1. Frankenbooks:
Understanding eBooks and
eReaders
Stephen Abram, MLS, FSLA
Consultant, Dysart & Jones
South Central New York Regional Library Council
Apr. 23, 2013

2. Is this graphic correct? What‟s wrong?

3. Rethinking Collection
Development Strategies
Getting back to basics
Using the serials metaphor
Role of discovery and identification
Role of the reader, privacy, retail, subs, ...

4. Questions for Today:
1. What is REALLY happening with eBooks?
2. Where is all this change taking us?
3. Does the eBook have a different value?
4. Today‟s session is about frameworks. For
details see the webliography at the end or
online.
5. What is the role for special librarians in our
info-future?

5. eBook Penetration
School Public Academic
100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
2010 2011 2012
Source: Library Journal Survey of Ebook Penetration – 2010-2012

12. Is the book in your head?

13. eBook Benefits
What makes an e-book
better or worse from the
user‟s, reader‟s or
librarian‟s POV?
Credit: Polanka

16. The Physical Act of Reading

17. Think harder about book components and workflow!

19. Is it really
expensive or
just a matter
of ROI and
value?

20. Have Journal Prices Really Increased Much in the Digital Age?
(Scholarly Kitchen blog) http://bit.ly/11b3hP2

21. Good Questions
• What if prices of the predominant journal form
have actually been falling?
• What if we‟ve been measuring the wrong
things, or measuring insufficiently?
• And what if the growth in expenses are not the
result of price increases but a result of the
growth in science?”

22. The Real Digital Story
• Print subscription prices are a misleading and
inaccurate method for tracking library serials
spending
• “. . . libraries‟ spending on periodicals has
increased three-fold while their collections have
tripled in size . . . Spending three times as much
to get three times as much tells a very different
story from the “price increases” story. . . .”
• Published article output and research spending
has grown 3.o% to 4% per year since 1990

24. Whose needs are met by e-books and e-libraries?

26. There is no guarantee that the e-
book scenario will play out to
include libraries

27. 27
The Big Six
• Big Six (publishing)
▫ Hachette (publisher)
▫ Georg von Holtzbrinck Publishing Group/Macmillan
▫ Penguin Group
▫ HarperCollins
▫ Random House
▫ Simon & Schuster

28. 28
Hope
• ReadersFirst
• http://readersfirst.org/
• CULC
• Douglas County & 3M

29. 29
Values
• Selling eBooks or print books through the library
• Independent booksellers or chains?
• Self published books?
• Discovery (LinkedData)
• Amazon Library plan
• Debate: Should librarians make choices for other adults?
• How should small presses get discovered to reader audiences?

30. Deer in headlamps slide here.

31. What is an EXPERIENCE?
What is a library experience?
What differentiates a library experience from a
transaction?
What differentiates libraries from Google/Bing?

32. The Evolution
of Answers

33. Why do people ask questions?
Is your library experience conceptually organized
around people, answers and programs?
Or collections, technology and buildings?

34. Why do people ask questions?
 Who, What, When, Where
 How & Why
 Data – Information – Knowledge - Behavior
 To Learn or to Know
 To solve a problem
 To Acquire Information, Clarify, Tune
 To Decide, to Choose, to Delay
 To Interview, Delve, Interact, Progress
 To Entertain or Socialize
 To Reduce Fear
 To Help, Aid, Cure, Be a Friend
 To Win A Bet

35. READING EXERCISE
Why do people read?
What is the workflow context for
reading in special libraries?

36. Why do people read?
1. To learn
2. To engage in hearing other‟s opinions (to agree or disagree or understand)
3. To develop more knowledge about myself and develop as a whole person
4. To be entertained and laugh, to engage and interact
5. To address boredom and the inexorable progress of time
6. To research and keep up-to-date
7. To participate well in civil society (everything from news to voting)
8. To be informed (and maybe smarter)
9. To understand others (individually and culturally)
10. To escape our day-to-day lives
11. To stimulate the imagination and be inspired or spiritual
12. To write and communicate better through reading others
13. To teach
14. To have something to talk about
15. To connect with like-minded people

38. Books

39. Fiction

40. Non-Fiction

41. Encyclopedia
Framing tools

42. Reference
Quick, source, credit, proof …

43. Directories
Workflow in targets, mailings, etc.

44. Dictionaries
Is there any need for print?

45. Textbooks
Is the codex/book the best container for pedagogy?
Are textbooks at the tipping point of scrolls?

46. Scholarly
Quality, proofs, positioning …
Is print the best format for scholarly publishing in every field?

47. E-Learning MOOCs

49. Mobility
Understanding the different form factors
and target user environments

58.  Harper Collins
 OverDrive
 Kindle Library e-books
 Advertising
 Malicious Links
 Vanity Press vs. self publishing

60. Skirmishes but Big Ones
 App Store Rules
 Porn – e.g. Sports Illustrated
 No Criticism rule
 Politicians‟ apps
 Satire
 Pulitzer Prize winner
 Books as an app require approval
 Potential restraint of trade
 Who chooses?
 Censorship . . .?

61. What does all this mean?
 The Article level universe
 The Chapter and Paragraph Universe
 Complete integration of books and serials
 Integrated with Visuals – graphics and charts
 Integrated with „video‟
 Integrated with Sound and Speech
 Integrated with social web
 Integrated with interaction and not just
interactivity, workflow…
 How would you enhance a book?

62. Device Issues

63. Borders Kobo, B&N Nook, Amazon Kindle, Apple iPad, Sony, etc. . . .

68. Mobility

69. Interdisciplinary
Cross-disciplinary
Integrated

72. Technology Context
• Cloud (SaaS, PaaS, IaaS)
• Laptops and Tablets
• Mobility / Smartphones
• Bandwidth (Wired, WiFi, Whitespace)
• Learning Management Systems
• Streaming video and audio vs. download
• HTML5 and Apps – the battle
• Advertising auction models and „product‟
• New(ish) Players
(Amazon, Apple, G, B&N, Uni‟s, states/provinces/na
tions)

73. Book e-Challenges
• Format Agnosticism
• Browsers: IE, Chrome, Firefox, Safari
• Devices: Macintosh, PC Desktops & Laptops
• Mobile: Laptops, Tablets (iPad, Fire, etc.)
• Mobile: Smartphones
(iPhone, Blackberry, Android, Windows, etc.)
• Container: PDF, ePub, .mobi, Kindle, etc.
• Learning Management System: Blackboard /
WebCT, D2L, Moodle, Sakai, MOOC, etc.
• Purchasing
(Amazon, B&N, Chegg, CengageBrain, Apple
Store, University Textbook
Store, direct, aggregator, etc.)

74. Pricing Models
• Buy the print copy
• Buy the exact electronic copy of the print
• Buy both (bundling)
• Rent the print or e-copy for a specified period
• Create custom coursepacks in print or e-copy
• Buy at the course level included in fee
• Buy at the institution / enterprise level
• Buy at the state/province level
• Espresso Book Machines
• Pay-per-use, micro-payments, „Square‟ and phones

75. Sample Evaluation Matrix
Chart courtesy of University of California Irvine Libraries

76. We are in an evolving space with e-
books (just like articles in the last
century).
• Don‟t fossilize your positions too soon
• Remain open to innovation and experimentation
• Keep librarian values as a touchstone
• Focus on the end-user & enterprise needs

77. What is the priority?
Price, Cost, Value, ROI
Managing or Mandating the Adoption Curve
Learning and Progress
Societal Impact = 17%, 40%, 70%?
IMPACTS of Value to the Enterprise
ROI, ROE, Productivity and efficiency and
effectiveness

78. This era will see a Fundamental
Reimagining the Book
For the present there will be
those who resist and the
resisters will be the majority.

79. Publishers Platforms
Archiving Budgets
Patron
Driven
Devices Access Consortia
eBooks ILL
DRM
Accessibility
Aggregators
Formats
Libraries Licensing
Downloads
Via Polanka

80. Keeping Up Blogs
• No Shelf Required – www.noshelfrequired.com
• LJ/SLJ ebook blog– www.thedigitalshift.com
• ALA eContent blog-
http://americanlibrariesmagazine.org/e-content
• ALA TechSource blog -
www.alatechsource.org/blog
• Teleread – www.teleread.org
• INFOdocket– www.infodocket.com
• eBooknewser -
www.mediabistro.com/ebooknewser/
• The Digital Reader - www.the-digital-reader.com/
• Go-to-hellman - go-to-hellman.blogspot.com

81. Must Reads

82. 82
Resources
• Sue Polanka‟s presentation on eBooks for ALA:
• Purchasing eBooks for Your Library
• http://www.slideshare.net/ALATechSource/2013-ala-
purchasing?ref=http://lonewolflibrarian.wordpress.com/2013/02/14/
purchasing-e-books-for-libraries-02-14-13/
• Sue Polanka‟s ALA LTR book:
• The No Shelf Required Guide to eBook Purchasing
• Ellyssa Kroski‟s presentation on eBooks:
• Evaluating e-Book Offerings
• http://www.slideshare.net/ellyssa/evaluating-ebook-
offerings?utm_source=slideshow&utm_medium=ssemail&utm_camp
aign=download_notification
• JISC Compare eBook Platforms
• http://adat.crl.edu/ebooks
• Wellesley College eBook Vendor Evaluation matrix
• http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=pCQ6JLSQYx1F4gVAKNBU
edg

83. Suggestions for readings
• E-Book Media and Communications Toolkit
▫ http://www.ala.org/transforminglibraries/ebooktoolkit
• Ebook Business Models: A Scorecard for Public Libraries
▫ ALA Digital Content & Libraries Working Group
▫ www.districtdispatch.org/wp-
content/uploads/2013/01/Ebook_Scorecard.pdf
• Library Services in the Digital Age
▫ Pew Internet
▫ http://libraries.pewinternet.org/2013/01/22/library-services/
• Library Patrons and Ebook Usage
▫ Library Journal Patron Profiles, v1 n1 (fee-based report)
• A primer on eBooks for libraries just starting with downloadable
media
▫ Polanka, Sue, in Library Journal http://bit.ly/Iz9jwE
Via Polanka

84. Thanks
Stephen Abram, MLS, FSLA
Principal
Lighthouse Partners /Dysart & Jones
Cel: 416-669-4855
Stephen.abram@gmail.com
Stephen’s Lighthouse Blog
http://stephenslighthouse.com
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