One at a Time: Recent Experiences in Ebook Title Selection for an Art and Design School Library

ARLIS-NA/VRA Joint ConferenceMinneapolis 2011

Sarah FallsDirector of the Library

New York School of Interior DesignMarch 26, 2011

sfalls@nysid.edu

Ebooks sold by library vendors such as Ebrary, NetLibrary and others

Books that contain scholarly or research based content

Art and Architecture subjects, but also those ancillary to Art and Design history

Today we’ll be talking about…

Project Guttenberg in 1971 Readers hit the market 1998-2000 Clifford Lynch article 2001 Sony Reader 2006 Kindle 2007 , 2-3 million Kindles sold by

2009, Amazon sells more downloads than physical books Dec. 2009

Bowker annual statistics on Ebooks, $67 million segment of publishing industry in 2008

Background on Ebooks for consumers

Google Books court decision

Licensing of Content by Harper

New York School of Interior Design Library facts15,000 books and journalsTwo campuses, Grad and Undergrad—library in Undergrad750 students with median age of 29Many commuter students/non-residentialMany new programs, MFA 1, MPS in Sustainable DesignBefore July 2010, no full text journal offerings or

Ebooks, outdated website and no EzproxyLibrary is full, without ability to expand due to floor load

problems

Background on NYSID

New Graduate Center with no library New programs—particularly one on

sustainability Fewer physical books on shelves Provide general reference collection to the

Grad Center and those at home Textbooks/Reserves

NYSID Needed Ebooks to Support

Importance of images relative to text Text of primary importance to collection (i.e. should it be collected as

a matter of record) or ancillary to collection? Software manual Was it to be used as a reserve title, core text or textbook—

particularly for the Grad Center? Edition—how soon will a new addition be available? Fewer platforms, the better (fewer license agreements, vendor

relationships, catalog record sources and software types to learn and teach)

Single or Multiple user available? Core titles from Ebrary, with some collecting from Oxford U.P. and

Wiley Software platform? Ease of use, use with mobile devices, added value

available through searching? Transformative use.

Collection Development Criteria

General Reference Books on Fine/Decorative Arts, Architecture, Interior DesignArchitectural and Design TheoryProfessional PracticeSustainabilityLandscape Architecture

Subject Areas That Fit Criteria

EBook never wears out and don’t take shelf space Reach a broader audience Students don’t have to buy textbooks with MUPO titles Emergence of the Ipad helps with Ebrary web based book---------------------- Students expect content to be portable and downloadable, even

to phones Some titles aren’t available as SUPO and were in heavy use Multiple platforms and software types are confusing to students Ebrary is not easy to use and terrible to print from Hard time with consortial catalog—a year out, Ebooks still not in

catalog properly

Pros/Cons

Interoperability: Ebrary

Interoperability: Wiley Interscience

Dealt with YBP to obtain Ebrary books, initial links were bad

Wiley Interscience supplies MARC through OCLC, but will not supply this way if purchased through YBP

NYU consortium cataloging problematic—we were first institution outside NYU to purchase and add records to BobCat.

One year from date of purchase to add records to catalog, problems with proxy mean the link is still not operable

Plain old SNAFU’s

Local Challenge: Access

What will the outcome of the Proquest/Ebrary merger be?

How will licensing affect use of MUPO’s? How can we integrate Google content with searching

in our catalog? Not presently supported by BobCat. What will the future of Google Books be? Curating of Open Access titles for addition to catalog? Should we buy from additional vendors? Can we have enough Ebooks to truly support the Grad

Center?

Upcoming Challenges

Horizon Report 2011: http://www.nmc.org/pdf/2011-Horizon-Report.pdfNames Ebooks and Mobile devices as the #1 technologies hitting campuses right now (for second year in a row) and their impact.

No Shelf Required (blog): http://www.libraries.wright.edu/noshelfrequired/Blog by librarian covers all the up-to-date news on the topic for Academic libraries. It’s quite thorough.   No Shelf Required (book) by Sue Polanka, 2010.

Clifford Lynch, 2001 article on the future of Ebooks from First Monday. http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/864/773

Sources consulted and recommended

Thanks!

Sarah Fallssfalls@nysid.edu

Final thoughts, questions