RE: Ebooks in libraries

[<J.W.Schoones@lumc.nl>]

Toby,

Indeed, many publishers have a lot of ebooks to offer. The 
observation that they have successfully grappled, cut the knot 
and have ebooks available for libraries, is an observation from 
the point of view of publishers, not academic libraries. The 
problem for academic libraries in this is the fact that 
title-by-title acquisition is generally not an option offered by 
publishers. And also, in my case (medicine), an important 
supplier of books, the publisher Elsevier, does not (yet) offer 
an institutional platform for their medical ebooks at all. In 
general, yes, a library can buy a whole set or sub-set of books. 
But these very pricy sets are not affordable, nor do these sets 
have anything to do with collection development. So, in my view, 
the publishers have not yet successfully grappled, did not yet 
cut the knot and have not yet made ebooks available for 
libraries.

Cordially,

Jan W. Schoones
Walaeus Library LUMC
j.w.schoones@lumc.nl
www.twitter.com/walaeus

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
[mailto:owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu] On Behalf Of
Toby.GREEN@oecd.org
Sent: donderdag 28 oktober 2010 23:46
To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
Subject: RE: Ebooks in libraries

Joe,

I'm really puzzled by your final comments - "publishers are still 
grappling with how to make e-books available to libraries. Who 
will be the first to cut the knot?".

We, along with many other publishers ranging from Elsevier and 
Springer to OUP, the World Bank and even World Tourism 
Organisation, have successfully grappled, cut the knot and have 
ebooks available for libraries, including all front list titles 
and many backlist too (in our case, we've got everything back to 
1998 in e-book form, around 5,000 titles in all).

Have I missed something?

Toby Green
Head of Publishing
Public Affairs & Communications Directorate OECD
75775 Paris Cedex 16
toby.green@oecd.org
www.oecdilibrary.org


-----Original Message-----
From: owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
[mailto:owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu]
On Behalf Of Joseph Esposito
Sent: 28 October, 2010 1:14 AM
To: Liblicense-L@Lists. Yale. Edu
Subject: Ebooks in libraries

There is an excellent PowerPoint presentation by Jim Michalko of OCLC on
ebooks in libraries.  This requires a download:

http://bit.ly/bk56if

The theme is the switch from print to digital books. Unaddressed is "the
great disconnect":  though all the publishers cited here claim that they
will shortly have ALL their books in digital form, publishers are still
grappling with how to make ebooks available to libraries.  Who will be
the first to cut the knot?

Joe Esposito