How should academic libraries determine the value of e-books? A Springer White Paper (Scholarly eBooks: Understanding the Return on Investment for Libraries) explores why libraries should measure value – and how they should go about it.
RoI is a complex issue and different institutions are using a range of measures. Factors that may be considered include:
- Effect on research output
- Time saved by library staff and researchers
- Space saving
- Cost saved on content acquisition
- Usage figures per e-book (vs usage figures per print copy)
- Use of e-resources can lead to increased number of citations – which can influence grant applications
Key lessons for librarians
- Stay current with relevant RoI research – and be ready to refer to it in discussions with University administrators
- Partnering with publishers to promote e-resources encourages efficient searching and usage
- Enhanced discoverability of e-books encourages multi-disciplinary work
- Usage statistics vary between publishers
- Additionally, e-book users tend to read chapters not whole books, but most usage statistics do not reflect this
- Libraries will continue to have to prove value for money – librarians need to focus on having comprehensive RoI data available.
- Learn from the lessons of e-journals – consensus about usage figures will emerge, just as they did for e-journals
- There is much work to be done in collaboration with publishers – including developing usage measures and deepening understanding of user needs
The White Paper is available (free of charge) at www.springer.com/eBooks
Comments are closed.