Marlene discussed the challenges of creating and maintaining a digital collection without the cooperation of the "Big 6" publishers. Her recent information included news of ALA discussions with the Big 6 to open the door for negotiations to remedy the situation. She also mentioned several alternatives to Overdrive with 3M being the biggest competitor. With 3M, you actually purchase the book, not the license.
Some of her e-collection highlights were:
- Stats are your friends - use them as purchasing guides, as well as patron requests
- Catalog records are important discovery tools for our e-reading patrons
- Vendors can assist in e-collection development
- One of the biggest challenges is having a staff person to keep up with the collection because many useful tools are not in place yet
- Romance is the current leading genre
- Erotica is the genre with the highest turnover
- 15% of budget should be allocated for e-collections
- Random House is our hero even though they are going to charge us all more!
- e-reviews can be hard to find, but they are out there
- Remember to purchase "sets" of e-books
- Purchasing e-books is a quick and easy way to spend down budgets at the end of the fiscal year
- If you live on the west coast, find out what time zone your webinar originates in!!!!!!
Marlene (www.readingreality.net) was a knowledgeable presenter and provided interesting and valuable information about a new industry that is changing by the minute. It's an exciting time!
Donna Orris, LA - Interlibrary Loan & Reference
Ruth Enlow Library - Oakland
2 comments:
You mentioned the Big 6 and now I'm wondering how the new Bilbary will fare once it's launched in March/April of this year. That site is supposed to be pulling in content from the Big 6 only -- if I read the information right.
Sounds like we will have 2 divisive camps! The Big 6 and all the others. It should be interesting to see how things play out.
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