From: "Hamaker, Charles" <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Fri, 30 May 2014 20:26:31 +0000

Any meaningful discussion of ebook collections, in the context of an
academic research library’s selection and publisher pricing
strategies, must take care not to leap to casual and dangerously
overreaching assumptions and/or conclusions.

Library purchasing decisions and publisher content and pricing
determinations are undoubtedly each driven by a complicated set of
internal and external factors that cannot be reduced to a simple
cause-effect relationship, at least at the national level.  This is
especially true where so many variables abound.  How much of a
library’s budget for what kinds of items is governed by what
percentage or type of patron requests?  What are the terms of use for
the ebooks? Do DRM'd titles with limits on pages viewed, printed,
downloaded, artificially inflate section use in COUNTER stats? What
assumptions are being made about the value (if any) of ebook usage by
different groups?  What are the demographics of the group(s) using the
content?  Is there any objective evaluation of the use?

The literature that I am aware of (JISC) indicates that ebook use is
primarily driven by undergraduate demand.  Additionally, although the
actual number of books involved is quite small, my review of our eBook
usage (e.g., Project Muse, fall 2013) showed it to be demonstrably
driven by undergraduate course adoption titles plus supplementary
readings.  What does that mean?  If this is true of other institutions
will publishers have to cater to more undergraduate needs to sell
books?

I would suggest that researcher use is not as direct as undergrad use.
And in discovery with the exception of a few good publisher designed
websites, we do a lousy job at uncovering what  is in the research
focused ebook.

The MARC record is a an inadequate signpost of what is actually in a
book. And so far Discovery services, with the exception of large full
text collection indexing do not support individual ebook title by
title fulltext indexing unless the title is in one of many in a larger
collection

My comments in no way question the decision or the letter of BLC.  I
simply underline the critical role a more complete and thorough
knowledge of how/if and to what extent (to name a few factors) ebook
usage patterns look like nationally before I would postulate a
cause-effect relationship in supply/demand pricing beyond the
experience of BLC.

With thanks to internal staff for helping me make sense of my midnight
thinking...

 Chuck Hamaker