diglib: FW: ebooks

[Mark Watson <mrwatson@OREGON.UOREGON.EDU>]

From the GWLA CD list.

Mark

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-BTPCD-L@listproc.cc.ku.edu
[mailto:owner-BTPCD-L@listproc.cc.ku.edu]On Behalf Of Rupp Serrano,
Karen J
Sent: Tuesday, June 17, 2003 12:08 PM
To: 'BTPCD-L@listproc.cc.ku.edu'; GWLA CD
Subject: ebooks




I have been spending quite a bit of time lately stewing over ebooks.
Publishers are seeking to establish a model for ebooks that--surprise,
surprise--we will find ourselves unable to sustain.

NetLibrary, while hardly cheap, at least has the option of buying once and
having forever.  Unfortunately, I strongly suspect that they are going to
find it harder and harder to find the content that draws libraries to
purchase from them, as more and more publishers decide to publish their own
ebooks in order to capture that revenue stream entirely for themselves and
to make it a revenue stream based on a serial model rather than the
traditional monographic model.

Does the GWLA CD committee want to make a statement or set a policy on this?
If so, here are points I would like to see addressed:

The library community cannot sustain a subscription model for ebooks.

The library community wants to be able to purchase ebooks through approval
plan vendors rather than purchase directly from dozens of publishers.

The library community wants a few standard platforms/interfaces for
accessing ebooks.

The library community expects to be able to do with ebooks as they have done
with traditional print volumes, within reason (I think we would have
difficulty with ILLing an entire ebook but we should be allowed to ILL
several pages or a chapter--perhaps apply copyright limits on the length of
an item to be ILLed).  Perhaps the tradeoff here might be that we cannot ILL
an entire ebook, but in return we can allow multiple patrons to access the
same ebook simultaneously?  And of course we expect to have access to the
item in perpetuity, and would be willing to pay some small fee for that,
just as we pay to keep a book on the shelf.

I am sure you can think of other points to be included, but these are the
ones that jump out at me right now.  And since I am the one bringing this
up, I will volunteer to coordinate on this if there is sufficient interest.

Karen Rupp-Serrano
University of Oklahoma Libraries