Hi Jim,
I am not sure I can give any advice or deep insight on this issue. It is still a bit of a new frontier for most of us.
JSTOR Books seems promising. Pricing seems reasonable. Terms of use (including no DRM) are reasonable. ILL is permitted, but on the chapter level, not the entire book). We've just begun a "pilot" DDA program at UMass Amherst with our Five College consortium partners. The books in JSTOR Books are not front list, but are from reputable scholarly publishers. Mind you, I am telling you this prior to our having fully assessed the product - we've just signed a license in August and we're now in the process of loading discovery records.
We of course have purchased or licensed many e-books from a variety of vendors, all of whom have up and down sides. We have a DDA program with EBL, we subscribe to ebrary academic complete (and purchase ebrary books too), we also "purchase" and license Wiley, Springer, Sage, Elsevier, Cambridge, Oxford books from the respective publishers, etc. I can't say that I'm ready to wave the flag for any of these vendors/publishers too wildly, but the books they offer serve their purpose and seem to meet some of the immediate needs of our users as they fulfill assignments and do research.
Not sure it this is helpful.
~Scott
______________________
Scott Stangroom
Acquisitions Coordinator
University of Massachusetts, Amherst
W.E.B. Du Bois Library
Amherst, MA 01003-9275
-----Original Message-----
From: "Jim O'Donnell" <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Wed, 9 Sep 2015 13:46:25 -0700
The e-book landscape for libraries is challenging: business models sharply different from anything else we know, takeovers and re-alliances among providers, exogenous forces (not only from Seattle) changing the perceptions of price in the public market, etc. I'm not being *only* naive when I wonder why, when Amazon drives the price of low-use e-books down to $1.99 and lower, low-use academic e-books cost well over $100. How can "perpetual access" be defined meaningfully?
What shall we do when we reasonably wish to borrow a title via ILL?
As we look at these issues at ASU, I'd be glad for advice from list readers -- what vendors do you think offer the best deals (not just price, but terms of use), and also in particular the best deals for an institution committed to patron-driven acquisition?
Jim O'Donnell
Arizona State University