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ebook team progress report 6 9 10

Orbis Cascade Alliance

Progress Report --- Ebook Team

 

Submitted by Emily McElroy on June 10, 2010

 

In March 2010, the Ebook Team distributed a survey to institutional representatives of the Collection Development and Management Committee.  Nineteen people responded with their preferences on ebook purchasing models and their impressions from the October 2009 fall CDMC meeting when different ebook vendors presented information on their products and services.  Based on the survey responses, the Ebook Team decided to approach various ebook aggregators and publishers and ask them to submit pricing information for four purchase models, information on ILL capabilities, and describe features of their platforms. The Ebook Team met via conference call on April 12, 2010 to discuss our approach with vendors.   The Ebook Team asked the following aggregators and publishers to submit proposals: ebrary, EBL, NetLibrary/EBSCO, SAGE, Elsevier, Cambridge, Oxford, Springer, and Wiley. We received responses from everyone except Wiley.


All of the proposals are available on the Ebook Team's site http://www.orbiscascade.org/index/ebt.  Email messages were sent to the CDMC and ERC discussion lists asking for feedback on the responses.  We received one response with comments on the pricing and patron driven models of the aggregators. The Collaborative Technical Services Team submitted a list of follow-up questions on ebook cataloging for EBL, ebrary and NetLibrary/EBSCO.  The Ebook Team, along with YBP representatives, met with representatives from EBL, ebrary and NetLibrary/EBSCO on June 8, 2010.   The vendors provided more information on how their pricing could work with different Alliance purchase models. 

 

The group plans on the following steps:

  • Work with YBP in presenting EBL and ebrary with more information on the purchasing history of Alliance members.  Currently, the vendors are proposing pricing that does not match the YBP purchasing data that the CDMC has reviewed.
  • Continue reviewing the proposals received from the vendors in order to submit recommendations to Alliance Council in the fall.  Our next report will propose a funding and selection model that benefits the most members possible. 
  • Share the answers to the questions developed by the Collaborative Technical Services Team with our liaison.  We will encourage CTST to work directly with EBL and ebrary representatives on their cataloging questions.

 The Ebook Team wants to inform Alliance Council of several issues:

  • · The ebook landscape has changed considerably, including the development of patron driven models, since the EBook Task Force submitted their report to Council and the Ebook Team held their first meeting.
  • All of the publisher's responses acknowledge that they are not as far along in their development of innovative funding or access models as the ones we are considering. The aggregators offered some interesting options that deserve more consideration after we exchange some data on Alliance purchasing history and revised pricing models.
  • Access issues could take on greater importance if we propose a patron driven purchasing model.  The Ebook Team will eventually require clarification on our role in sorting out access issues, or if that is part of another team's charge.  At our June 8 meeting, the group debated whether or not our team was the best fit for addressing access issues, if we had the appropriate expertise on our team, when we should discuss the larger issues surrounding access, and if working out funding and selection models are more important than working out access issues/recommendations.
  • We do not want to stand in the way of libraries participating in pilot projects with EBL or ebrary.  Both vendors are currently working with different Alliance libraries on patron driven pilot projects.  We encourage Alliance libraries to share their experiences with the Ebook Team so we can maximize their efforts with our eventual proposal.  We also hope that libraries provide us feedback on the proposals we receive from the various vendors.  We will continue posting vendor responses and updates on the Ebook Team site.
  • While the Ebook Team anticipated a final report in July, the group discovered that working with the aggregators and publishers has required more time and investigation. The Ebook Team believes that this is a bellwether initiative and that it is necessary to take the time to address the issues at hand thoroughly rather than rush through the process.
  • All of the vendors are willing to work with YBP. It has been very helpful to have John Elliott and Joan Thompson participate in our team discussions with vendors.