2013 Charleston Conference

Librarians continue to grow their scholarly ebook collections, and while many are seeking to establish more formal systems of measurement to determine the value of these collections, it can seem a daunting task without precedents on which to base their decisions. For librarians and administrators working to meet competing demands with limited resources, understanding the value of ebooks will be of great importance for the foreseeable future as expenditures grow. But Return on Investment (ROI) for ebooks in research and academic libraries can be difficult to determine, as the factors considered can vary widely.

In this session, a panel consisting of librarians, a publisher and consultant will present a broad overview of the current state of ebooks valuation in academic and special libraries along with its trends and dominant challenges. In addition, we will address some ways in which the scholarly ebook landscape is likely to change in the future and the anticipated impact on measuring the ROI of ebooks throughout the library community. Finally, the panel will discuss possible ways publishers, librarians and researchers can work together to improve methods of analysis and adjust to meet the needs of users.

Attendees can expect to learn about research currently available into the value of ebooks that is important to justify development decisions, how the evolution of ejournal publishing can inform the rapid growth of ebook acquisitions going forward, how to gather feedback from users via surveys on how and where they access ebooks, and how to channel these findings back to publishers to influence development of COUNTER-compliant statistics and enhancement of ebook platforms making content accessible, discoverable, granular and mobile.