e-books Essay -- Library Science, Myilibrary, Netlibrary

The library and information centres have undertaken collection management of printed books and now challenges in developing collection of electronic resources (e-resources) are waiting. Electronic books (e-books) consist of printed books being digitized or born digitally, the starting rise of new electronic formats. The increase number of e-books especially in UK also brings challenges to the publishers and aggregators, the importance in managing and promoting â€Å"e-books as the new electronic medium† (Armstrong and Lonsdale 2005). This essay will look at issues being addressed surrounding the management and promoting the e-books. One of the issues to be addressed in managing e-books is the selection and acquisition e-books. Librarians especially the academic librarians need to concern on selecting and acquisition new e-books, e-textbooks and titles associated to the students’ fields and demands. The librarians should train in considering the demands of e-books for distance learning, placements students and selecting printed books as back up to e-books’ (Armstrong and Lonsdale 2009). Acquiring the e-books from publishers and aggregators become issues in managing the e-books. The pricing and business model through subscription provides easy methods and ‘aggregators would be more attractive option than through publishers’ (Armstrong, Edwards and Lonsdale 2002). For the writer, e-book aggregators such as NetLibrary and Credo Reference give more advance access and tools for library, user of groups, relevance information and formats of e-book availability in pdf or web. However, subscript ions of e-books can be difficult. Libraries want to have ‘fewer complexes models and fair pricing structures’ (Ball 2009) and Edwards (2001) summari... ...ons. It is recommended stakeholders and JISC e-BOOK Working Group (Armstrong and Lonsdale 2005) are working together for effectively promoting strategies for e-books to all libraries. The e-book collections are no longer close entities but open widely to users. The libraries especially the academic libraries should concern on selecting e-books references for students and researchers. Issues concerned including the consideration giving effective ways on access and promotion need to be accounted. However, ‘Usage and licensing conditions vary widely and are not always library-friendly’ (Ball 2009). Licensing and bibliographical access still the crucial challenges for collection managements especially in relates to cost and legal legislate deposits. All the issues discussed above come up with literatures and approaches to issues of managing e-book collections.