night listening to the same management CDROM over and over again. The advantages were that repetition helped learning, it was easy on the eyes, and you could make notes while you were listening.

Student C said that it was especially good for short-sighted and dyslexic people.

“You can get talking books: but they are the more pop management ones usually.”

After the session was formally drawn to a close, Student A (“Ashley”) stayed behind to explain that e-books had been essential to his work, because he was unable to carry anything of significant weight. He offered to help further with the project, and subsequently contributed Case Study No.17.

3.5.4iii The Edgehill focus group: extra information This focus group produced some particularly interesting information on the attitude of distance learners to technology and who should supply it.

Ten midwifery students attended, and all had been trained in using e-books some weeks earlier as part of the evidence based information retrieval module they had studies. Leo Appleton, who ran the focus group, had designed and delivered the ebooks training and was confident that all ten students had attended and used e-books as part of the module he had been involved in teaching.

3.5.4iii. a) Perceived advantages and disadvantages of e-books • “As busy student midwives, with demanding college and domestic responsibilities, home access to e-books is very much an advantage.”

• “Having a specific and limited collection of e-books allows a more focused search and you are less likely to retrieve irrelevant material.”

• “They allow you to view books at home before deciding that you want to read the full printed version.”

• “A useful resource with a lot of potential.”

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“Far more time consuming than using printed books.”

“Prefer to be able to scan read printed books. netLibrary doesn’t allow you to do this. I find the content far more difficult to manage.”

“Because only one user can access an e-book, we have limited access.”

“I find netLibrary very hard to navigate.”

“The limited number of titles in the netLibrary collection provides us with a limited number of hits.”

“The search facilities often lead to irrelevant information. Would be able to use similar search strategies as databases or electronic journals.”

3.5.4iii. b) Attitudes to paying for printing out and downloading • “It’s not fair to charge students for resources. If libraries are going to promote e-books, they should make them available. If there is a charge then they shouldn’t make them available.”

• “There shouldn’t be any charges for accessing information.”

• “I wouldn’t mind paying if it was a reasonable charge, but it would be too expensive for students for large sections of text.”

• “Students would have to make a decision about which was most cost effective at home – staying online or printing off the information!” [many did not use ISPs, so were paying for Internet access via their telephone bills] 3.5.4iii. c) Attitudes to hand-held readers and use of computers at home: Leo’s summary All the students agreed that in theory hand held readers containing lots of recommended textbooks were a great idea. All said that they would use them if they were made available by the college or the library to help them with their studies. All thought that it was absurd that they should be expected to pay for their own hand held readers (in the same way they thought that they shouldn’t be expected to pay for information). This is indicative of students’ financial situations, but interestingly one student commented:“I’m going on holiday for two weeks for the same price as that!”

The overall feeling is that students don’t regard information resources as something that they should be expected to pay for. They don’t mind outlaying their finances on foreign holidays, but wouldn’t think about buying e-books with the same money. Interestingly nine out of ten of the student midwives had PCs in their own homes, but obviously didn’t regard them as investments in access to academic information resources.

• •

“Sharing one PC at home with the rest of my family means that I only have limited time to use information resources. Have found myself giving up on netLibrary as it is sometimes very slow to download pages!”

“Sometimes netLibrary is very slow on my PC at home.”

3.5.4iii. d) Features students would like to see in e-books • “There should be more illustrative material in netLibrary books, particularly in health, nursing and midwifery titles.”

• “I would like to see more pictures and diagrams.”

• “Interactive 3-D anatomy pictures would be very useful in midwifery.”

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“E-books could include video clips of clinical procedures.”

“I would like to be able to search the e-books in the same way I can with e-journals, and still get relevant and specific results.”

“We would all like to be able to access the same e-books at the same time.”

3.5.4iii. e) On “slice-and-dice” • “Having all our key readings in one place would be useful.”

• “It would cut down on all the paper we have to carry around.”

• “It is useful having print copies of all our recommended set readings, especially when you need to spread them all out and refer to particular chapters, paragraphs, sentences, and refer to notes you have made in the margin. You need to spread all your readings out over a big table. I would probably still print them all out from WebCT, because I don’t think that you get the same learning environment from electronic texts.”

3.5.4. f) Who should promote e-books?

• “Library support staff should do all the training, and promote use of the ebooks.”

• “Training on e-books should be early on in the academic programme, so students can use them through out their studies.”

• “Tutors and academic staff should do a lot more to promote e-books within their reading lists. They expect us to use all these electronic resources, but they don’t seem to know about what’s available themselves.”

• “We would probably use more e-books if the tutors told them to read them.

Instead they just photocopy what they want us to read and hand them out.”

3.6 Quantitative summary of all student questionnaire responses For reasons given earlier, it was considered more useful to present the findings from the different student groups separately. However, a quantitative summary of the questionnaire responses is given below. It indicates both lower awareness and lower use of e-books than for academics or lecturers.

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Table 6: Promoting the Uptake of E-Books: Student Analysis No. 1: summary of responses from all students who answered the questionnaire No. of respondents, from three universities 28 100% Aware of universityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s e-book collection 15 54% Attended library training session which explained library resources 24 88% Remembered that training session included e-books (of 24) 14 58% Use web resources for studying and learning 24 88% Use e-books 11 39% Use e-books to prepare for lectures and seminars Use e-books to prepare for examinations Use e-books to aid preparation of essays and coursework Use e-books to consult tables / formulae Use e-books for general reference information Use e-books for private reading / pleasure

1 0 9 2 5 0

3% 0% 32% 7% 18% 0%

Obtain or likely to obtain e-books from university library Obtain or likely to obtain e-books from other libraries Obtain or likely to obtain e-books direct from publishers Obtain or likely to obtain e-books from booksellers Obtain or likely to obtain e-books free from the Internet

21 7 3 3 5

75% 25% 11% 11% 18%

3.7 FE Students The six questionnaires (although gratefully received) from FE students attending a London college represented too small a sample to be of significance, particularly as only three of the students realised that their college held a (quite extensive) e-books collection, and none appeared to be using it to any extent. However, it is worth recording that three of the students made the same comment: â&#x20AC;&#x153;E-books should be better publicisedâ&#x20AC;?.

3.8 Remaining stakeholders: issues For the purposes of this study, issues relating to the remaining stakeholders are addressed in less detail. However, the following points relating to them are relevant to addressing questions of both barriers to uptake and the successful promotion of ebooks.

3.8i Hardware and software suppliers The greatest single barrier to uptake with regard to hardware and software is the lack of a common platform for e-books. The Open E-Book Forum is trying to address this.101 3.8ii Systems suppliers

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A very useful repository of information on e-books from the Open E-Book Forum may be found at http://www.openebook.org/doc_library.htm

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Aside from systems failure or breakdown, which has been raised as an issue by librarians, academics, lecturers and students, the main technological issue enabling or hindering maximum use of e-books relates to links between the library and other systems. In the words of a librarian who is part of a newly formed JISC group set up to investigate this aspect of e-book promotion: “In general the technology issue underpinning use of e-books seems to be whether you have static or dynamic linking between e-books and library and related systems (e.g., VLEs, etc.)

There is a long way to go in the development of e-books … before the solution becomes clear.

It is appropriate therefore for JISC to start talking to library systems suppliers.”102

During the course of the research, several instances have been found of systems suppliers not keeping up with developments needed to support e-book initiatives. An experiment being conducted with handheld readers by two public library authorities in the Midlands, and the Scottish e-book consortium project already mentioned, have both been delayed because of lack of support from systems suppliers.

3.8iii Influencing groups Influencing groups, particularly cross-industry bodies such as PALS and JISC itself, have carried out useful work to promote both e-books and wider electronic learning applications. Cross-industry bodies are especially influential, because they help to mitigate the friction that inevitably arises from the conflicting interests of different professional and commercial organisations.

3.8iv Media Although the trade and educational media frequently run features on e-books103, and there are special websites devoted both to electronic publishing issues104 and exclusively to e-books105, it has already been mentioned that specific e-books are not usually reviewed in the learned journals read by academics and lecturers; also, they are rarely reviewed in publications aimed at librarians.

Promoting the Uptake of E-Books in Further and Higher Education: summary of the key issues as they relate to the three main user groups (from Chapter Three findings) Academics / Students Issue Librarians Lecturers 1. General Issues

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I am indebted to this comment, and for other information about this development, to Sarah Gerrard, of Royal Holloway College.

103 For example, seventeen lengthy articles on e-books have been published in The Bookseller over the past three years, and may be accessed from http://www.bookseller.com.

104 e.g.http://news@rightscom.com.

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e.g.,http:/ elpub-subscribe@ketlux.demon.co.uk; http://www.hw.ac.uk/libwww/irn/irn.html.

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Awareness

Lack of knowledge

Lack of demand

Too timeconsuming to investigate / evaluate

Training / Information dissemination

Concerned about user awareness, despite promotional efforts Not themselves aware of all products/ models, due to fragmentation / complexity of market E-book issues are modest: obviously, directly linked to awareness / knowledge issues

Understanding the various models available, pricing issues and assessing value for money, as well as promoting, all very time consuming Who trains the trainers? How can librarians ensure that everyone working in the library understands and can demonstrate ebooks? Who else in the supply chain can effectively aid information dissemination besides librarians?

Small percentage of this population aware of e-books Often not aware of what is available, and / or frustrated because they donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t know how to find out Concern expressed about studentsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; response to e-learning materials generally: although some positive feedback, many students appear to be antipathetic / indifferent.

Information channels â&#x20AC;&#x201C; both to academics and from them to students - imperfect Many say they have no time to explore in detail

A range of e-book information and support is available from the library, as well as from suppliers.

How can academics best be reached with it? What is their dissemination role, how can it be most effectively achieved, and should it include a feedback mechanism?

2.

Technological Issues

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Small percentage of this population aware of e-books Hit-and-miss: stumble upon e-books rather than exploring them in organised / systematic way Students interviewed on the whole positive about using the Internet for learning purposes, but information channels clearly imperfect.

From research findings, little dialogue between students and academics about ebooks Do have time to explore: evaluation is an issue.

Unsupervised, they may find inappropriate or substandard material A range of e-book information and support is available from the library, as well as from suppliers and academics. How can students best be reached with it? Do they have a dissemination role (among peers, academics) and should it include a feedback mechanism?

Technophobia

Perceived to be an issue for some academics and lecturers; students to a lesser extent

Access to Internet

Strong perception that this is a problem for students off-campus

Access to PCs

Some libraries / institutions, especially FE colleges, do not have adequate PC facilities

Off-campus access to library’s e-books collection

Perception is that access system usually works if the student is in the UK

Length of issue time

Usually determined by library; often matches short-term loan issue times

Lack of appropriate I.T. skills

Librarians cite first hand knowledge of difficulties of minority of students.

Academics and lecturers more of an unknown to librarians – FE librarians cite evidence that lecturers often not technologically literate

Perceived to be an issue for some colleagues; and for some students, especially mature students (who are often distance learners) Not usually a problem for academics/ lecturers. Strong perception that this is a problem for students off-campus Not usually a problem for academics/ lecturers. Perception that this is a problem for students, especially in FE, and that assumption that all have PCs would “disadvantage those who don’t” Some difficulties cited, but on the whole seems to work.

Getting and using passwords can be fiddly and annoying May be controversial – academics don’t like use of short-term loan model

Not enough evidence on this from respondents – who tended to be interested in I.T. Some evidence from academics and lecturers on student dislike of I.T. applications

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Perceived to be more of a problem with academics / lecturers than for themselves

Confirmation that this is a problem for students off-campus

Problem for FE students and some HEI distance / p/t learners. Less common problem for HEI f/t students

Some difficulties cited, but on the whole seems to work.

Internet access much more significant problem May be controversial – but preferable to the print book fines system in which timepressed students will pay the fine and keep longer, thus disadvantaging others All of the student respondents interviewed had sufficient I.T. skills to be able to use ebooks, whether they were using them or not

Systems failure

E-book Readers

Hand-held readers

3. Supplier / Distribution Issues Availability

â&#x20AC;&#x153;Bundlingâ&#x20AC;? of texts

Systems breakdown at HEI libraries, particularly at busy times of year (several examples given) Understanding different versions makes purchase complicated Some experiments: good reports

Given as a reason for not encouraging students to rely too heavily on electronic learning materials Understanding different versions makes purchase complicated Some very innovative and successful teaching with these documented (usually, institution has bought readers)

Given as a reason for not wishing to rely on e-books, particularly for revision

Availability of the right texts, especially reading list material Often dislike, unless there is a particular reason for buying a whole collection

Availability of the right texts, especially reading list material Not an issue: more concerned with finding enough appropriate material in e-book format When purchasing for personal use, expect ebook to be cheaper, and unlikely to buy unless it is. Some academics are involved in allocating money to library acquisitions: some librarians report that it can be tough getting them to accept e-book costs Find exasperating, and against the spirit and the functionality of the e-book Of concern if academics monitor library expenditure on their subject. If several subjects involved, who pays for what can be an issue

Availability of the right texts, especially reading list material Not an issue: more concerned with finding enough appropriate material in e-book format When purchasing for personal use, expect e-book to be cheaper, and unlikely to buy unless it is

Cost

Different library models complicated and make it difficult to assess value for money. General perception that e-books are expensive

One book, one user model

Find exasperating

Licensing model based on FTEs

If liked depends on the size of the institution and whether all FTEs included / just those studying relevant subjects. Extension of HEI licence to FE college partners may be ungenerous or prohibitively costly Considered poor, often

Quality of usage

Of concern if

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Understanding different versions makes purchase complicated Think theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re a great idea, but unaffordable

Find exasperating, and against the spirit and the functionality of the e-book

statistics

Currency: latest version not always available in e-book

irregular, insufficiently tabulated / descriptive to be of use Unlikely to buy if aware of this

Archiving issues

Major concern for librarians

Supplier solvency

Concerned about a) losing investment b) material becoming unavailable

Ability to print out / download sections of ebook 4. Cataloguing Issues Put on catalogue

E-books of limited use unless this is allowed

Don’t put on catalogue Advertise collections on library homepage Supplier records

In case e-books don’t catch on Do this to attract firstclick attention

5. Physical aspects Reading from screen is tiring / disorientating Not as enjoyable as “real” books

May have OPAC difficulties

May not be quite up to library’s standard

academics monitor library expenditure on their subject Likely to be annoyed if purchase of out-ofdate edition has inadvertently been made Concerned about ebooks becoming unavailable when students halfway through; may be concerned re. research Concerned about ebooks becoming unavailable when students halfway through E-books of limited use unless this is allowed

Likely to be annoyed if criticised for citing out-of-date version

Not asked to consider this issue; but would presumably agree with academics

Not asked to consider this issue; but would presumably agree with academics E-books of limited use unless this is allowed

Most likely to find through catalogue or websearch Self-fulfilling prophecy Good idea

Most likely to find through catalogue or websearch Self-fulfilling prophecy Good idea

May not be quite up to library’s standard – don’t care

May not be quite up to library’s standard – don’t care

Some complaints

Some complaints

General consensus on this: a few enthusiasts disagree; however, most users perceive ebooks to be a good working tool

General consensus on this: a few enthusiasts disagree; however, most users perceive ebooks to be a good working tool

6. Pedagogical Issues

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Functionality

Some advanced products held; many ebooks are straightforward PDFs

Provide chunks of books via MLEs / VLEs – generally approve, though some concern about students wanting information in “soundbites”

“Slice-and-dice”

More advanced features, such as publishers issue on support websites “One size does not fit all”

Unsuitable material, particularly “free” e-books from web

Plagiarism

7. Cultural Issues Lack of physical contact with book

“Don’t bother with ebooks unless can use to find a new (interactive) learning dimension”

Few e-book products incorporate at present: Knovel is an example of one that does. Cost may be an issue Librarians are interested in what their users want: there is a need to develop more effective communication channels with academics on the detailed functionality required; and to find a way of conveying this to suppliers Librarians can and do help by vetting, and by recommending suitable “free” materials from tested sources, such as Oxford Texts Archive Not librarians’ problem: though they may inadvertently contribute by explaining the applications too thoroughly – in effect, doing students’ work for them (some evidence of this)

Approve. Book can’t be stolen or damaged.

Generally in favour: reinforces concept of interactive learning

Different subjects need different e-book functionality features to be of optimum use: then regular use within the curriculum and hence dissemination to students will increase

Like highlighting, note-making facilities, etc. Probably not as advanced as avantgarde academics in thinking of new ways to use as a learning resource Postgraduates like idea. Undergraduates more dubious: on the whole, prefer whole book; and don’t always trust tutors to select the most relevant bits!

Enthusiastic. Lots of requests: videoclips, soundbytes, “talking book” facility, better (3D) diagrams, etc.

Students are more likely to make widespread use of ebooks if they are an integral part of the curriculum

Frequent concern expressed by academics – use of unsuitable material can have very adverse effect on students’ work Raised as an issue, but not a major concern.

Several academics have pointed out that software is available to “catch” miscreants

Students becoming increasingly aware of the pitfalls

Can be download / access problems. May

Can be download / access problems.

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If they thought of it, they didn’t say so!

/ supplier / librarian / lecturer Feeling of isolation if things go wrong

Prefer “real” books

Users can access 24/7

simply prefer the print book

May simply prefer the print book

FAQs and other information available on website. Helpdesks and helplines available in working hours Fine; but no space left for them; they take time to shelve; they get damaged, stolen and hidden in the library; the stock has to be regularly edited; they take longer to issue, recall and take back into stock; hopefully, in the long term ebooks will offer greater access to more users, and work out cheaper

Feelings of inadequacy.

(Especially publisher) helplines can be curt

Likely to give up

Comparisons not necessary. Horses for courses. E-books are not for sitting down and reading straight through, like print books. It is a question of exploiting the different types of functionality in different learning contexts

“Best of both worlds” is ideal. Several suggestions as to what this consists of, including print supported by various types of electronic applications

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Chapter Four Demand for e-books; library evaluations 4.1 Introduction It has been said that one of the objectives of this study to assess the demand for ebooks across user stakeholder groups, across the further and higher educational sectors. This objective can only be partially achieved, because (as has been abundantly demonstrated in the previous chapters), promotion of e-books has been imperfect in that it has failed to create awareness in the majority of the two main enduser group populations - academics and lecturers, and students – due to flaws in the ebook information supply chain.

If demand for e-books is to reach its full potential with librarians, students and lecturers, in addition to promoting awareness the following four major issues will have to be addressed: 1. Availability of the publications that are required in e-book format.

2. Congenial and appropriate to the subject matter presentation of the material, so that it is found to be equal or superior to other formats within the context that it is being used.

3. A price structure which is viable for all stakeholders (i.e., all suppliers and end-users).

4. Near-universal access to the Internet and appropriate hardware.

It is suggested that all of the other issues that have been raised about e-books in the preceding chapters, although all are noteworthy and need to be explored and resolved if possible, are secondary when potential demand is being assessed.

Analysis of the questionnaires produced some encouraging comments about anticipated future demand: to recapitulate, when asked if they thought that their future use of e-books would increase, decrease or remain the same, twenty of the twentyfour academics, nineteen of the twenty FE lecturers, and twenty-four of the twentynine students said that they thought that it would increase. Seventeen of the academics, sixteen of the FE lecturers and twenty-one of the students would buy the e-book instead of the print book if the e-book were “significantly cheaper”. Future use of e-books therefore looks promising if the four major issues listed above can be resolved to the satisfaction of all stakeholder groups, and if e-books can be successfully promoted so that most potential users are aware of them (These are two big “if”s.)

However, another objective of this study is to concentrate on the present and what is being done now, rather than to indulge in too much crystal ball gazing and blue skies scenario building. Therefore, as far as possible, current demand patterns for e-books need to be understood.

It has already been established that librarians are only spending a fraction of their budgets on e-books, and the reasons for this have been given in some detail. Despite

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this, a number of librarians have carried out some impressive evaluations of e-books.

These evaluations take two forms: 1. Assessment and comparison of the various models on offer, listing their advantages and drawbacks.

2. Assessment of demand, based on usage statistics and local observations of the librarians’ own user groups.

4.2 Assessment and comparison of the various models on offer The most comprehensive evaluation of e-book models discovered during the course of the project is a piece of work started in 2002 by a consortium of seven Irish106 university libraries, which is still ongoing. The consortium is chaired by John Cox, of NUI Galway, who has kindly made all its findings available.

The members of the consortium evaluated seven publisher and e-book aggregator supplied products against a set of criteria. The criteria were quite extensive, as they encompassed the requirements of all the libraries concerned. However, the consortium considered the following factors, which it defined with brief comments in the following table, to be of particular importance: Table 7: Consortium of Irish universities’ criteria for selecting e-books supplier Must deliver a satisfactory user experience Usability Encompassing ADA compliance, Athens, SFX, concurrency Accessibility Must meet needs and attract significant levels of usage Usage Vital to the previous and next factors Academic support We would learn little about e-book integration issues otherwise Student uptake Supplier flexibility The need to satisfy needs at 7 institutions will require this With OPAC and VLE products especially Integration The consortium limited its subject focus to I.T. and commerce. From an original shortlist of seven, the consortium decided to opt for two trials, to run consecutively, of netLibrary and Safari. These products came nearest to matching the key criteria listed in the table. The pros and cons of each found by the consortium are also given in the table below:

Table 8: Consortium of Irish universities’ matching of supplier attributes against their requirements netLibrary Pros Cons Solid coverage of both IT and Commerce Reading experience very unattractive Some welcome retrospective coverage One page at a time model – impossible to get flow of book; small screen Ownership by OCLC Too many formats: HTML, PDF and déjà vu (last needs own plug-in reader) MARC records included in purchase and No economies of scale: same price per 106

The libraries are NUI, Galway, Trinity College, Dublin, NUI, Maynooth, Dublin City University, University College, Dublin and University College, Cork.

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supplied via FTP Useful online dictionary included

ATHENS-compliant, offering support for personalisation features SFX-compliant Opportunity to purchase books outright Safari Pros Relevant texts from key IT publishers Would support undergraduate projects, especially in final year Highly current Suits online environment - typical use would be for quick reference and solution finding rather than lengthy onscreen reading Single (HTML) presentation for full text so ADA-compliant; onscreen reading OK Genuine enthusiasm from Computer Science staff and students and from Computer Services Flexibility to swap books every 30 days Joint ownership by Pearson may facilitate VLE integration

online copy (concurrent user), as for print Searching problematic since a) no browse indexes and b) dependent on user knowledge of LC Subject Headings Uncertainty re ADA compliance (page images used more than HTML text) Cannot be read on PDAs, handhelds Some inflexibility evident in emails

Cons Coverage limited to IT Mainly applications; very little theory Not always clear how you link to full text Not clear if all books from participating publishers are included – two texts from O’Reilly missing MARC records promised in 2003 but some uncertainty Athens compliance not yet confirmed; would be important to support personalisation features.

Not SFX-compliant

Each institution had a 30-day trial of the products. With seven institutions and two products, the survey took about four months to complete. The evaluation was done on a points basis, with members of the team awarding points out of ten in each of the following areas: Coverage, Quality, Relevance, Performance, Searching, Search Results, Output (print, save, e-mail), Ease of Use, Overall Rating. A simpler student evaluation was conducted separately.

The points system was very detailed, and covered a range of features in each category.

It would not be fair to netLibrary and Safari to make public details of the points awarded in each category, but each scored an overall average of about 7 out of 10 overall. Final comments were: “More impressive than I had expected, particularly with the range of publishers. Confirmed that reading e-books online is not desirable. Overall felt it was a good product, useful and easy enough to use.”

“Currency of technology-related texts – makes sense to have electronic as opposed to published texts. Clear, simple, easy to use. Good coverage of all technology skills texts (programming, database, technologies, etc.), not concepts. Limited number of texts – focused coverage.”

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This type of evaluation is extremely valuable, but time consuming. (Many meetings were held in order to produce high quality assessments, and the reports generated totalled more than 100 pages in length.) It would be very helpful if a centrally accessible repository of such work could be made available to librarians, to help to inform them when choosing products, and to avoid reinventing the wheel.

4.3 Assessment of demand One of the first assessments of demand supplied to the project came from a very well known university library in Australia107. Also a netLibrary evaluation, it is interesting for two reasons: because its user statistics show a very similar pattern to those obtained from university libraries in the UK, including a year on year decline (mirrored in some cases in the UK) since the e-books collection was introduced (this despite the fact that Australia is often cited as a country that has achieved great success with e-books); and because of the comment that it makes about disappointing usage by distance learners: â&#x20AC;&#x153;The [university] netLibrary collection consists of over 300 titles in a range of subject areas.

Most of the titles have been chosen individually â&#x20AC;Ś groups of titles have also been added. We have found that the content of netLibrary has improved over time, as publishers have become less paranoid about selling the rights to aggregators and more willing to sell the latest editions.

Usage statistics can be obtained on the number of times that each title has been opened up.

The figures for 2001, when we had 113 titles, show that the total number of times these were accessed was 690, the average being 6. In 2002, when the total number of titles had risen to 324, the total number of accesses was 453, with an average of 1.18. The most popular subject area was Management, and the least popular, Agriculture, Ecology and Biology. It was envisaged that netLibrary would be of particular interest and benefit to students located remotely. However, the take-up of the service has been disappointing. It is unfortunate that remote students are probably the least equipped in terms of technology and support to successfully make use of this type of service.â&#x20AC;?108

The results of the British questionnaires suggest that in the UK distance learners divide into two groups: time poor, cash rich part-time students at universities, often engaged on postgraduate degrees, like the UWE management students quoted, who have the resources to access e-books, and a much less privileged group, studying at both HEI and FE institutions, whose difficulties in accessing e-books are likely to match those of the Australian distance learners.

A number of university libraries, including all five that have been featured in case studies for this report, and some FE colleges, have supplied usage statistics, and some of these are cited in the relevant case studies. To give a few examples here: at Huddersfield University, average netLibrary issues are 3 per e-book per annum, but only half of the collection issues in any one year (Huddersfield has the largest 107

Owing to the good offices of David Ball, of Bournemouth University and the SUPC, I received a number of international responses to the HEI questionnaire: several from Australia, and one each from the Netherlands and Turkey. They have not been included in the HEI analysis, but are interesting because they list similar problems and comments to those given by the British respondents.

108 I am indebted to the librarian concerned for sending me this report. Unfortunately, I cannot identify her without compromising the anonymity of the institution, which was agreed.

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collection (500) among the netLibrary library statistics examined); at the University of the West of England, average netLibrary issues are about 9 per e-book per annum, with most of the collection issuing, but with a long “tail” of single issues. At Aston University, average netLibrary issues are about 5 per book per annum, again with a long tail of single issues, and with some spectacular successes: the top three issuing titles issued 103, 56 and 42 times respectively over a period of slightly less than two years since the subscription began.

Commonly, the statistics given by suppliers are so unwieldy as to be useless: they would require many hours of analysis before some meaningful data could be extracted. An example was supplied by the University of Huddersfield, which sent a CDROM from one of its suppliers (not named here) containing 134 pages of statistics, all defined by codenames but with no other explanation. Even netLibrary, which in response to user feedback has made great efforts to produce some transparent and easily understood usage statistics, only gives, as the Australian example indicates, “the number of times that each title has been opened up.” Much better quality usage information is required (on time spent, types of material accessed, types of material downloaded or printed out, etc.) from all suppliers in order to ascertain the extent as well as numerical instance of demand of e-book users.

Bearing this drawback in mind, some helpful evaluative work on usage statistics can still be cited. At the University of Aston, usage statistics of three products have been plotted over the course of the academic year, and the results illustrated in Figures 7 – 9 below. It will be seen that, although the time of greatest access is at the start of the academic year, when the library is at its busiest demonstrating e-books and other services to students, there is a further peak in all three products – in the case of netLibrary, almost as great as the October peak – at the beginning of the second semester, when no formal training is taking place. Aston (see Case Study No. 6) worked closely with academics in order to choose the most appropriate titles for its ebooks collections.

Leo Appleton, Learning Support Adviser, and Anna Hindmarch, Information Services Librarian of Edgehill College (see also Case Study No. 7), have carried out some detailed evaluative work on netLibrary, which combines an assessment of user responses with assessment of usage statistics. This work demonstrates that 90% of the netLibrary users in Health Studies at Edgehill (the subject area selected for the initial e-books collection) were positive about e-books when questioned about their experience of them in the following four categories: Access, Presentation, Using and Support In Using. There were some adverse user comments, of the type that have become familiar during the course of this report: • “Reading electronic text puts a strain on the eye” • “It was very slow to load pages” • “I prefer to hold a printed book” • “Not enough UK examples” The overall success achieved with netLibrary at Edgehill, as in all the other examples of best practice found, is attributed to the fact that the librarians both targeted the user group very carefully, and matched its needs with the books that were selected. They acknowledge that this was time consuming, but feel that the expenditure of effort was worthwhile. There are now plans to carry out a similar exercise with the Education department at Edgehill. The librarians there, particularly Leo Appleton, have been

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active in helping academics to incorporate e-books into Web CT. In other words, Edgehill’s e-books development, like Aston’s, has been specific, targeted and strategic in approach, with a clear understanding of pedagogical requirements: “It would appear beneficial to articulate a holistic e-texts approach and strategy, integrated with the collection development strategy and within the institution’s learning and teaching strategy. Our e-texts strategy aims to provide resources that are fit for purpose, targeted at specific groups with specific needs, with appropriate infrastructure and support, and underpinned by cross-departmental partnerships … The possible solutions and products (such as netLibrary) are important but are not the key; rather, the crucial success factor is the understanding of the user community and early engagement.”109

The message from the evaluations is clear: establishing and realising the potential demand for e-books depends on “marketing” in its widest term of seeking and fulfilling the needs of users, as well as on the solution of the four major issues identified at the beginning of this chapter.

109

“E-texts: a targeted approach”. Roberts, S. and Appleton, L. A paper given at the UKSG seminar ‘ER: promoting and managing electronic resources without the trauma’, November 2002. Published in Serials – Vol. 16, no. 1, March 2003. The quotation is from p. 87. I am indebted to Leo Appleton for his advice, encouragement and support on numerous occasions during the course of this project.

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No. of accesses

Fig. 7: Aston University: netLibrary usage, Oct. 02 - May 03.

160 140 120 100 80 60 40 20 0 Oct02

Nov02

Dec02

Jan03

Feb03

Mar03

Apr03

May03

Month

Fig. 8: Aston University: CRC Press usage, Oct. 02 - May 03.

No of accesses

200 150 100 50 0 Oct-02 Nov-02 Dec-02 Jan-03 Feb-03 Mar-03 Apr-03 May-03 Month

Fig. 9: Aston University: Wiley Encyclopedias usage, Oct. 02 - May 03.

No of accesses

60 50 40 30 20 10 0 Oct-02 Nov-02 Dec-02 Jan-03 Feb-03 Mar-03 Apr-03 May-03 Month

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Chapter Five How e-books are currently being promoted in Further and Higher Education in the UK Now that the supply chain and stakeholder issues connected with promoting e-books and evaluating demand have been explored, this chapter examines how e-books are actually being promoted to the end-user groups. It should be noted that no criticism of any stakeholders is implied by the findings. The preceding work makes it clear that e-books are at present inadequately promoted, but it is equally apparent that the reasons are complex, and not attributable to any single group or body. It is, however, useful to consider current methods of promotion within the context both of the contrasting print and e-book supply chain and information supply chain channels described in Chapter Two, and of the perceived advantages and barriers to uptake of e-books that emerge from the primary research analysis which forms the bulk of Chapter Three.

5.1 Perceived advantages and the less rosy reality A piquant starting point is offered by mistakenly optimistic user assumptions110. Once they were aware of e-books, some academics and some students who contributed to the study assumed that e-books are: • Cheaper than print or free • More up-to-date than print • Available to all users all of the time once the library has bought a copy • Updated free of charge • Enhanced with sophisticated interactive functionality Of these assumptions, the first may or may not be correct; the second is rarely correct, and the reverse is likely to be true; the third is true only when the supplier operates on a certain type of FTE based licensing model; the fourth and fifth are true only for a small number of products. Users eventually discovering the more limiting reality are likely to become disillusioned with e-books. It is therefore important that they are educated in the attributes of the products that they are using, and don’t just find out about them piecemeal. It is equally important that these issues are eventually addressed.

User confusion is compounded by the lack of the following for e-books: a universally acknowledged definition of what they are; a central information repository; a choice of retail outlets at which a flesh-and-blood bookseller provides a service; a common platform; a common set of attributes. Added to this is the diverse set of products, each with its own “rules” and functionality, subscribed to by different libraries. In all of these respects, e-books baffle the user, whereas for print books the answers, or at least where to get advice that leads to the answers, are straightforward and simple. It is easy for the initiated to forget these points.

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I am indebted to a long conversation with Dr. Monica Landoni, of the University of Strathclyde, on this point.

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5.2 How publishers, aggregators and booksellers are promoting e-books Of the twelve publishers interviewed, only three say that they are actively promoting e-books to all three end-user groups, i.e., to librarians, academics and students; and of these, two are “e-tailers” who are targeting individual sales to academics and students, as well as institutional sales. One of them, Taylor & Francis (see also Case Study No. 3), produces an attractive and informative printed leaflet which includes careful descriptions about Readers and downloading, and does a good job of demystifying the e-book. Oxford University Press (see also Case Study No. 4) does not on the whole seek to sell its e-book products to academics and students, but still recognises the importance of gaining their interest, and produces a range of printed materials and giveaways, such as mousemats, which are intended for all end users. Of the aggregators, netLibrary is making the greatest effort to draw the attention of academics and students to its products, by dispensing leaflets and “fun” products such as bookmarks, balloons and pins for librarians to distribute: in common with other aggregators, it does not attempt to contact them direct. Part of the Ebrary product is aimed at direct purchase from academics and students; information about this is found mainly on its website. One publisher said that it used to encourage its representatives to offer on-campus e-book demonstrations to librarians and academics, but has now cut back on these because it felt that they were not cost effective111. Now, when its reps are visiting academics, they do not mention e-books “unless they are directly asked about them – then the rep may give a demonstration on his laptop”. Not all aggregators target academic librarians – books24x7, for example, considers that businesses and professional libraries are its main customer group, and it advertises to them electronically, sending a range of PDFs describing the product and case studies.

When one of its representatives was interviewed for the project in June 2003112, she said that there were no plans to target academic librarians more actively, despite their success story at the University of Huddersfield (see Case Study No. 8). It has already been said that publishers who make e-books available through aggregators do not always include this information in their branded promotional materials (catalogues, etc.). The six booksellers contacted are all promoting e-books through their websites; only the library suppliers among them are producing, or aiming to produce, printed lists and catalogues in which e-books are included. They are also creating a limited amount of printed information about e-books, directed exclusively at librarians. Only one bookseller, Swotbooks, has attempted any direct e-book initiatives with universities (see Case Study No. 5).

The examples given above raise the following questions: 1. To whom are e-books being promoted, and by whom? To increase effectiveness of promotion, who should be targeted, and by whom?

2. What forms of supplier promotional materials and approaches are available?

111 112

Publisher Interview No. 4.

Aggregator Interview No. 6.

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5.3 To whom are e-books being promoted, and by whom? To increase effectiveness of promotion, who should be targeted, and by whom?

With a few exceptions (some “pure” e-tailers, those aggregators with specialist lists), all supplier groups seem to agree that librarians are the main group to target with academic e-books. One publisher even suggested that the e-book marketing mantle should be assumed by librarians: “It is the librarian’s job to push and push until the academics see the virtue of buying and using e-books.”113

The librarians interviewed did not see it quite like this. At meetings of two large groups of librarians114, there was consensus that the librarian’s role is to promote awareness of e-books, but not to “plug” the format as superior; and that librarians’ main responsibility is to provide access to material required by users in the “most appropriate” format – the implication being that they should use their judgment to decide what that format may be.

This shows an important mismatch in the perception of two major stakeholders as to how the e-book information supply chain should work. There is the yet more important fact (first suggested in Chapter Two) that the academic is the most influential stakeholder in both the print supply chain and the print information supply chain, but not in their e-book counterparts: i.e., academics’ recommendations are the main reason for purchase of most print books that are bought by themselves, colleagues, librarians and students at their institutions; and academics sit at the hub of the print book information supply chain, the most important vehicle of which, at both undergraduate and taught postgraduate level, is the reading list. Publishers, booksellers and librarians all recognise that this is the case, and promote print books accordingly, with very considerable success; but the logic has not been applied to ebooks. At the start of work on this project, it seemed curious that entirely different information supply chain procedures had been put in place for e-books. Now that all of the primary research has been completed, to have a different from print e-book information supply chain model remains just as incomprehensible from an observer’s point of view. If, apart from a small and unrepresentative minority, the most influential end-user is unaware of or baffled by e-books, the format is unlikely to achieve its full potential. At least one publisher acknowledges this: “One vocal professor can exert a lot of influence.”115 The following table gives the actual or perceived likely sources of information on ebooks of the academics who responded to the questionnaires:

113

Publisher Interview No. 12.

Librarian meetings 2 and 4.

115 Publisher Interview No. 10.

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Table 9: Promoting the Uptake of E-Books: Academic Analysis No. 2 Obtain or likely to obtain information from library catalogue Obtain or likely to obtain information through library training Obtain or likely to obtain information from subject librarian Obtain or likely to obtain information from publishers Obtain or likely to obtain information from booksellers Obtain or likely to obtain information from reviews Obtain or likely to obtain information via colleague recommendations Obtain or likely to obtain information via student recommendations Obtain or likely to obtain information via libraryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s web pages Obtain or likely to obtain information via a web search

11 10 15 9 3 4 9 4 5 11

46% 42% 63% 38% 12% 17% 38% 17% 21% 46%

The sample is, of course, a small one, and the information tabulated may lead to imperfect conclusions, because the academics selected were believed to be especially interested in e-books, and therefore, as aficionados, their knowledge of the current ebook supply chain may have skewed some of their answers. For example, that information obtained in various ways from libraries figures most strongly in the table may be because these academics have already been conditioned to see libraries as the most reliable source of obtaining information. Relatively low (but not non-existent) perception of publishers, booksellers and reviews as actual or likely sources of information may also reflect experience. Nevertheless, some of the results are interesting: for example, colleagues and students are both cited as potential sources of information: but the rest of the research shows that at present academics and students constitute a minority of e-book users. Information is perhaps being passed around a chosen few. If the general awareness of e-books of academics and students could be increased, the grapevine effect might be very powerful.

Tabulating the FE lecturer questionnaire responses on actual or perceived likely sources of information on e-books yields some different results: Table 10: Promoting the Uptake of E-Books: FE Lecturer Analysis 2 No. of lecturer responses Obtain or likely to obtain information from library catalogue Obtain or likely to obtain information through library training Obtain or likely to obtain information from subject librarian Obtain or likely to obtain information from publishers Obtain or likely to obtain information from booksellers Obtain or likely to obtain information from reviews Obtain or likely to obtain information via colleague recommendations Obtain or likely to obtain information via student recommendations Obtain or likely to obtain information via libraryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s web pages Obtain or likely to obtain information via a web search

20 4 5 6 10 4 6 11 2 13 4

100% 20% 25% 30% 50% 20% 30% 55% 10% 65% 20%

This sample was also small, and, it will be remembered, considered to be slightly more representative of the wider lecturer population, because the respondents were self-selected. The most interesting difference between the lecturer responses and the academic responses is that, presumably because the e-book supply and information support from the college libraries is or is perceived to be patchier, the lecturer group works harder at finding alternative sources of e-books and information about e-books.

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Information obtained from publishers, booksellers and reviews is more important to this group than to the academics. Colleague recommendations also achieve higher importance.

Fourteen of the academics (58%) and fifteen of the lecturers (75%) said that they either were recommending or would be most likely to recommend e-books to students by means of reading lists. Twelve of the academics (50%) and fifteen of the lecturers (75%) said that they were either recommending or would be most likely to recommend e-books to students verbally. In both cases, if these practices were actually carried out at a similar level across the entire academic and lecturer population, a very powerful promotional tool for e-books would have been established.

Finally, it will be remembered that seventeen (71%) of the academics and sixteen (80%) of the FE lecturers said that they would buy the e-book instead of the print book if the e-book were “significantly cheaper”. As academics in particular are known to be heavy book buyers (see Chapter Two), this seems to offer an attractive marketing opportunity to booksellers and publishers. However, the crucial point must be made that for textbooks and monographs in PDF or XML format, the bulk of such sales would be substitutes for, not incremental to, print book sales. Immediately, the sales prospect becomes distinctly less attractive, unless there is risk to the booksellers and publishers of losing the print sales, or a separate market can be built for the ebooks because they incorporate features not available in print. Will or lack of it to promote e-books in their present form is therefore a major factor that must not be ignored.

Student exposure to e-book promotional materials from booksellers and publishers seems to be even lower than for academics. The students’ actual or perceived likely sources of information on e-books from the questionnaire responses are tabulated as follows: Table 11: Promoting the Uptake of E-books: Student Analysis No. 2 Obtain or likely to obtain information from library catalogue 13 45% Obtain or likely to obtain information through library training 7 24% Obtain or likely to obtain information from subject librarian 7 24% Obtain or likely to obtain information from publishers 1 3% Obtain or likely to obtain information from booksellers 1 3% Obtain or likely to obtain information from reading lists 6 21% Obtain or likely to obtain information verbally from academics 10 35% Obtain or likely to obtain information via other students 5 17% Obtain or likely to obtain information via library’s web pages 6 21% Obtain or likely to obtain information via a web search 5 17% The most striking thing about the set of student results is the imperfect knowledge that they demonstrate. Aside from 72% of the students saying that they expected to obtain e-books via the library (and all the students were told that their respective libraries had a collection of e-books when briefed for the questionnaire), the students exhibit uncertainty about where they would either find e-books or information about e-books.

It is also interesting that only 21% of them would expect to find information about ebooks on reading lists. Again, the sample is small: but if the students’ responses are 122

representative of the population as a whole, and the perception is accurate (big “ifs” again), four-fifths of all students would not expect to find out about e-books via the source of information of which repeated research has proved they take most notice: academics’ reading lists. This would considerably cut down their chances of finding out about e-books at all. Also, despite academics’ and lecturers’ perception that students spend a lot of time looking for information on the Internet, only 17% of the sample (fewer than for academics (46%) or lecturers (20%)) thought that they would discover information on e-books via a websearch. Approximately the same proportion of academics and students (46% and 45% respectively) thought that they would find information on e-books from the library catalogue.

It will be remembered that twenty-one of the students (72%) said that they would buy the e-book instead of the print book if the e-book were “significantly cheaper”. 90% of the books that students buy are chosen from reading lists.116 Comments from the students given in Chapter Three shows that most expect to buy books as well as to borrow them. This is corroborated by the CAPP and Gold Leaf studies. There may therefore be an opportunity to convert some of these sales to e-book sales; but the point made earlier about its attractiveness to booksellers and publishers also applies here.

Some of the students said that they did not want to receive direct communications from publishers (see Chapter Three). However, they were receptive to the idea of non-intrusive advertisement, such as posters and bookmarks in bookshops. An opportunity therefore exists for publishers and booksellers, if they wish, to work together on promoting to students.

What does the questionnaire analysis prove about promotion of e-books to the user groups? Certainly, it demonstrates the importance of the library; this study contends that it also demonstrates an over-reliance by publishers and e-aggregators on the library to promote e-books. Librarians exert influence, but they are not the only influencers on the user groups. Reference to the two information supply chain models given in Chapter Two supports this. If the weak links in the e-book information supply chain were strengthened, knowledge of e-books and therefore, almost certainly, uptake would be greater.

Of course, many academic libraries are doing their best to promote e-books, and some success has been achieved. The following two tables, using analysis from the librarians’ questionnaires, show how librarians find out about e-books and the methods that they are using to promote them:

116

Survey of Student Book Buying 2001 / 2002. p. 5.

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Table 12: Promoting the Uptake of E-Books: HEI Library Analysis No. 2 No. of subscribers to e-books 41 100% Find out about e-books via publishers’ communications 34 83% Find out about e-books via aggregators’ communications 26 63% Find out about e-books via advertisements 21 51% Find out about e-books via demonstrations 19 46% Find out about e-books via academics* 8 20% Find out about e-books via other librarians 19 46% Make people aware of e-books via links from the library website Make people aware of e-books via the library catalogue Make people aware of e-books via induction / training sessions Make academics aware of e-books via e-mail communications Make people aware of e-books via electronic newsletters / factsheets Make people aware of e-books via MLEs/ VLEs Make people aware of e-books via formal “launches” •

36 28 30 21 13 18 4

88% 68% 73% 51% 31% 44% 10%

Even this relatively low instance of academics as a source of information was intriguing; however, on contacting the librarians concerned, most said that information from academics came from within the context of the library checking reading lists to match against e-book lists: it was not initiated by the academics.

Comments and further ideas from HEI librarians on promoting e-books were as follows: • At the moment, we only do training for students, incorporating information sessions, especially for Computer Science and Engineering students; the bulk of our books are in these areas. However, training is not specific to e-books and not for lecturers (as it is particularly difficult to get staff together in a session), although developments (e.g. Safari) are advertised at staff and student meetings. Staff awareness sessions are carried out once a year; new services are discussed, but, again, this is not specific to e-books • Via college- and department-wide staff development, student induction and information skills sessions and inclusion on reading lists and within online courses • Our OPAC includes a large number of MARC 21 standard records for freelyavailable e-books. We catalogue these selectively, depending on content • Publicity (posters, helpsheets and plasma screens) in the library, and information skills sessions • Through contact with teaching departments, both formal (course committees) and informal (personal contacts) • Reference works are catalogued, but monographs are not, because of uncertainty about whether or not we will continue with the subscription • Via training: a range of subject-specific courses is run, for students, by liaison librarians. Doctoral research programme includes a formal research training module. No formal training sessions exist for staff, who may pick up on briefings to introduce new collections. In principal, e-mail is used, but the dissemination of e-books is not as good as it could be • Integration: TALIS OPAC used as a web-link to Web CT and reading material • Via faculty boards, university committees and open days • Through demonstrations on using the website, links to providers, how to open e-books etc. Liaison librarians are assigned to schools, and run library skills

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•

•

sessions on a fixed timetable. However, students need this less when they arrive than when they are in their second or third years, therefore this academic year there has been a move to have more open sessions. This liaison with the different schools is the way forward Through notice boards, and we intend to produce fliers. There is little training on the catalogue, but we have advertised ATHENS authentication, and user guides are on the web pages. Faculty librarians could promote more at student inductions. We are trying to make the catalogue a one-stop shop, with everything accessible from the website. We wish to focus on publicity Training sessions are run for students, and, to a lesser extent, for academics.

We have a team of subject librarians, whose main role is liaison. We are trying to increase our work with the Humanities departments in particular; it’s slow, but we try to raise awareness, particularly when new JISC deals come out. Training is carried out on a case-by-case basis; the subject librarians talk to departments and offer to do sessions. For postgraduates and research students, we may have a research skills programme running throughout the year, and then offer a seminar when we get new products.

Subject librarians offer their departments access (and funding allocation) as a new resource. But funding is often sliced away from the Library fund for development purposes.

5.3i Notes on HEI librarian views: 1. Supplier communications (averaging 73% from both groups) are not as universally received by libraries as might have been expected.

2. Peer group information (46%) seems to be a robust source, and could perhaps be built on in an organised way.

3. From the samples, 88% of libraries make information available through the library’s web-pages, but only 21% (in each case) of academics and students consider this a likely source of information.

4. From the samples, only 68% of libraries make information available via the library catalogue117. 45% of students and 20% of academics at present consider this a likely source of information (again, this result may be skewed by current experience).

5. Making aware of e-books via MLEs / VLEs is likely to be a more fruitful exercise in the future. Not many institutions seem to be using these in a systematic fashion for teaching at present.

6. Difficulty of getting staff (and students) to attend training sessions is a recurrent theme.

7. Student information overload at the beginning of term, touched on here, was also pointed out in follow-up telephone calls. When to conduct sessions is therefore important – the beginning of term is not necessarily the best time.

First year students are not necessarily the most appropriate targets.

8. The incorporation of a research skills module or half module, now being introduced by many universities, is an effective way of disseminating information about all the library resources, including e-books, because 117

This despite much published evidence that the OPAC catalogue is the main source for discovering e-books. See, for example, http://www.lib.rochester.edu/main/ebooks/analysis.pdf. Independent research by netLibrary also finds the OPAC catalogue the most significant single source of information.

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students obtain credits for completing it. Some librarians are taking advantage of this.

9. The issue of “who trains the trainers” is raised again.

Table 13: Promoting the Uptake of E-Books: FE Library Analysis No. 2 No. of subscribers to e-books 7 100% Find out about e-books via publishers’ communications 6 86% Find out about e-books via aggregators’ communications 1 14% Find out about e-books via advertisements 3 43% Find out about e-books via demonstrations 2 29% Find out about e-books via lecturers 2 29% Find out about e-books via other librarians 4 57% Make people aware of e-books via links from the library website Make people aware of e-books via the library catalogue Make people aware of e-books via induction / training sessions Make lecturers aware of e-books via e-mail communications Make people aware of e-books via electronic newsletters / factsheets Make people aware of e-books via MLEs/ VLEs Make people aware of e-books via formal “launches”

4 5 5 7 4

57% 71% 71% 100% 57%

2 3

29% 43%

Comments and further ideas from FE college librarians were as follows: • • • •

By notices by all PCs in the Learning Resource Centre, and messages in tutorial and staff bulletins By posters and displays By face-to-face meetings with staff Subject librarians liaise with their departments (i.e. word-of-mouth).

5.3ii Notes on FE librarian views: 1. The proportion of FE college libraries subscribing to e-books in the sample was small; but those who were subscribing (five of whom were also contacted by phone) seemed very determined to promote them.

2. Most of their information about e-books came from publishers. Low contact with aggregators may be both cause and effect of the fact that they do not stock aggregator products, though cost is also a factor.

3. As with HEI librarians, peer group information seems to be a valuable source.

4. This group was as efficient as the HEI group at putting e-books on the catalogue.

5. 100% attempt to communicate with lecturers reflects an attempt to address their concern (expressed in Chapter Three) that lecturers have only a semidetached relationship with the library and / or the institution.

Analysis of the research undertaken with libraries suggests that, between them, they have thought of many valuable ways of making academics and students aware of ebooks. This does not mean that all are promoting e-books with equal effectiveness, or that all of the methods listed would be appropriate to all, though it is hoped that the ideas given above will act as a useful resource. Nineteen of the HEI librarians and

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five of the FE librarians who responded to the questionnaire were also contacted by telephone to obtain further details of precisely how they promote e-books, and several of them said that their work in this area “could be better”. Some of the results of the research undertaken for this report, particularly in the librarians’ comments in Chapter Three, show that not all librarians are committed to the idea of promoting ebooks, or, indeed, of stocking them at all. One of the academics contacted, who had carried out some innovative work with e-books with the help of his own subject librarian, said that it was an “eye opener” when he was asked to extend this work to other departments, and found the relevant subject librarians to be much less enterprising.

5.4 Librarians: best practice criteria For the attempt to identify and record examples of best practice of promoting e-books by librarians, one of the objectives of the project, the following criteria were decided upon: 1. The librarians did not criticise academics or students for their limited uptake of e-books as a resource.

2. E-books were put on the library’s catalogue.

3. An organised attempt at training sessions was made, preferably making distinction between the needs of different groups.

4. An attempt was made to work with academics on identifying suitable e-book material (using reading lists, VLE / MLE work preparation, etc.)

5. Some attempt was made to analyse and adjust needs to information provided by the usage statistics.

Some flexibility was allowed in the fulfilment of the two last of these, as local difficulties were taken into account. Fulfilment of the first three was more rigorously assessed. In addition, all of the “best practice” institutions selected were trying to promote e-books in a great variety of ways, and continually introducing new promotional ideas, rather than repeatedly going through a set routine and becoming mechanical. Using all of these criteria, five HEI libraries: Aston (Case Study No 6), Edgehill (Case Study No. 7, Huddersfield (Case Study No. 8), Staffordshire (Case Study No. 9), UWE (Case Study No. 10) and two FE libraries: Barnsley (Case Study No. 12) and Yeovil (Case Study No. 13 ) were identified as exemplars of best practice. It should be emphasised that the claim is not being made that all the examples of best practice among the responding libraries have been found: this may not be so. Therefore, no slight is intended to respondents who have not been included. It is also not possible to say that any one of the “best practice” listed institutions excels above the others, or that any of them should be used as a standard role model. Together, with the results of the questionnaire analysis and commentaries, they offer an extensive range of promotional ideas and practices that librarians at individual institutions can evaluate and then decide what would be appropriate for them to adopt. However, all the best practice institutions have some abstract attributes in common, which underpin their promotional approaches and account to a large extent for their success: they are enterprising, pragmatic, energetic, innovative, and focused. They are also under no illusion that promoting e-books is easy: they cheerfully acknowledge that it is hard work.

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To make e-book promotion more effective, it is suggested that promotion to the user groups should be as follows: Table 14: Promoting the Uptake of E-Books: effective routes to promotion √ denotes recommendation that the group listed on the vertical axis should promote to the end-user indicated on the horizontal axis Academics / Students Librarians Lecturers indirectly, through √ 1. Publishers √ including booksellers, information of ewebsites, etc. books available through aggregators 2. Aggregators indirectly, through indirectly, through √ librarians librarians 3. Booksellers √ √ √ 4. Librarians √ √ √ 5. Reviews √ √ 6. Academics √ peer group √ reading lists / √ collaboration: network recommendations reading lists, VLE/ MLE material 7. Students √ feedback loop √ peer group √ feedback loop network Once the promotional mechanisms 1 – 5 are in place, 6 and 7 will follow naturally.

The librarian still occupies a key role, but the workload is shared more equally, and the other stakeholders, including the key influencers, are also involved. What is being suggested is a modified version of the print book information supply chain.

5.5 What forms of supplier promotional materials and approaches are available?

The promotional materials and methods adopted to promote e-books made by libraries were covered in the previous section. An attempt has been made to assess their effectiveness by matching them against user expectations. It should again be emphasised, however, that this report contends that it is not possible to make an accurate assessment of the effectiveness of individual promotional items and methods, whether from librarians or e-book suppliers, at the present time, because the information supply chain itself is flawed.

This section looks at the promotional materials and methods adopted by the suppliers: publishers, aggregators and booksellers. Some of these are made available for use in libraries; sometimes librarians modify them before using, or create their own.

Promotional materials and approaches from the supplier group comes in three main categories:

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• • •

Physical. Printed information for the end user; “freebies” and fun items to make the product seem enjoyable. Meetings, demonstrations, formal launches.

Virtual. Website promotion of various kinds.

Technical. Catalogue support.

The following table gives examples of the types of promotional materials and methods of promoting e-books that have been collected from suppliers. The list may not be exhaustive; every attempt has been made to include as many types of promotion used as possible.

Table 15: Ways in which commercial suppliers promote e-books No. of examples Supplier Promotional Type Aimed at

found from structured interviews and follow-up work: there may be more in each case

Publisher

Aggregator

Physical Promotional Products and Flesh-and-Blood Approaches Print catalogues – e-book listed Librarians; academics; 2 alongside print lecturers Advertisements in print book Librarians; academics; 2 catalogues lecturers Explanatory / advertisement Librarians; academics; 3 leaflets / brochures lecturers Advertisements in textbooks Students; librarians; 2 academics Give e-book website address in Students; librarians; 0. Idea suggested print book academics; lecturers by 1 Posters All users 1 Mousemats, postcards, “fun” items All users 1 Visits from representatives Academics; librarians 2 found who promote e-books to academics spontaneously (i.e., not by special request). Not all visit librarians Dedicated e-books manager / sales Academics and 3 team librarians Demonstrations: formal and Academics; librarians Usually by special informal arrangement Seminars Academics and students 1 Attend conferences, gatherings, Mostly librarians; 3 trade fairs, etc. Some sponsorship occasionally, academics of these Print explanatory leaflets Librarians 5 Print explanatory leaflets Academics; students; 1 lecturers Posters All users 2 Balloons, bookmarks, pins, “fun” All users, but especially 1 items students Visits from representatives Librarians 4 Demonstrations: formal and informal Seminars Academics 1 ; not in UK

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Bookseller

User group meetings Use a librarian to “champion” product Attend conferences, gatherings, trade fairs, etc. Some sponsorship of these Print catalogues – e-book listed alongside print Newsletter including information about e-books Visits from representatives /

Librarians Librarians

1 1

Librarians

All

Librarians

1 currently; one considering 1

Phone calls from sales team

Librarians / Academics

Librarians Librarians

User group meetings

Publisher

Librarians: contract reviews which may include e-books service Virtual approaches: website promotion of various kinds Dedicated e-books section on All users in principle website (but some geared especially to librarians)

Free e-book previews, online demonstrations

Aggregator

Bookseller

Publisher Aggregator Bookseller

Electronic book alert in e-journals Customised “button” or flyer placed on library’s website, with click-though to publisher’s e-books collection purchased by library Dedicated e-books website Free e-book previews, online demonstrations

Customised “button” or flyer placed on library’s website, with click-through to aggregator’s ebooks collection purchased by library Dedicated e-books section on website

All users in principle, but some geared especially to librarians; some require a password. Some are timed, i.e., of limited duration Academics All end users

Mainly librarians Mainly librarians

All end users

All users in principle; depending on bookseller, some more geared to end-users, some to librarians All users

Advertise through platform provider E-mail with new e-book titles Academics (occasionally) Catalogue Support All produce versions of catalogue Ultimately all users, but information. Aggregators and especially librarians. library suppliers may try harder to May not match their match to library requirements requirements

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2 (library suppliers); 1 (retailer): “occasional” 1 (library supplier)

Excludes some publishers who publish e-books only through aggregators Excludes publishers who publish ebooks only through aggregators

3 examples found 2 examples found

All All – some obtainable instantly, some by arrangement 3 examples found

All except one “pure” e-tailer

1 (e-tailer) 1 (library supplier)

All

Methods of e-book promotion not featured in the table include shared advertising through commercial partnerships, for example, between publishers, booksellers or aggregators and software or handheld reader suppliers; and advertising on the websites of search engines frequently used by students and academics, such as Google. The former is regarded as a valuable way of sharing advertising costs, particularly as both publishers and booksellers point out that they are reluctant to commit too much budget to advertising a product that generates slender margins and revenues.

5.5i Notes on supplier practice 1. The table is not intended to give the impression that targeting of any group, by any of the methods, is being carried out by any particular supplier in a comprehensive fashion; the reverse is the case.

2. Clearly, every promotional route cannot be adopted by all those seeking to promote academic e-books. It is suggested, however, that since the key objective at this early stage of their evolution is to raise the visibility of ebooks, all suppliers should consider targeting librarians, academics, lecturers and students with at least some printed as well as electronic promotional material. That electronic promotion of e-books is more frequently used than print is understandable, given the nature of the product and the fact that the method is cheaper; but information in print is more likely to reach those who are not actively searching for it. As with promotion by librarians, the more types of promotional approach that are used by any one supplier, the more successful it is likely to be in raising the profile of the product. Hence Oxford University Press (Case Study No. 2), Taylor and Francis (Case Study No.3) and netLibrary (Case Study No. 4) have been chosen as examples of best practice, because their promotional effort is diverse as well as innovative. At the same time, it must be recognised that for e-books, as for every other commercial product, promotional costs ultimately have to be borne by the customer.

3. Currently, even less material is being produced for lecturers than for academics. Relatively little is directed specifically at students.

4. User groups organised by aggregators for librarians offer a powerful tool, not only for raising awareness and sharing experience and best practice, but also for addressing barriers to uptake issues. An OCLC sponsored netLibrary user group meeting attended as part of the research undertaken for this study was addressing the issues of currency of publications and how to persuade more publishers to make their works available as e-books; a previous meeting had looked at access issues; and the group intends to discuss the “one e-book, one user model” in the future. Although such meetings will not necessarily “solve” all problems to everyone’s satisfaction, the supplier’s willingness to consider and respond to the issues, and to publicise new developments, is bound to help e-book promotion.

5. Customised flyers on the library’s homepage may sound as if they are an incidental form of promotion, but in fact they are very important, because they

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address the “click fatigue” factor. Research suggests118 that the more clicks a user has to make before hitting the information that they want on a website, the less likely they are to continue. Therefore, a first click leading directly to an e-books collection is likely to promote usage.

6. Catalogue and metadata issues are looked at in the next chapter. It has already been suggested that, as a point of best practice, librarians should put e-books on the library’s catalogue. Their estimation of the importance of the quality of that information varies, and of course, in an ideal world, it should conform to their cataloguing principles; but, for the purposes of promoting e-books, the team of librarians at the University of Huddersfield offers some sound advice: “Just do it and get on with it was our attitude …. if we couldn’t find quite as many relevant titles as we would have liked, or the catalogue records supplied weren’t quite what we expected, we just went ahead and did the best we could with what was available. Waiting for perfection doesn’t work.” 119

118

The point has been made to me by several people who have carried out surveys, including Jenny Brook, of the University of Huddersfield, whose MSc dissertation addresses this subject, and Dr. Monica Landoni, of the University of Strathclyde, during the course of several conversations.

119 See Case Study No. 8.

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Chapter Six Cataloguing and Metadata Issues This chapter has been written by Brian Green, Manager of BIC 6.1 Introduction The cataloguing and metadata panel, led by Brian Green was asked to address the following topics: • Mechanisms for discovering electronic books • Problems of bibliographic access and control • Review of metadata and other relevant standards.

• Recommendations on how e-books can be integrated more effectively into the acquisitions processes of libraries.

The project leader drafted an extensive questionnaire, supplemented by some additional questions from the panel chair in response to these topics. Two of the panel members had already supplied an extensive amount of information explaining the issues to the project leader, in order to increase her understanding of them. Since not all of the panel members responded to the questionnaires, a telephone meeting was in addition arranged to discuss some of the issues. The following summary attempts to bring together the comments of those panel members who participated, with some expansion by the chair. The recommendations of the panel which form the concluding section of this chapter constitute the first set of recommendations to be listed in this report. It has been decided that it is more appropriate to leave them in this chapter, rather than moving them to Chapter Eight, where conclusions and recommendations relating to other issues are listed.

6.2 Mechanisms for discovery If e-books are to be more widely taken up in further and higher education, it must be relatively easy for acquisition and other librarians to find out what is available for purchase and for academics and students to discover what e-books are available to them through their libraries.

In the UK, Whitaker and BookData, now merged as Nielsen BookData, have provided the bibliographic databases that are used online and on CD-ROM by libraries and bookshops to discover availability of traditional book products. Nielsen Bookdata products list only a small proportion of the total number of e-books available. They intend to increase their coverage rapidly and need to be supported in this aim by the publishers on whom they depend for the provision of product information. netLibrary, by far the largest provider of commercial e-books to the higher education library market, has its own search mechanism, available only to existing subscribers.

Bowker in the US has signed an agreement with netLibrary by which Bowker will load descriptive data and ordering information for the entire netLibrary list of e-books into the booksinprint.com database “to support libraries in their collection development and acquisition processes”.

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Few traditional library suppliers offer a wide range of e-books, leaving it to specialists such as netLibrary, Ebrary, Xrefer and others. Thus there is, at present, no single catalogue of all e-books available from the various intermediary suppliers.

Although the library input to the panel was limited, it was felt that e-books were not adequately catalogued in library OPACS. It is usually possible but often rather complicated for users to search OPACS only for e-books. There was some discussion within the group as to whether users were likely to want to confine a search in this way but agreement that this might sometimes be the case, especially if a user was remote from the library. It should therefore be a requirement for OPACS and bibliographic databases to be searchable by product format.

Amongst other related problems and issues of bibliographic access and control noted by the group were: • •

• •

incompleteness of e-book listings need for revision of AACR (currently underway) to allow e-resources to be catalogued by type of content rather than as a separate class of resource; possible need to lobby for e-books to be specified as a type within AACR - although this conflicts with the approach being taken by AACR as indicated in the point above which implies that an e-book would be catalogued using the same rules as for a book with the electronic carrier aspects brought out as necessary. This would mean that electronic resources would cease to be treated as a class of materials in their own right (with a couple of exceptions e.g. computer programs), which appears to go against this recommendation. This is only work in progress and has not yet been endorsed by AACR. clearer guidelines on which MARC fields to use for cataloguing e-books problems of moved links, where URL has been changed. Use of DOI or URN should be recommended rather than URL links.

6.3 Review of metadata and other relevant standards The international standard for book metadata in the commercial publishing world is ONIX www.editeur.org/onix.html . This is quite widely used in the US and UK and is being adopted in other countries (Germany, France, Australia, Canada etc). Many publishers of e-books are capable of producing metadata to the ONIX standard, and including specific e-product codes that include all known formats for both handheld PC based e-books. ONIX has been mapped to MARC21 by the Library of Congress and to UNIMARC by the British Library. ONIX can also be mapped into the much less detailed Dublin Core scheme, but valuable information would probably be lost in the process.

Libraries use MARC for cataloguing purposes. The main differences in approach between the two schemes are that ONIX describes a product primarily for trading purposes and includes more descriptive information and trade details such as price and availability. MARC is specifically concerned with cataloguing library resources and is more prescriptive in terms of cataloguing rules and authority. ONIX can be mapped quite well to MARC but publishers are unlikely to adopt AACR rules (e.g. on capitalisation of titles). An ideal situation might be MARC-based OPACS supplemented by the richer ONIX information available from the commercial sector.

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Metadata elements recommended for inclusion in any set include: • basic Dublin Core elements, easily mapped from ONIX • the Publisher Statement, that amongst other things will distinguish between the actual publisher and the intermediary or electronic distributor / aggregator • bibliographic history, that will provide information on whether the item has appeared in print format and whether it is exactly the same or has been updated etc.

• publishers’ blurbs and abstracts, although available in ONIX, are not always supplied with e-books and would facilitate classification and subject indexing as well as being useful for selection purposes Other relevant metadata standards in use in the higher education sector include Z39.50 and OAI-PMH, both designed to facilitate searching of bibliographic metadata across databases.

Z39.50 is an ISO standard network protocol for searching across different databases from a single user interface and could be used to search across the metadata databases of a number of publishers or aggregators. This would require technical compliance by publishers and bibliographic database providers wishing to make their metadata available via the library systems that use Z39.50. Very few publishers are Z39.50 compliant and the benefits of undertaking this compliance require further investigation.

OAI-PMH (The Open Archive Initiative – Protocol for Metadata Harvesting) is an informal standard developed by a consortium of US Universities, for presenting metadata in a form that can be automatically collected (harvested) by third parties. .

It would be possible to present ONIX data for harvesting using this protocol and we recommend further exploration of this possibility by e-book publishers and libraries.

6.4 Collaboration / partnerships between librarians and commercial e-book providers Although it is generally agreed that publishers, or even authors, should provide metadata in a standard format that can then be augmented as it flows through the supply chain, there is currently little agreement on formats and no likelihood that publishers will adopt library cataloguing rules. Since, however, there is consensus on a number of important metadata elements (e.g. standard ISO identifiers) and since the predominant trade format, ONIX, can be mapped to MARC, there should be scope for collaboration on the flow of rich metadata. The British Library, for example, has announced that it will accept ONIX records for digital materials deposited for preservation purposes.

6.5 Integration of e-books into the library acquisition process We suspect that this isn’t a metadata issue, since most e-books are acquired in a package from specialist intermediaries. We should recommend, once again, that the providers of bibliographic databases, whether Books in Print services or library suppliers own catalogues, carry rich information about all e-books available for

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acquisition by libraries. This should include information about technical requirements as well as rights/permissions granted.

6.6 Preservation of e-books The publishersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; point of view, generally, is that they welcome the use of trusted repositories (e.g. the British Library) and assume that the arrival of legal deposit will ensure that a well managed archive of digital publications will be available.

Publishers are prepared to provide ONIX records and to include what other technical information they have available, although this may not go as far as OAIS-based schemes such as CEDARS. (N.B. BIC is currently working with the Digital Preservation Coalition to explore the inclusion of new elements in ONIX for digital preservation purposes, although guaranteeing long-term access to faithful reconstructions of digital material without expensive transference techniques such as migration and emulation remains somewhat intractable).

It was noted that policies will need to be developed regarding deposit of corrected and updated materials.

6.7 Digital Rights Management Metadata In response to questions on access, members of the group noted that their main concern is one of restricting access to legitimate users only, and that this is understood by the library community who have developed user authentication protocols such as ATHENS and SPARTA, and Shibboleth (an Internet 2 development).

Publishers appear to be content to protect their intellectual property rights by the legal means of contracts with libraries and trust in their compliance rather than complex encryption. Work currently underway within ISO MPEG on a Rights Data Dictionary and a Rights Expression Language will provide a standard means of expressing the permissions granted to a user and should lead to clearer and more automated ways of discovering and possibly enforcing a userâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s rights for a particular e-book or other digital product.

6.8 Recommendations on Cataloguing and Metadata Issues from Panel C 1. Providers of bibliographic databases should be urged to include e-books and the benefits of providing such information should be explained to publishers wishing to sell e-books to the academic market.

2. The e-book intermediary services should be encouraged to work with the bibliographic database services to provide a comprehensive listing of e-books available and from whom they can be obtained.

3. OPACs and other bibliographic databases should be searchable by product form, but also provide links between paper and digital versions of the same product.

4. AACR2 should take better account of e-books and provide more guidance on their cataloguing.

5. The library community should be encouraged to ensure persistence of links by using DOIs or URNs .

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6. Metadata elements should include the basic Dublin Core elements, Publisher Statement to clarify who is the actual publisher and who is the distributor, Bibliographic History providing information on other formats, Publishersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; blurbs and abstracts to facilitate both selection and subject classification (e.g., using Dublin Core, blurbs and abstracts could go into dc:description).

7. The benefits to publishers of Z39.50 compliance should be investigated.

8. The use of ONIX to expose metadata for OAI harvesting should be explored and piloted.

9. Policies regarding deposit of corrected and updated digital products should be articulated.

10. The work of ISO/IETC JTC1/SC29/WG11 (MPEG) in developing standards for a Rights Data Dictionary and Rights Expression Language should be monitored and publicised.

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Chapter Seven E-Books and Teaching & Learning This chapter has been written by Huw Morris, Associate Dean at Bristol Business School of the University of the West of England 7.1 Introduction to this chapter This chapter focuses on the relationship between e-books and teaching and learning in institutions of further and higher education. The aim of the chapter is to comment on the attitudes of academics, lecturers and students to e-books and to describe some of the many ways in which this new medium has been used by these individuals.

As the following pages will demonstrate, there are variations in the attitudes of librarians, academics, lecturers and students to e-books both within and between departments and institutions. These variations in attitudes have an influence on the way in which e-books are used in teaching and learning. However, other factors and pressures are also at play in determining how this new medium is used. These other influences include the individualâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s own established patterns of practice, as well as those of colleagues within the subject area, department and wider academic community.

The variable and complex nature of the relationship between electronic texts and the experiences of particular groups of staff and students means that it is not possible to provide a complete account of the impact of e-books on staff and students. While there is evidence of increasing use of e-books, at least within higher education institutions, the question of whether e-books improve or worsen teaching and learning remains difficult, if not impossible to answer. There are significant methodological, ethical and epistemological problems associated with attempting to evaluate the effectiveness of e-books in these terms. Faced with these problems what we can comment on with some certainty is the ways in which different individual academics, lecturers and students think e-books might alter the nature of teaching and learning.

We can also draw conclusions about how these technologies are being used by a small number of staff and students in different subject areas and institutions. It is these aspects of the changes associated with the introduction of e-books which this chapter focuses on.

The information referred to in this chapter has been drawn from sources described in the methodology section at the beginning of the report. This information has also been added to by material derived from a series of mini-case studies of e-learning practice in UK Business Schools and two institution level evaluations of the introduction of VLEs in new universities L and V120. The chapter is divided into the following six 120

Morris, H. and Rippin, A. (forthcoming) `Virtual Learning Environments in Business and Management: A Review of Some Recent Developmentsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;, International Journal of Management Education. Morris, H. (2003) The impact of E-Learning on the Work of Staff in a Higher Education Institution: A Case Study of the Introduction of the Blackboard Learning System at Monarch University E-Learning at Monarch University (unpublished report) Morris, H, et al (2003) Institutional Level Review: An Evaluation of the Blackboard Pilot Project. Preliminary Results. University of the West of England, (unpublished report).

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sections: a) academics and lecturers attitudes to e-books, b) determining the effectiveness of e-books and e-learning, c) the use of e-books and e-learning in practice, d) student experiences, e) conclusions and f) recommendations.

7.2 Academics and Lecturers: attitudes to e-books Among the interviewees, as has already been noted, there was an evident division between publishers, librarians and booksellers on one hand, and academics, lecturers and students on the other. All of the publishers, librarians and booksellers questioned were aware of developments in e-book technology and had well reasoned if understandably different sets of views about the relative merits and de-merits of these titles. Understanding among academics, lecturers and students was more variable. As the initial survey indicated, there was limited awareness of the form and function of these learning resources among academics in higher education institutions, and an even lower levels of understanding among further education lecturers. Among students in both higher and further education, understanding was also limited, even among those who volunteered to take part in the small scale questionnaire survey and subsequent focus group.

The divide in understanding between different stakeholders in the library and information supply chain is not a new finding. Earlier studies have drawn attention to these differences between two groups121. In the first group are the producers (publishers), and the storers and distributors of knowledge (librarians and booksellers). Meanwhile, in the second group are the inventors/designers (academics) as well as the deliverers (lecturers) and consumers (students) of this material. What is new from the present study is the finding of a mixture of different opinions among academics and lecturers about the relevance and role of e-books. Looking at these variations in opinion, at least among higher education academics, if not yet among further education lecturers, it is possible to distinguish between four sub-groups with different sets of opinions. For the purposes of this study, these groups of academics have been labelled advocates, ambivalents, antipathetics and apathetics.

The questionnaire survey of twenty four higher education lecturers who are e-learning enthusiasts in six different universities revealed marked variations in the patterns of current and intended future e-book usage. Thus although all six of the universities covered by the survey stocked e-books, only eighteen (three quarters) of the twenty four lecturers questioned were aware of these collections. Among these eighteen academic staff, five had worked with their librarian in selecting e-books and fifteen had used e-books. Among these fifteen the pattern of usage varied. The most common forms of usage in order of importance were inclusion on reading lists (14) reference checking (10), private reading (10) research (9), course material preparation (9) and lecture writing (8). From these figures it is evident that even among e-learning enthusiasts awareness and use of e-books is patchy. At one extreme are the advocates who work assiduously with librarians and learning technologists to ensure that students have access to e-books. At the other extreme are those who are not particularly interested in these developments. Evidence of an advocate type orientation was provided by one of the academic interviewees who commented.

7. Armstrong, C. and Lonsdale, R. (2002) The E-Book Mapping Exercise: Draft Report on Phase 1, Information Automated Limited and Department of Information Studies, Aberystwyth University.

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“I do know that the library has a stock of e-books, and I have been actively involved in selecting them with my subject librarian. I constantly use web resources for teaching and studying purposes. All my modules are supported by material on Blackboard; each appropriate session is supported by a www link.” [Dermatology Academic, New University J]

While two fifths of the leading edge academics fell into the category of advocate, a further two fifths were more unsure and generally less aware of the resources available in this format. Examples of individuals in this category were provided by the four academics who took part in the focus group discussion. When asked if they would put e-books on reading lists, all said that they would in principle, though none did at present. This view could best be described as a combination of awe and ambivalence. Like a rabbit caught in the headlights of a car, there was a general perception that something needed to be done or things might change for the worse.

However, there was also much confusion about exactly what form this action should take in the short term. This confusion centred on how rapid changes in technology should be accommodated by these individuals personally, and about when they should commit to learning about these technologies. As another of the health care academics commented.

“I don’t know what’s available in my subject in terms of e-books; but Internet access for students has revolutionised their learning experience.”

[Health Management Policy Academic, New University J] As a consequence of this confusion, there was lots of evidence of good intentions, but rather less evidence of deeds well done. Twenty of the questionnaire respondents thought that their use of e-books in future would increase and none thought it would decrease. But when it came to detailed questioning about how this increased usage might be achieved there was less certainty in the respondents answers. The overall impression was that respondents felt that the development of e-books was a phenomenon that couldn’t be avoided and would have to be accommodated. As one questionnaire respondent commented.

“Since I don’t currently use them but they are an expanding resource it seems unlikely that one will be able to avoid their use in the future.

Accessibility also seems to be an important aspect – the more there are available, and the “hotter off the press” (sic) they are – the more likely they are to be used.” [Questionnaire response]

The third group of lecturers is described as antipathetic rather than antagonistic. This label has been adopted because although these individuals were generally resistant to the introduction of this new technology, their resistance was passive rather than active. These individuals did not see e-books as a useful addition to the range of resources available to help them with their teaching. However, neither did they see ebooks as something which would interfere with the quality of teaching or necessarily degrade the experience and quality of learning among students. This medium just wasn’t for them. The reason for this group’s unwillingness to engage with e-books were many and various. Some were based on reasoned assessments of the relative merits of this new technology; others were less well founded. Thus, three of the nine academics not using e-books in the survey were concerned about the reliability of the

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hardware and software needed to use these materials. These individuals were also concerned about what they anticipated would be physical problems associated with reading large amounts of text on screen.

“Systems failure: the system breaks down frequently for long periods, often at the beginning of term: it can’t take the pressure.” [Questionnaire response] “The main problem I have with this kind of resource is reading off a PC screen.

Whether or not this is a “technical” problem I can’t say.” [Questionnaire

response] The last group of five higher education lecturers are labelled apathetic because they said that they had not considered using this technology. The term apathetic is used here in its literal sense and is not intended to be pejorative. The label is used merely to draw attention to the `want of feeling, passion or interest’122: in short, to the individuals’ indifference to the use of this medium. Thus apathy towards e-books took the form of a reticence to investigate the operation of e-books rather than outright resistance to the use of this new technology. None of the individuals in this category said that they considered that e-books held no advantages over print, or that they had or should have no place in the library of a university. Although the staff in the antipathy and apathy category made up one fifth of the survey respondents, the reported views of these individuals did not appear to be a mask for antagonistic attitudes. The voluntary nature of the use of e-books in the institutions in which these individuals worked meant that it was not surprising that anti-feelings had not emerged. If they didn’t like them, they didn’t have to use them, end of story.

However, in the wider field of e-learning there is evidence from elsewhere that when it becomes a requirement or expectation that staff use these resources this can give rise to more negative attitudes123.

7.3 Determining the effectiveness of e-books Having commented on staff attitudes to the use of e-books and e-learning, this section comments on the effectiveness of these resources as a means of supporting staff teaching.

To date there has only been a handful of studies which attempt to comment on the relationship between e-books and teaching and learning124 .There has however been a 122

Oxford Concise English Dictionary.

123 David Noble’s work in the US has drawn attention to staff protests organised in opposition to the requirement for academics to use e-learning methods in their teaching at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) and York University, Canada, Noble, D. (op cit). Similar although less strong feelings of antagonism are evident in a recent poll of academics undertaken by the National Association of Teachers in Further and Higher Education (NATFHE). Uttley, A. (2003) `Web burdens hit staff, Times Higher Education Supplement, 11th July, p4.

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For example De Diana, I and White, T. (1994) `Electronic Study Books and Learning Style,’ Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, Vol.10, No.2, pp113-125. Dearnley, J. and McKnight, C. (2001) `The Revolution Starts Next Week: the findings of two studies considering the use of electronic books, Information Services and Use, Vol.21, No. 2, pp65-78. UniS (2002) Testing the viability of the introduction of electronic books at UniS. Guildford, Internal Report, http://www.surrey.ac.uk/Library/eBook_Project_Report.pdf (accessed at 15th July 2003). Finally, de Jon, M. (2002) `Quality of Book-Reading Matters for Emergent Readers: An Experiment With The

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more extensive range of studies into the effects of e-learning resources more generally. These wider studies have tended to fall into one of the following three categories.

First, there are studies which adopt quasi-experimental methods to assess the nature of the relationship between electronic resources and student learning. Here measures of the effectiveness or otherwise of these technologies tend to include impact assessments of student satisfaction and output measures of assignment and examination performance. The results of these studies have produced a mix of conclusions. Some indicate that there are significant positive benefits associated with using e-learning resources125. Meanwhile a much greater number of studies indicate that there are `no significant differences’ between electronic methods of supporting learning and more traditional classroom based approaches126.

The second group of studies examining the impact of e-learning on higher and further education adopts a very different approach. Using press reports, interview transcripts and occasional surveys of staff opinion, the authors of these studies adopt a more critical orientation and tend to reach more pessimistic conclusions. For writers associated with this approach the use of electronic resources is indicative of wider moves to industrialise, standardise and revolutionise the work of further and higher education institutions127. As such it is something to be regretted and lamented if not openly resisted.

The last group of researchers uses a more extensive and systematic range of methodologies. Drawing on material gathered from in-depth case studies and ethnographic investigations, these writers seek to describe the use of e-learning in specific social and cultural contexts128. The results of these analyses suggest that the experiences of using e-learning resources vary between institutions and that specific

Same Book In A Regular or Electronic Format,’ Journal of Educational Psychology, Vol. 94, No. 1, pp145-155, March.

125 The `significant difference website’ provides a list of studies conducted primarily in the USA which indicate that there are benefits or disadvantages associated with using e-learning resources. Of the 39 studies listed on this site in 2003, 32 indicated a significant positive difference and 7 suggested a significant negative difference in performance between students using e-learning resources and their counterparts using more conventional methods (http://teleeducation.nb.ca/significantdifference/).

126 The `no significant difference website’ summarises over 300 research reports and papers which suggest that there are no significant differences in the attainment and experiences of students using elearning resources in comparison with colleagues receiving more traditional forms of instruction (http://teleeducation.nb.ca/nosignificantdifference/).

127 For example David Noble adopts a neo-Marxian perspective in his critical assessment of the use of internet based education in the USA Noble, D. (2002) Digital Diploma Mills: The Automation of Higher Education, New York, New York University Press. Meanwhile, Rhona Newman and Fred Johnston use Foucauldian analysis to speculate about the possible impact of web based instruction on universities in the future Newman, R. and Johnson, F. (1999) Sites of Power and Knowledge? Towards a critique of the Virtual University, British Journal of Sociology of Education, Vol. 20, No. 1. pp79-88.

Finally, Carl Raschke develops the work of Lyotard and others in his account of how e-learning is revolutionising the work of universities Raschke, C. (2002) The Digital Revolution and the Coming of the Postmodern University, London, RoutledgeFalmer .

128 For example Cornford, J. and Pollock, N. (2003) Putting the University Online: Information, Technology, and Organizational Change, Milton Keynes, Open University Press. Alsop, G. and Tompsett, C. (2002) Grounded Theory as an approach to studying students’ uses of learning management systems, Alt-J, Vol. 10, No.2, pp63-76.

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impacts reflect the complex mix of pressures confronting staff and students in different settings.

Apart from the lack of a significant body of hard evidence demonstrating that elearning resources are better than more traditional forms of teaching, there are sound methodological, ethical and epistemological reasons why claims of clear and simple relationships between these new technologies and educational outcomes should be treated with suspicion.

The first methodological problem is the difficulty of defining exactly what is and what is not an e-book, or e-learning for that matter. The dividing lines between websites, e-zines, e-journals, video clips and e-books have become increasingly blurred. Furthermore, patterns of student usage have become increasingly complex as they merge and meld material from a multiplicity of media. These blurred and fluid boundaries mean that distilling the independent effects of what is and what is not an `e-book’ is probably an impossible task.

A second methodological issue is the difficulty associated with randomly assigning students to control and experimental groups. Students, rather than their tutors, normally choose the courses on which they enrol and the electives or options they study. Faced with this problem, many studies of the effects of e-learning have been forced to compare students who selected to study using these resources with those who have decided to take a course delivered by more traditional means. The failure to randomise the group allocation process means that other uncontrolled or confounding variables may be at work and as a consequence these factors may influence the outcome of the trial. For example, students who choose electronic resources may be more highly motivated learners than their colleagues and may get better results because they are more motivated, not necessarily just because they use electronic resources.

Another methodological problem associated with quasi-experimental designs is the difficulty of preventing members of the experimental and control groups being contaminated by other experiences outside the college setting. Most studies to date have been conducted using information collected from students on one course or module. With these students studying a series of related courses or modules at the same institution and with weekly mobile phone and internet usage among 18-25 year olds currently standing at close to 80 per cent, it is difficult to find students who do not have regular experience of some form of e-learning. This is likely to contaminate the findings of any study of e-learning.

The ethical issues raised by quasi-experimental methods include the impossibility of establishing `double blind’ or even `blind’ forms of allocation between the experimental and control groups. It is unethical both to exclude students from the experimental group and to conceal the intentions of the evaluators from the tutors or students who take part. With these limitations it is impossible to remove the possibility of `experimenter bias’ or a `Hawthorne effect’ influencing the recorded results of the study129. This is particularly important when one considers the important 129

The term `Hawthorne effect’ is used to refer to circumstances in which the researchers’ interest in the experimental subjects has more influence on their performance than any other changes within the

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role played by the tutor of facilitator in the use of any electronic learning resource.

With many students reporting that their learning was powerfully influenced by the motivations and the level of affinity they felt with their tutor, it is difficult to exclude the impact of these potentially confounding variables.

The epistemological difficulties relate to the problems raised by determining what is learning and what is it for. Existing assessments of the effects of e-learning tend to concentrate on making judgements based on staff and student attitudes as revealed through interviews and questionnaires, as well as student performance as indicated by assignment and examination results. The problem associated with each of these measures is that it is by no means certain that they truly evaluate learning. Student and staff perceptions of whether they have learnt after an educational experience are probably a poor guide to whether this educational experience is of value. These perceptions will undoubtedly be coloured by the individual’s general attitude to either the technology, or to the individuals associated with introducing this equipment.

Similar problems are revealed by the use of assessment results. Education and learning are both solitary and collective as well as directed and undirected activities.

In these circumstances, assessing what the student has learned by reference to what the tutor believes they should have learned may do poor service to the learning that the student has gained for themselves. As one of the interviewees commented.

“I think we underestimate how people can learn” [Librarian, New

University T] There is little if any consensus among researchers about how individuals learn, how they should learn or how academics and lecturers should teach130. In the absence of this guidance, much of the advice which is available relies on summary categorisations of the main traditions in the psychology of learning, from behaviourism to cognitivism and on to constructivism. Either that, or recourse to homilies. All of which takes us neatly on to B.F. Skinner’s famous aphorism and its epistemological implications. As Skinner suggests, “education is what survives when what has been learned has been forgotten”131. The point here is that it is difficult to determine what has changed and what is of value until it has been tested, not by the researcher’s survey questionnaire, but, by the experiences of life, what follows the class room and lecture hall. This insight is particularly important when we review how we might assess teaching and learning with electronic media. As Carol Twigg has pointed out, the new media not only change the nature of knowledge, they also change the skills that are needed to work within an environment of constantly changing information132. As knowledge becomes increasingly recognised as contextual, contingent and contested, the abilities and skills that students and tutors need change. In this environment, what needs to be developed is not the skill of acquiring a body of knowledge, but “information skills” to engage in “lifelong experimental setting. See http://www.comnet.ca/~pballan/HAWTH.htm for a more detailed explanation.

130 Crook, C. (2002) The Virtual University: The Learner’s Perspective,’ in Robbins, K. and Webster, F. (Eds) The Virtual University? Knowledge, Markets and Management, Oxford, Oxford University Press.

131 Skinner, B. F. (1964)) New Scientist, 21st May 132 Twigg, C. (1994) The Changing Definition of Learning, Sequence, Vol. 29, No. 4, http://www.educause.edu/pub/er/review/reviewArticles/29422.html (accessed at June 14th 2003)

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learning”.133. These skills have the potential to change the balance of knowledge and power between student and tutor so that the student knows more about a topic than their lecturer. As one respondent commented.

“The Internet being accessible via the web has meant that for the first time you can actually get students to read original sources of things they would never be able to get otherwise. Secondly, students can actually read things the lecturer hasn’t read and that has changed the nature of the relationship between the student and lecturer. You want that, you want students to go away and read things. Some lecturers feel threatened by that, but some have grasped the opportunity. You basically say “there's a lot of stuff out there, where do I get my notes from?” The Web. “Where do you get your notes from?” Me and the web. “You will find things I've not read, which might be quite important.” [IT Lecturer A, New University L]

With this potential change in the balance of access to information, while it may be possible to assess the individual’s information skills, it becomes more difficult to assess their specific knowledge and understanding. It also becomes very difficult to prevent plagiarism and to draw the lines between plagiarism and research.

7.4 The use of e-books and e-learning in practice Although this chapter began by considering and classifying the attitudes and approaches of academics to the use of e-books, it is important to remember that the feelings and motivations of individuals, while important in explaining why people might choose a particular technology, do not explain the actual pattern of usage. This is because individuals do not always have the personal or institutional freedom to make these choices. A lecturer’s choice of teaching and learning methods in any particular set of circumstances is driven by a number of factors, many of which are contradictory, and only a few of which necessarily reflect their own personal views.

Among the many factors at work are: • • • • • • •

experiences of teaching and learning as a student, lessons learnt when entering the research and teaching professions conventions within their chosen subject and specialism predominant patterns of practice among colleagues in their department physical limitations imposed by rooming, timetable and resource constraints demands associated with other work as well as personal and social activities student expectations.

The point here is that teaching and learning are social activities in which patterns of practice are established and sustained among groups of staff and students. This is not to say that individuals do not make a difference, nor that some methods prove to more 133

See for example, SCONUL (1999) Information Skillls in Higher Education: A SCONUL Position Paper, http://www.sconul.ac.uk/pubs_stats/pubs/99104Rev1.doc (accessed 10th August 2003) and Harris, C. Davies, H. Mackenzie, A. Makin, L. Ryan, C. (2002) The Big Blue Information Skills for Students, Leeds University Library and and Machester Metropolitan University Library, http://www.leeds.ac.uk/bigblue/bigbluecontni.html (accessed 22nd May 2003)

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acceptable over time than others. Individuals may change the views and practices of others, but in so doing they are battling against established and often ingrained practice. This practice endures because it is valued, believed to be of value, or has just become the accepted way of doing things. In the words of another famous author “culture is what is remembered after all else is forgotten”134 Thus, if we want to consider the impact and effects of e-books on teaching practice, an appropriate place to start is to consider what academics and lecturers actually do and to consider how they explain this behaviour. In doing this, we are of necessity concentrating on the views of those we have previously labelled `antagonists’ and `advocates’. These individuals, rather than the `ambivalents’ and `apathetics’, have adopted particular approaches and views. Having said this, these views are rarely expressed directly or necessarily very cogently. The patterns of practice and conventions of a particular subject are generally so taken for granted amongst practitioners that they are only really questioned by novices and by those who travel between subject areas or institutions. However, with this caveat in mind it would appear that the approaches adopted by antagonists and advocates can be divided into four categories: synics135, surface adopters, strategic users and systemic believers.

Lecturers in the `synical’ group tend to be older and more experienced than their colleagues in other groups. Having gained experience of many passing fashions in teaching and learning, and frequently having worked in more than one establishment, individuals in this group tend to be wary of new developments, for fear that they might prove to be fads. Staff in this group are also often in more senior positions.

Observations by these individuals were often raised with some embarrassment or trepidation, as it appeared that they felt worried that their comments were somehow naïve, inappropriate, incorrect or even `Luddite’. In the current study, examples, of this approach were provided by a small number of lecturers who worked in art, design, teacher education or professions allied to medicine. These respondents raised concerns about the support available through e-books and e-learning technologies for developing and improving students’ formal and informal practical skills. For these practitioners, e-books and e-learning were seen as something of an irrelevance, or as a further move towards textual forms of learning which they felt did not help to develop the `right’ knowledge, skills and understanding in students. This view was summarised in the following comment: “The only way to get good on an Art and Design course is through practice and more practice. There is no strategic way through an Art and Design course. It is dependent on the development of the individual and how they develop, not really what they read…well certainly not that to any significant degree.” [Senior Art and Design Academic, New University V]

The second group of academics and lecturers were `surface adopters’ whose approach appeared to be driven by the symbolism of their actions and the attitudes this style of presentation conveyed. For the individuals in this group, being a technophile and demonstrating technical literacy was a `fashion statement’ which demonstrated their broader progressive inclinations. Examples of this approach are revealed by the following quotations: 134

Original source André Gide.

The term `synical’ is misspelled deliberately. This is not just for alliterative purposes, but also to indicate the personal concern that respondents in this category felt about going against popular opinion.

135

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“The Dean likes all this new technology, he wants us to look up-to-date and business like.” [Business Academic, Old University C] “On [this] course if you say “oh no I don’t bother with electronic or virtual learning”, then its like saying “I don’t want to update what I am talking about”. It’s like teaching economics and not bothering about monetary systems over the last twenty years. You have got to use electronic methods.”

[IT Lecturer B, New University L] This approach was also often inspired or encouraged by pressure from colleagues and students. This pressure could be silent and incipient or more vocal and developed.

Thus it might come from staff viewing and reviewing the websites and reading lists of other staff in their department or counterparts at other institutions, or it may arise as a consequence of specific recommendation from other members of the teaching team, course committee comments from students, external examiners reports, professional advisers, or even, on occasion, preparation for subject assessment and external accreditation.

Another form of what in learning terms might be termed `surface engagement’, but which in the broader scheme of an individual’s working life is probably strategic, was evident among staff who saw this technology as a labour saving device. By removing the routine and mundane tasks of printing and photocopying, these individuals believed that they would save themselves and others time which could then be used for other `more important’ things, whether professional or personal.

“Now I am missing out the photocopying. That’s my main aim, a common theme throughout the discussion! Miss out the photocopying if you can!” [Accounting

Lecturer, New University L] Another form of surface adoption was revealed in the comments of new academics who were more likely to adopt particular new practices in uncritical manner as part of their socialisation into a department and subject area or profession.

“You know how it is, part of your socialisation into an organisation, you learn all the systems that are operating. It’s quite different from somebody who has to accept a new system after working in an organisation for a while, then you are reluctant to use the system.” [HRM Lecturer, New University L]

With the third group of lecturers the primary motivation for using e-learning resources was much more clearly strategic. For these individuals, the use of e-books and other electronic materials was a decision driven by an enthusiasm for the medium, but also based on a view that students would learn more effectively, efficiently and equitably by using these resources. As one of the marketing lecturers commented, the skills of working with computer based data as well as accessing and interrogating information were best taught through this medium.

“My courses are particularly suitable because they are about the internet, by getting people to use the internet – I am actually teaching them how to use it.’”[Marketing Lecturer: New University L]

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Other comments drew attention to what they saw as the lower cost, at least for the student, of these new mediums, as well as the added functionality. As one social science academic remarked.

“I find e-books particularly useful because they enable me to refer students to good quality copies of standard texts, and I know that they will be able to get them, they won’t be out of the library and they won’t be able to say they can’t afford them.” [Senior Social Science Academic, New University V]

Others emphasised the great value of these texts as instruments for research and reference.

“One of the great things about it is you can actually search across entire books. I gave a class a few weeks ago to some PhD students, one of them was searching caricatures of the medical profession in Dickens. She was absolutely delighted that she could actually search thousands of books for Dickens ….doctor, nurse medic, midwife and so on – to search thousands of books [in the past] would have taken her years to do. In that way, that’s transforming how she can do her research.” [Librarian, New University T]

However, it wasn’t just concern with the development of students or the minimisation of costs to these individuals which appeared to be driving the decision to adopt. There was also a concern to develop new educational products, service new markets, cater for the needs of students who were either disabled or for whom English was not a first language. In many cases, the tutor’s interest in e-learning and e-books came first and subsequent concern with developing related commercial or educational initiatives came later. Among the ventures documented were new distance learning masters level courses in E-Commerce and Communications Management, as well as specialist modules for deaf students and asylum seekers.

The last group of e-learning users were more likely to be members of the project team and associated panels than they were to be other individuals contacted during the course of this investigation. These `systemic believers’, like a wider body of commentators in a range of academic journals, appeared to believe that e-learning resources offer the prospect of altering and deepening the nature of learning, research and even the construction and reproduction of knowledge. For these individuals elearning and the use of interactive e-books were useful tools in promoting `constructivist’, `active’ or `new paradigm’ forms of learning136. These individuals were aware that the devices used to enable e-learning offered the prospect of `breaking down boundaries between subject areas and disciplines, of breaking up, layering and reconnecting information, of linking researchers, lecturers and students across the world, and of enabling people in all walks of life to be readers, writers, publishers, booksellers and teachers’. In short enabling people to occupy any one or more of the positions on the information supply chain.

136

Hughes, M. and Daykin, N. (2002) Towards Constructivism: Investigating Students’ Perceptions and Learning as a Result of Using an Online Environment, Innovations in Education and Training International, Vol. 39, No. 3, pp217-224. Kewell, B. and Beeby, M. (2002) Student and Lecturer Responses to the Introduction of Computer Assisted Learning (CAL) in a University Business School, Teaching in Higher Education, Vol. 8, No. 3, pp413-430.Mai, N. and TK, K. (2000) `Multimedia Learning: A New Paradigm in Education,’ http://www.icte.org/T01_Library/T01_103.PDF (accessed 10th August 2003).

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“When I was talking to them [publishers] a couple of years ago they were just experimenting …it wasn’t very creative. It was `lets put our textbooks on-line and let’s pay somebody to do the copy editing to make that happen. Not ` how are people going to use this?’ I think they are waiting for someone to write to them and say `here’s my proposal for some rich texts, some embedded activities, video clips, here’s my idea of how we are going to break away from the traditional book as a metaphor for getting students to interact with information!” [Senior

Academic, New University V]

7.5 Student experiences The evidence of student awareness of e-books is less extensive than that detailing the attitudes of HE academics and FE lecturers. However, from the twenty two respondents to the combined student questionnaire and focus group at two new universities it is clear that students are generally more aware, more positive and more frequent users than their tutors. Among the 16 students who took part in the questionnaire survey and the six who volunteered for the focus group discussion, a clear majority were favourably disposed towards these e-learning resources and half were regular users. This level of interest is perhaps not surprising when set against national trends in internet usage137. It is also worth noting that part-time and postgraduate students were more frequent users than their colleagues on full-time undergraduate programmes. These variations between students on different modes of study appear to reflect the greater geographical distances travelled and periods away from the host institution experienced by the part-time postgraduate students.

“As a part-time remote student e-books are invaluable for general reading and gathering information to complement the course and preparing assignment material.

More please.” [Student questionnaire response]

It may also reflect the greater availability and access to personal computers experienced by part-time postgraduate students. Surveys of computer ownership and access frequently revealing that over 80 per cent of employees in professional and managerial occupations have access to a computer at work or at home. Meanwhile, surveys of computer ownership among undergraduate students tend to reveal lower levels of ownership and home access figures of around 50 per cent.

The possible requirement to buy an e-book reader or PDA was seen as a barrier by many of the students interviewed. As one of the librarians commented.

“You need to be connected to a PC or a PDA, you need to have that interface. You need to have bought the e-book or belong to a library which has licenced the title. You need to be able to understand the software to get at and interact with an e-book… you need to become familiar with how to read a book on screen and you may or may not be able to annotate it easily.

Basically, there are a lot of technical barriers to using an e-book which just 137

A consistent theme in recent surveys by the Office of National Statistics the variability in internet awareness and usage between the young and the middle aged ONS (2002) Internet Omnibus Survey, London, HMSO.

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aren’t there with the printed form. …….[A] book is a substantial …it is a `perfect machine’…. you can can carry them, read them in the bath or on the beach and lots of things like that…you can write on them as well. Obviously, you can’t do these things with an e-book.”

[Librarian B, New University V]

In the student focus group, none had considered buying a personal digital assistant (PDA) as they generally felt that they were too expensive. When asked whether they would borrow them from a public or university library, one of the focus group members appeared to speak for the group when he said that the library would probably never have enough copies to lend out to meet demand.

Having drawn attention to the technical barriers to using e-books, there was evidence from the focus group and questionnaire sample of students not only using e-books but on occasion also buying their own personal copies. The means by which they were put in contact with these resources seemed to owe more to the efforts of institutional librarians and internet booksellers than any other groups. When asked if they had ever been approached by lecturers, publishers or booksellers recommending e-books, all of the students agreed that they had not.

Student approaches to reading and learning from e-books were surprisingly conservative and conventional. Thus while the questionnaire respondents were keen to use these resources and the focus group members liked the features that they saw, the criteria against which they made their assessments of these new technologies appear to have been derived wholly from the design features of print books. For example, the focus group students were worried that some of the hand held e-book readers did not display a page number (was this why the manufacturers of scrolls went out of business?)138. They were also concerned that being presented with chapters or sections of books may mean that material was not read in an appropriate context.

Finally, those that had used these technologies had generally not used the added functionality of bookmarks, highlighting and annotation.

Reading through the questionnaire and focus group comments, one is struck by the differences between the students’ views of their studying behaviours and the comments made by other writers about the observed and recorded patterns of actual behaviour. These other observations reveal a wide variety of different motivations and approaches which run the full gamut of categories from `disengaged’, `surface’, `strategic’ and on to `deep’ and `active’ learners. While there is doubtless a mix of students in these different categories on any course within any institution, analyses of the information skills and use of e-learning resources by various researchers tend to suggest that students fall into one or two categories: although what these categorisations are said to be tends to vary from author to author. For example, the authors of one study criticise students for not studying, those of another suggest that e-learning encourages them to concentrate on acquiring and memorising bullet-point information, yet others criticise students for `lurking’ and not taking part in computer mediated conferences (CMC) or of adopting a `print and go’ mentality. Other 138

Dr. Monica Landoni adds: “This is a common finding in e-book usability studies, and it possibly relates to specific titles whose paper counterpart has already been in use for a while. Even more intriguingly, it could be linked to the “selective readings” students perform, nased on the understanding that some specific pages are more essential than others.”

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examples of the approaches students are said to have adopted include those which draw attention to their targeting of materials and multi-tasking using several resources at the same time139. What this summary reveals is that we do not know as much as perhaps we should about the ways in which different students use different approaches at different times and for what reasons. When assessing these questions, as we should in the future, studentsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; own views of what they do need to be set against diary analyses and observations of their actual behaviour.

7.6 Conclusions of this chapter This chapter has demonstrated that there is growing awareness and use of e-books by lecturers, academics and students. However, as with the emergence of other new products in their early stages, it is clear that there is still some considerable uncertainty about which of the many new technologies labelled `e-booksâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; will become the dominant industry standard. As we are currently in the midst of this `standards battleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; it is perhaps not surprising that there are relatively few ardent advocates supporting the adoption of these technologies among academic and lecturing staff.

Remember video disks. It is also perhaps not surprising that few further and higher education staff have explored the variety of ways in which this technology might be used to support teaching and promote student learning. The strategic users and systemic believers are still a tiny minority.

Among the student population, the rapid diffusion of a wide range of electronic communications technologies among young undergraduates and the spread of desktop access to on-line databases for part-time students in commercial settings has created an environment within which e-books are welcomed as a reference and research tool.

There is scope for experimentation with this format, and it seems likely that just as technical standards will develop over years to come, there may also be innovation in the design metaphors used to structure the form and operation of e-books. For the customers, cataloguers and archivists of these electronic resources, these changes may cause problems, as established stocks have to be reworked and restored. For the producers and sellers it appears that there is little to fear. The consumers of these technologies see them as a complement and not a substitute for traditional printed formats. It seems likely that in the near future an increasing number of educational staff and students will use e-books alongside hardbacks and paperbacks. To make the most of this development, there is a need for planning and development at national, institutional and departmental levels.

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For example, Big Blue (2002) (op cit); Kewell and Beeby (2003) (op cit); Hughes, M. and Daykin, N. (2002) (op cit); and Crook, F. (2002) (op cit).

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Chapter Eight Conclusions and Recommendations 8.1 Introductory Notes The list of conclusions gathered from this report is here kept very short, as the issues have been discussed in detail in the report itself. For the same reason, the recommendations are not clarified with extra detail except where a point is raised that has not been previously addressed in the report. The recommendations listed here consist of the outcomes of the work of Panels A, B and D (the Technology, Publishing and Distribution, and Pedagogical Issues Panels), plus additional recommendations from those who have contributed to the report at various stages, and from the project leader. The recommendations of Panel C, the Cataloguing and Metadata Issues Panel are listed at the end of Chapter Six, as it did not seem helpful to list them out of context. It will be noted that on occasion some of the recommendations conflict with each other (for example, in making comparisons with e-journals; estimations of netLibrary). Nevertheless, all recommendations considered helpful have been listed, to give choice to those stakeholders wishing to act upon them. The recommendations for each stakeholder group have been listed separately.

I am particularly grateful to Andrew Weinstein, Michael Holdsworth and Huw Morris for all of the work that they have put into this chapter.

8.2 Conclusions The conclusions are listed in the order in which the issues to which they relate are addressed in the report; the order does not therefore reflect priority. The conclusions are given in more detail as the Executive Summary.

1. Within the context of academic publishing, there is not an adequate definition for the term “e-book”, and this is a source of confusion and therefore a barrier to uptake.

2. The different software and hardware products associated with e-books are a source of confusion and therefore a barrier to uptake.

3. E-books, if adopted in a widespread fashion, would provide an answer to some of the challenges currently being faced by further and higher education.

4. Social and cultural issues related to expectations of the e-book as a teaching, learning and research resource compared with the print book constitute a barrier to uptake. Within the contexts of usage and evolution of uptake, it may not be helpful to compare e-books with perceived “related” products, for example, audio books, electronically disseminated music, e-journals, print books.

5. The main active stakeholder groups in the e-book supply chain are authors, publishers, aggregators, booksellers, librarians, academics, lecturers, students and hardware / software providers. Publishers and aggregators consider that 152

librarians occupy a pivotal role in promoting e-books, and concentrate less on the other user groups. This in itself constitutes a major barrier to uptake.

6. There are differences between the print book and e-book physical and information supply chains. The e-book information supply chain (for the reason given in 5 above) is imperfect. Awareness of the main user groups, especially of academics, lecturers and students, but also, in some cases and for some products, of librarians, is low. This constitutes a major barrier to uptake.

7. Many publishers are reluctant to make their publications available in e-book format and / or to promote them too strenuously, because they are afraid of the effect on their revenues. This is especially true of the major textbook publishers, who have instead invested heavily in producing supplementary / complementary electronic materials to support print books. These related points constitute a barrier to uptake.

8. Both publishers and aggregators have developed a wide range of charging techniques for e-books, some of which are difficult to understand, and make it difficult to assess whether value for money is being obtained. This constitutes a barrier to uptake.

9. Booksellers have experimented with e-books in a limited way, but are finding it difficult to carve out a role for themselves in the e-book supply chain (although some library suppliers are beginning to see that their services are needed). As they are therefore not filling the important role of information providers that they occupy in the print book information supply chain, this constitutes a barrier to uptake.

10. The four major points made in 9 above should be linked to the major point made in 5 and 6 above: promoting awareness of e-books to the right people is critical.

11. E-book users - librarians, academics, lecturers and students - have identified a whole raft of barriers to uptake, as well as the advantages that e-books offer to them, which are examined in detail in Chapter Three. It is suggested that from this comprehensive range of issues, the following are the major ones that need to be addressed if uptake of e-books is to reach its full potential in further and higher education in the UK: Availability of the publications that are required in e-book format.

Congenial and appropriate (to the subject matter) presentation of the material, so that it is found to be equal or superior to other formats within the context that it is being used.

A price structure which is viable for all stakeholders (i.e., all suppliers and end-users).

Near-universal access of students to the Internet and appropriate hardware.

12. Some academics and lecturers use e-books in innovative ways: their ideas could be disseminated more widely.

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13. Students are confused about e-books and very imperfectly aware of them.

However, most are willing to try them.

14. Academics and lecturers use or expect to use e-books for a wide variety of purposes, including teaching and research, lecture preparation and reference.

Librarians say that they expect the most common use of e-books to be for reference. However, practice and expectations may be skewed by knowledge of what is currently available.

15. It is particularly important that e-books feature on the main vehicle of information used by most students: the reading list.

16. Assessing potential demand for e-books is difficult, because of the imperfect information supply chain already identified, and because usage statistics provided by publishers and aggregators are often difficult to understand, and invariably inadequate for determining the quality and extent of usage. Some modest successes and a few spectacular ones have been recorded by referring to such usage statistics as are available. Of more significance in establishing potential demand is that 71% of academics, 80% of FE lecturers and 72% of students taking part in this study said that they would buy the e-book in preference to the print book if it were significantly cheaper.

17. Some detailed analysis of individual e-book products has been undertaken by separate groups of librarians; this work, which was time consuming to produce, is very useful and could be shared more widely.

18. Librarians, academics and lecturers promote e-books in a variety of ways, which have been recorded in Chapter Five. Some of these constitute best practice, and could profitably be shared more widely. Librarians, in particular, should not blame end-users for poor uptake; should put e-books on the catalogue; should offer targeted e-book training sessions; should work with academics on selecting suitable e-books; and should evaluate user feedback and usage statistics, and act upon them. Publishers and aggregators should also adopt as wide a variety of methods to promote e-books as possible. Examples of methods currently used are also recorded in Chapter Five. This study suggests that the most important things to get right are: • to ensure that the right people are being promoted to in the right way with the right products (i.e., that the information supply chain issues are being addressed).

• that a mixture of print, personal and electronic promotional approaches are used, as being most effective (but that it should be noted that costs of promotion have to be borne, and by the customer).

• that promotional attempts by all relevant stakeholders should be underpinned by the following abstract attributes: enterprising, pragmatic, energetic, innovative, and focused.

• that imperfect (from the librarian’s point of view) provision of cataloguing and metadata for e-books, though important, should not be allowed by librarians to constitute a barrier to uptake in itself.

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19. Despite the point made in 18c) above, there is a number of cataloguing and metadata issues which should be resolved in order to achieve maximum uptake; ways in which these can profitably be addressed by both librarians and publishers are listed in Chapter Six. 20. A series of case studies, including examples of best practice, has been developed for this study. These are given in supply chain order at the end of this report, and, if read as a continuous narrative, highlight how some of the perceived barriers to uptake can be removed, and how e-books can be promoted more fully by a wider range of institutions and individuals.

8.3 Recommendations and Future Promotional Plan Note: It has already been indicated, and should now be stressed, that it is not possible for this report to design a template for e-book promotional activity for any of the main groups of stakeholders involved, i.e., publishers, aggregators, booksellers and librarians.

Librarians have local knowledge of what is likely to work for them, and need to build their own promotional strategies, based on such knowledge. It is hoped, however, that all of the examples given in this report, and the recommendations and case studies which follow, will act as an enabling resource for them when they are engaged upon this activity.

Publishers, aggregators and booksellers, though they may wish to learn from each other, and it is hoped will draw rich insights from the experiences, observations and ideas of the end-user groups which have been recorded in detail here, as well as the case studies, have to create their own strategies, of which promotion of e-books forms only a part. They are commercial organisations, and the other stakeholders in the ebook supply chains must acknowledge that they have a right as well as a need to make a profit; and that all their services must ultimately be paid for by their customers. It would therefore be an impertinence, as well as counter-productive, for a research team or even a well-respected national organisation to try to prescribe to them what they â&#x20AC;&#x153;shouldâ&#x20AC;? do to promote e-books.

However, the report has attempted to point out the advantages to be gained by all stakeholder groups from promoting e-books, as well as indicating clearly the barriers to uptake which they jointly need to address. Encouragement should be taken from the fact that the recommendations represent a compendium of the views of all stakeholder groups as represented by the panels; and the publishers among them have been especially brave and innovative in suggesting ways that they can be more proactive.

I am indebted to Michael Holdsworth for devising the format in which the recommendations are listed.

8.3iA. Publishers and Aggregators 1. Drive e-book demand by making more content available:

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a) Break out of slow market / slow growth circularity. b) Make frontlist and textbook content available not “spent” backlist. c) Recognise e-book potential of monographs, which are slow sellers in print. d) Develop focused e-book collections for subscription or purchase. e) Be prepared to take risks with e-book / print cannibalisation until quantifiable either way.

2. Maximise e-book functional potential, follow the print book route and ejournals (when considering potential): a) Learn from the print book information supply chain. b) Recognise that e-journals usage now exceeds print journals usage. c) Design “better”, intuitive, usable, born-as e-books (note: there has been work carried out by librarians and academics on this to help publishers.

See, for example, http://www.ebooks.strath.ac.uk/; http://readability.tees.ac.uk). d) Exploit internal and external hyperlinks and cross-references. e) Consider exploiting material developed as supplementary / complementary to printed textbooks in purchasable e-book format. f) Support intradocument fulltext and keyword searching. g) Create fragments and chapter headings. h) Allow bookmarking, annotation. i) Retain pagination where text referencing is important. j) Design layouts and fonts explicitly for screen use (no ex-print hybrids). k) Make best use of current screens and bandwidth (which can only improve). l) Make use of standards when available; Openebook XML is all to be discovered! m) Try different platforms and co-ordinate efforts if possible with the mobile / e-learning community.

3. Persevere with business model experimentation in immature market: a) b) c) d)

Price lower than print, recognising pro tem lower value of e-book.

Work with channel partners on sharing thin e-book margins.

Streamline a more efficient supply chain through EDI. Recognise the value of bookseller and library vendor supply chain roles. e) Question all intermediarisation.

4. Persevere with usage model, avoid restrictive DRM [Digital Rights Management]: a) b) c) d)

Remove the obstacles: allow simultaneous use.

No time-outs; no self-destructs; no return to shelf.

Permit modest printing and copy-and-paste.

Piggy-back on e-journals subscriptions, site-licence and consortium models. e) Work to allow usage on multiple devices.

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f) At least consider escrow and persistency / archival issues.

5. Assuage the netLibrary*, Betamax, wrong platform jitters: a) b) c) d) e)

•

Standards, standards, standards.

Offer swap-out of superseded formats.

Offer choice of formats; always offer web PDF. Seek out new killer business model; see past netLibrary* approach.

Understand reasons for failure of early adoption: i. Remember the information supply chain. ii. Old books, too few books, user unawareness = poor take-up.

Note: these comments about netLibrary reflect the views of the publisher group and some librarians. As has been made clear elsewhere in this report, response to the netLibrary product has been complex – approving and disapproving - as well as high profile, because netLibrary is the best-known aggregator. netLibrary has been cited as an example of best practice in the case studies at the end of this report because of its willingness to respond to user demands. The panels were not made aware of the issues being discussed at netLibrary user group meetings, as first hand experience of these was only acquired at a late stage of the research.

6. Promote and communicate to HE / FE: a) Built the mind-share; demystify the experience. b) Integrate e-book exposure / marketing with print. i. Promote in parallel in print catalogues, space adverts. ii. Create joint web catalogues (no separate e-store). iii. Insert e-book flyers in print. c) Use e-book formats experimentally. i. For print and e-book catalogues (combined). ii. For tasters, samplers, review copies, desk copies, inspection copies. d) Experiment with e-book / print bundles: i. Free voucher-based access to e-book with print purchase, marginal cost for singe user. e) Promulgate successes: i. OCLC’s role in making netLibrary more user-friendly. ii. Good working models: ORO, Xrefer, Books24x7. iii. (Publishers / Aggregators) to write up their own case studies; work the academic press. f) Produce better quality usage statistics: i. Easy to understand. ii. Qualitative: what material was accessed, at what level of detail. iii. Quantitative: how long was spent on material, and by whom? g) Find a librarian to “champion” product.

7. Exploit metadata for discovery: a) Integrate e-books into the proven e-journal environment. b) Build e-books into JISC and similar information environments.

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c) Adopt recommendations from Panel C (Chapter Six).

8. Promote and communicate internally within publishing houses: a) Demonstrate quick wins for marketing (refer to Point 6 above). b) Establish no-extra-cost structured workflows. c) Demonstrate XML-first as cheaper, faster, more agile, more accurate.

8.3iB. Booksellers and Library Suppliers 1. Assert your place in the e-book distribution and information supply chains: a) Promote e-books in campus bookshops with posters, leaflets, etc. b) Point out that titles are available in e-book format when communicating with academics about reading lists. c) Include e-books in print book lists for retail customers and librarians. d) Work to demystify e-books for students. Keep it simple, and make it easy for students to: i. use e-books. ii. buy e-books. e) Start by working with the richer (in terms of availability) e-book strands / subjects: Business, Law, Health / Medicine. f) Be prepared to help customers by publicising the wealth of free e-book material thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s available â&#x20AC;&#x201C; this is likely to lead indirectly to both print and e-book sales.

2. Think innovatively in order to capitalise on the potential of e-book sales, rather than agonising over the drawbacks: a) Donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t assume that e-book sales necessarily mean cannibalisation of core textbook sales: i. Work with publishers to reinvigorate sales of the secondary materials on reading lists, which are increasingly difficult to sell in print format. (The Gold Leaf 2001 study showed that 3% of print books sales were for secondary reading materials, compared with 87% for essential reading texts, and 10% on non-reading list materials.)140 ii. Remember that only 56% of students unable to find the print book that they want in the campus bookshop will wait for the bookshop to order it.141 The rest of the sales are lost. To offer the e-book as an alternative is better than losing the sale altogether. iii. Work with academics and publishers to make the large number of O/P titles that academics wish to recommend (especially in the arts and social sciences) available in e-book format.

140 141

Op. cit., p. 5.

Gold Leaf study, op. cit., p.7.

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b) Give students the option of buying the e-book more cheaply than the print book. Work with publishers to ensure that margin is not eroded. c) Note that working on a) and b) together could result in more overall sales. As with publishers, be prepared to take risks until the outcomes are quantifiable either way (positive or negative).

3. Think innovatively by working with new channel partners: a) Arrange for the bookshop catalogue to be integrated with the library catalogue / lending system and university / college teaching systems: i. If a library book is out on loan, offer a link to an e-book equivalent (if there is one) which can either be “lent” (using a platform provider model such as Overdrive’s) or “purchased” , either via a link to the campus bookshop, or a partner online bookseller (e.g., Swotbooks; Amazon). ii. Keep close to academics, and try to integrate the information that you give them with online teaching requirements: provide simple links to e-book material within online texts / course notes, etc. iii. Work with publishers on formatting: e.g., by experimenting with chapter-by-chapter sales. b) Install trial e-book purchase ports in store: i. Allow students / course leaders to purchase a range of recommended e-books (perhaps in partnership with a publisher) and download them to portable devices. ii. Work with a manufacturer (e.g., Hewlett Packard or Dell) to “hire out” handheld devices for a specific group of students or to a specific course leader for a set period. iii. (following on from b(ii) above) work with a publisher and a platform provider to pre-load some course material on to the device in order to kick-start the process.

8.3iC. Librarians at all levels 1. Maximise e-book discovery and access: a) Work on OPAC, collection management, MARC integration, integrated catalogue searching, etc. b) Proprietary advertisements on library home-page. c) Simplify / streamline on-campus and remote authentication (e.g., the Huddersfield OneLog access method). d) Deprecate any restrictive / unreasonable DRM models.

2. Promote and communicate to users and patrons: a) Build the mind-share; demystify the experience (by integrating information on e-books with regular training sessions, in library literature, liaising with academics, suggest adopting e-books as reading-list acquisitions and / or for VLEs / MLEs).

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b) Start with faculty, then postgraduates, then undergraduates / FE students. c) Set up e-book / e-journal help desks. d) Either a librarian â&#x20AC;&#x153;e-book championâ&#x20AC;? or head librarian to take responsibility for ensuring that all library staff are trained in e-books / how to use them. e) Encourage access to public domain / free e-book collections as tasters. Help academics to assess appropriateness for use of free collections. Catalogue free collections if approved by academics. f) Demand time for these activities.

3. Focus pilot activity: a) Be systematic about e-book acquisitions. b) Pilot, monitor, measure, report. Analyse usage statistics and act on the information. Lobby publishers / aggregators for better usage statistics. Lobby publishers / aggregators for user groups and contribute to them. Publicise successes to colleagues / faculty. Lobby for time to carry out these activities. c) Work at ownership of campus CMS, D-Space type activity.

4. Remember the best practice tenets: a) Donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t knock the customers! b) Make best possible use of the catalogue. c) Offer targeted training sessions, if possible to different groups at different levels at different times. d) Work with academics on e-book selection, and on suggesting which formats are most suitable for which groups / activities when there is a choice. e) Evaluate usage statistics and user feedback, and act upon them. f) Be innovative and diverse in the ways in which you seek to disseminate information about e-books.

5. Build new partnerships a) Use your influence to approach and work with new partners in the emerging technologies. b) Make suggestions to publishers and aggregators about the kind of support materials you would like to be able to use. c) Work with academics on designing information science modules for credit; participate in the delivery of them. d) Contribute to reviews, newsletters and other vehicle for evaluating individual products. e) Remember that your role is pivotal and that your opinions are valued.

6. Help to maintain best practice a) Make use of the manual that accompanies this report.

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b) Help to maintain it as a living document by giving feedback, contributing new ideas and exercises, and case studies. c) Make sure that you are involved in any cross-professional resource material assessments set up by your institution or other professional working groups to which you belong. d) Take an active role in planning the use of e-books within the context of the development of e-learning in your institution.

8.3iD. Academics a) Recognise that many potential e-book purchasers and users are waiting for greater certainty to emerge over standard text formats, e-book operational functionality and lending conventions. Until there is certainty in these standards and practices, it is unlikely that there will be a big upsurge in interest and use. b) Promote debate about the use of e-books through the commissioning of special features in the higher education press and special editions of mainstream higher education journals, especially the LTSN and ILTHE journals. c) Encourage institutions to establish senior management groups which bring academics, lecturers, librarians, learning technologists and information technologists together regularly to plan the development of e–learning and e-book resources. d) Review the possibility of making it a requirement for higher and further education institutions to specify their plans for e-learning, ebooks and printed resources in their teaching and learning strategy. e) Incentivise the `advocates’ to convert their `ambivalent’ colleagues by introducing financial and career incentives. These incentives might include additional salary increments or grade promotions for ICT champions. They might also include teaching relief and/or sabatical leave for staff involved in organising and promoting activity in this area. f) Make sure that staff are provided with continuous professional development which enables them to periodically update their knowledge, understanding and skills with e-learning technologies and associated pedagogic issues. This development should include time for a review of e-books. This support may encourage `synics’ and `surface adopters’ to become `strategic users’ and even `systemic believers’. g) Consider making a special stream of funding available to promote experimentation with the use of e-books by regional consortia of universities and further education colleges. This activity should encourage the transfer of understanding between institutions and staff. h) Encourage ALT, UCISA, FERL and BECTA to sponsor the development of a nationally recognised qualification for learning technologists which combines technical IT skills with educational and pedagogic development and an understanding of librarianship and information management.

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8.3iE. JISC Note: the recommendations for JISC include some for the wider organisation as well as for the E-Book Working Group.

1. Generally, make librarians and academics more aware of JISC and its activities, particularly, in this context, in the e-book field: a) Streamline the website, and put on it an organogram with key contact details. b) Display the mission statement, or a longer rationale explaining JISC’s activities, prominently. c) Supply the (newly-appointed) marketing manager with two simple, attractive packages detailing JISC initiatives, ongoing work, etc. for academics and librarians respectively. d) Make the work of the E-Book Working Group, including details of current projects and work-in-progress, readily available, with frequent updates. e) Appoint a co-ordinator to keep people working on different projects informed about each other’s progress, act as a central repository for information (to prevent reinvention of the wheel), and where possible help to share resources.

2. Capitalise on existing e-book initiatives; support wider e-book initiatives: a. Gather e-book evaluations of different products and pricing models that have been made by librarians (and some publishers), and store / add to them as a repository for librarians wishing to assess these products. b. Continue the work started by the E-Book Working Group to lobby for better usage statistics. c. Continue the work started by the E-Book Working Group to address systems issues. d. Publicise widely information about free e-books, especially those collected by the Oxford Texts Archive. e. Consult more closely with leaders of consortia, to benefit from their understanding of their members’ requirements and negotiating strengths. f. Build on the acknowledged success of the Taylor & Francis / Wiley / Pluto Press consultation earlier this summer.

3. Commission targeted follow-up work based on the findings of this study: a) As well as lobbying academic journals for e-book reviews, commission an ebook evaluation mechanism (cf. TEEM – evaluative mechanism set up for secondary level educational resources). b) Commission a quarterly e-book newsletter for librarians and academics. c) Commission the detailed study of the use of e-books within an MLE environment, following at least four cohorts of students at two universities.

[Proposal to follow from Gold Leaf working in partnership with several

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universities, including the Universities of the West of England and Huddersfield, both of which contributed to the project] d) Commission a manual especially aimed at FE librarians and lecturers.

4. Lobby / negotiate within the wider community: a) Lobby the government to improve ICT facilities at FE colleges. b) Negotiate with ISPs to provide special deals suited to students living in offcampus accommodation. c) Negotiate with hardware providers and universities / colleges to obtain special deals for students, academics, lecturers and departments wishing to purchase handheld readers; and for students wishing to buy PCs / laptops. d) Work to make the e-book supply chain similar to the print book supply chain by forcing tighter integration with library automations systems from the acquisition process to check out / display. e) Use influence to work towards a coalescence of reading platforms / technologies. f) Use influence to work towards simplification of business models to 2 or 3 base types with a common core functionality; it is suggested that differentiation of each player within a business model would be through their supply of additional functionality at additional cost.

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The Case Studies Case Study No. 1 The Academic Author’s Perspective I teach Modern Languages, and I write translations for a well-known publisher. I am on the steering group of a modern languages database that this publisher is putting together. They wrote to ask my permission for making my books available in eformat, and I was happy about this. I am generally in favour of things electronic. I notice that there is now a payment line from NetLibrary on the royalty statement.

Some time ago, I was consulted by our librarian about paying for electronic reference books services. At the time I didn’t think it was worth it, because there is some good stuff free on the net. I am aware of the activities of the Oxford Texts Archive.

I feel that e-books have not been well promoted: it is partly a question of definition.

Also, the problem with the adoption of any electronic learning services is that there is a lot of behind the scenes activity: both academics and library staff have to do an awful lot of work to make them succeed.

I do recommend websites and appropriate databases to students and colleagues in my department – I feel that I have helped to raise the profile of electronic awareness here.

I used to keep a log of all our web activities, to see whether they were increasing and how they were being used. There are problems of access for students: there are not enough computers for them to use, despite the fact that we have been quite cutting edge in introducing VLEs here. I have been kept well-informed of progress throughout the university generally by the library, and I keep in touch with them on new products that become available – they buy some now. But I still won’t let them pay for stuff that we can get free.

I realise that there has been a great effort to provide annotated, edited e-book resources to the academic community – JISC is big on this – but I don’t feel the need to use them myself. I keep my own list of resources – I run a website for academic journalists in the UK and Ireland, so I get plenty of information. More and more people are trying to introduce these resources into higher education, but they are only as good as the people who put them together. You just have to look at some of them!

I do actually promote electronic learning to all out students through the department’s websites. I have been interested in recent AHRB initiatives. People no longer rely on specialists to design stuff for them – they usually get a bright young academic to do the job.

There are no distance learning students in this department, but there are some attached to the Centre for Applied Language – 20 or 30 postgraduates based in South-East Asia. We use e-mail to correspond with them, not much “live” web interaction.

I have not used chapters or part-books on VLEs for my own teaching – I am sceptical about their use and about the cost benefit. Our groups or modules rarely attract more than twenty students, so it is not necessary to use the VLE – though it has been 164

successfully rolled out across the campus. I can see the point of using VLEs, and possibly making part books available to large groups of students, but for me it is easier to give the student a handout.

As a university, we have found that students need careful training to use VLEs properly- getting them to log on daily is difficult. Even contacting students by e-mail has been a problem – they have their own e-mail addresses, and don’t see the point of using the university one. In any group of 20 students, there will always be about 3 who never log on to VLEs and don’t read their university e-mails.

Case Study No. 2: Best Practice in e-book Promotion by a Publisher: Oxford University Press142 Oxford University Press has developed a number of separate e-book initiatives, two of which – the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) Online and Oxford Reference Online (ORO) are currently available to academic librarians as JISC deals.

The print version of the Oxford English Dictionary is the largest dictionary of English in the world, which traces the evolution of over 600,000 words and demonstrates changing usage through more than 2.5 million quotations. Clearly a work of this size is a particularly suitable candidate for e-book format. Oxford Reference Online brings together a large and growing selection of OUP’s dictionaries and reference works into a single, cross-searchable resource. Oxford is also about to launch Oxford Scholarship Online, which will consist of a database of 750 scholarly titles with a lot of added metadata to make cross-referenced searches possible – Oxford has gone back to the authors and asked them to write abstracts and identify keywords for every chapter. On the whole, these are not textbooks – Kate Jury, Marketing Director of Oxford University Press, describes the majority as “not the sort of books that you would expect students to buy – but perhaps some you would expect the faculty or library to buy.” The titles are mostly drawn from the Humanities and Social Sciences, and are by authors who struggle to achieve enough sales to justify a traditional printrun. Therefore, making the material available in e-book format produces a win-win situation for everybody.

OUP targets both HE and FE libraries with its products. Not many sales are made to individuals. A separate schools division produces online products for schools.

Oxford charges by annual subscription fee, and modestly, for its online products – its prices are considered to be “on the low side of reasonable” – but it is covering its costs from e-books, and making money from some of them. Its strategy is to have a wide range of subscribers paying affordable prices, rather than to sell at a premium price to a select few. Providing access to as many users as possible is an important part of its philosophy.

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Although libraries are the main subscribers to OUP online products, it recognises the importance of marketing them to academics. Susanna Lob, the Sales and Marketing Director for online reference works, says: “One vocal professor can exert a lot of influence.” Oxford therefore produces an attractive range of printed promotional materials, including brochures, illustrated cards which explain how to conduct simple and advanced searches, leaflets about the individual products, and “fun” items such as promotional postcards and mouse-mats. It tries to liaise with different academic departments at universities, in order to understand their teaching and research needs, and also works closely with academic libraries to try to understand what their needs are. Free trials are offered, and upon request libraries can also get help with advertising Oxford products on their own websites – for example, Oxford will provide them with a logo to put on the library’s homepage, to draw attention to the fact that it has an Oxford collection. All the information about the Oxford / JISC deals is available on Oxford’s website. If a library approached Oxford direct and was unaware of the JISC offers, Oxford would inform it about these.

Now that it is about to launch Oxford Scholarship Online, Oxford is working on a new access control system through which customers can gain entry to all Oxford products to which they have subscribed from one log-in.

The most significant problem that Oxford has encountered with e-books is librarians’ expectation of perpetual access. As Susanna Lob says, “no-one can guarantee supply for ever.” She feels that Oxford’s subscription fee is the equivalent to a service charge, and she believes that this is of benefit to the customer, as if the product were to be sold outright to the library, there would be no incentive for the supplier to continue to develop content and functionality.

Oxford is widening its promotional activities to include learned societies, such as the American Association for British Studies, and library consortia. So far, however, it has made no plans to promote to students, although several focus groups of students and academics were set up both in the UK and the US in order to gather their views on content and functionality when Oxford Scholarship Online was under development.

Case Study No. 3 Best Practice in e-book Promotion by a Publisher: Taylor & Francis Taylor & Francis began its electronic publishing programme in 2001. It is aimed primarily at the HE market, with a few FE titles available, mainly in Psychology.

Eventually, it will address the professional market as well. Its e-book publishing programme includes publications from each of the categories of monographs, textbooks and reference works. It is the company’s aim to make e-books financially viable in their own right, and it has already recouped its initial investment in epublishing.

Taylor & Francis sells e-books via its own website, which is exemplary in terms of ease of access, explanations of what e-books are and how to use them, and descriptions of the different e-book Readers. It also sells e-books through the

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websites of D.A. Books (Australia), Coutts / John Smith, Dawson’s, Blackwell’s, Overdrive, e-books.com, NetLibrary and Baker & Taylor.

As well as engaging in partnerships with booksellers, Taylor & Francis actively promotes e-books to academics, librarians and students. In this it is unusual: relatively few publishers address all four stakeholder groups. It goes about reaching the latter three groups in the following ways: • • • •

It lists e-book ISBNs alongside those for printed books in its catalogues There is a random advertisement for e-books every few pages in the catalogues A fold-out rice-paper leaflet, aimed at students and academics, is inserted into each of its printed books before sale Journals contain an electronic book alert to academics (but not students)

Its advertising campaign for e-books is largely conducted via print, rather than electronically, at present, and the company does feel that it should gear itself up to electronic advertising. Nevertheless, there is evidence that publishers who rely on electronic advertising for e-books are less successful than those who adopt more visible print methods.

Taylor and Francis sells e-books as complete entities, on a chapter-by-chapter basis, and on a slice-and-dice basis to end-users. It is also happy to negotiate deals with libraries and consortia, and has just concluded a very well received library offer with JISC. For the JISC deal, Taylor and Francis limits one pair of eyes to a book at any one time but there are no limits to the number of users accessing each package, so with 180 books you can have up to 180 users and if a specific book is being used the student may book it in advance for when it next becomes available. Access is gained either

by IP range or library ID number, or by using ATHENS authentication. The institution pays a fee according to its “band” size, established by JISC.

Case Study No. 4 Best Practice in e-book Promotion by an Aggregator: netLibrary netLibrary was founded in 1998, in Boulder, Colorado; its mission was to offer librarians as comprehensive access as possible to e-book collections. In view of some of the comments made about netLibrary during the course of the report, it may seem an odd choice for an example of best practice: but it has been chosen because, of all the publishers and aggregators interviewed, it is the most flexible about responding to customer demands. netLibrary began with university press books, and, as it gained more credibility, was able to widen the content range progressively. Its main target customers are academic and college libraries, but it has now started to promote to the professional market as well. At the time of writing (July 2003), the netLibrary collection consists of 56,000

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titles, and is being added to daily. Between 1200 and 1500 titles are added each month.

The netLibrary collection is added to in specific areas, following feedback from individual customers and the netLibrary user groups. It also looks at the usage data that it provides to customers, to try to ascertain where the gaps are. In the UK, where it has been operating since 2000, it has listened to the criticism that the content is US focused, and has tried hard to add European and international titles to the collection.

Subscribers to netLibrary are required to start with a collection consisting of a minimum of 100 books (it used to be 500, but, again listening to its customers, netLibrary recognised that many felt that this figure was too high). The netLibrary pricing model consists of paying the hardcopy price of the book x 1.8 plus a service charge in the first year, then just the service charge thereafter. It is a one book, one user model: e-books out on issue from the collection can only be borrowed by a second user upon their return. (The library can, if it chooses, stock several copies of the same e-book.) The library customers decide the length of the issue period. netLibrary supplies them with user statistics, and also “turnaway” statistics – a record of books that would have been borrowed had they been available. Once more responding to customer feedback, netLibrary has improved the layout and transparency of its user statistics considerably.

Most netLibrary titles are monographs or reference works. It does hold some textbooks, but their representation in the overall range is insignificant. It is currently experimenting with expanding the service by offering part-books and journals.

The netLibrary e-book database allows users to perform full text word and phrase searches in their e-book collection. The Reference Centre, created following feedback from users, highlights the reference content in a library’s e-book collection by providing the ability to search by entry.

The majority of its promotional material for librarians – newsletters, new product mailings, etc. – is delivered electronically, so that librarians can choose to opt out if they no longer wish to receive it. Newsletters are sent out every thirty days. The netLibrary new title notification system sends an e-mail to libraries identifying new titles by subject area. Libraries may subscribe to this distribution list at http://www.netlibrary.com/about_us/lead_generation/. New and forthcoming e-book titles are also displayed in netLibrary’s TitleSelect catalog (www.netlibrary.com/titleselect).

In addition, netLibrary produces quite a lot of point-of-use material in print. This is directed at students, and explains how to access the collection, how to search it, and how to best to make use of the e-book functionality. There are also free point-of-sale “fun” products, such as bookmarks and balloons, to capture students’ interest. netLibrary makes no overt attempt to capture the attention of academics, though they are of course free to pick up these promotional materials on visits to the library. netLibrary provides full MARC 21 records, so that when a library purchases a collection, the library can link to the records via an embedded URL. Libraries who make use of this facility have higher usage statistics than those who don’t. Any

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library purchasing a netLibrary licence automatically gains access to 3,800 out-of copyright e-books at no charge. netLibrary has recently launched several content-specific promotions that are designed to explore alternative e-book offerings. It is also working with publishers to persuade them to discount backlist titles so that librarians can purchase electronic copies of highly-used title currently held only in print. netLibrary has grown 300% in the UK in the last three years. 23 representatives from UK and European libraries currently belong to the user group – another initiative developed to link in new developments closely to what the customer wants.

It continues to work with users to address issues that prevent maximum uptake of ebooks in the UK academic sector. For example, a current hot topic at present being examined by the user group is the one book, one user model. Previously, the group has looked at distance learner access and different ways of paying.

Case Study No. 5 Best Practice in e-book Promotion by a Bookseller: Swotbooks Set up in 2000, Swotbooks is an innovative online bookselling company which mainly sells print books to the HE market. It also deals, but to a much lesser extent, with FE and corporate customers.

Swotbooks first offered e-books in 2001, via the Taylor & Francis EbookStore model (also used by Blackwell’s and John Smith’s). It has since moved on to the Overdrive / Midas digital warehouse model, which enables it to stock e-books from a wide range of academic publishing houses and sell them “seamlessly” from its own website.

Swotbooks does not distinguish between types of e-book: it just wants to sell any that are commercially available.

The Swotbooks strategy was to launch with paper books on-line, and then to add electronic books primarily as a customer service feature. It expected to gain more margin from e-books on a sale-by-sale basis, and has achieved this. Swotbooks’ ebook sales have achieved a twenty-fold year on year growth, but from a very low initial base.

Swotbooks itself does not support e-books with paid-for advertisements, but says that Overdrive does quite a lot of advertising on behalf of its clients. Currently, the company feels that the turnover on e-books is too low to put serious money behind advertising them, especially as it perceives that availability of content attractive to the UK market is fairly limited.

Swotbooks always sells e-books at a discount – this is driven by its company policy of discounting (from published RRP) everything that it sells. It offers the Taylor & Francis explanatory information about e-books on its website; this consists of some quite comprehensive FAQs, and a brief “Idiot’s Guide”. The aim is to demystify the

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format. Nevertheless, most of the complaints it receives relate to technological issues.

On average, it receives two per fortnight. The most frequent complaint is from people trying to download the book when they have not or have not been able to activate Microsoft Reader (which needs doing first). Also, people sometimes buy the book on-line and are then not sure how to access it. Most problems therefore stem from downloading issues.

Swotbooks’ aim is to provide customers with a format-agnostic catalogue, i.e., to fully integrate its e-book and print book lists. It believes that this is the best way for academics to find out about e-books. All books and all formats are also listed in both the paper and on-line catalogues: David Taylor, Chairman and Founder of Swotbooks, says that this is a strong promotional tool, and easy to do.

True to its trademark innovative approach, Swotbooks has attempted some joint initiatives for promoting e-books in the HE sector. The most ambitious of these was developed as a proposed joint initiative with a prominent university and a handheld reader manufacturer in 2002. The university was keen to provide History and Politics students with pre-loaded e-book readers that contained all the materials for the course for one semester. However, the project stalled because no hardware suppliers would contribute by offering price concessions, and because the university itself wished to put what turned out to be impractically stringent control mechanisms in place. David Taylor, who tried to broker the deals with the various parties, says that the publishers were enthusiastic about the idea, and willing to help. If it had worked, Swotbooks had a longer term plan to roll out the offer to a number of universities. David Taylor is philosophical about the fact that it did not succeed, and remains optimistic that such joint ventures will be successfully carried off in the future: he considers that it is key for all members of the emerging e-book supply chain to work together on such initiatives in order to exploit e-book technology to its fullest extent.

Case Study No. 6 Best Practice in e-book Promotion by a University (1): The University of Aston Aston is a relatively small university with a student population of approximately 6,000 studying in four main subject areas: Life and Health sciences; Engineering and Applied Science; Business; and Languages and European Studies. The library had subscribed to a number of journal services – for example, Science Direct, IEEE – for some time, and the librarians felt it was the right time to experiment in certain subject areas with e-books. They also knew that computer science students, in particular, were “not the most habitual library users”, and wanted to give them good quality information via the Internet.

The Library and Information Resources budget at Aston is divided between the four schools, then between individual subject areas. The School of Engineering and Applied Science also has a development fund of £10,000, which can only be exploited during the first year of purchase of any product: thereafter, the library has to find a fund-holder prepared to take on the experimental purchase on a more permanent basis. The academic staff are always consulted by the library, and it wouldn’t

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introduce a new resource unless they gave it the go-ahead. Some academics were much more supportive of the concept than others.

Aston has been subscribing to netLibrary since 2001; currently its collection consists of 169 computer science and IT books. In 2002 it began its subscription to the CRC Press handbooks (it took all the six packages available at the time, but others have since become available); and at the same time, started subscribing to three Wiley chemistry encyclopaedias.

Although Amanda Poulton, the Information Specialist for Engineering and Life Sciences, and Frances Hall, the Information Specialist for Engineering and Applied Science, both say that they could have done more work with the user statistics, they have in fact carried out quite a lot of useful analysis. E-books have come out well in their sporadic comparisons between the loan stock and the e-book collections. They have also charted use of netLibrary, Wiley encyclopaedias and CRC Press (see Figures 7, 8 and 9), and can demonstrate that, whilst usage of both is highest in October and November, at the time when the library gives demonstrations to students, there is also a smaller peak in February (in the case of netLibrary, almost as great as the one in November), which shows that students and academics are using the e-book collections of their own accord, with no extra prompting from the library.

Aston has experimented with the provision of selected free e-books. In particular, it has assessed and promoted PubMed bookshelf, FreeBooks4Doctors and NetLibrary’s free collection. (we haven’t done much with netLibrary’s free collections, as they’re mainly relevant to arts & humanities, and FreeBooks4Doctors is something that Amanda discovered just a few days before our presentation, so we haven’t done much with that either. PubMed is the main one – we’ve added those books to our catalogue) Amanda Poulton says that the librarians’ main concern next to quality is that the URLs are maintained and stable: i.e., that the library does not have to worry continually about possible withdrawal of access of these titles.

E-books are promoted by the library to academics and students in a range of ways, some of them original and imaginative. Information on e-books is included in information skills sessions for students, and in academic staff development sessions; except for CRC Press, e-books are included on the catalogue; CRC Press is not currently included because of the large number of titles involved and the short contract – if it subsequently opts for a five year deal, CRC Press titles will be added. netLibrary is used as a case study in a first year information skills module run by the Computer Science group; e-mails about e-books are regularly sent to staff and students; information about e-books is included in LISten, the library newsletter to academic staff; and e-books are featured on the library’s website. In addition, the librarians have many one-to-one conversations with staff and students about e-books, and are constantly trying to think of other ways of promoting them, particularly in “non-autumn-term” times.

Reactions to e-books from staff and students have generally been favourable. The students are keen to see reading list items and core textbooks more generally available. There has been some expression of dislike of reading on the screen (though

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one PhD student said that he actually preferred reading on screen). The academics are concerned about whether e-books offer value for money when compared to print books. The library is also concerned about cost, and finds most of the pricing models expensive – which will have an impact on its ability to maintain the collections and expand provision of e-books to its users. Availability of content, currency of material and limits on usage (relating both to off-campus use and simultaneous user restrictions) are also worries, as are archiving considerations and restrictions imposed by some publishers on printing and / or downloading.

However, Frances Hall points out that many (“it’s not unilateral!”) students and staff like e-books; that there are inherent risks in any innovation; that many of the issues hold true for all electronic resources; and that the benefits of e-books balance the concerns.

To date, Aston’s development of e-book collections has been concentrated in the area of science. Future developments are planned to wider the subject matter held in ebook format. Currently, the library is considering whether it might subscribe to Safari computing e-books and Oxford Reference Online (as a general library purchase). The librarians feel that both e-book provision and uptake of e-books by academics and students are almost certain to expand.

Case Study No. 7 Best Practice in e-book Promotion by a University (2): Edgehill College Edgehill College is an HEI with a diverse student base that includes many part-time and distance learners, particularly working in the health sector. It operates from several sites.

Edgehill has a fairly modest resources fund in comparison with other universities. It spends on e-books 1.2% of the amount that it spends on print books. netLibrary ebooks, chosen across a range of subjects, form the nucleus of its e-book collection.

It buys e-books in order to provide additional copies for students; to make supplementary texts available to them; to provide access to reference material; to improve distance learning access; and to try to offer some reading list material in ebook format.

It promotes e-books to students and faculty in a range of ways, by providing links to the e-book collection via the library website, via the library catalogue, through induction and training sessions, by means of printed newsletters and factsheets, and via its VLE. The librarians take care to ensure that e-books are included in both college wide and departmental staff development and student induction and information skills sessions, and that where available they are included on reading lists and within online courses.

The netLibrary collection has gained a particular champion in Leo Appleton, the Academic Liaison Adviser for Health Studies at the Library and Information Resource Centre. He began by actively recruiting an e-book user group amongst part-

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time nursing students, and has now branched out to promote e-books to the whole cohort of health students. He has also been actively engaged in embedding e-books into the College’s VLE. Leo and his colleagues have paid detailed attention to user feedback on the netLibrary collection, and recently conducted a full-scale evaluation exercise which was based on feedback gathered from responses to 37 questionnaires. The respondents were a mixture of students and academics. Leo is an active member of the NetLibrary User Group, and therefore able to relay both positive and negative feedback to NetLibrary as issues either to share with others or to address.

The following are the comments recorded from the evaluation exercise (which also analysed specific questions on the presentation of, using and borrowing NetLibrary books): Question: What did you like best about using netLibrary E-Books?

• Excellent search facilities (15 comments) • Speed of access (11 comments) • Accessibility – ease of access plus good for remote access and distance users (10 comments) • Keywords in text displayed in red (2 comments) • Facility to create book marks and favourites (2 comments) • Useful alternative resource / variety of resources helps to develop IT skills. (2 comments) • Format of search result summary, dictionary facility etc very good • Different access points e.g. via the web page or Library Catalogue • Short term loans • Don’t need a library card • Book cannot get lost or damaged • Self check-in • No fines • Registering with NetLibrary was easy • Ability to browse before check-out • Could work well for Recommended Reading chapters on reading lists • Quite intuitive and nice interface.

Question: What did you like least about using netLibrary E-Books?

• Strain on the eye (8 comments) (1 suggested would need an anti-glare filter fitted) • Slow to load pages. Will be restricted by speed of computer (4 comments) • Not easy to find NetLibrary pages from Edgehill web page (4 comments) • Constraints of user access to limited resources, inc only one person can access at a time, and loan period and browse period not long enough • Not able to reserve books (3 comments) • Page by page scrolling (3 comments) • Checking in problems - not easy to check book back in, find out when copies are due back, or check in all books together (3 comments) • Struggled with keywords and searching, due to Boolean based search. and English spelling not taken into account. (3 comments) 173

• • •

Not easy to navigate Kept asking for username Miss physically holding a hard copy of a book.

Question: Have you any suggestions for improving the experience of using EBooks?

• Would like to see many more titles available (suggestions included access to reading list materials, class input for current students, and more Midwifery books) (10 comments) • Longer loan periods, e.g. 2 hour, 2 day (3 comments) • Facility to reserve books (2 comments) • Direct link to Library from Edgehill webpage • ATHENS authentication • Should be able to go straight to next occurrence of a word in the text • Ability to alert user when e-book becomes available.

Edgehill has been included here as an example of best practice because of the exceptional care that it has taken both to promote e-books and to obtain insight into what users think about them; and for its holistic approach in introducing them. It is now engaged in trying to address as many of the user comments as possible in order to improve the e-book reading experience for its students.

Case Study No. 8 Best Practice in e-book Promotion by a University (3): the University of Huddersfield E-books have formed part of the learning resources offered by the University of Huddersfield for the past five years. An initiative from the School of Humanities led to a joint project between the school and the library – the Humanities Innovation Project, for which the university provided funding. Academics identified free texts available on the internet to be used as course material, e.g. folio editions of literary texts. They were passed to Technical Services for adding to the library online catalogue, so that access was easily identified for students.

The library at Huddersfield is open to new products and developments, so Technical Services Manager, Eileen Hiller approached netLibrary for information about their services. The potential for distance learners and for saving space was recognised and so Huddersfield became the first UK university to subscribe to netLibrary, opening an account in 2000. The initial collection of 500 books consisted mostly of computing texts as the Academic Librarian, Jane Kaye, wished to experiment with a significant collection in an area where students would be most receptive to the electronic format. netLibrary now only requires new subscribers to choose 100 books, but Huddersfield has retained its collection of 500, and has also added a few new titles.

Eileen Hiller and Jane Kaye, also the Science and Computing Librarian, both say that the library’s pioneering spirit and willingness to take risks was crucial to its success.

“Just do it and get on with it was our attitude,” says Jane. “If we couldn’t find quite

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as many relevant titles as we would have liked, or the catalogue records supplied weren’t quite what we expected, we just went ahead and did the best we could with what was available. Waiting for perfection doesn’t work.” The netLibrary collection was chosen by academic librarians identifying material that either matched or was similar to books on reading lists, or to frequently issued books from the short term loan collection. Choosing the e-books, they acknowledge, was a lengthy and tedious process and the collection had a bias towards US material in some areas.

Subscriptions to Oxford Reference Online and Books24x7 followed. Jane discovered Books24x7 by conducting a web search. She was looking for a reliable supplier for computing e-books, because print computing collections are notoriously difficult to keep up-to-date, poor value for money because they age so quickly, and at the time netLibrary did not cover some of the significant publishers of computing books in their collection. She approached Books24x7 herself – the company normally targets professional rather than academic libraries. It operates a “one user” licensing model based on the number of FTEs studying at the university. The collection, which comes as a complete entity consisting of “a rich repository comprising literally thousands of complete and unabridged works representing more than 400,000 ‘knowledge objects’”143including 3000 complete books in XML format, is edited and maintained by the supplier: librarians do not choose individual titles. Although “bundling” may sometimes annoy librarians wishing to experiment with e-books, Jane says that in this instance it solves the problems of short shelf life and obscurity attendant upon computer books. The computing collection has been so successful that Huddersfield has just increased its subscription from one to three simultaneous users. Despite this, Books24x7 still regards itself as primarily a business service. It produces virtually no off-line promotional material, and is little known to UK academic librarians and academics. Jane says “leaflets about the product and lists of the books that can be accessed would be a good idea.”

The subject librarians at Huddersfield find that introducing students gradually to ebooks works best. The library now conducts very short induction sessions for new students – lasting about ten minutes – during the first week of term, and follows these up with more detailed sessions on specific learning resources, including e-books, later on. This is because experience has shown that students are unable to take in large amounts of information during their first week at university. The later more detailed sessions are often conducted with tutorial groups as part of study skills modules, some of which count for academic credit. In addition, Huddersfield offers all students and academics a well-set-out handbook which describes how to use all of the library’s resources, and contains a section on e-books. It also produces shorter leaflets which describe the NetLibrary and Books24x7 products, and how to access, search and annotate them most effectively. Understanding the implications of “click fatigue”, Huddersfield has tried hard to make student access, both on and off campus, as easy as possible by developing its OneLog system.

The library conducts training sessions for academics as well as students – two took place last year at which “about ten members of staff turned up” on each occasion – and information on all the learning resources available is placed in the staff development handbook. E-mails about new products are sent to individual staff 143

Books24x7 online promotional material, from http://www.books24x7.com, accessed 27th June 2003.

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members. The library works particularly closely with the I.T. lecturers when disseminating information about electronic products.

Huddersfield has become a centre of excellence for e-learning by pursuing a number of initiatives, some of them very ambitious. The work of the CPCET consortium is described in Case Study No. 14. Huddersfield is also home to the INFORMS project, led by Jenny Brook, which works to demystify I.T. and promote best practice usage of I.T. in universities – this is described in more detail as Case Study No. 15 - and has advised and given practical help to the current project. A Learning and Teaching Innovation Unit has been set up at Huddersfield, at which a number of academics, led

by Professor Glenn Hardaker, develop ways of approaching learning through ICT. Through the latter, a number of e-book experiments have been carried out. A particular success resulted from the provision of handheld readers to a cohort of thirdyear English students for the study of Shakespeare. Hugh Robertson, the lecturer leading the module, loaded different early versions of Shakespeare’s texts on to handheld readers so that students could carry out textual comparisons during seminars. This innovative way of using e-books to study in an area that usually demands cumbersome comparison of several print texts was well received by the students. Finally, a growing number of academics at Huddersfield is exploring the use of e-books as a resource for students to explore through Blackboard. Hugh Robertson says: “Having these facilities makes you think what you can do with them appropriately to the students’ needs and can extend and change how you teach.”

Huddersfield’s can-do approach to e-books helps to explode some of “barriers to uptake” myths that have grown up around the format. For example, a general complaint from librarians has been that the netLibrary collection is too American for UK libraries. Analysis of the Huddersfield netLibrary user statistics over the past three years shows that, when if the e-books in the Huddersfield collection are divided into “American”, “British/ European” and “International”, they can be shown to issue at a similar rate of three issues per book over any one year period (there are of course huge individual variations in this: the most-borrowed e-book issued 50 times; and each year there is a long tail of single issues). All is not plain sailing, however: only about half of the e-books in the netLibrary collection is used in any one year, and use of the collection has remained static over the three years (due in part to the success enjoyed by books24x7, which has converted computing students to using the latter product at the expense of the former).

Huddersfield does not expect wholesale uptake of e-learning initiatives, including ebooks, to happen overnight: it believes in incremental success, driven by a Yorkshire “just get on and do it” approach.

Case Study No. 9 Best Practice in e-book Promotion by a University (4): the University of Staffordshire Staffordshire University decided to stock e-books in part as a response to a government resources assessment exercise: the library staff believed that supporting a

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range of modules with e-books would enable them to make their resources budget go further.

Staffordshire is a netLibrary subscriber, and is also the only UK university currently to offer Ebrary to its students. David Parkes, the librarian responsible for the e-books collections, says that he feels that the university needs a “mixed economy” of ebooks: netLibrary follows curriculum requirements more closely; Ebrary offers huge breadth of material, but is not curriculum based. The latter is much favoured by PhD students. netLibrary books are placed on the catalogue; Ebrary titles aren’t, because the database is huge, but students are given instructions in how to search the collection.

David Parkes says that students are time savvy: there is a three-month window to interest them in types of learning material after their arrival at the university: if it is slow or difficult, it won’t work for them.

Staffordshire is particularly keen on offering an organised round of training sessions tailored to the users’ needs, each of which features e-books. Geoff Walton, the subject librarian for Psychology and Sports Sciences, is developing a suite of user guides to put on the web, to support these sessions.

Different sessions are offered for first, second and third year students, postgraduates and academics. The aim is to offer two sessions per year (September and May) for staff in each subject. There are also extra sessions on new products when they are acquired.

For Sports Science students, for example, there is a Level 1 training session, which may be either embedded in a research studies module or stand-alone. Direct entrants to Level 2 receive a similar session. An Accessing Research Literature Workshop is offered to Level 2 students in September, with a top-up in February. Level 3 students and postgraduates are invited to the top-up session. Psychology students get a standalone induction at Level 2, followed by drop-in workshops. Two sessions are provided for postgraduates in Health Psychology, both embedded in the Research Methods module that they study.

In addition to this, the librarians all operate an open-door policy; there is a help desk in the library; and also an electronic help desk.

Geoff Walton says that there is a definite pay-off from the training sessions in terms of the way students are using the e-books. The library now receives few “low level” enquiries about access issues, and more about conducting refined keyword searches, etc. No password is required to access the e-books on campus; off campus, the prospective user has to obtain a password from the help desk. Information about the ebooks collections is also displayed on the library home page.

Staffordshire has ten affiliated FE colleges; degree-level students at each of these are also able to access the e-books collections held by the university.

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Case Study No. 10 Best Practice in e-book Promotion by a University (5): the University of the West of England Liz Weeks and Elspeth Williams, respectively the acquisitions librarian and the business librarian at UWE, first looked at e-books two years ago. They made comparisons between netLibrary and Ebrary and a couple of other e-aggregators, and came down in favour of netLibrary “because it seemed to be the more organised of offerings at that point”. They waited, however, until netLibrary had become established before deciding to make the first e-book collection. The first collection was bought in summer 2002 ready for the new academic year.

Elspeth did not have personal knowledge of the business texts that the students were likely to want to read, so she spent a lot of time on selection, both by matching the books she chose against reading lists, and by checking the spreadsheets of the short term loan collection.

Some of her colleagues were deterred by what they perceived to be the Americanness of the netLibrary collection; others thought it was less of an issue, as many management texts used in the UK are of American origin. She began the collection with a selection of e-books on project management, and “encylopaedia / dictionary type things”. She felt that reference would be a key usage area. This year, when there were usage statistics available, Elspeth bought extra copies of books that had frequent issues or “turnaway” statistics. Elspeth and other faculty librarians searched by key topic areas in several subjects, and selected appropriate stock . The e-books were all added to the catalogue using the MARC records provided by netLibrary. Links to netLibrary were also provided on the library web pages from both the database list and from a Types of Resources: E-books page. Initially a link was also provided from the library news page. All books have been given a 24 hour loan period. Library inductions, which include information about e-resources and how to use them, are carried out at different levels at UWE. Undergraduates start with basic half-hour inductions which are usually built on later. They are shown how to find an electronic journal or book on the catalogue and how to access it. Now that netLibrary has been piloted it is likely that faculty librarians will make further efforts at induction sessions to promote the e-books. Postgraduates receive two hours hands-on library training to help them with their research. Other students have special tutorials on managing online searches as part of their courses: this requires both a high level of input from the library, and academics giving up teaching slots to make it work. The library works with the academics to devise exercises that are relevant to the subjects studied. It finds that on-line sessions for undergraduates which aren’t directly linked to study / credit only achieve 40% attendance - then afterwards students will knock at the door and say that they don’t know how to access on-line materials. Distance learning students have special sessions – some of them are not technically speaking distance learners, but attend the university part-time because they are working; others could be anywhere in the country.

Elspeth was pleased and surprised by the first year usage statistics of the initial collection: of the 109 books chosen, 104 had issued. The highest issuing title was

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borrowed 56 times during the year; the next nine titles issued 44, 34, 32, 27, 25, 25, 24, 21 and 21 times respectively. Only 14 titles issued just once. The collection was accessed 977 times in total.

Elspeth thinks that e-books raise a big cultural issue which needs addressing: the “engagement of students in the learning process”. To help this and to maximise the use of resources, Elspeth has been involved with health faculty librarians in devising a reading strategy proposal for consideration by faculties. Its stated purpose: “To maintain the breadth of the Library collection and invest in the provision of electronic sources, the Library proposes to reduce multiple copy provision to a maximum of two copies ….”Arising from the proposal is an opportunity to ensure that students develop their information seeking skills at appropriate points in the curriculum. Early in a programme students might have most of their reading provided for them. Later they could be encouraged to explore the Library’s databases and be given guidance on how to construct a search. Towards the end of a programme they might be expected to find relevant literature for themselves with very little guidance. The Library is keen to work with Faculty colleagues to identify e-resources and to ensure that library and information skills are developed at appropriate points in the curriculum.”

Case Study No. 11 Best Practice in e-book Promotion by an HEI Consortium of Four Northern Universities The four universities that took part in this project were part of a consortium of eight universities that had obtained HEFCE funding to trial various innovative ideas and products together. The four universities concerned agreed to trial an e-books product from a publisher (here called Publisher D) specialising in a specific subject. Publisher D cannot be identified as it has a right to remain anonymous. The other four universities belonging to the consortium did not participate because either the subject or the specific product were not relevant to their needs.

Three other publishers eminent in the same subject were contacted by the interested sub-group from the consortium, but it was not possible to reach an agreement with them, either because of lack of enthusiasm on their part, or because their terms were unacceptable to the consortium – the most significant issue was the fact that they objected to not being able to offer free printing from the e-books to their users.

In April 2002, Publisher D attended a project team meeting and demonstrated its ebooks service, which offered electronic versions of their entire catalogue to libraries.

The books could be bought in multiple copies; each copy had a multiple-user licence, typically allowing 5 – 10 users to “borrow” the same copy at any one time. The cost of a typical e-book represented a 20% saving on the hard copy price. Print rights were not available for the libraries to buy “up front” – they could only buy view access. If users wished to purchase the print rights to a particular chapter, they might do so online, using their own money.144 The books were not to be “borrowed” 144

This is against the philosophy of some universities, including those members of the consortium who chose not to participate, that believe that access to library users in all its forms should be free of charge.

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through the institutions’ own issue systems, but via an Athens-authenticated interface that would be customised to resemble institutional web-page styles.

The four interested universities eventually came to an agreement with Publisher D that they would purchase one copy of every book in its e-book catalogue, with five users per title, for a six-month period, and receive a consortial discount of approximately 40% (therefore representing up to 60% discount on the print price of some titles).

The trial began in late September 2002, and initial usage data indicated that: • • • • •

34 users registered for the trial Users registered at all four sites participating in the trial A total of 90 books had been borrowed by February 2003 34 re-borrows were made 4 registered users did not borrow any books

The trial ended in March 2003. Although the initial user statistics were modest, the project partners felt that the ability to purchase consortially on this occasion allowed the participating institutions to provide a new value-added service to their users which would probably not otherwise have been possible. It also set a precedent for negotiating future purchases with other e-book publishers. However, at the time of writing (June 2003), the fact that Publisher D had not produced a final set of user statistics for the consortium meant that exact demand for the e-books and value for money obtained were both impossible to calculate.

Case Study No. 12 Best Practice in e-book Promotion by an FE College (1): Barnsley College: a study in energy and persistence Barnsley College is a large College of Further Education which operates from five sites. It spends approximately £60,000 on printed books each year; last year, it spent £1,800 on e-books.

Lesley Dickinson, the librarian, says that she is subscribing to e-books to offer students supplementary texts, and also to provide distance learning access. She adds: “[E-books are] also purchased to raise awareness amongst the student body of different formats of information and to teach research and information seeking skills on different specialist databases, rather than just the Internet.” She takes advantage of four of the JISC initiatives, and is also continually on the look-out for good-quality free e-books.

Lesley says that promoting the library’s e-resources is relentless hard work, though rewarding. At the moment, she is “doing a big push” on ATHENS, highlighting various resources only accessible through the IP address. She offers workshops by subject areas for tutors and students, which aim to raise their awareness of electronic resources. This has been especially successful in some subject areas: notably, Social Sciences and Humanities.

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Each time the library gets a new e-resource, it puts notices in the staff and student newsletters, which are accessed via the college’s intranet. It also sends a list of electronic resources, regularly updated, to Heads of Department. However, Lesley says that she is aware that these don’t always get passed on to the other members of the departments, and a project for the summer of 2003 is to e-mail all staff with a list of these resources.

She says that the library “never stops. It is a chicken and egg situation all the time – we try to provide information in any format for every request.”

As new e-resources are released, she asks the tutors for feedback on its usefulness.

This can be slow in coming, but in time she gets a picture of what they think.

Another job for the summer of 2003 is to compile a brochure listing all the eresources held by the college, to be distributed electronically with some print copies available in the library.

The library has recently conducted a student survey into the importance of provision of electronic resources by the college. On each of the five sites, most students rated access to the Internet and Word Processing facilities of maximum importance.

Access to electronic databases, including e-books, was rated of maximum importance at the main site, and of medium importance at the other four sites. Given the low rate of usage of e-books generally encountered at FE colleges, this is a major achievement.

Case Study No. 13 Best Practice in e-book Promotion by an FE College (2): Yeovil College Like Barnsley College, Yeovil College is fortunate to have a librarian who champions, e-books, Chris Irwin. She has been interested in electronic learning products for a number of years. She feels that Yeovil is well supported by the University of Bournemouth, for which it acts as a feeder college. It is one of a number of FE colleges for which Bournemouth has bought modest e-books collections; and Bournemouth is giving some of these colleges further funds so that they can take advantage of the new JISC / Taylor & Francis offer. Yeovil has a free hand concerning the titles that it decides to choose. The college now has a VLE in place which it has started to use.

Yeovil is also lucky to be one of the few FE colleges that appoints subject librarians, though in the summer of 2003 only three of the full complement of five were in post.

The subject librarians try to make the academic staff for whose subjects they are responsible aware of all new acquisitions. The librarians regularly spend time in each of the departments, promoting new resources. They also post a newsletter containing information about acquisitions on the corporate intranet. The process is beginning to succeed, and some of the lecturers have also been persuaded to act as champions for certain products: one lecturer recently gave a short presentation on INFOTRAC to a group of colleagues. As a result of these various promotional activities, the library has noted a steady increase in staff and student requests for ATHENS passwords.

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Yeovil is extremely happy with its close relationship with Bournemouth, which it believes is of great benefit to students taking degree courses. In common with a number of colleges interviewed for this study, it would like to be able to extend the same advantages to non-degree students. Unfortunately, at present the licensing regulations do not permit this.

Enterprising co-operation between a university and its feeder colleges in promoting ebooks and e-learning is further considered in Case Study No. 14.

Case Study No. 14 Best Practice in Sharing Resources: how Huddersfield University helps its FE feeder colleges A number of universities in the UK have special relationships with the FE colleges with which they liaise. Unique among these in its collaborative approach is the University of Huddersfield, which launched the Consortium for Post-Compulsory Education and Training (CPCET) in 2001. The consortium consists of a partnership between the university itself and 32 colleges. CPCET enhances the professional skills of staff who support post-school learners.

Member organisations participate as equal partners: in contrast to much FE/He collaboration, the Consortium is based on: • • •

equality and reciprocity openness and transparency shared resources and responsibilities

Through the Consortium, there are approximately 2,000 students on in-service, parttime programmes for teachers and trainers working in post-compulsory education.

These programmes lead to the following qualifications from the University of Huddersfield: • • • •

Certificate in Education (PCET) Post-Graduate Certificate in Education (PCET) BA (Hons) in Education and Training Foundation Degree (Learning Support)

In addition, the Consortium is engaged in other initiatives that include: • • •

Sponsoring CPD and scholarly activity among staff in colleges who deliver CPCET programmes Improving provision through HEFCE sponsored development of innovative ICT applications to a dispersed collaborative partnership and a fully integrated MLE Negotiating preferential terms for members and their students with publishers and other suppliers

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• •

Managing implementation of a large-scale development project to expand teaching capacity in Basic Skills at four local LSCs Exploiting the combined strengths of academic expertise and a wide practitioner base to secure funding for research to inform PCET policy and practice.

All of the students from the consortium are registered as University of Huddersfield students, and given Huddersfield ID s and passwords. Their status is the same as that of Huddersfield part-timers. They are offered full access to all Huddersfield resources, including e-books and other electronic provision. The colleges are also required to provide a high level of support. Part of their validation means that they must have a library which offers a good service, qualified staff, and the full range of texts.

In order to help them to achieve this, Huddersfield has appointed one full-time and one part-time librarian to carry out training with the member colleges. These librarians have been given extra funding by the university to conduct a full support / training programme, and also to buy extra licences for e-products. Huddersfield already has several e-books collections; use of them by the colleges will become more pronounced when the current JISC Taylor & Francis deal is finalised, as Taylor & Francis publish many relevant education titles which the library intends to purchase.

The librarians from all the colleges attend training sessions at Huddersfield. They are also given an excellent manual to use when they return to their colleges. A cascade system is then set in motion. Tutors at the colleges receive two hour training sessions from the librarians: it is not necessarily expected that these will immediately make them proficient, but it does make them aware of what is available. New training sessions are developed on each new resource as it comes along. The intention is that the librarians have access and are trained; the tutors have access and are trained. Then the librarians cascade to the students, working in partnership with the tutors.

The Huddersfield Onelog system simplifies access to the e-book collections, and all the students are automatically registered for ATHENS. Most of them are able to access from home.

There have been some problems with access, caused by firewall applications used by individual colleges: the respective systems staff are in the process of addressing these.

Due to licensing arrangements, the use of Huddersfield resources is restricted to students at the FE colleges who are enrolled on the degree courses specified. Other students at the FE colleges are therefore currently denied access: but it might be possible to develop the model to make it more inclusive in the future.

This summer, an evaluation exercise is planned, to find out whether: • • •

the users feel that they have received adequate training which resources they have used whether they feel that the electronic products have been of benefit.

The aim is to find out the impact on teaching of using the electronic resources offered.

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Case Study No. 15 Demystifying I.T. and Promoting Understanding of I.T. Resources and how to put them to Practical Use: the INFORMS Project I am indebted to Jenny Brook, Director of the Informs Project, for writing this case study The INFORMS Project based at University of Huddersfield has created a range of innovative, interactive information skills units loosely based around the SCONUL 7 pillars of information literacy.

The units, written initially by 5 institutions, Huddersfield University, Leeds Metropolitan University, the University of Central Lancashire, Loughborough University and the University of Oxford, make use of live, freely available and subscription information resources across a wide range of subjects.

They have been written specifically to guide students in using key information resources and to develop their searching and retrieval skills. The uniqueness of the units is that they are bite-sized, include short self-test quizzes and are easily customized by librarians to fit the institutional context.

These units have been tested within a number of different teaching and learning settings within the above 5 institutions: • Embedded for use by students at different levels of study in selected modules within the institutions’ VLEs through collaboration with academic teaching staff.

• Used in face- to- face teaching sessions in computer labs.

• Linked into library web sites.

The research undertaken at all the institutions involved in the project into the use of these units clearly indicates that the collaboration of academic teaching staff with librarians is a key factor in the use of electronic resources by students. The most widely used unit within the INFORMS database is one written by an academic that is embedded into his module in a VLE. Two of the problems highlighted by the project are the complexity of and continuously changing e-learning landscape. The range of available electronic information resources is overwhelming for most students, this, coupled with complicated access arrangements, poses considerable barriers to use of these resources.

It is a simple process to include step-by-step guidance for users through the access routes to the different electronic resources within the online teaching and learning units produced by the INFORMS Project.

An additional problem highlighted was the lack of discrimination in students’ information searching behaviour. The majority of students use a search engine (e.g.

Google) in the first instance to search the Internet, without actually having any 184

underlying concept of how best to search. Also of concern is that many students think of the Internet as a source for good quality information.

The project found that embedding customized information skills resources accompanied by a relevant information task directly into lecture notes was a successful method for introducing quality information resources.

Overall the online teaching and learning units were useful for introducing key quality electronic information resources to new undergraduate students, adults returning to education and distance learning students. In addition, until access to e-learning resources is seamless, then the INFORMS units are also useful in guiding students through the complex routes to access these.

Case Study No. 16 Best Practice in Teaching with e-Books: the FE Lecturer’s Perspective I teach learning and information technology, mainly to the staff here and to education students. My job is to make them see that the internet is not an evil world – there is good out there! How many of us need training to use a cashpoint machine? None.

We need to make the web more intuitive – it is going that way. I encourage students to find out what are good resources on the Internet, and then how to use them to support other learners. I am myself studying for a Master’s degree in Education, and actively looking for e-books for support.

I’m looking at how Media students use the web – and I also look at their writing styles, etc. Often their literary skills are quite weak, and trying to engage them to use web resources can help. I find that English students are likely to be quite passionate about having the actual book. I teach students of all ages – all teachers and prospective teachers, so I don’t fully understand how much more confident the younger ones are – but I suspect it is the case.

I always try out web resources, including e-books, before I recommend them, and I have experienced things that I wouldn’t like as a learner. Most resources are still much too HE biased. Most of the e-books that I use are free. I have heard of the Oxford Texts Archive, but I haven’t used it.

I found a brilliant e-book to help with my job – the On-line Tutoring E-book. Chapter 9 is about the tutor’s role in learning on-line. There have been similar books, but this is the one that I remember most. My students are expected to evaluate and promote the learning materials that they have used as part of their course assessment. None has come back with an e-book recommendation this year, which is disappointing. A couple of years ago, the students were keener [on e-books], and we had some interesting responses. For example, there was a paramedic who was also dyslexic who used e-books extensively. He found that he could set his browser to read to him – it meant that he could get more out of the information – but he said that he would have liked to find a package with “a better voice”.

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Here are some of the things I don’t like: first of all, everything is in text-based format.

Secondly, as there is no human interaction, care needs to be taken with giving instructions, etc. Publishers need to remember that e-learners are out there on their own – if the links fail and there is no support mechanism, you think it is just you, but often it isn’t. If there is a helpline, they should remember people’s feelings: I have had some brusque responses that have really upset me.

I have never been asked to review an e-book, and I would like to review them.

For me the role of e-books is strictly confined to work, and I would like to keep that distinction. I still prefer to hold a book in my hand for social reading and relaxation.

Reading on screen is bad for the eyes and posture. It is easier to search and reference on the screen, but I am not likely to read the whole thing. It is particularly good when I am looking for specific topics. Easily-laid-out e-books are the best – it is important how they’re presented. I like the fact that I can get to where I want, and crossreference easily.

I think that my students’ use of e-books in teaching will be very mixed – e-books are still at a very developmental stage. I had one student this year who was not at all confident. He will now use web-based resources – he is just starting his “web literate journey” – but I think that he will stay at the level of only using e-books to support his professional practice, not to disseminate to students. We are all learning. E-books themselves are in a state of transition.

Case Study No. 17 Best Practice in Studying with e-books: Ashley’s Perspective Ashley is a disabled student who attended the Huddersfield focus group meeting. I am grateful to him for writing this case study I have used e-books for the past three years. I first started to use them when I was studying for a degree in Business Administration. While I was searching for a course textbook on amazon.co.uk I noticed a promotion on the site promoting a new e-book service. I decided to investigate and downloaded a free book on e-commerce. I was so impressed with the fact that I could download the book and start reading it straight away that I decided to look for different textbooks.

I am now studying an MSc in electronic business. For one of my assignments on the course I downloaded an e-book that I needed extensively to prepare both a presentation and a written report.

I have a physical disability, which makes it difficult for me to carry things such as textbooks. By using e-books I am able to download the textbook on to my laptop, which enables me to take the textbook wherever I go without increasing the weight of my bag.

I use Adobe e-book reader to read all of my e-books. I personally believe that this software is fantastic for reading e-books I have been able to use features such as ‘find’

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to go back through the text looking for a quote or reference that I have wanted to include within a project. One or two of the textbooks that I have downloaded also have a feature where the text can be read aloud which can be extremely useful if you do not have time to read through the text.

In the future I think e-books should have features on them that allow readers too access the books collectively and make notes so that everybody has access to the notes and ideas generated by the readers. This would-be particularly useful when working on group projects.

I also believe that in order for e-books to be more widely used publishers producing them need to spend more resources on promoting the books so more people are aware of how they can use them.

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Appendix One Methodology Rationale and Objectives This report has been commissioned by JISC in order to find out how e-books are currently being promoted in further and higher education in the UK, what the barriers to uptake are, and what the demand for e-books is now and might be in the future if promoted to the maximum possible extent to potential users. The word “promoting” has been used precisely: it embraces a wider concept of proselytisation of the medium than of straightforward marketing; but of course marketing by relevant stakeholders is an important element, and is considered in some detail. Examples from overseas as well as the UK have been cited where appropriate. The report is intended to help all interested stakeholders, both by providing an understanding of the status quo, and by suggesting effective ways in which e-books might be promoted in the future.

The following constitute the objectives outlined in the JISC brief for this study: 1. To assess the demand for e-books within the sector and at institutional level:

An industry overview, looking at specific types of e-book or e-book service, their key attributes and impact to date Broad perceptions of the ‘e-book experience’, including identification of core user segments, their attitude to e-books and uptake An assessment of current demand for e-books within UK higher and further education, including an analysis of factors impacting on demand and actual use A review of current barriers such as technological, legal, economic, organisational and cultural issues.

2. An assessment of e-book distribution

An investigation and review of the existing barriers within the supply chain that influence purchasing and acquisition by institutions. These will include mechanisms for discovering e-books and problems of bibliographic access and control, including a review of metadata and other relevant standards. Recommendations on how e-books can be integrated more effectively into the acquisitions process of libraries.

A summary and evaluation of the mechanisms by which users may discover and make use of electronic books material, for example, OPACs, MLEs and publisher web sites. Identifications of case studies of good practice and recommendations for new approaches that might be taken

3. Promotion of e-books within the sector

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An assessment of promotional strategies of publishers, booksellers and other e-book intermediaries, such as content aggregators. Examples of good practice found and recommended ways forward An analysis of the approaches to e-book promotion within individual institutions or across organisational groupings, such as library consortia, both within the UK and internationally. Examples of good practice and suggestions for innovation An appraisal of current promotional awareness-raising programmes of key professionals within the academic sector, including academic staff, librarians and other learner support professionals. Examples of good practice and recommended strategies for development The production of a promotions plan for e-books at a national and sectoral level, with suggested models for institutions to adopt. The latter will take the form of a practical guide which will be produced as a companion to this report, to be accessed and utilised by staff in HEI institutions (as a result of the findings of this report, it has been recognised that FE colleges need a separate kind of guide) Recommendations for all key stakeholders, including booksellers, librarians and academics for the effective marketing of electronic books within the academic community. Recommendations on how these groups might work together more effectively to promote electronic books, including appropriate roles for the JISC E-Books Working Group.

Methodology The methodology used to prepare this report was planned to take place in several stages:

Stage One consisted of: a) a comprehensive literature review on how academic e-books have been promoted since the year 2000, when their first significant introductions to the UK higher and further education community were made. This included a review of many unpublished articles and reports, prepared by librarians and others, which have continued to be discovered and accessed throughout the study. It also included detailed examination of as many publishers’ and aggregators’ websites, and as many different e-book products as possible b) A series of structured interviews with the following: i. 12 leading academic publishers either actively engaged in or interested in selling e-books. A further four publishers were approached, but no response from them was obtained. ii. 6 e-book aggregators. A further two e-book aggregators were approached, but no response from them was obtained. iii. 6 booksellers (two retail, two “pure” e-tail, two library suppliers) currently selling e-books Transcripts of all the interviews were made. In the report, these

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interviews are referred to as “Publisher 1, 2, 3, Aggregator 1, 2, 3, Bookseller 1, 2, 3”, etc.

Stage Two consisted of: a) The setting up of four panels, each to address a specific aspect of e-book promotion. Panel A, which addressed Technological Issues, was led by Andrew Weinstein of Lightning Source Inc. Panel B, which addressed Publishing and Distribution Issues, was led by Michael Holdsworth of Cambridge University Press. Panel C, which addressed Cataloguing and Metadata Issues, was led by Brian Green, of Book Industry Communications [BIC]; Panel D, which addressed Pedagogical Issues, was led by Huw Morris, of the University of the West of England. Each panel included at least two librarians, one from HE and one from FE, and a number of other participants, chosen jointly by the panel leader and the project leader to reflect as wide a range of stakeholder interests and expertise as possible. Membership of the panels changed (and expanded) over time. A full list of all the panel members is given in Appendix A. Professor David Smith, of the University of Huddersfield, assisted by Professor Glenn Hardaker, agreed to act as the overall project adviser. Dr. Monica Landoni, of the University of Strathclyde, agreed to act as the overall librarian adviser.

I should like to record here that I am extremely grateful to all of the people named above, as well as to all of the panel members. All have contributed a great deal to the project; far more than was originally anticipated. b) Each of the panel leaders was sent a series of documents, called a “toolkit”, by the project leader. The toolkit consisted of a document summarising barriers to uptake of e-books for librarians and academics, as discovered by the literature search; a select bibliographical list, including the addresses of useful websites; a list of all the panel leaders and panel members; a summary of the structured interview transcripts; and a set of questions for each panel to consider. Some of the questions were common to all of the panels. The panel leaders distributed these documents to their panels, and agreed with them a timescale for addressing the questions.

Each of the panels worked in different ways. With Panel A, Andrew Weinstein conducted a series of telephone conference calls across three time zones on a weekly basis for six weeks, and sent the project leader a report after each call. Michael Holdsworth arranged for Panel B members to e-mail him with a series of responses, which he summarised and sent to the project leader. Brian Green and Panel C worked with a mixture of e-mailed responses and one conference call. Brian then wrote the Cataloguing and Metadata Issues chapter himself, and circulated it to the rest of Panel C for final comments. Huw Morris conducted a series of structured telephone conversations with the members of Panel D. He wrote the chapter on Pedagogical Issues.

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Stage Three was originally to have consisted of: a) The circulation of a questionnaire to librarians at HEIs and FE colleges, with the aim of getting quantitative and qualitative information on how they receive information about e-books, how they promote e-books themselves, what the user reactions are, how much they spend on e-books, and any observations they might have on the advantages of e-books and barriers to uptake. b) A synthesis of published and unpublished work describing academics’ lecturers’ and students’ views on e-books, and publishers’ aggregators’ and booksellers’ comments (from the structured interviews) on how they are marketing to these groups; the results of a straw poll of 68 academics undertaken by the project leader to kick-start the project; other work undertaken by Gold Leaf for publishers on academics’ requirements from supplementary electronic learning materials produced to accompany print textbooks; and the results of a comprehensive piece of research, including twelve case studies, undertaken by a very large university, which will be referred to as ‘Atlantis’, during the course of its implementation of Blackboard. It should be noted that to avoid confusion, throughout this report the term “academics” refers to teachers in universities and researchers in all types of institutions, and the term “lecturers” refers to teachers in FE colleges .

However, when the project had been under way for ten weeks, the representatives from JISC to whom the project leader was reporting decided that they also required some original research to be undertaken with these groups. This was not part of the original proposal, partly because of time and cost restrictions, and partly due to timing: since the bulk of the research had to be done during the summer vacation, I as the project leader and author of the proposal had considered that it would be difficult to obtain responses from actual and potential end-user groups. It was suggested that some focus groups would provide the appropriate information. I was not satisfied with this suggestion, because I felt that focus groups on their own would not meet the same standards of qualitative and quantitative information gathering that had been carefully put in place for the rest of the research. Therefore, a further four sets of questionnaires were devised: one each for academics, FE lecturers, university students and college students. In addition, four focus groups were carried out: one each for academics and students at the University of Huddersfield, one for students at the university identified as “Middlemarch”, and one for part-time nursing and midwifery students at Edgehill College. The latter was conducted by Leo Appleton, to whom I am indebted for a great deal of help, support and information during the course of the whole project.

Two structured interviews with academics at the University of Huddersfield also took place, and three at “Middlemarch”.

The difficulties of obtaining information at the time of year (it was by now June, and therefore a considerable scramble ensued to get the work done

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before everyone disappeared for the summer) were overcome in the following ways: 1. Support from Professor David Smith and a team of librarians (Jenny Brook, Jane Kaye and David Worboys) at the University of Huddersfield in finding students and academics willing to respond to the questionnaires and by giving demonstrations to them of several e-book products.

2. Support from Elspeth Williams and Liz Weeks at the University of the West of England in persuading a cohort of sixteen distancelearning students to complete the questionnaires.

3. Support from a student at “Middlemarch”, who conducted the focus group there, obtained responses to the questionnaires, and interviewed the three academics.

4. Support from several librarians situated at different universities, who helped by obtaining responses to the academics’ questionnaires.

5. Support from Paul Davy, of JISC, who helped to obtain responses to the lecturers’ questionnaires.

6. Support from the librarian at a London college, who managed to obtain six responses to the FE students’ questionnaires.

7. Support from David Pattern, technical manager of the INFORMS project, who set up a website on which the questionnaires could be posted after it was discovered that most FE librarians and lecturers and some university ones could not receive e-mails with attachments.

8. Support from Leo Appleton, as already recorded.

I am indebted to all of the above (some of whom, unfortunately, it has not been possible to name) for making this very considerable body of extra work possible.

All of the undergraduate students and the FE college lecturers were given incentives to help (not budgeted for in the original proposal).

The outcome of the above was that the following original research was collected for the project: 1. 46 responses to the HEI librarian questionnaires (which were originally circulated and then chased by Tony Bainton of SCONUL, to whom I am indebted for doing this).

2. 37 responses to the FE librarian questionnaires (circulated through BECTA, and through extra approaches to feeder colleges from the Universities of Huddersfield and Staffordshire: I am grateful to all of those involved, especially Chris Kelland of BECTA, Celia Poole of Huddersfield University Library and David Parkes of Staffordshire University Library).

3. 24 responses to the academic questionnaires, from six universities.

4. 20 responses to the lecturer questionnaires, from sixteen colleges.

5. 28 responses to the student questionnaires, from three universities.

6. 6 responses to the student questionnaires, from one FE college.

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7. Transcripts of four focus groups, three with students and one with academics.

8. Transcripts of nine in-depth interviews with academics and lecturers (some of them telephone follow-ups to the questionnaires).

9. Transcripts of 19 follow-up calls with HEI librarians and five with FE librarians. c) The following meetings were attended during the course of the project: 1. “Launch” meeting at the British Library.

2. Training session on e-books for academics, given at the University of Staffordshire.

3. A meeting organised on behalf of Blackwells (booksellers) at which representatives from JISC, three publishing houses and Gold Leaf were present.

4. A meeting of the STLG librarians at the University of Leeds.

5. A meeting of the SUPC consortium at Bournemouth University.

6. A meeting of the netLibrary User Group in Birmingham.

7. Monthly steering group meetings took place with Professors David Smith, Glenn Hardaker and others at the University of Huddersfield.

As project leader, I gave presentations on the project at the first, fourth, fifth and sixth of these, and gathered information from the librarians present. d) One conference was attended: “Beyond Labels: Working Towards Equality and Diversity Through ICT”, at the University of Huddersfield.

The original methodology and the changes subsequently made to it have been described in considerable detail, because the latter have had a material effect on the format of this report. Most of the results of the additional research are reported in Chapter Three, which has therefore become a very long chapter. I had considerable misgivings about this at first, but I have been assured by members of the project team that the information captured is extremely useful, and builds up a well-rounded “rich picture” of stakeholder attitudes to e-books at the present time. However, synthesis of previous work has been scaled back, as this would undoubtedly have made the chapter (and the report itself) of inordinate length. Similarly, it is the usual practice when reporting research of this type to include the questionnaires, structured interview questions, etc. used for the work: but in the case of this project, it would involve publishing six different questionnaires, three different sets of structured questions, and all of the toolkit information and questions supplied to the panels. Together, these would constitute a body of work of similar size to the report itself! Therefore, it has not been included; but I will supply any of the documents to those interested upon request. Likewise, the Bibliography has been supplied in two parts: a list of documents directly used for the report, and the working bibliography issued to the panels.

A further point about the methodology is worth noting: due to the speed at which the report had to be completed, and the variety and complexity of the methodology finally

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used, it was not possible to give all of the findings to the panels before they made their recommendations (though every attempt was made, including interim analysis of the questionnaires as they were received). This may have led to some of the minor inconsistencies between the findings recorded and the recommendations made; however, these may have arisen anyway, since such a large and diverse group of stakeholders took part; and the report may be the more helpful for recording the discrepancies.

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Project Team Acknowledgements The project is particularly indebted to the efforts of the project advisers and panel leaders, and all the project team members. Others have contributed to the panels at different times, and it may not have been possible to record all contributions. If this is the case, please accept my apologies and very sincere thanks for your work.

Project Leader Linda Bennett, Gold Leaf.

Project Adviser Professor David Smith, University of Huddersfield. Assisted by Professor GlennHardaker, University of Huddersfield.

Librarian Adviser Dr. Monica Landoni, University of Strathclyde.

Panel A: Addressing Technological issues Panel Leader Andrew Weinstein, Lightning Source Inc. John Akeroyd, South Bank University.

Stephanie Bean, netLibrary.

Nick Bogaty, Open e-Book Forum.

David Pattern, University of Huddersfield Susan Peterson, Baker & Taylor.

Steve Potash, Overdrive.

Tom Prehn, Palm.

Ann Lawson, Oxford University Press.

Jo Rowley, Tamworth College of FE

Panel B: Addressing Publisher and Distribution Issues Panel Leader Michael Holdsworth, Cambridge University Press.

Mark Bide, Rightscom.

Christoph Chesher, Taylor & Francis.

Tim Goodfellow, Butterworth Heinemann.

Jane Kaye, University of Huddersfield.

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Sonny Leong. Cavendish Publishing.

Matt Nauman, Blackwells Booksellers.

John Lewis Needham, Ebrary.

Loree Potash, Overdrive.

Chris Sugden, John Smithâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s David Taylor, Swotbooks.

Margaret Weaver, St. Martinâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s College Lancaster.

Bernadette Williams, Leek College of FE.

Panel C: Addressing Cataloguing and Metadata Issues Panel Leader Brian Green, Book Industry Communications.

Bill Jackson, Warwick College of FE. Robina Clayphen, British Library.

Michael Healy, Nielsen BookData.

Cliff Morgan, John Wiley.

Alan Morrison, Oxford Text Archive.

Panel D: Addressing Pedagogical Issues Panel Leader Huw Morris, University of the West of England.

Pam Berridge, Warwick College of FE. Jenny Brook, University of Huddersfield.

Giles Clark, Open University.

Professor Glenn Hardaker, University of Huddersfield.

David Parkes, University of Staffordshire.

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Further Acknowledgements My sincere thanks to all of the following, for their invaluable contribution, and apologies to anyone who has, inadvertently, been omitted: Name: Attree, Mary Bainton, Toby Ball, David Bean, Stephanie Berglund, Ylva Boiros, Pam Carter, Penny Chan, Alexia Chesher, Christoph Cox, John Cuthbertson, Richard Dalton, Mark Davies, Linda Davy, Paul Dearnley, James Dickinson, Lesley Edwards, Louise Farrell, Winnie Fragnito, Michael Galloway, Colin Green, Kirsty Gwyther, Tony Haggis, Jan Hall, Frances Halliday, Stuart Harbord, Elizabeth Hayes, Gerard Hiller, Eileen Hodgkin, Adam Hoque, Farhana Howard, Helen Hoy, Carrie Ingraham, Bruce Irwin, Chris Jeffery, Anne Jeffrey, Stephen Jennings, Ian Jones, David Jury, Kate Kelland, Chris Kerr, Diane Killen, Clare Knight, Dominic Lambert, Jill Lane, Jonathan

Organisation: Hodder Arnold SCONUL University of Bournmouth and SUPC netLibrary Oxford Texts Archive Books24x7 Cambridge University Press Hodder Arnold Taylor & Francis NUI Galway Library Templeton College Elsevier University of Cardiff Library JISC Loughborough University Barnsley College Library Cranfield University Library / JISC University of Huddersfield Barnes & Noble Glasgow University Library University of Surrey Library John Wiley John Ruskin College Library University of Aston Library Sunderland University University of York Library RSC (Eastern) University of Huddersfield Library Xrefer CRC Press University of Leeds Library McGraw-Hill Teesside University Yeovil College Library University of Huddersfield Pearson University of Huddersfield Library Sheffield University Library Oxford University Press BECTA Dawsons Booksellers Newbury College Palgrave University of Aston Library Amazon.co.uk

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Leong, Sonny Lob, Susanna Mahar, Tim McCarthy, Austin McComish, John McKnight, Cliff Mercer, Diana Miller, Marion Neal, Rufus Needham, John Lewis Paulton, Amanda Poole, Celia Potash, Loree Pothen, Philip Price, Kate Reynard, Clive Reynolds, Jonathan Reynolds, Paul Robertson, Hugh Robinson, Moira Rosy, Rich Shaw, Philip Sidwell, Katy Skytte, Petra Sowden, Peter Stevenson, Gill Taylor, David Taylor, Graham Vendryes, Linda Walker, Paul Walton, Geoff Webb, Keith Weeks, Liz Weissmann, Claudia Williams, Elspeth Woodward, Hazel Worboys, David Wynn, Dominic Wynn, Martin Wynne, Ben Young, Sue

Cavendish Books Oxford University Press Oxford University Press University of Northumbria Library University of Huddersfield Loughborough University University College London Library RSC (Yorkshire and Humberside) Cambridge University Press Ebrary University of Aston Library University of Huddersfield Library Overdrive JISC Roehampton University Library independent consultant Templeton College University of Swansea Library University of Huddersfield Treloar College Library netLibrary Elsevier University of Leeds Library McGraw-Hill independent consultant Yorkshire Coast College Library Lightning Source and Swotbooks Publishers Association Coutts Knovel University of Staffordshire Library University of Huddersfield University of the West of England Library Overdrive University of the West of England Library Cranfield University Library / JISC University of Huddersfield Library Blackwells Booksellers Oxford Texts Archive University of Sussex Library Bruna Books

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Select Bibliography This bibliography is presented in three sections.

Section One lists the publications and non-published work directly referred to in the report, in order of first appearance.

Section Two lists articles read by the project leader and members of the panels which have influenced the report, although they have not been directly referred to.

Section Three consists of the annotated “toolkit” bibliographical list given to the panel members at the start of their work.

Section One Publications and non-published work referred to in the report, in order of first appearance.

“E-Books: A Traditional Publisher’s Perspective”, paper by Graham Bell, Harper Collins, delivered at “E-Books and the Supply Chain of the Future”, a PIRA conference, on 26th April 2001.

“The Second Gutenberg”, http://promo.net/pg/upi_interview_05_02.html. Accessed 30/06/2003.

“What is Project Gutenberg?”, http://promo.net/pg/history.html. Accessed 30/06/2003.

A book of abstracts was published after the MLEARN 2003 “Learning with Mobile Devices” conference, which was organised by the Learning and Skills Development Agency and took place in London on 19th-20th May 2003. www.LSDA.org.uk/events/mlearn2003.

“Higher Education in the Learning Society: the Dearing Report.” National Committee of Education. London, HMSO, 1997.

“Learning Works: Widening Participation in Further Education: the Kennedy Report.”

Further Education Funding Council. Coventry, FEFC, 1977.

“Learning for the Twenty-First Century: First Report of the National Adviser Group for Continuing Education and Lifelong Learning: the Fryer Report.” National Advisory Group for Continuing Education and Lifelong Learning. NAGCELL, 1997.

“Lifetime Learning: a Policy Framework”. Department for Education and Employment. DfEE, London, 1996.

Lifelong Learning: the Politics of the New Learning Environment, Elliott, G., Jessica Kingsley, London, 1999, 1 85302 580

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http://www.english.ltsn.ac.uk/learninglink/resources/vle/. and VLEs).

(For definitions of MLEs

“JISC Briefing Paper No. 1: MLEs and VLEs Explained”, http://www.jisc.a.cuk.mle/reps/briefings/bpl.html Accessed 05/11/2002.

Association for Learning Technology Journal. www.alt.ac.uk.

British Journal of Educational Technology. www.blackwellpublishers.co.uk/journals/BJET. Pearson, M. “Researching the Use of E-Books for Teaching and Learning: a Pilot Study”. The University of Huddersfield 2002. Unpublished. Accepted and funded by the University. Due to be completed in August 2003.

Reality IT: Technology and Everyday Life. Crabtree, Nathan and Reeves. The Work Foundation. July 2002. 1843730022.

“The Scale of Future Publishing in Digital and Conventional Formats”. Bide, M. and Others. The British Library. London, 2000. p.11. Available from http://www.bl.uk/concord/otherpubblpu.html.

“A Survey of Student Book Buying, 2001 / 2002”, Gold Leaf, 2002.

“A Circulation Analysis of Print Books and E-Books in an Academic Research Library”. Littmann, D. Capstone Project presented to the Faculty of the College of Education, University of Denver. Denver, 2002.

Quick Guide 14: Electronic Publishing Contracts. Society of Authors. London, 2002. Free to members, £10 post free to non-members (from Society of Authors, 84, Drayton Gardens, London SW10 9SB).

“CAPP Student Survey: Student Information Sources and Book Buying Behaviour 2003”. Prepared for the Publishers Association by Book Marketing Limited, May 2003. http://www.openebook.org/doc_library.htm, for a very useful repository of information on e-books from the Open E-Book Forum. http:// elpub-subscribe@ketlux.demon.co.uk. http://www.hw.ac.uk/libwww/irn/irn.html.

“E-texts: a targeted approach”. Roberts, S. and Appleton, L. A paper given at the UKSG seminar ‘ER: promoting and managing electronic resources without the trauma’, November 2002. Published in Serials – Vol. 16, no. 1, March 2003. http://www.lib.rochester.edu/main/ebooks/analysis.pdf.

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“Virtual Learning Environments in Business and Management: A Review of Some Recent Developments”, Morris, H. and Rippin, A. International Journal of Management Education. (forthcoming) “The impact of E-Learning on the Work of Staff in a Higher Education Institution: A Case Study of the Introduction of the Blackboard Learning System at Monarch University E-Learning at Monarch University” Morris, H, et al. 2003. (unpublished) “Institutional Level Review: An Evaluation of the Blackboard Pilot Project.

Preliminary Results”. Morris, H. et al. 2003. University of the West of England. (unpublished) “The E-Book Mapping Exercise: Draft Report on Phase 1”, Armstrong, C. and Lonsdale, R. 2002. Information Automated Limited and Department of Information Studies, Aberystwyth University.

“Web burdens hit staff”, Uttley, A. Times Higher Education Supplement, 11th July 2003.

“Electronic Study Books and Learning Style”, De Diana, I and White, T. 1994.

Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, Vol.10, No.2, pp. 113-125.

“The Revolution Starts Next Week: the findings of two studies considering the use of electronic books, Information Services and Use”, UNIS 2002, Vol.21, No. 2, pp. 6578. http://www.surrey.ac.uk/Library/eBook_Project_Report.pdf (accessed at 15th July 2003).

“Quality of Book-Reading Matters for Emergent Readers: An Experiment With The Same Book In A Regular or Electronic Format”, de Jon, M. 2002. Journal of Educational Psychology, Vol. 94, No. 1, pp145-155, March. http://teleeducation.nb.ca/significantdifference.

Digital Diploma Mills: The Automation of Higher Education, Noble, D. 2002. New York, New York University Press.

“Sites of Power and Knowledge? Towards a critique of the Virtual University”, Newman, R. and Johnson, F. 1999. British Journal of Sociology of Education, Vol. 20, No. 1. pp. 79-88.

The Digital Revolution and the Coming of the Postmodern University, Raschke, C. 2002. London, RoutledgeFalmer.

Putting the University Online: Information, Technology, and Organizational Change, Cornford, J. and Pollock, N. 2003. Milton Keynes, Open University Press.

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“Grounded Theory as an Approach to Studying Students’ Uses of Learning Management Systems”, Allsop, G. and Tompsett, C. 2002. Alt-J, Vol. 10, No.2, pp.

63-76. http://www.comnet.ca/~pballan/HAWTH.html.

“The Virtual University: The Learner’s Perspective,” Crook, C. 2002, in Robbins, K. and Webster, F. (Eds.) The Virtual University? Knowledge, Markets and Management, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2002.

New Scientist, 21st May, 1964. Article by Skinner, B.F. “The Changing Definition of Learning”, Twigg, C. 1994. Sequence, Vol. 29, No. 4, http://www.educause.edu/pub/er/review/reviewArticles/29422.html (accessed June 14th 2003).

“Information Skillls in Higher Education: A SCONUL Position Paper”, SCONUL. 1999. http://www.sconul.ac.uk/pubs_stats/pubs/99104Rev1.doc (accessed 10th August 2003).

“Big Blue Information Skills for Students”, Harris, C. Davies, H. Mackenzie, A. Makin, L. Ryan, C. 2002. The Leeds University Library and and Machester Metropolitan University Library, http://www.leeds.ac.uk/bigblue/bigbluecontni.html (accessed 22nd May 2003).

“Towards Constructivism: Investigating Students’ Perceptions and Learning as a Result of Using an Online Environment”, Hughes, M. and Daykin, N. 2002.

Innovations in Education and Training International, Vol. 39, No. 3, pp. 217-224.

“Student and Lecturer Responses to the Introduction of Computer Assisted Learning (CAL) in a University Business School”, Kewell, B. and Beeby, M. 2002. Teaching in Higher Education, Vol. 8, No. 3, pp. 413-430.

“Multimedia Learning: A New Paradigm in Education”, Mai, N. and TK, K. 2000. http://www.icte.org/T01_Library/T01_103.PDF (accessed 10th August 2003).

“Internet Omnibus Survey”, ONS. 2002. London, HMSO.

Section Two Publications which influenced this report, although not referred to directly (in alphabetical order of first author) Armstrong, C. and Lonsdale, R. “The e-Book Mapping Exercise”, unpublished report, JISC, 2003.

Armstrong, C., Edwards, L. and Lonsdale, R. “Virtually there? E-Books in UK Academic Libraries.” 2002. Program: Electronic Library and Information Systems, 36 (4), pp. 216 – 227.

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Bakos, Y. and Brynjolfsson, E. “Bundling and Competition on the Internet”, Marketing Science, Winter 2000, Vol. 19, Issue 1, p. 63.

Ball, D. and Pye, J. “Library Purchasing Consortia in the UK: Activity and Practice”, Library and Information Briefings, Issue 88, November 1999.

Maltz, E. and Chiapetta, V. “Maximising Value in the Digital World”, Sloan Management Review, Spring 2002, pp. 77-84.

Wilson, R. and Landoni, M. “EBONI: Electronic Textbook Design Guidelines.” http://www.eboni.cdlr.strath.ac.uk/guidelines/index.html.

Woodward, H. and Edwards, L. “Shaping a Strategy for E-Books: an Issues Paper”, JISC / DNER E-Book Working Group, September 2001.

Section Three The annotated “toolkit” bibliographical list as supplied to panel members.

Ebook web resources.

This list has been compiled as part of the panels’ “toolkit”, with the aim of helping panel members to achieve an all-round view without fazing you with dozens of references and articles. It consists of a selection of about forty of the best websites, chosen from several thousands available on the web, and also lists the key publisher and other supplier websites. It is not meant to be exhaustive; and references to articles, etc., not available on the web have not been included, as they were regarded as too impractical for all panel members to access. As you will see from reading the list, I have several articles and reports in pdf of Word format which I shall forward to you upon request.

Please feel free to use any other materials that you may have collected (giving references if possible), and to copy details of them to the project team if you regard them as particularly useful. http://www.jisc.ac.uk/ JISC’s website contains information about all of the projects it has commissioned and is currently sponsoring in the field of electronic learning. It includes links to related work, and full reports. http://www.publishers.org/digital/dec2000anderson.ppt Andersen Consulting. Reading in the new millennium. A bright future for eBook publishing: facilitated open standards. http://www.jupitercommunications.com Robert Hertzberg. Limited scope of E-Book opportunity comes into focus. Feb 2001. (access limited) The Scale of Future Publishing in Digital and Conventional Formats, by Mark Bide and Associates. February 2000. I have this in pdf format, or it can be downloaded 203

from the British Library website:http://www.bl.uk/concord/otherpubblpu.html Although it is somewhat dated, still contains much useful information and some interesting long-term predictions. http://www.forrester.com/ER/Research/Report/Summary/0,1338,10088,00.html Forrester Research: Books Unbound. December 2000. (Summary) www.leeds.ac.uk/bigblue/ . Survey conducted by Leeds University and Manchester Metropolitan University on what information skills are needed by FE / HE students in order for them to access on-line learning materials properly.

The Bookseller on-line archive: www.bookseller.com. Limited access to nonsubscribers. Note: I have made the 17 main articles from the archive into a Word document, and will e-mail them to panel members upon request.

ElPub is a rich source of information on e-publishing. To subscribe, send a blank e-mail to: elpub-subscribe@ketlux.demon.co.uk http://www.hw.ac.uk/libwww/irn/irn.html . Free Internet Resources newsletter, for academics, students, librarians and social scientists. news@rightscom.com. Available only to subscribers (though it is sometimes possible to obtain subscriptions free). I have links leading to all the relevant articles that have appeared during the last year into a Word document, and will e-mail to panel members upon request. http://www.lib.rochester.edu/main/ebooks/websites.htm A useful directory of some eBook hardware and software manufacturers’ sites. http://www.dlib.org/dlib/july01/snowhill/07snowhill.html Thoughtful article on the future of eBooks in academic libraries, with a number of helpful links to primary source material. http://www.equalmedia.com “Resources for media developers”, but with good publishing, marketing and strategy sections in particular. http://www.onlinepublishingnews.com/subjectEbooks.htm Online Publishing News; great resource for hardware/software/strategy. Much here. http://www.educause.edu/asp/doclib/lib_term_detail.asp?TERM_ID=425&BREADC RUM Worthy directory of eBook articles from Educause, the US equivalent of JISC. Running a search on Educause will bring up a glut of material. http://skyways.lib.ks.us/central/ebooks/ All sorts! A librarian’s viewpoint, with some interesting links, and good on tech. http://www.ebookdirectory.com/ Large assortment of free eBooks and links to many sellers’ sites.

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http://www.00ebooks.com/ A site aimed at self-publishers; the ‘links’ page has some useful material listed. http://www.netlibraryebooktoolkit.com/index.asp NetLibrary’s Ebook Tool Kit – aimed at librarians. http://www.primaryresearch.com/ The Primary Research Group has some very good, professional articles on eBook strategy, aimed at both publishers and libraries, but only short extracts are viewable without paying for them. http://www.mtsu.edu/~itconf/proceed01/21.pdf Like a lot of the web content, this PDF article is written from the librarian’s point of view; it contains a broad collection of hardware and software resource references, and expresses an overview including perceived problems. http://www.onlinepublishingnews.com/subjectAcademic_publishing.htm Online Publishing News. A very strong resource, covering all the key publishers.

Many worthwhile articles on strategy and issues, particularly in the ‘Academic Publishing’ and ‘Ebooks’ sections. http://www.ebooks-in-print.com/ ISBN-style cataloguing system for eBooks. Good hardware links. http://publishing.about.com/msub19.htm?pid=2840&cob=home General ‘about’ links, but plenty to go at and may conceal some gems... http://www.ebooksnbytes.com/ Includes a list of dedicated eBook publishers, and downloadable readers. http://www.columbia.edu/cu/cup/index.html Columbia University Press’s digital publishing. May be useful for some “best practice” ideas. http://www.lboro.ac.uk/departments/ls/disresearch/e-booksinpublib/index.html: Project which has just started, and runs for 9 months in Loughborough and Essex.

Systematic evaluation of use of e-books by two public libraries. Useful for “best practice” and the results, which will be published at intervals on the website. http://www.press.umich.edu/jep/ The University of Michigan Press’ Journal of Electronic Publishing. Useful scholarly articles. (Soon to move to Columbia University Press). http://www.publishers.org/press/releases.cfm?PressReleaseArticleID=144 American association of publishers article on eBook sales http://www.openebook.org/doc_library.htm Document library of the Open eBook Forum. Surveys, trade statistics etc. Note: I have a pdf of a user survey that Open eBook conducted, usually available only to

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members, which Nick Bogaty (Chief Executive) has kindly made available to the project. I will e-mail it to panel members upon request. http://promo.net/pg/index.html Project Gutenberg; the original free eBook provider (est. 1971). http://12.108.175.91/ebookweb/stories/storyReader$1289 Electronic Book Web website. An article about the experience of publishing academic eBooks in the U.K. by two British academics. Other, similar assessment articles, and info. on publishers, hardware and software. http://www.gspp.com.au/plr_and_ebooks.htm: good articles about PLR and eBooks. http://www.planetebook.com/mainpage.asp?MenuID=2&WebPageID=1 Planet eBook. This is one of the best commercially-orientated websites, with crossindustry articles, research, links, eBooks themselves etc. http://www.ifla.org/II/metadata.htm Metadata resources from the International Federation of Library Associations. http://www.ebooks.strath.ac.uk/ Strathclyde University’s Ebook Research Group. http://media2.bmrc.berkeley.edu/projects/edtech/index_js.html “Higher Education in the Digital Age” research database from the University of California, Berkeley. http://dlc.clevnet.org: Cleveland Public Library download circulating library website. http://www.obhe.ac.uk/resources.html Technology developments in HE from The Observatory of Borderless Higher Education. Research, articles and links. http://www.aln.org/index.asp The Sloan Consortium, proponents of online education. The “Publications” and “Resources” sections both contain worthwhile material. http://www.dartmouth.edu/library/help/ebooks.shtml Dartmouth College has compiled a very interesting, varied range of resources here.

The Adobe HE eBook project is probably worth a follow-up… http://metatext.com/index.jsp MetaText, yet another eBook format! This one is aimed at students. http://www.seyboldreports.com/TSR/index.html The Seybold Reports contain several articles on e-books. Access is restricted, though some of the reports are free or free summaries are provided.

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Key Commercial Websites This is not an exhaustive list – additions welcome!

Publishers www.cup.cam.ac.uk: Cambridge University Press. Datashop. Fathom connections. www.tandf.co.uk : ebookstore. Nearly 3,000 e-books, available “from completed books to micropurchases”. www.cavendishpublishing.com: Law e-books. www.wiley.com: STM e-books. www.oup.co.uk: Oxford Reference on-line. Demonstration site – includes free tour and downloadable pdfs. http://ebooks.kluweronline.com/ Kluwer - academic publisher’s ebook purchasing site. www.palgrave.com: mainly reference. www.sagepub.co.uk:excellent e-journals service; interested in developing e-books. www.pearsoned-ema.com: market leader in academic publishing in UK. At forefront in development of on-line learning solutions, companion websites and on-line courses. Less development in e-books space – see also www.safari.com. www.thomsonlearning.com: similar approach to Pearson. www.mcgraw-hill.com: originators of “slice-and-dice” model, but mainly for elearning rather than e-books. www.elsevier.com: toe-in-the-water on e-books and electronic learning, but interested.

E-Book Wholesalers and Aggregators www.netlibrary.com: the original aggregator. Librarians often do not like the “one book, one borrower” model. Library subscribes to a minimum of 100 titles of its choice; library signs licence and administers account. www.ebrary.com: has won plaudits from librarians in user studies. Search and view is free. Printing charged per page. www.ebooks.com: Sign-up as member required, but free; some small collections in academic subjects; can create ePacks for course material; copy, print, download. www.overdrive.com: relative newcomer; some interesting ideas; energetic! www.books24x7.com: relative newcomer; has found considerable favour with librarians. www.questia.com: student-buyer model: not an especially popular model. $19.95 per month, $149.95 annually. Annual password. Humanities and Social Sciences, mainly. Subscribe before view full text; pay per page printed. www.mightywords.com Open credit card account; end user agreement upon registration. Some academic titles, but mainly popular business texts. PDF files, from which user can copy, print and download. www.engnetbase.com: Annual subscription £1900. Engineering handbooks from CRC Press. www.xrefer.com: select range of reference works. www.lightningsource.com: digital wholesaler. At present more active in POD market, where it is highly praised.

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www.safari.com: joint venture between Pearson and O’Reilly to supply computer books on-line. Every book in collection carries a points value: from one-half to three.

Subscribers purchase points, which they use to acquire titles for their collection.

Book selections can be “swapped” monthly for replacements of equivalent value (e.g., one two-point book for two one-point books). Points can be bought in denominations of 25 – 2000. www.sealedmedia.com: mostly offers hosting services.

Academic e-Booksellers www.amazon.co.uk: as well as selling for themselves, they also sell on-line for Waterstone’s. www.swotbooks.co.uk: uses Overdrive’s Midas product. http://blackwell.etailer.dpsl.net/Home/html/index.asp Blackwell’s eBooks online store (hosted by Taylor & Francis). www.johnsmith.co.uk: also uses Taylor & Francis model. http://www.ebooks.com/ One of the largest digital bookshops.

Library Suppliers www.couttsinfo.com: interested in electronic delivery and actively involved in promoting it. www.blackwell.com: new and developing interest. www.dawsonbooks.co.uk: active already and seeking to develop further.

Software / Hardware Providers www.microsoft.com: perfected Cleartype and is seeking to develop “electronic paper”. www.adobe.com: developed e-books from Adobe Acrobat pdf format. Took over Glassbook, one of the initial software developers, in 2001. www.corp.palm.com: One of the first and still one of the strongest companies in the field. www.franklin-uk.co.uk: Franklin Electronic Publishers, one of the first hand-held reader suppliers to operate in the UK. www.gemstar.inc : one of the first hand-held reader manufacturers in the market, it has had some reversals, but keeps on reinventing itself.

Others www.openebook.org: Set up about three years ago to promote standards within the ebook industry www.open.ac.uk: the Open University. The original HE distance learning provider, it has pioneered delivery of electronic learning materials.

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