The document discusses a project that provides e-books for free to UK further education (FE) colleges. It made 2,990 e-books available from a variety of subjects. The e-books provide 24/7 access from any device for students, including those studying remotely or part-time. However, libraries and educators must work to promote the e-books so students are aware of and can easily access this digital content.

1. e-books for FE: a digital library for FE colleges RSC NI Update

2. e-books for FE Background to the Project LSC and JISC funded project As a result 2990 e-books are now freely available to all UK FE colleges. If each library had to buy 1 copy of the FE e-books, in print, the cost for each institution would be £116,879.10. Access is for 5 years, FREE of charge By providing FE colleges with a critical mass of relevant e-books we aim to help colleges serve their diverse community of learners. Unlimited, simultaneous user access means that unlike the print world means all students have access to a digital library 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. This provides clear benefits for distance learners, part time students or people who simply prefer not to go to the campus to read material. Many of the titles are available for the first time as an ebook

3. This is not technology The term e-book is already defunct, in the eyes of your users its just another collection of online stuff. It’s the content that matters, and what you do with it.... Many of the titles within the collection are available for the first time as an e-book However the collection needs to be signposted and promoted so that your users can find and use this ‘stuff’ There are numerous ways of discovering and accessing e-books Ideal opportunity to raise the profile of your library and extend the variety of places where your students can learn, but teachers, VLE administrators, IT and library staff need to work together. Recent headlines on e-books

4. Benefits of ebooks Extending access to your library 24/7 access: the flexibility to access resources anyplace, anytime and anywhere Device independent-access via PC and mobile devices Portability Space saving Solution to managing short loan collections (including problems of theft and vandalism) They address periods of peak demand by providing concurrent access They offer functionality not found in hard copy, including search, and cut-and-paste with automatic citation. Personalisation-users can comment on, ‘tag’ & link to other resources. e-books can have disproportionate benefits for learners with print related disabilities and students working from home Ealing, Hammersmith and West London college by jisc_infonet 3000 books by Mike Moran

5. Search inside & i nformation retrieval

6. Automatic citation information

7. What e-books DON’T do…..

8. What e-books don’t do Making the invisible discoverable E-books have no value if they are not used In today’s impatient two-click culture, users will gravitate towards the open web if their college or publishers place unnecessary barriers in their way. Libraries, IT staff and publishers need to work together to make e-books easily discoverable. The library catalogue and VLE are the main routes for discovery for library e-book content. It is essential that MARC cataloguing records are supplied with e-books and that they are imported. Offer a clear route to content to prevent confusion between library web pages, the library catalogue and federated searching. Showcase the e-resources provided by your institution. Students showed little understanding of the distinction between the e-resources provided via their University or via the open web. There is a multiplicity of e-content, and a multiplicity of ways to get to it and users don’t know how to get to what they want. Libraries have a big challenge in providing clear access routes to e-content. Discovery needs to be made a simple as possible.

9. Barriers...

10. Promoting and embedding e-stuff Key findings from the HE observatory Project: Active promotion leads to higher use. Higher use means happy students, esp. part time students. However the successful incorporation of e‐books into VLEs requires promotion, initial effort in inputting the links etc. and greater dialogue between librarians and teaching staff. Get in touch with ebrary to incorporate your logo, branding etc into the site. Sell your services! Social networking applications Subject specific bookmarks advertising e‐books, putting stickers on the hard copy Dummy books on the shelf to prompt users when all the print copies were on loan. Coffee and croissants mornings Video exemplars Most popular title lists, titles to your colleagues Wobblers Quick start guides If you have used e-books from your university library how did you first find out about them? Colleges need to develop a strategy for raising awareness of all types of e-books and developing academic literacy. Teaching staff should also be encouraged to engage more actively in pointing out to students the range of high quality free and paid for e-book content that is available.

11. Helping colleges build their collections of e-books e-select framework agreement The project is funded for five years, but the objective is sustainability. This will involve helping FE colleges to grow their collections of e-books. You can download and view the usage statistics for your college e-select framework agreement In addition to the centrally purchased collections, colleges will be able to locally purchase additional e-book titles through the e-select framework agreement, including newer editions. Assessors from FE colleges will evaluate and rank the e-books submitted for inclusion on the following criteria: Relevance to qualifications taken in FE Demonstrable discounts for FE colleges Opportunity for us to shape the provision of e-resources and to go beyond providing handouts to creating a dynamic environment where students can personalise, tag, annotate and share content. E-books, e-book platforms usability and accessibility , user testing

12. What next? Meeting the demand for e-books There are significant gaps between what colleges need and what publishers and aggregators are offering.. We will continue to negotiate with publishers so that the titles the community needs are made available as e-books. £200 million versus £50 million-the textbook conundrum Publishers are nervous about providing course texts online via libraries as there is considerable concern about the possible impact on their print sales, and a high degree of uncertainty about realistic and sustainable pricing and licensing models. FE Business models study We know very little about student purchasing behaviour of textbooks in either print or electronic form nor how willing FE students would be willing to pay for /e-book/chapterss JISC Collections has commissioned John Cox associates to evaluate a range of business models including student purchase. Business Models Trials Subscription, chapters, printed book bundles, rental, library purchase vs student purchase

13. Additional Titles Have your say