From: Galadriel Chilton <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Thu, 4 Sep 2014 19:18:25 +0000

Hi Colleagues,

We recently discovered that an Ebrary e-book we purchased did not
include several sections of the book's text. Upon expanding the table
of contents, any chapter/section title followed by [text] meant that
the chapter/section was replaced by the following message: "To view
this chapter please refer to the print version of the book" (screen
capture: http://screencast.com/t/Ic1upsUajgY0).

This occurred despite the message on the e-book's main webpage
indicating that our "institution has unlimited access to this book"

(screen capture:  http://screencast.com/t/RRgWts0t7).

Furthermore, this scenario is different than instances when images or
figures are redacted because in this case entire chapters or sections
were missing, including the analysis components of the book which are
core to the work.

Through correspondence with Ebrary support, we learned that missing
content such as this varies by e-book title rather than by publisher.
Ebrary support stated that they consider the issue of missing content
to be a rare one that is discovered when librarians and users report
them and could not provide us with a list of e-books with missing
content. While Ebrary responded to all of inquiries very quickly and
did assure us that a full refund would occur upon request, it is a
concern to us that Ebrary's stance is that because missing content is
rare it's not considered a big issue.

In an effort to understand why content was missing, we also
corresponded with our Ebrary representative. The reason given for the
missing text was that it was likely due to e-rights restrictions as is
seen with illustrations, tables, and diagrams for which the book's
author does not hold the copyright.

With further investigation, we learned that the EBL version of the
e-book was missing the same chapters and large chunks of text.
However, the Google Books and Greenleaf Publishing editions of the
e-book were complete.

We then contacted Greenleaf Publishing to inquire why the e-book via
Ebrary was missing text when the e-book via Greenleaf was complete. We
were told that it was an e-rights restriction issue and that the
missing text was some of the third-party text content that was part of
the e-book. Greenleaf also offered us complementary access to a PDF of
the complete e-book.

Two days after we reported the issue to Ebrary, the full version of
the e-book appeared via our Ebrary channel. All of the missing text is
now present. When checking sections that had previously been missing,
it is very clear that while some of the missing text was third-party
text, it also included the author's analysis of the code -- content
that is the heart of the work.

If rights restrictions are the reason for the missing content, why is
the content missing on only some platforms and why is the content now
available once reported?

Why was there no indication prior to purchase and prior to opening and
delving into the content of the e-book that it was incomplete?

Have others encountered missing e-book content after purchase?

Your insights and comments are appreciated!

All the best,
Galadriel