E‐books in Libraries: A Practical Guide

By all accounts, the advent of e‐books should have immeasurably improved the delivery of books to patrons by making ordering, delivering, receipt and use that much easier. Yet this is often not the case. Before a book lands on to the computer, reader or smart phone of a patron, the vendor and library have to negotiate publisher deals, copyright issues, IT problems and good old cash flow barriers before the patron's request is satisfied. This is an edited work with contributions from a very wide range of librarians, managers and IT specialists from the world of public and academic libraries and publishers.

The book starts with an introductory overview by Chris Armstrong and Ray Lonsdale of the history of e‐books and readers which sets the scene nicely and introduces many themes and practical issues which are taken up in more detail in later sections. The first part examines the production and distribution of e‐books and there are chapters detailing the publishers' perspectives including one on the industry and costs of production, another on business models and suppliers, and finishing with an examination of free e‐books and born digital publishing. The second part concerns e‐book collection management issues and is dominated by three long chapters on the public, further education and higher education sectors. It is instructive to see the different strategies involved in collection building over the three sectors and see how different priorities and concerns can affect the adoption of workable collection policies. The third part is all about delivering e‐books to patrons together with the necessary technology with which to read them. Making e‐books ‘visible’ is another concern and one suggestion that made me smile was the idea that libraries could place dummy books in the racks pointing to the e‐copy! The most interesting part of this book for me was that which dealt with engaging readers – both patrons and staff – with e‐books. Anecdotal evidence from my own institution is that there is a considerable reluctance to abandon the print edition in favour of the electronic, though this may have more to do with the inability to print out or copy large chunks of textbooks. There is also a widespread ignorance of the issues – copyright, storage, access ‐ involved with lending e‐books which is exacerbated by the fact that e‐journal articles can generally be kept and stored for unlimited use whereas e‐books cannot. This book goes some way in addressing these and other issues and may help staff explain them to patrons. The final two parts contain the contributors' thoughts on the future of e‐books, tips for creating a collection, a glossary and directory.

This is a very well put together work which takes care to cover all aspects of e‐book provision and use. If you are at all interested in how to set up an e‐book service, there is likely to be a chapter of interest for you here.