Information Scotland The Journal of the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals in Scotland ISSN 1743-5471 Issue contents | Journal contents | About the online edition of the journal December 2007 Volume 5(6)

Aiming Higher

Challenging access

Karen Brown and Karen Macdonald report on the seventh annual E-books Conference, which addressed the theme of accessible e-content.

Delegates from cross-sectoral library backgrounds came together recently at the Edinburgh Training Centre for the seventh annual e-books conference.

Emma Beer of the Strategic Content Alliance (SCA) described the development of a UK-wide common policy framework for key public sector organisations, to be delivered in spring 2009. This will help them to make better use of limited funding through collaboration and co-ordination of their e-content activities. The six organisations sponsoring the project, all providers of significant online content resources, represent the sectors of cultural heritage, public broadcasting, health, education and research. The initiative is a manifestation of the UK’s commitment to the European Union’s i2010 strategic policy framework which aims to develop a more unified European e-content landscape.

The need for a national information policy for research-level electronic resources was highlighted by Carl Clayton, Director of SINTO (the information partnership for South Yorkshire and North Derbyshire). SYALL (South Yorkshire Access to Libraries and Learning) is part of the national Inspire library access programme. While Inspire, and its Findit! website, has opened up public access to the print material of UK academic libraries, the issue of access to their electronic material has not been fully addressed and Carl questioned how well equipped public libraries are to do so. He warned of the dangers of social exclusion if technological developments were not matched by a national policy. This, he said, was a challenge yet to be taken up by both the Government and the library profession.

The UK academic vision for e-books seeks to meet both the requirements of the UK academic community and the e-book market, said Hazel Woodward, Collections Manager at JISC Collections. A feasibility study into the role of JISC in improving the acquisition of e-books by HE libraries found that the majority of HE libraries were both eager and under pressure to develop their collections of core text books in electronic format, yet were deterred from doing so by a lack of choice and high prices. Publishers and aggregators, on the other hand, were not convinced of a sufficiently high demand to offset their perceived loss of revenue in print sales. As a result of the study, JISC Collections has undertaken the role of consortia in the acquisition of such e-book collections. GBP 6,000.00 has been made available to provide a national site licence for 32 titles which are freely available from September 2007 to August 2009 to HE institutions on publisher and/or e-books aggregator platforms.

Dr James Dearnley discussed recent research on e-book provision in UK public libraries by an MA student at Loughborough University. Some common barriers to their implementation are having to justify costs, concerns about platform stability and actual format. Problems with integration into existing library catalogues and a lack of compatibility between e-book collections and MP3 technology could have serious implications for user access in public libraries. He concluded with a call for standards for accessing collections and a greater sharing of e-book experiences.

Aviva Weinstein, Strategic Marketing Manager, MyiLibrary Ltd, said that e-books can disseminate information more freely, improve, widen and speed up access. They can also improve your Inter Library Loan (ILL) workflows. The current average time between the end user requesting a print book loan and receiving the title through ILL is 9.3 days. Those of us who request ILLs on behalf of our users can be met with bewilderment by those used to internet access when we have to explain timescales, and that there have been recalls or even lost books. Aviva focused on the ‘E-Book Loans’ service provided by MyiLibrary. Certainly ILL e-books allow libraries to improve access for remote users and support distance education users. Both university librarians and students are aware of the benefits of multiple loans for the same item. It can be argued, however, that print books are less expensive or free. Aviva countered this by claiming that hidden costs such as staff time, book storage, ILL system and processing (including travel time or recalls) must be considered. She prompted listeners to examine further issues, financial or otherwise, in relation to meeting libraries strategic aims regarding accessibility.

The final speaker of the day was Simon Bains, Digital Library Manager at the National Library of Scotland. The challenges of digital preservation are of great concern for legal deposit libraries responsible for the preservation of items such as e-books and websites. Simon’s fascinating overview of current work being undertaken by the NLS included a slide of the BBC Doomsday Disk System, which brought home the difficulties. Physical preservation is not enough on its own. Legal Deposit Legislation in 2003 provided the momentum for much of the NLS’s work, seeking to lobby for standards while working collaboratively to find solutions. To this end NLS is a member of the International Internet Preservation Consortium and through a shared services agenda NLS also hopes to provide information for others in the sector. Simon discussed The Trusted Digital Repository (TDR), a repository system that allows NLS to preserve and manage digital content and undertake web archiving. TDR has become a massive part of NLS, creating an exciting metamorphosis that will see the NLS change, adapt and ensure good practice.

Karen Brown is Cataloguing & Metadata Services Assistant, and Karen Macdonald is Enquiries and Reference Services Assistant, National Library of Scotland.

Information Scotland Vol. 5(6) December 2007

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