To help libraries meet the research needs of their entire institutions and maximize their budgets, ebrary®, a ProQuest business, today announced a strategic new approach to e-book acquisition based on three steps: Transition, Diversify and Streamline™. Libraries that transition a greater percentage of their budgets from print to electronic, diversify acquisition models, and streamline ordering processes will see a much greater and faster return on their e-book investments.
“Several converging factors have made strategic e-book acquisition possible: The number of books published electronically is at an all-time high; there are now a number of different acquisition models, and solid usage data is available since e-books have been on the market for more than a decade,” said Kevin Sayar, President and General Manager of ebrary. “We believe that these factors can provide libraries with a new, strategic way to provide researchers with access to more e-books affordably and efficiently.”
Diversification is a key component of ebrary’s approach to strategic e-book acquisition. It is not one size fits all. Similar to a stock portfolio, libraries that diversify their acquisition models can see a better return on their investment.
For example, academic libraries can affordably serve the needs of their entire organizations by:
• Subscribing to Academic Complete™, a growing and highly affordable base collection of more than 71,500 authoritative e-books with unlimited, multi-user access.
• Leveraging Academic Complete’s usage statistics to strategically determine where it makes sense to expand the collection using other models.
• Supporting high-use subjects with patron driven acquisition. This model provides access to hundreds of thousands of additional titles that are only triggered for purchase if used.
• Supplementing lower use programs with short-term loans, no commitment to purchase.• Purchasing essential titles outright.
• Uploading and integrating their own digital repositories with DASH! ™ (Data Sharing,
Fast).
Corporations can significantly reduce costs associated with books that are purchased by individuals, and never shared or archived by creating a centralized digital repository.
This can be accomplished by:
• Providing access to hundreds of thousands of e-books that meet the needs of multiple departments through patron driven acquisition. Titles are only purchased if they are actually used.
• Subscribing to growing, industry-specific subscriptions with unlimited, multi-user access.
• Purchasing essential titles outright.
• Uploading and integrating their own research and third party resources with DASH!
All e-books acquired under any model are seamlessly integrated on the ebrary platform and are available on or offline via a dedicated mobile app for the iPad®, iPhone® and iPad touch®. The ebrary platform also includes rich functionality for making the research process quick and efficient.
Titles can be purchased directly through ebrary’s ordering system, which combines administrative functionality in a single interface, or through their existing print acquisition workflow through book vendors such as YBP.
