Caren milloy

The ebooks marketplace:
try and then try again!
Caren Milloy
Head of Projects, Jisc Collections

26/11/13

JIBS: The joys and perils of Ebooks, we thought it
would be easier!

ONCE UPON A TIME….

07/12/2013

JIBS: The joys and perils of Ebooks, we
thought it would be easier!

Timeline: 2001
• Shaping a strategy for e-books: An issue paper
Hazel Woodward & Louise Edwards
• This paper set out the issues that the JISC e-books
working group needed to consider in 2001 when
developing one of their first strategies for e-books within
UK higher and further education.
• Paper talks of difficulty in getting value from
aggregators, % of frontlist content available,
digitisation, mobile devices, MLE, preservation,
textbooks, direct to student sales, access v purchase,
standards……
07/12/2013


Timeline: 2001
• EBWG recommends that we focus on e-reference and
commissions 4 other studies to inform strategy:
• The e-Book Mapping Exercise
• Promoting the Uptake of E-books in Higher and
Further Education
• E-Books in FE and HE Strategy Study
• An Investigation into Free E-books

07/12/2013


Timeline: 2002
Ebooks deals:
• Know UK and European Sources Online
• Xreferplus
• Oxford Reference Online
• Elsevier Major Reference Works
Business models: Subscription / Purchase

07/12/2013


Timeline: 2003
Ebooks deals:
• Taylor & Francis eBook store
• Wiley Interscience Online Books
• Britannica Online
• The Oxford English Dictionary Online
• Literature Online and Lion for Colleges
• EEBO

Business models: Subscription / Purchase
07/12/2013


Timeline: 2003
A Strategy and Vision for the Future for Electronic Textbooks in UK Further and
Higher Education, August 2003, Education for Change Ltd, University of Stirling
Centre for Publishing Studies & University of Stirling Information
• This study took an in-depth look at e-textbook landscape, exploring the
challenges and barriers to the adoption of e-textbooks in HE and FE. Despite
being undertaken in 2003, this report includes a wealth of information on
business models, promotional models and supply chain models that are still of
relevance today. The report was used by the e-books working group to help
develop its vision for e-textbooks in education.
Promoting the Uptake of E-Books in Higher and Further Education, August 2003,
Gold Leaf
• This report highlighted the barriers that institutions were facing in the uptake of
e-books and made recommendations on how these could be removed and how
e-books could be promoted more fully by a wider range of institutions and
individuals. This report is still relevant today.

07/12/2013


Timeline: 2003
The E-book Mapping Exercise, April 2003, Chris Armstrong and Ray Lonsdale of
Information Automation Ltd
• This study investigated perceptions and attitudes to e-books and explored acquisition,
licensing and pricing models that were being deployed. It focused on business and
management, engineering, and health and medicine subject areas. The study
concluded that the preferred format for delivery was online PDFs and that
undergraduate textbooks together with reference books would constitute the
primary purchasing areas. The study also found that there was marked concern about
the proliferation of existing licensing and costing models.
An investigation into free e-books, March 2004, Ylva Berglund, Alan Morrison, Rowan
Wilson and Martin Wynne
• This study, undertaken by AHDS, informed the e-books working group on the
availability of free e-books for teaching and learning. The study gathered information
on what free e-books were available, the formats of these free e-book, usage of the
free e-books in education and the needs and attitudes of FE and HE users in the arts
and humanities subject area.
07/12/2013


Timeline: 2004
Ebook deals:
• Gale Virtual Reference Library (free to FE)
• Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
• Oxford Scholarship Online
• The Academic Library

07/12/2013


Timeline: 2005
Ebooks deals:
• ACLS History E-books Project
• Grove Music Online
• Grove Art Online
• The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
• Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO)
• The Shakespeare Collection

07/12/2013


Timeline: 2006
Ebooks deals:
• The Literary Encyclopedia
• The Routledge Reference Resources Online (pick n mix)
Studies:
Testbed for the Interoperability of Metadata for E-books (TIME), April 2006, Rightscom Ltd
• This study developed a testbed to help provide a solution to one of the key challenges identified
for the take-up of e-books: the lack of standardised e-book catalogue records and also the lack
of interoperability between different e-book metadata records.
A feasibility study on the acquisition of e-books by HE libraries and the role of JISC Collections,
October 2006, The Higher Education Consultancy Group
• This report explored the e-books landscape in 2006 and looked at the challenges and barriers
facing HE libraries, publishers and JISC Collections in acquiring e-books. It makes
recommendations on how JISC should proceed to help libraries in providing e-textbooks to the
their students. The report identified 8 key action points and was instrumental in the
formation of the JISC national e-books observatory project.
07/12/2013


Issue to Address

Possible Role for JISC

1.

Ignorance in the HE sector
about what e-books are
available

2.

Low awareness in HEIs of the
relevance and value of e-books

Taking the lead in international discussions of the
options for developing a standard catalogue of ebooks
Providing support for internal awareness raising in
collaboration with the HE Academy and other
intermediaries

Poor understanding by
publishers and library staff of
each other’s needs
Complexity of some access
routes to publishers’ or
aggregators’ platforms deters
users

Promotion of mutual understanding through coordination of regular meetings

5.

Too few e-textbooks and core
monographs are available

Negotiating with aggregator(s) to provide sector
access to a large general collection and subject
collections

6.

The available e-books are not up Taking the lead in establishing a National e-Book
to date or relevant to UK users Collection (NeBColl)

3.
4.

Encouraging or developing a common platform
based on JISC data centres or seeking tenders for
providing a standard platform

Ensuring that suppliers are aware of the pricing
models that the HE market wishes to have
(through the meetings at item 3) and regularly
updating the model licence and relevant
agreements accordingly

7.

Pricing models for e-books are
not appropriate

8

Publishers are not making the
Piloting support for the development of key texts
right textbooks available
electronically on the right terms available to multiple users
07/12/2013


Timeline: 2007
EBWG Vision focus:
• Promoting e-book standards to ensure accessibility,
robust metadata, flexible licensing and functionality.
• Facilitating relationships between publishers and libraries
to provide better understanding of needs and sharing of
knowledge to enhance access to e-book information
• Creating flexible business and licensing models that take
into account the rise of the institutional repository
• Supporting the growing demand for e-textbooks by
undertaking a national project
• Holding forums for raising awareness regarding best
practice for FE and HE
07/12/2013


Timeline: 2007
JISC national ebooks observatory project started
• Market research
• Evidence gathering
• Informed decisions not assumption
• National pilot

07/12/2013


Timeline: 2008 - 9
Findings from the first user survey, CIBER Final Report, April 2008
•
This report provides an overview of the findings from the first user survey undertaken in January 2008. The
data gathered provides a benchmark against which the changes in user’s attitudes, perceptions and
awareness of e-books can be measured. There were over 22,000 responses to this survey.
Analysis of the free text fields from the first user survey, CIBER, Final Report, May 2008
•
This report provides an analysis of the responses to two open questions in the entrance user survey. The
first was ‘In your opinion, what were the biggest advantages that e‐book offered, compared with a printed
book?’. This elicited 11,624 responses. The second question was ‘Is there anything that you want to add
regarding course texts, print or electronic, or about your university library?’ In total 4809 comments were
received to this question.
E-book use by academic staff and students in UK universities: focus groups report, Information Automation
Limited, Final Report, November 2009
•
This report provides an analysis of the focus groups held with students and academic staff at 8 universities.
The focus groups aimed to gain a deeper understanding of the ways in which the JISC e-books and etextbooks in general were used by students and staff. They focused on work patterns; attitudes;
involvement in e-textbook selection (academics only); the means by which e-books are located trough the
library and institution; the means by which content is discovered in the e-textbook; added-value features;
the effects of screen design on reading; impacts on learning and teaching; users’ views on promotion of etextbooks; and views on the purchase of textbooks. This is a long report with many insightful quotes.

07/12/2013


Timeline: 2009
E-book collection management in UK university libraries: focus groups report
Information Automation Limited, Final Report, November 2009
This report provides an analysis of the focus groups held with librarians at 8 universities. The focus
groups investigated the attitudes and work of library staff responsible for establishing, managing and
promoting the e-book collections. They focused on: selection; licensing and pricing models;
cataloguing and MARC records; ways of accessing e-books; promotion; evaluation; and the platform
interface through which the JISC e-books were available. This is a long report with many insightful
quotes.
Assessing the impact of electronic course texts on print sales and library hard copy circulation
CIBER, Final Report, November 2009
This report looks at the impact of free at the point of use course text e-books licensed for the
Observatory project on publisher’s retail sales and library circulation data. It is an extremely
interesting report that uses transparent data.
Establishing methods for future studies on the impact of e-books
Information Automation Limited, Final Report, November 2009
This report looks at possible areas of research that would be beneficial based on the findings of the
focus groups and the user surveys.
07/12/2013


Timeline: 2009
Scholarly e-books usage and information seeking behaviour: a deep log analysis of MyiLibrary
CIBER, Final Report, November 2009
• This report includes detailed data from the deep log analysis of the MyiLibrary platform that took
place from September 2007 to December 2008. The deep log analysis looked at how users discovered,
navigated through and used the 26 course text e-books that were made available on the MyiLibrary
platform. In addition, the use of 10,000 other e-books on the MyiLibrary platform were analysed for
comparison. There is an executive summary for quick reference that highlights findings on subject
differences, reading times, searching, user locations etc.
Headline findings from the user surveys
CIBER Final Report, November 2009
This report provides an overview of the exit user survey undertaken in January 2009 and compares the key
findings with the entrance user survey that took place in January 2008. The surveys explored user’s
awareness, perceptions and attitudes towards e-books and course text e-books. Together these surveys
received over 52,000 responses making them the biggest user survey on e-books ever undertaken in the
world.
JISC national e-books observatory project: Key findings and recommendations
Final Report, November 2009
• This is the final report of the Observatory project and includes key findings and recommendations for
stakeholders. It brings together the data from the deep log analysis, the user surveys, the focus groups
and the print and library circulation analysis.

07/12/2013


07/12/2013


Timeline: 2009 +
Ebooks for FE project started in 2009…still going today….
• Success at last! Over 400 colleges
• Access management
• Usage has increased each year (uneven & depends on
teachers)
But
• Hard to get the right content & stay up to date
• Hard to get the publishers to engage (big 3)
• Discoverability in catalogues
• Titles being removed causes despair
• Reliance on this project / not really stimulated market
• Skills sector / ACL / WBL still not tackled
• Subscription / Purchase / PPV – Puchase / EBS
07/12/2013


Timeline: 2010 - 13
E-textbook business models study: final report
September 2011
•
•

reviewed the current e-textbook landscape
hands-on trial of four e-textbook business models with ten UK HE institutions, eight textbook
publishers and three aggregators over a period of a year. Seventeen textbook titles were involved,
in 24 separate trials across the 10 libraries.

Recommendations
“we find it unrealistic to justify a recommendation proposing that the current model of student
purchasing of textbooks be replaced by library provision of e-textbooks, in the light of the financial scale
of this market (and hence the impact on library budgets), and the fact that the current model generally
‘works’”
“We cannot recommend therefore that librarians seek to move at this point in time to a position in
which libraries attempt to provide substantial numbers of e-textbooks for student needs.”
•
•
•
•
•

Libraries should negotiate direct with publishers on etextbooks
More research and experimentation required on mobile devices
The granularity and integration into the VLE is critical to use
Counter stats need to be further developed for ebooks
Jisc Collections should initiate discussions with CouseSmart ……

07/12/2013


Timeline: 2012/13
PDA and EBS agreements for ebooks
Consortia Ebooks Pilot in 2012/13
• JISC Collections had some successes with the
purchase of ebook collections, but less so with
individual titles
• attempt to trial a specific business model for
individual titles
07/12/2013


The model
• Consortium of 6 academic libraries with
large Engineering Faculties
• 6 publishers of engineering books (some
large engineering publishers excluded as
libraries had existing big deals)
• Whenever one of the libraries purchased an
ebook, all libraries had access
• ‘Price multiplier’ negotiated with each
publisher. In the pilot this was paid by JISC
Collections. In a ‘real life’ consortia it would
be split among the libraries

07/12/2013


Implementation
(more challenging than expected!)
• Hosting service
• Libraries consulted: took time to
reach a consensus. (All used
multiple ebook aggregator
platforms)
• Dawson Books (Dawsonera)
chosen
• Negotiation & agreement: also
took time

07/12/2013


Implementation

• The ebooks
• Libraries slow to start ordering
titles & requested title lists from
publishers
• Ebook title lists supplied by
publishers
• Workflow issues for libraries &
hosting service
• First orders placed December
2012
• Delay in MARC records provision

07/12/2013


Finally… the pilot was running
• It had been hoped to run the pilot
for a full academic fiscal year
• In reality the pilot began in
earnest in December 2012 & ran
until July 2012
• Books were being ordered and
used
• COUNTER ebook usage statistics
(BR1 & BR2) were being collected

07/12/2013


Finding (in a nutshell)
• Very high usage of books
• All libraries got more value than they
purchased
• 98.6% of books were used by at least 1 library
• Percentage bought and not used by individual
library averaged 7% - very low compared to
recent PDA studies in Germany and the USA
which were closer to 85%
07/12/2013


What did the librarians
think of the pilot?
• 5 out of the 6 libraries said they would be interested in
pursuing consortial ebook purchasing using this business
model
• In the light of the data they were pleased with both the
level of use of titles they had purchased, and their use of
titles purchased by other institutions
• They would be happy to put money into a consortial ‘pot’
to widen their access to ebook titles (funds permitting)
• One librarian commented: “Increased access is the real
benefit and saving money is a bonus”

07/12/2013


What type of
consortia?
• Librarians commented that the important
factor in a consortia is having synergy between
the libraries (e.g. research/ teaching focused)
• The majority favoured subject-based ebook
consortium
• The portfolio of publishers participating in the
consortia was very important
• Most favoured a minimum level of financial
commitment from participating libraries

07/12/2013


What did the
publishers think?
• The majority of publishers were disappointed with the
sales figures
• However, on the whole, they were pleased and very
interested in the usage data
• An interesting finding from the pilot was that none of
the publishers examined ebook usage in detail at
company level (only ejournal usage)
• All publishers said that they only had access to usage
data from their own platform – ebook aggregators did
not supply them with usage statistics

07/12/2013


What did the
publishers think?
• In general, the smaller publishers were most
enthusiastic…”our role as a publisher is to get our content
out there…. we need to get our brand noticed”
• All publishers commented that they needed to protect
the value of their titles
• Of the 3 larger publishers only one was positive about the
business model. However, they felt that a variable price
multiplier would be necessary to enable them to offer
both back list and current high demand titles

07/12/2013


What alternative did publishers
suggest?
• One publisher said they were very interested in
evidence based purchasing and would like JISC
Collections to pursue that model
• Another publisher stated that they did not like
the business model saying “it is not sustainable”
• They went on to say “we are keen to work with
library consortia but we don’t like shared
ownership/collections… we would rather give a
discount”

07/12/2013


Who are the winners?
• Librarians. The majority felt that the
business model worked well and they got
good value-for-money
• Publishers. Were not enthusiastic about
the business model but suffered no
financial detriment
• The Consortia. Obtained valuable, unique
data about the business model & usage
of the shared collection
• But the REAL WINNERS were the USERS
who had access to much more content…
and used it!

07/12/2013


Timeline: 2013
• JOSHUA JAMES HARDING, Medical student, UKG
Presentation wowed us all!!
• “A number of initiatives in universities and schools have
adopted the iPad, placing it at the focal point for teaching
and learning, moving from the rigid textbook and paper of
analogue classrooms to a digital, portable, personalized
learning environment. As the adoption of tablets increases,
students’ expectations will rise and they will require instant
access to their most used resources, whether they are
currently digital or analogue.”
• “So the obvious question would be: as an institution,
library, or publisher, are you ready to meet this inevitable
demand?”
07/12/2013


• “… the pace and complexities of
discussing just one patient in a
group work render the paper
textbook as useful as the
proverbial chocolate teapot”
• “I am now a completely
paperless student. My primary
source of information for
medicine is now my iPad,
providing me with a tool to
access everything I require to
study the academic portion of
my course all on one device the
size and weight of a paper notebook.”
07/12/2013


• “A paper textbook cannot play you videos, it cannot
play you audio to help explain diagrams or pictures,
and it cannot provide you with a way to manipulate its
content. All these things may mean the difference
between a student understanding a concept, and not.”
• “Using a digital approach during a lecture, I am able to
download the slides, export them to my note taking
app and annotate during the lecture using text or
handwriting whilst recording the speaker. I can switch
between my note taking app and other resources,
giving me access whilst in the lecture to the same
textbook the majority of my classmates will consult
that evening to fill in the gaps.”

07/12/2013


• “.’Smart’ textbooks are something I would like to
see in the future.”
• “Imagine a book that whilst I study it, is studying
me, observing which chapters I have read the
least and most, when I first covered a topic and
my scores on each quiz and test taken.”
Quotes from his article:
http://uksg.metapress.com/content/t1536635x83n7274/?p=5e3095babdbf432da
8d64fec2daaf0bb&pi=4
07/12/2013


Could we do this?
• This is one case study – but perhaps a vision of
the future expectations:
– A truly interactive e-books – with video and audio
and self assessment
– Institutions can use data analytics to turn the “etext book” into a “study buddy”
– An opportunity for institutions?

07/12/2013


Institution as
e-textbook publisher
• Lets make our own business model
• Make use of technology – meet those
expectations that Joshua has
• Create learning objects / etextbook / VLE
• Make it and give it away (Moocs / OERs)
• Make it and sell it
• Reward the authors
• Explore the scaling opportunities
• Be innovative, create a new paradigm
07/12/2013


Try and then try again
• A market full of complexities
• A market with a wide variety of demands and
increasing expectations
• A market with emerging technologies
• A market with plenty of history
But
We have made progress! We have been very
adaptable, implemented new standards and
explored new models. We just need to keep on
trying and then try again!
07/12/2013


• Thank you!
• c.milloy@jisc-collections.ac.uk
• @carenmilloy

07/12/2013


Caren milloy

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Caren milloy

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