Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
over a long period of time; alongside libraries it has become the
custodian of quality control, and industry standards have been
developed to ensure discovery, access and linking. It could be argued
that a world without such standards would quickly develop into
anarchy, and discovery and access for scholars would be very difficult.
E-books
Colin Steele in his coverage of e-books in Chapter 4 states that: 'The
challenge for 21st-century scholarship, which includes e-books, is to
implement an infrastructure for the digital world untrammelled by the
historical legacies in the frameworks and costings of print culture.'
However, it is clear that we have not yet reached that Utopia.
Whereas journals have traditionally supported research activity
within academic institutions, books have traditionally supported
learning and teaching. Course textbooks, reading-list materials, schol-
arly monographs and reference materials have all been important
library acquisitions for the student body.
The e-book market has been much slower in maturing than the e-
journals market. In his book
Print is Dead
, Jeff Gomez (2008) traces the
history of the comparatively slow introduction of the e-book. Librarians
and users have been challenged by the plethora of e-book readers, the
difficulty of reading books on screen, lack of interoperability between
publisher and aggregator platforms, and the business models associated
with e-book provision.
Librarians are keen to expand their e-book collections. In 2006 the
Higher Education Consultancy Group undertook a survey of UK
university libraries on behalf of the JISC E-Books Working Group
(HECG, 2006); 89 out the 92 university libraries which responded said
they were either 'eager' or 'very eager' to develop e-book collections. In
addition, librarians told the consultants that they wanted: multiple and
concurrent access for users (not one copy, one user); an easier way of
discovering what e-books are available; and easy access for their users (not
lots of different platforms and interfaces).
It is extremely difficult to obtain accurate and up-to-date statistics on
e-books. However, in August 2009, Michael Smith, Head of the
International Digital Publishing Forum, reported that e-book sales were
up 149% on year to date. He went on to say: 'For me the most interesting
