TIPS FROM THE TRENCHES

摘要

The selection and acquisition process for library electronic resources continues to change and evolve. A growing number of publishers are citing the unsustainability of the STL (short term loan) "pilot" with ebooks and raising their rates for the "cost of short-term e-book loans" (Wolfman-Arent, 2014, p. A16). Libraries and publishers are placed in an adversarial situation-libraries contend that ebook pricing models and restrictive licensing favor the publishers, and publishers state that users "access low-circulation titles like scholarly monographs without libraries paying full freight for them" (Wolfman-Arent, 2014, p. A16). Whether a public, academic, school, or special library, all libraries are wrestling with ebook pricing issues (Lynch, 2012). Consider the HarperCollins Publishers restriction that ebooks can only be checked out 26 times before they expire (Bosman, 2011, p. A1). For school libraries, "digital content is being sold at the building level, but often without consideration for the size of that building" (Harris, 2012, p. 14). Public libraries have had to deal with issues such as OverDrive's 700% fee increase in 2010 (Janes, 2013, p. 31). Academic libraries struggle not only with pricing models but with students' reluctance to give up print and embrace ebooks (Rod-Welch, Weeg, Caswell, & Kessler, 2013). Similarly, "despite the broadened base of ebook delivery channels and the growth in consumption of content via multiple devices, the impact does not seem to have greatly affected corporate libraries yet" (Matarazzo & Pearlstein, 2013, p. 42).