Re: Report of Library E-Book Acquisitions Survey

[Laval Hunsucker <amoinsde@yahoo.com>]

Is it really a good idea to elevate caring about revenue 
("sales") to the status of caring about metadata (as, and in fact 
apparently more than, e.g. librarians, or even researchers, care 
about metadata)? If so, why? Or have I misunderstood?

Laval Hunsucker
Breukelen, Nederland



----- Original Message ----
From: Joseph Esposito <espositoj@gmail.com>
To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
Sent: Thu, April 7, 2011 3:29:44 AM
Subject: Re: Report of Library E-Book Acquisitions Survey

Michael,

These are excellent notes.  One comment:

You ask if publishers want to get into the metadata/cataloguing 
game. That's 2 separate questions.  Some publishers will get into 
the cataloguing game, however reluctantly.  But all publishers 
will get into the metadata game.  They have no choice.  No one 
else cares as much about this as they do.  They also are dealing 
with the decline if not outright collapse of the 
bricks-and-mortar sales channel, which puts greater pressure on 
online sales.  For online sales all a publisher has is metadata; 
there is no point-of-sale merchandising possible (except as 
expressed through metadata).  In this instance, libraries are not 
the primary concern, but if a publisher develops robust metadata 
for Amazon and other online venues, why would it be withheld from 
a library?

Joe Esposito