Introduction

When an e-book is acquired, it must meet customers’ needs, providing not only the content that is wanted, but also making sure that it can be made available where and when it is required, and at a price that provides best value for money. There are many different suppliers in the e-book marketplace, and it can be difficult to determine which can offer both the best value and the best content and service to their users, as well as meeting the terms and conditions for approved suppliers set by the library's parent organization.

This chapter aims to help the library make an informed choice by reviewing some of the issues to be considered when choosing an e-book supplier, including:

It should be noted that the information in this chapter refers to suppliers and business models prevalent in the UK and US market.

Suppliers

There are many different suppliers of e-books to libraries. Some are established players in the library supply chain for printed books, including both major publishers and vendors such as Coutts (MyiLibrary), Dawsons (Dawsonera) and Swets. Others are established as providers of other types of online content, including aggregators such as EBSCO Publishing, which recently acquired the NetLibrary e-book platform. There are also specialist e-book aggregators, such as Bloomsbury, EBL (EBook Library), ebrary and OverDrive. In addition, there are suppliers that focus on providing e-books to the consumer market, including e-book specialists, online retailers such as Amazon, and high-street booksellers such as WHSmith and Waterstone';s.

As well as having different suppliers, the library and consumer markets also have different supply models. The consumer market is dominated by sales of e-book downloads. Primarily designed for offline mobile use, these are published in various formats suitable either for proprietary e-book readers, such as the Amazon Kindle, or for generic devices such as laptops. Downloads are sold outright for the user to keep, although further use may be controlled by DRM software.