E-book access coming to a campus library near you...eventually

College libraries would like to provide access to scholarly texts through e-books, but due to fear of copyright infringement and revenue loss, university press publishing companies and e-book vendors have been hesitant.

Still, e-book lending from local public libraries is beginning to take off, despite the cold feet of commercial publishers.

In September, the Amazon Kindle began allowing 11,000 libraries to use their e-books.

For Salem Elzway, a history student at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, reading academic e-books on his iPad saves him time and trips to the library while working on research papers.

Recently, Elzway has gained access to full e-books on his iPad using a university library service called MyiLibrary.

While searching for sources on the university library website, he found that some books are downloadable, others could only be viewed online and a portion of e-books only allow snippets and previews. This scenario is true for most university libraries, which work with multiple e-vendor aggregators such as ebrary, NetLibrary, EBL, Safari, Gale and more to provide students with the best e-books.

Elzway said he still prefers to hold and read a physical book, but e-books are much easier and convenient to manage on his iPad when he needs multiple sources for long paper.

“It is a portable resource that you can have with you at any time,” he said. “I would like to see the university library offer more downloadable e-books.”

Annette Day, head of connection management in libraries at North Carolina State University, said students are still getting used to reading books in a digital format, which can be hard on the eyes if not read on a tablet. She has noticed that students who read journal articles often print out the article after accessing it online. With e-books, Day said some publishers and aggregators are allowing customers to search and make notes within the electronic format.

Even though they offer different genres of books, both local and university librarians are pushing for expansive e-book libraries to cater to customer demand, Day said. In 2010, academic e-books were accessed more than 444,000 times at NCSU.

“The e-book in academic libraries is still in the early stages,” Day said. “The negotiation of how publishers can make money hasn’t caught up with technology.”

But it could takes years, maybe decades, before publishers allow the amount of access libraries would like to give the students, said David Hiscoe, spokesman for NCSU library.

According to Linda Di Biase, collection development librarian at the University of Washington, a lot of “publishers have entered the academic e-book market slowly because they have to create a new business plan to make the money they need to.”

Elzway would like book publishers to serve student demand for online and downloadable e-book access throughout library systems.

“The hesitancy of publishers to make e-books available is a testament that publishers need to get away from the profit-driven motive and focus on the providing a public service,” Elzway said. “There needs to be a change in the business model.”

University libraries have been working closely with publishers to allow student access to e-books. They have implemented several complex pricing models, including subject subscription packages and the latest pay-per-view option that allows universities to only pay for the books students view.

The University of Florida library, which takes advantage of the pay-per-view pricing model, plans to increase the number of available downloadable e-books in the coming year.

“E-books are going to become a very big part of the undergraduate experience in years to come,” said Diane Bruxvoort, associate dean for scholarly resources and research services at the University of Florida. “We are increasing content without filling up shelves.”