Oh, the Places Ebooks Go: An ebook's journey from creation to circultation
•Download as PPTX, PDF•
1 like•307 views
Follow the journey of an ebook file from publisher to library reader, as Rose Donohoo (OverDrive) and Maria Cipriano (Toronto Public Library), in conversation with Teresa Elsey (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt), survey the ebook lending landscape. As the ebook and its metadata travel from publisher to OverDrive ingestion and validation to library purchase and curation, we’ll address issues of discoverability, usability, lending models, and access to content, as well as the differences between library lending and retail. We’ll take a deep dive into what’s required to get ebooks into the hands of library customers (it’s harder than you would think!), and what ebook publishers and developers can do to help.
More Related Content
Similar to Oh, the Places Ebooks Go: An ebook's journey from creation to circultation
Similar to Oh, the Places Ebooks Go: An ebook's journey from creation to circultation (20)
More from BookNet Canada
More from BookNet Canada (20)
Recently uploaded
Recently uploaded (20)
Oh, the Places Ebooks Go: An ebook's journey from creation to circultation
- 1. OH, THE PLACES EBOOKS GO! FROM CREATION TO CIRCULATION @ebookcraft #ebookcraft Rose Donohoo OverDrive Maria Cipriano Toronto Public Library @eBookGoddess Teresa Elsey Houghton Mifflin Harcourt @teresaelsey
- 2. © OverDrive, Inc. All Rights Reserved. ebookcraft 2018 OverDrive: A World Enlightened by Reading Along with the industry’s leading digital reading platform, OverDrive offers the largest digital content catalog in the world to more than 38,000 libraries and schools in 70 countries and the highest-rated apps that are built to create reading happiness.
- 3. © OverDrive, Inc. All Rights Reserved. ebookcraft 2018 How does my ebook get to a happy library reader? Publisher OverDrive Library Reader
- 4. © OverDrive, Inc. All Rights Reserved. ebookcraft 2018 Okay, but how? Each publisher has their own OverDrive FTP location for deliveries. A delivery includes a combination of: - metadata (ONIX or XLSX) - cover art - source files (ebook, audio, or video) Every delivery is tracked start to finish, reporting back any issues and completion to our publisher contacts.
- 5. © OverDrive, Inc. All Rights Reserved. ebookcraft 2018 Delivery breakdown: Metadata Metadata can be delivered in two formats: ONIX (2.1 and 3.0) or a custom XLSX template
- 6. © OverDrive, Inc. All Rights Reserved. ebookcraft 2018 Delivery breakdown: Metadata - ONIX Title: Deadly Road to Yuma Creator: William W. Johnstone Creator Sort: Johnstone, William W. Creator Role: Author BISAC: FIC033000; FIC002000 BISAC: Fiction/Westerns; Fiction/Action & Adventure Subjects: Fiction, Western
- 7. © OverDrive, Inc. All Rights Reserved. ebookcraft 2018 Delivery breakdown: Metadata - XLSX Title: Revelations Creator: Sera Beak Creator Sort: Beak, Sera Creator Role: Author BISAC: OCC027000 BISAC: Nonfiction/Body, Mind, & Spirit/Astrology Subjects: Nonfiction, New Age
- 8. © OverDrive, Inc. All Rights Reserved. ebookcraft 2018 Delivery breakdown: Cover and ebook files Ebook formats supported: ePub 2 and 3 Fixed layout ePub ePubs with media overlay PDF All ePub files are validated with ePubCheck 4.0.2. PDF files are scanned to confirm that password protection isn’t present. All files checked to make sure they can be opened and weren’t corrupted during FTP transmission.
- 9. © OverDrive, Inc. All Rights Reserved. ebookcraft 2018 Delivery breakdown: Audio files (bonus slide!)
- 10. © OverDrive, Inc. All Rights Reserved. ebookcraft 2018 Delivery breakdown: The final product Complete metadata + ebook file + cover art:
- 11. © OverDrive, Inc. All Rights Reserved. ebookcraft 2018 What’s next? Titles with complete assets (metadata and ebook files) become available in our master catalog which powers various platforms: Content Reserve MarketPlace (Librarians) Library website (Readers) Apps - Libby & OverDrive (Readers) Overdrive.com (Readers) Connect (Publishers)
- 12. © OverDrive, Inc. All Rights Reserved. ebookcraft 2018 Cool. How is this different than retail? Once a digital title is purchased by a library, it stays in their collection, just like a print title. It still needs love, attention, and updating past when it was withdrawn from further sale because readers will keep checking it out! Also, libraries aren’t just supporting users of one type of reading devices. Ebook files need to work with everything from a Kindle to an iPad to OverDrive Read, our web- based reader.
- 13. © OverDrive, Inc. All Rights Reserved. ebookcraft 2018 Caring for your aging ebook
- 14. © OverDrive, Inc. All Rights Reserved. ebookcraft 2018 Caring for your aging ebook Here’s what you might hear back from my team about: - Typos - Missing chapters - Illustrations/charts cut off - Fixed layout wonkiness - Embedded audio/videos - Text that doesn’t resize - Outdated/broken links - References to features only available for retail purchases - Wrong files - Epub wanted (PDF need not apply) - Crazy, big file sizes
- 15. Oh, The Places Ebooks Go: The Journey From Creation to Circulation Presented by Maria Cipriano Tech Forum & ebookcraft March 22, 2018
- 16. TPL 2017 Statistics • Digital titles in collection: 165,460 • Digital copies in collection: 367,783 • Total digital circulation: 5.6 million • OverDrive circulation: 4.6 million
- 17. Why is Digital Lending So Popular? • 24/7 access • Tax dollars fund collections • No late fines • Increased selection of digital titles • Mobile apps have simplified the borrowing process • Curated collections have improved browsing • Digital lending has been a game changer for print disabled customers and customers who are shut-in
- 18. Access to Content: No Digital Rights These books are available to US libraries but not to Canadian libraries. Ebooks Audiobooks
- 19. Licensing & Pricing Models Pricing and licensing models vary widely.
- 20. eBook Usability • Ebook usability has progressed but there is still room for improvement – especially for books that incorporate text with images, maps & other figures • Ebooks should not be facsimiles of print books and need to be designed to provide a good user experience on a wide variety of devices • Accessibility features are very important as libraries must comply with accessibility legislation • PDFs are not a preferred format for public libraries
- 21. Book Covers
- 22. Book Covers: Books for Kids Children really do judge a book by its cover.
- 23. Book Covers: Romance “Sizzling” versus “clean” at a glance.
- 24. Book 1 in series – 109 downloads Book 2 in series – 213 downloads The “hotter” cover really sold it. No cover, would be the kiss of death. Book Covers: Romance
- 25. Title & Author It’s A Mystery! No title or title errors will render your ebook invisible to librarians & library users.
- 26. Publication Date
- 27. Series Information Missing series titles or inconsistent series titles reduce discoverability.
- 28. BISAC Subject Headings Hello. Overall I'm very happy with the service from the TPL. I read both "hard copy" and e-books. Just had one question: when looking among "collections" for e-book suggestions, I clicked on "Literature" expecting maybe suggestions of books by Elizabeth Strout or Jeffrey Eugenides. Got instead a bunch of "Harlequin Presents" and books with titles like, "His Sinful Touch." I have nothing against romance as a genre, but why is it so prominent in your literature suggestions? Just curious. And thanks for all the good reading. Nancy Sample Toronto Public Library customer query.
- 29. Digital Rights Same title, two different publishers.
- 30. Keywords Keywords help customers find the content they are looking for.
Editor's Notes
- Founded in 1986, OverDrive launched our content distribution service in 2000 Leading provider of digital content to libraries and schools across the world Catalog of over 2 million ebook, audiobook, and video titles Today, we are talking the supply side of our business
- We are frequently asked if OverDrive makes ebooks and audiobooks, and our audience today knows the answer is no! OverDrive has distribution relationships with over 5,000 publishers to sell their digital content to our library and school partners Publishers send their titles to our master catalog where partners can make their purchases according to their collection development requirements When you browse your library’s OverDrive collection, you are seeing what your library has chosen to purchase from the master OverDrive catalog
- Here is where my team, Content Services, comes in. We work with publishers to upload and manage their catalogs with OverDrive. Deliveries come in constantly from around the world and include brand new titles, updates to existing titles, and withdraw from sale notifications. There may be 1 title or 1,000 titles in a delivery. Some deliveries are automated, others are individuals manually uploading their content. Each publisher has a manager on the Content Services Team to manage their delivery workflow, answer questions, and resolve issues.
- Metadata is everything you seen on a library site that tells you about a title: the author, the cover art, the awards it won. It also includes business terms such as pricing, sales rights, and XXX Metadata comes in two forms: ONIX and a custom XLSX template. Both are batch processed into our system. If anything prevents import, it gets reported back for correction. There is a minimum set of metadata that is required for a title to make it into our system. These requirements relate back to a higher standard of expectations our library customers. There is real value is good metadata as Maria will discuss later.
- - ONIX: Each publisher uses their own flavor of this data standard. For us, this means each publisher’s data must be manually crosswalked to our data schema for first-time import. Once the crosswalk is established and a ProductID is created for each title, updates can flow in without intervention. If the publisher changes the structure of their data without notification, updates break. We have to reach out to publishers to confirm the meaning of the changes and that the changes are intentional.
- XLSX: Publishers also send metadata through our custom Excel template. While we ask that these submissions only contain new titles, they also do regularly contain updates. Since there isn’t the same concept of a ProductID in the template, our team manually parses out the titles from submissions that already exist in a publisher’s inventory. We then process the updates and new titles separately. The crosswalking here is much more simple, but does have to be done with every new import into our catalog. We are data people, we love this stuff.
- Files (ebook and cover art) are not necessarily delivered at the same time as metadata. Usually, metadata and cover art come first, followed by the book file closer to publication date. Files are matched up to the metadata via a shared identifier, usually ISBN. ePub is by far the most common format and our favorite. ePub files must pass the most recent version of ePubCheck (4.0.2). If they don’t, the files are put on hold until the publisher submits revised versions.
- Our focus here today is ebooks, but I also wanted to provide a quick snapshot of our audiobook processing. Audio files are delivered with a variety of naming conventions (Chapter 1, Chapter 2 or Track 1, Track 2, etc.) Tracks don’t necessarily line up with the structure of the print/ebook, so our team listens to the beginning of each track to add in the chapters or another helpful navigation point if chapters are not available.
- Based on the business terms communicated in the metadata, titles become available to libraries for purchase in our MarketPlace. Reader-facing platforms, such as the library’s OverDrive website and apps, present the titles that librarians have purchased for their collections. Publishers can view their catalogs via OverDrive Connect. Each of these platforms use the same source metadata, cover art, and ebook files. However, each makes different presentation choices based on the audience.
- - Since our digital catalog launched in 2000, there are titles that have been available in library collections for a very long time. Readers are still checking them out. (The title has yet to die)
- When readers or librarians run notice problems with their ebooks, they report back the problem to our Support Team. After some initial testing, they pass it over to Content Services for additional research. If there is indeed a problem with the file, we will then report it back to the publisher. This is a challenging area. Some publishers make the necessary fixes immediately; some argue the merits of their ebook construction philosophy; and others don’t respond at all. If a file just isn’t working anymore, we will remove it from all libraries’ collections and issue credits for the removed content. At the end of the day, we are all on the same team: we want sales and we want a quality reader experience.
- Toronto Public Library remains the global leader in ebook circulation – 25% growth in 2017 and we expect the same in 2018 (while consumer sales remain flat) I select adult English language content & curate/merchandize the collection on OverDrive 250,000+ English language titles reviewed annually OverDrive collection has been growing by 30,000+ titles a year
- Digital lending is very popular but it is not for everyone (some people prefer print, some don’t wait to deal with waiting lists) Curated collections – allow staff to do readers advisory & improve discoverability. Elderly and disabled customers are often on fixed incomes and cannot afford to purchase all their reading material and rely on the library – it is often their main form of entertainment Digital collections have empowered these customers, they are able to independently choose their own reading material - every book can be a large print book and audiobooks are popular with who are visually impaired or too frail to hold a book Digital lending a game changer for print disabled customers and shut-ins - we are firmly placing control in the hands of these customers who are empowered to choose their own books (the ability to enlarge the print, audiobooks, text to speech, etc.) Some customers too frail to be able to hold a traditional book. Libraries must comply with disability legislation whereby we must provide access to content in as many formats as possible. Accessbility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA) Centre for Equitable Library Access Collection (CELA) – has 500,000 items
- Although there has been great improvement in access to content over the past 5 years, it still remains one of our biggest challenges Canadian and non-U.S. content being the most problematic Many US library have access to titles that are unavailable in Canada – Canadian rights were not negotiated This is problematic for a number of reasons but the most reasons are: 1. Canadian taxpayers help fund the writing of these books through writing grants (and rightly so) – Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario Arts Council 2. Canadian disability legislation requires libraries to provide access to content in as many formats as possible Demand for audiobooks is way up, but our access to these books is severely limited ( Some books are only available through Audible but many people on fixed incomes cannot afford to subscribe.) We would like to see more quality content in non-English languages: French, Chinese, etc.
- Pricing and licensing models vary widely Pricing has improved over the past couple of years but there is still work to be done Need to strike a balance - affordable copies for libraries while ensuring that authors and publishers still see profits. TPL is fairly well funded but we still we struggle to provide adequate numbers of copies to meet demand – the waiting lists are longer than ever This is an even greater concern for smaller library systems who struggle to remain viable The rising US dollar has hit libraries hard There are a variety of lending models offered – One Copy/One user, pay per use, simulanteous, limited circulation, limited by time etc. Renewing expiring content is very labour intensive and many libraries cannot afford to renew the license after the first year Books that are expensive and that expire after a year or two are not viable – long series are problematic The HarperCollins model where content expires after 26 transactions is much better for libraries than content that expires after one year or two – both in terms of labour and budget
- Need enhanced navigation for books where you need to flip back and forth – travel books Comic books - it is often difficult to read the text within a panel The Accessiblity for Ontarians with Disabilities Act stipulates that we must provide material in as many formats as possible to meet the needs of all our customers We do not purchase books that are only available in PDF format as they are not compatible with the OverDrive app Now I will quickly address some ONIX file metadata issues that might be costing you library sales.
- Books without covers do not circulate well Library budgets are closely tied to circulation statistics & we won’t spend our budget on content that doesn’t circulate. For certain types of books, our motto is “No book cover, no sale”
- Covers improve the user experience and sell the book. This is especially true for books aimed at children. If no book is supplied the customer will see a generic cover. Our children ebook selector is very strict about the “no cover, no purchase” rule.
- Our brains are programmed to process images faster than words At a glance you can tell how clean/dirty the book is – crucial for book selectors and & library users Clean romance: light colour palette, bonnets, flowers, etc. Sizzling romance: dark palette, torsos
- At TPL, the numbers speak for themselves. Hot romance is where it’s at. For most series, Book 1 sees the most checkout activity In this case the racy cover for Book 2 really sells the book to library users and there is twice as much downloading activity.
- Titles are the most frequently used search attribute Typos in the title and author fields can be fatal in terms of discoverability. I will pass up purchasing “borderline” books if there is a typo in the title or author fields Corrupted special characters & bad formatting may also turn off customers and call the quality of the content into question. Prepub titles: Untitled & anonymous books are annoying. We see titles up to 6 months in advance, with little to no info to go on we will likely skip this purchase. I make exceptions for Canadian titles from major publishers. It is a cost/benefit thing.
- PUBLICATION DATE - this slide shows a release where all 414 titles have the same publication date . Incorrect publication dates result in many hours of unnecessary checking and hampers workflow. Libraries have finite budgets and have to prioritize spending - we selectively purchase older titles (classics and books that are still circulating well in print) and prioritize our spending on new releases. The publication date should really reflect when the content of the book was last updated. Our perspective is - an ebook is a version of a print book, only books with revised content are considered new editions. We pay careful attention to the publication date of nonfiction titles – we don’t want to purchase out of date books on law, health, travel, etc. We have rention/weeding guidelines we need to follow. It’s a cost/benefit thing, libraries might skip large releases of titles with misleading publication data if a lot staff time will be wasted checking each title against the print versions in our library catalogues.
- Books in a series should all include a series title and a series number Consistency in the series name is critical - typos and variations in the series name will reduce discoverability. Books in a series can be linked and will display on one page if the user clicks on the series name in OverDrive. If there is a discrepancy, the title will not be listed together and these titles do not circulate as well (and probably do not sell as well). We get many customer complaints about missing titles in series, in some cases the title is in our collection but merely lacks a series title. Customers want to read series it the correct order. Including the correct series number in the correct field greatly improves the user experience. Not including the series number also hampers workflow – may need to check to Goodreads, etc. to determine that we own all the titles in the series.
- BISAC headings are extremely important for browsing on end user platforms like OverDrive Applying incorrect headings frustrates end users and will also result in poor overall circulation (and sales). If a romance books lands in literature, romance readers won’t find it and literature readers will pass it by. The browsing categories will lack credibility This is why I have to spend so much time curating collections.
- Sloppiness with digital rights creates many headaches One of two things will happen: 1. We purchase something & the content gets pulled from Marketplace. We get to keep it but can’t purchase more copies. The holds lists gets out of whack. We then have to purchase another edition and transfer holds and weed the problematic copy. This is labour intensive. 2. The other scenario is the book is pulled from Marketplace and from our collection but the holds stay on the customer record. It take upwards of ½ hour to remove the holds if the waiting list is sizable. In both cases, we pay for the MARC records for our library catalogue. We have to manually delete the MARC records if the content is later pulled from Marketplace. There are real costs - we are wasting money and staff time.
- Choosing relevant keywords that supplement the title, subtitle, description data will increase discoverability. Creating curated collections for our customers is a significant part of my job and this task would be so much easier if every book incorporated relevant keywords. Toronto is a diverse city and I regularly try to feature titles that reflect this fact (diverse authors have been marginalized for too long) – this can be a challenge when the content is deeply buried in a collection with 150,000+ titles. For example, we want to continue to purchase & feature books by Indigenous authors Librarians, teachers and parents often look for certain subjects every year: Black History Month, Christmas, Valentine’s Day, etc. - it would be great if keywords directed us to relevant titles (Librarians are REALLY into classification and controlled vocabulary and have been since the dawn of time.) Being able to search by the nationality of an author or geographic place is helpful for curating collections - Canadian authors, Icelandic authors, etc., fiction set in Toronto, etc.
- 31