The history of the codex includes myriad and often convoluted ways of producing and distributing the book to readers. Current day production and distribution of eBooks is no different in its dizzying variety. To narrow things down, here I will present a snippet of the information available on how eBooks get to readers within the higher education system. In particular, I want to mention some ways in which university libraries acquire and distribute eBooks.
First of all, universities and colleges are increasing acquiring more eBooks than print books; among all U.S. academic libraries, as of 2012, more than half of their added materials were eBooks. This is especially true for community colleges, which makes sense given it would be more convenient for their commuter student population to access materials remotely. But, for all libraries, eBooks make sense; physical books take up a lot of space, which translates into the need for more real estate. A perpetual problem for libraries continues to be the need for space for their collections.
See the table below from the Chronicle of Higher Education, “Almanac of Higher Education, 2014,” extracted from U.S. Department of Education figures, FY 2012 (http://chronicle.com.ezproxy.gsu.edu/article/Percentage-of-E-Books-at/147835/).
Table of Percentage of E-Books at Academic Libraries, by Institution Type, FY 2012
click chart to enlarge
University or college libraries depend on a variety of means to provide eBooks to users and there are several different kinds of middle-people distributors who provide content to be consumed by readers via different methods. First, and perhaps most simply, eBooks can be purchased from an individual publisher or a book distributor—and most likely these are the publishers and distributors who also sell them print texts. Names such as Baker and Taylor and Ingram will be familiar to readers who have worked at bookstores and have ordered books from these distributors, which also serve libraries. But eBooks come to libraries from other sources by subscription. Some of these subscriptions provide a library user access to e-books, but the library doesn’t technically own the book; other subscription services provide access to the eBook, but after a certain number of check-outs, the library then automatically buys the eBook. Academic libraries, according to articles I’ve read, are constantly trying to figure out the most economical way to provide their users with the greatest range of options for the best price, and it’s not an easy landscape to navigate.
For more information, see the article: Walters, William H. “E-Books in Academic Libraries: Challenges for Acquisition and Collection Management.” Libraries and the Academy 13:2 (2013): 187-211.
A subscription service, in my experience, can require several steps beyond just a click on a hyperlink in the library catalogue. Some services I’ve used at the GSU library to obtain eBooks include books24x7 and ebrary—and both require a separate user name and log-in on top of the log-in to the library system itself, which is slightly irritating, but very manageable. Ebrary also requires a download of the software Adobe Digital Editions, which, though free, required a level of computer operating system that I did not have. As a result, I needed to use a computer on campus to read the eBook. Of course, I was very happy to have access to a book that was incredibly expensive and not available anywhere else, and when I do upgrade my laptop, I’ll be able to read it from home. And, by using an eBook, I eliminated the extra step of having to return the book physically by a certain date to the library.
Happy digital reading, Amanda
Hi Amanda,
This is a promising line for a series of posts, but I think at some point you should address the major downsides to ebook acquisition for college libraries. The biggest of which is that often ebooks are not actually being purchased but rented temporarily acquired via subscriptions. This means that the books may well be lost, or at least are subject to whims of the subscription service. This could, at least in theory, be a real problem down the line. For one thing, services that charge by the use or provide a set number of uses per unit can easily end up becoming more expensive than simply purchasing and housing the book. More importantly, it really changes the idea of libraries as repositories. I wonder about something like a book that is found to be plagiarized being pulled from a subscription service maybe for quite valid reasons. Yet, if the book disappears it is now gone, unaccessible to a future researcher who might be interested in the history of plagiarism or something like that.
It might also pose a threat to venerable and very useful institutions like inter-library loan.
Ebooks are great and all, and I understand that books take a lot of space. But, they are often distributed in a kind of streaming model that I think doesn’t mesh very well with the idea of libraries as places that hold knowledge.
Dylan,
Thanks for your comments; I think the things you highlight are very important, and based on what I’ve been reading, librarians are very attentive to these issues and struggle with them. When I write–“it’s not an easy landscape to navigate,” I’m alluding to a lot of the really hard decisions they have to make about acquisitions. The article I noted discusses this in more detail, including the potential excess cost of subscription services that then automatically buy books that are checked out a certain number of times.
I do think that technology is rapidly changing the landscape of what we consider to be an archive or a library–and that databases or servers or web sites can function as repositories, much like physical (brick and mortar) archives or libraries. From these electronic holding places things can be deaccessioned just as they can be physically from a library. Of course, part of me feels that the electronic world is more fragile somehow than the physical tome on the shelf, but perhaps it’s not. Nevertheless, you are right that electronic subscription services don’t provide an individual library with a permanent collection. I’m thinking now about academic journals and how so few current print issues are being added as a physically permanent part of academic library collections. The upside (maybe)is that we have access to many more titles of journals at any given time.
Along the lines of the drift of this discussion is a controversial book considered by many librarians as completely wrong-headed, but which for me opened my eyes to the whole long history of technological advances with materials in libraries–it’s a great read, in my opinion, no matter where you are positioned in the debate–Doublefold: Libraries and the Assault on Paper by Nicholson Baker.
Amanda
I agree that ebook subscriptions have a massive downside. However, I’d think that the problem can’t simply be addressed by libraries. Where libraries have to make decisions based on licenses, it’s also imperative that authors look at the distribution methods of their publishers. I can’t imagine being a content creator and not looking at the distribution model for the company getting my work out to the world – particularly to libraries. That being said, the problem there is with a distribution method, not with the content vessel. Any subscription service offers the same problem – this applies to both ebook or physical book subscriptions.
Thanks, Will. I think it’s so true that distribution methods are the issue with both eBooks or print books, and decisions about what goes into a permanent collection are also difficult for libraries–but I think the latter may be easier with eBooks. I have read recently about forays into eBook interlibrary loan and how places are trying to figure that out, which is good news.