Promoting the Uptake of E-Books
in Higher and Further Education
Contents
Page Contents2 Contents
7 Lists of Figures and Tables
8 Preface: A note on the structure of this report and how to use it. 9 Executive Summary
17 Chapter One: Academic e-books: an overview of the current commercial, technological, educational and social context
17 1.1: Definition, history and evolution
19 1.2: E-books: basic technological information
19 1.3: E-book readers
21 1.4: Finding e-books 21 1.5: Buying e-books
22 1.6: E-books and e-learning within the current academic context 25 1.7: Teaching, learning and study factors: social and cultural issues 25 1.8: Broader cultural and technological factors
26 1.9: E-books: comparisons with other publishing technologies
29 Chapter Two: Who are the stakeholders, and how does the e-book supply chain operate?
29 2.1: Active Stakeholders 30 2.2: Passive Stakeholders 30 2.3: Influencing Stakeholders
31 2.4: The print and e-book information supply chains: a comparison 39 Chapter Three: The stakeholders: e-books issues considered: the perceived
advantages of and barriers to using e-books; where users find them and for what purpose they use them. Anticipations of future usage
39 3.1: Do e-books need promoting?
41 3.2: “Active” stakeholder viewpoints: What are the advantages of e-books, either instead of or as well as print books? What are the barriers to promotion?
41 3.2.1: Authors 43 3.2.2: Publishers
47 3.2.3: Distributors of e-books: Aggregators
3.2.3a: Examples of e-aggregator pricing models 3.2.3b: Publishers’ pricing models
52 3.2.4: Booksellers 55 3.2.5: Self-Publishers
55 3.2.6: Librarians 1: Higher Education Institutions
3.2.6i: Why Librarians would like to purchase more e-books and encourage greater use of them, and their concerns
3.2.6ia: Access
3.2.6ib: Stock Maintenance and Administrative Tasks
3.2.6ic: Quality of Stock
3.2.6ii: Librarians’ prioritisation of e-book acquisition, with reasons
3.2.6iia: High demand 3.2.6iib: Material types sought 3.2.6iic: Target subjects 3.2.6iid: Specific user groups 3.2.6iie: Constraints
3.2.6iii: Advantages of e-books given by the questionnaire respondents
3.2.6iv: “Neutral” comments given by the questionnaire respondents
3.2.6v: Barriers to uptake given by the questionnaire respondents
3.2.6vi: Barriers to uptake for librarians from previous published and unpublished work, as summarise for the panels
63 3.2.7: Librarians 2: FE Colleges
3.2.7i: FE Librarians: perceived advantages of e-books 3.2.7ii: FE Librarians: perceived barriers to uptake
3.2.7iia: Materials available 3.2.7iib: Technological problems
3.2.7iic: E-books offer no advantage over print 3.2.7iid: Other reasons
68 3.2.8: Librarians 3: Consortia
70 3.2.9: Academics and Lecturers: perceived advantages and barriers to uptake
3.2.9i: Academics
3.2.9ia: Academics: the questionnaire responses 3.2.9ib: Notes on questionnaire analysis
3.2.9ic: Academics: comments from questionnaires 3.2.9ic1: Web resources used for teaching and studying purposes
3.2.9ic2: Other uses for e-books
3.2.9ic3: Where most likely to obtain e-books 3.2.9ic4: On recommending to students 3.2.9ic5: Technical problems
3.2.9ic6: Future use of e-books 3.2.9ic7: Reasons for not using
3.2.9ic8: Views on e-books as a resource for teaching, learning and research
3.2.9ii: Academics: additional information contributed by the focus groups and in-depth interviews
3.2.9iia: Pedagogical and cultural issues
3.2.9iib: Further comments on technical / access issues
3.2.9iic: General issues
3.2.9iid: Price and Publishing issues 3.2.9iii: “Middlemarch” in-depth academic interview responses: extra information
3.2.9iiia: On future use of e-books
80 3.2.10: FE Lecturers
3.2.10i: FE lecturers: the questionnaire responses 3.2.10ii: Notes on questionnaire analysis
FE lecturers: comments from questionnaires
3.2.10iia: Web resources used for teaching and learning materials
3.2.10iib: Technical problems 3.2.10iic: Other problems
3.2.10iie: Views on e-books as a resource for teaching, learning and research
84 3.3: Complementary / Supplementary Support Materials for Print Books
85 3.4: Social and Cultural Issues 86 3.5: The Students
88 3.5.1: Group 1: UWE Postgraduate Management Students
3.5.1i: Responses from the e-book users 3.5.1ia: Types of work for which e- books were used
3.5.1ib: How e-books were obtained 3.5.1ic: Functions of e-books which were used and appreciated
3.5.1id: Technical problems experienced
3.5.1ie: Estimates of future use of e-books
3.5.1if: Other comments from this sub-group
3.5.1ii: Responses from the e-book non-users 3.5.1iia: Comments
3.5.1iib: Functions of e-books which might be used and appreciated: non-user group
3.5.1iic: How e-books would be likely to be obtained
3.5.1iid: Estimates of future use of e-books
3.5.1iie: Comments from this sub- group
92 3.5.2: Group 2: First year undergraduates at the
University of Middlemarch
3.5.2i: Use of e-books: use of web resources 3.5.2ii: Comments
3.5.2iii: Types of work for which e-books were used or thought likely to be used; how they would be obtained; technical problems; reasons for not using, opinions of future use of e-books and likelihood of buying in preference to print if cheaper
3.5.2iiia: Comments: Technical problems 3.5.2iiib: Other problems
3.5.2iiic: Will use of e-books increase in future? 3.5.2iiid: Summary
comments
95 3.5.3: Group 3: Six newly graduated third year Business
students at Huddersfield University
3.5.3i: Summary of questionnaire responses 3.5.3ii: Comments
96 3.5.4: The focus groups
3.5.4i: Middlemarch focus group: extra information
3.5.4ia: Opinions on print books accompanied by electronic materials 3.5.4ib: On part books and “slice-and- dice”
3.5.4ic: On how e-books should be promoted to students
3.5.4ii: Huddersfield focus group: extra information
3.5.4iii: Edgehill focus group: extra information 3.5.4iiia: Perceived advantages and disadvantages of e-books
3.5.4iiib: Atttitudes to paying for printing out and downloading
3.5.4iiic: Attitudes to hand-held readers and use of computers at home
3.5.4iiid: Features students would like to see
3.5.4iiie: On “slice-and-dice”
3.5.4iiif: Who should promote e-books? 102 3.6: Quantitative summary of all student questionnaire
responses 103 3.7: FE Students
103 3.8: Remaining Stakeholders: issues
3.8.1: Hardware and software suppliers 3.8.2: Systems suppliers
3.8.3: Influencing groups 3.8.4: Media
104 Interchapter Summary of the key issues as they relate to the three main user groups, taken from Chapter 3 findings
111 Chapter Four: demand for e-books; library evaluations 111 4.1: Introduction
112 4.2: Assessment and comparison of the various models on offer 114 4.3: Assessment of demand
118 Chapter Five: How e-books are currently being promoted in Further and Higher Education
118 5.1: Perceived advantages and the less rosy reality
119 5.2: How publishers, aggregators and booksellers are promoting e-books 120 5.3: To whom are e-books being promoted, and by whom? To increase
effectiveness of promotion, who should be targeted, and by whom? 125 5.3.1: Notes on HEI librarian views
126 5.3.2: Notes on FE librarian views 127 5.4: Librarians: best practice criteria
128 5.5: What forms of supplier promotional materials and approaches are available?
131 5.5.1: Notes on supplier practice 133 Chapter Six: Cataloguing and Metadata Issues 133 6.1: Introduction
133 6.2: Mechanisms for discovery
134 6.3: Review of metadata and other relevant standards
135 6.4: Collaboration / partnerships between librarians and commercial e-book providers
135 6.5: Integration of e-books into the library acquisition process 136 6.6: Preservation of e-books
136 6.7: Digital Rights Management Data
136 6.8: Recommendations on Cataloguing and Metadata Issues from Panel C 138 Chapter Seven: E-books and Teaching and Learning
138 7.1: Introduction
139 7.2: Academics and Lecturers: attitudes to e-books 141 7.3: Determining the effectiveness of e-books 145 7.4: The use of e-books and e-learning in practice 149 7.5: Student Experiences
151 7.6: Conclusions of this Chapter
152 Chapter Eight: Conclusions and Recommendations 152 8.1: Introductory Notes
152 8.2: Conclusions
155 8.3: Recommendations and Future Promotional Plan
Publishers and Aggregators
Booksellers and Library Suppliers
Librarians at all levels
Academics and Lecturers
JISC 164 The Case Studies
164 No. 1: The Academic Author’s Perspective
165 No. 2: Best Practice in E-Book Promotion by a Publisher: Oxford University Press 166 No. 3: Best Practice in E-Book Promotion by a Publisher: Taylor & Francis 167 No. 4: Best Practice in E-Book Promotion by an Aggregator: netLibrary 169 No. 5: Best Practice in E-Book Promotion by a Bookseller: Swotbooks
170 No. 6: Best Practice in E-Book Promotion by a University Library (1): the University of Aston
172 No. 7: Best Practice in E-Book Promotion by a University Library (2): Edgehill College
174 No. 8: Best Practice in E-Book Promotion by a University Library (3): the University of Huddersfield
176 No. 9: Best Practice in E-Book Promotion by a University Library (4): the University of Staffordshire
178 No. 10: Best Practice in E-Book Promotion by a University Library (5): the University of the West of England
179 No. 11: Best Practice in E-Book Promotion by an HEI Consortium of Four Northern Universities
180 No. 12: Best Practice in E-Book Promotion by an FE College (1): Barnsley College: a study in energy and persistence
181 No. 13: Best Practice in E-Book Promotion by an FE College (2): Yeovil College 182 No. 14: Best Practice in Sharing Resources: how Huddersfield University helps its
FE feeder colleges
184 No. 15: Demystifying I.T., and Promoting Undersatnding of I.T. Resources and how to put them to Practical Use: the INFORMS Project
185 No. 16: Best Practice in Teaching with E-Books: the FE Lecturer’s Perspective 186 No. 17: Best Practice in Studying with E-Books: Ashley’s Perspective
188 Appendix One: Methodology 195 Acknowledgements
List of Figures
Page Figure
35 Figure 1: The traditional academic print book supply chain 36 Figure 2: The academic print book information supply chain 37 Figure 3: The academic e-book supply chain
38 Figure 4: The academic e-book information supply chain 40 Figure 5: Duke Study: Titles used in print or e-book
40 Figure 6: Duke Study: Circulating print titles, before and after introduction of e-book
117 Figure 7: Aston University: netLibrary usage, Oct. 02 – May 03 117 Figure 8: Aston University: CRC Press usage, Oct. 02 – May 03
117 Figure 9: Aston University: Wiley Encyclopaedias usage, Oct. 02 – May 03
List of Tables
Page Table
52 Table 1: Ebrary customer endorsement sheet: indicates advantages of product
58 Table 2: Promoting the Uptake of E-Books: HEI Library Analysis No. 1 65 Table 3: Promoting the Uptake of E-Books: FE Library Analysis No. 1 71 Table 4: Promoting the Uptake of E-Books: Academic Analysis No. 1 81 Table 5: Promoting the Uptake of E-Books: FE Lecturer Analysis No. 1 103 Table 6: Promoting the Uptake of E-Books: Student Analysis No. 1:
summary of responses from all students who answered the questionnaire
112 Table 7: Consortium of Irish universities’ criteria for selecting e-books supplier
112 Table 8: Consortium of Irish universities’ matching of supplier attributes against their requirements
121 Table 9: Promoting the Uptake of E-Books: Academic Analysis No. 2 121 Table 10: Promoting the Uptake of E-Books: FE Lecturer Analysis No. 2 122 Table 11: Promoting the Uptake of E-Books: Student Analysis No. 2 124 Table 12: Promoting the Uptake of E-Books: HEI Library Analysis No. 2 126 Table 13: Promoting the Uptake of E-Books: FE Library Analysis No. 2 128 Table 14: Promoting the Uptake of E-Books: effective routes to promotion 129 Table 15: Ways in which commercial suppliers promote e-books
Preface
A Note on the Structure and Format of the Report
It has been the objective to make this report as entertaining and easy to use aspossible. As far as possible, it has been presented in book format, through a series of chapters. Additional information that may be of interest to some groups has been consigned to footnotes, to improve the flow. Diagrams have been used to explain complex processes. Frequent section headings and headers have been introduced to help the reader to navigate the contents, and the main sections are numbered. It contains a great deal of original research. Anonymity was guaranteed to all the questionnaire and focus group participants, except when they gave permission to be quoted. At the same time, it was believed that the identification of as many
organisations and individuals as possible would make the report more interesting to read, and for this reason large sections of the main text and all of the case studies have been vetted by those whose work and organisations they feature. I am grateful to them for their permission, and for undertaking the vetting process.
It is JISC’s intention for the report to be used by all stakeholder groups (except, perhaps, students), and since it is therefore envisaged that not many people will want to read all of it, it is hoped that the division into sections will make it a useful working tool. Again for ease of reading, and because addressing single issues detracts from the presentation of a complex picture, only some of the JISC objectives (such as the consideration of metadata, which obviously benefits from discrete treatment) have been addressed individually. An holistic approach has been adopted when addressing many of the issues in the central Chapter 3, and the key findings then teased out and presented in the grid which follows it. The Methodology is explained in detail in
Appendix One.
The aim is for the narrative to tell a story, the story of the current status quo of academic e-book promotion in the UK. The case studies, if read in sequence, tell the more optimistic story of how it is being done at its best at the present time.
I should like to stress again my indebtedness to the dozens of people who have made this report possible, by giving freely of their time and advice. I have tried to list them all in the Acknowledgements, and apologise if I have unwittingly made any
omissions. Likewise, any errors that still lurk in this final version are entirely my own, and I apologise for them.
Executive Summary
1. Within the context of academic publishing, there is not an adequate definition for the term “e-book”, and this is a source of confusion and therefore a barrier to uptake.
2. The wide diversity of software and hardware products associated with e-books are a cause of confusion and therefore a barrier to uptake.
3. E-books, if adopted in a widespread fashion, would provide an answer to some of the challenges currently being faced by higher and further education. These include a burgeoning student population which must be supported by decreasing per capita resources; a changing student profile, reflected in the increasing numbers of mature, part-time and distance learning students; the adoption of Managed Learning Environments (MLEs) and Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs) at many educational institutions; students’ lack of funds for purchasing books.
4. Social and cultural issues related to expectations of the e-book as a teaching, learning and research resource compared with the print book constitute a barrier to uptake. How e-books are actually being used, and how they might in future be developed for educational use, are areas which are not well understood. Within the contexts of usage and evolution of uptake, it may not be helpful to compare e-books with perceived “related” products, for example, audio books, electronically disseminated music, e-journals, print books.
5. The main “active stakeholder” groups in the e-book supply chain have been identified as authors, publishers, aggregators, booksellers, librarians,
academics, lecturers, students and hardware / software providers. Publishers and aggregators consider that librarians occupy a pivotal role in promoting e-books, and concentrate less on the other user groups. This in itself constitutes a major barrier to uptake. There are two other stakeholder groups, which have been identified respectively as passive stakeholders and influencing
stakeholders. “Passive stakeholders” include digital content providers, systems providers and the developers of MLE and VLE systems for educational institutions. “Influencing stakeholders” include professional bodies such as the PA, the BA, UKOLN, and JISC; professional standards bodies such as BIC and OpeneBook; commercial bibliographical information providers such as Nielsen Bookdata and Bowker; local, regional and national training bodies, departments and individuals; the media; and social / political influencers, including the government and its educational initiatives.
6. There are differences between the print book and e-book physical and information supply chains. The e-book information supply chain (for the reason given in 5 above) is imperfect. Awareness of the main user groups, especially of academics, lecturers and students, but also, in some cases and for some products, of librarians, is low. This constitutes a major barrier to uptake. 7. Many publishers are reluctant to make their publications available in e-book
effect on their revenues. This is especially true of the major textbook publishers, who have instead invested heavily in producing supplementary / complementary electronic materials to support print books. These related points constitute a barrier to uptake.
8. Both publishers and aggregators have developed a wide range of charging techniques for e-books, some of which are difficult to understand. With many variations, the pricing mechanisms adopt two basic approaches: a charge which bears some relationship to the cost of the corresponding print book, and a licensing fee, based on access by a maximum number of users over a given period of time, which bears no relation to the print book cost. The latter approach in particular makes it difficult for purchasers to understand whether they are receiving value for money. This constitutes a barrier to uptake. 9. Booksellers have experimented with e-books in a limited way, but are finding
it difficult to carve out a role for themselves in the e-book supply chain (although some library suppliers are beginning to see that their services are needed, and have responded accordingly). As they are therefore not filling the important role of information providers that they occupy in the print book information supply chain, this constitutes a barrier to uptake.
10.The four major points made in 9 above should be linked to the major point made in 5 and 6 above: promoting awareness of e-books to the right people and through the right people is critical.
11.E-book users - librarians, academics, lecturers and students - have identified a whole raft of barriers to uptake, as well as the advantages that e-books offer to them, which are examined in detail in Chapter Three. It is suggested that from this comprehensive range of issues, the following are the major ones that need to be addressed if uptake of e-books is to reach its full potential in further and higher education in the UK:
Availability of the publications that are required in e-book format.
Congenial and appropriate (to the subject matter) presentation of the material, so that it is found to be equal or superior to other formats within the context that it is being used.
A price structure which is viable for all stakeholders (i.e., all suppliers and end-users).
Near-universal access of students to the Internet and appropriate hardware.
12.46 responses to the HEI librarians’ questionnaire were received, and of these 41 (89%) were e-book subscribers. 90% of the subscribers said that they bought e-books for reference purposes; 61% bought e-books to provide access to material not purchased in print; 63% bought e-books with the intention of providing a distance-learning service; 41% bought them to provide additional copies; and 44% to provide supplementary texts. It should be noted that some of these responses will have been skewed by limitations of availability, and also in some cases by librarians’ imperfect knowledge of what was available.
13.Actual expenditure on e-books by HEI institution was relatively low. 30 of the respondents gave details of their expenditure per annum on both e-books and print books, and among these expenditure on e-books represented an average of 3% of expenditure on print books. The average spend figure was £10,546 per institution, against an average spend of £316,394 on print books. The highest and lowest spending “old” universities spent 10% and 0.03% of their print book expenditure respectively on e-books. The highest and lowest spending “new” universities spent 10% and 0.07% respectively.
14.37 responses to the FE librarians’ questionnaire were received, and of these 7 (19%) were e-book subscribers. The sample of subscribers was too small for any pattern in purpose on e-book acquisition to be identified. Of the 7 subscribers, the average spend on e-books was 5% of the spend on print books. The average spend figure was £2,488 per institution, against an average spend of £50,833 on print books.
15.24 responses to the academics’ questionnaire were received, from six universities. The responders were “hand-picked” by librarians at their
institutions, who identified them as people with an active interest in e-books. Despite this perception, 6 of the academics (25%) did not know that the university had an e-books collection and 9 (37%) were not using e-books. Purposes for which the academics accessed e-books were evenly spread: 33% were using e-books for lecture preparation; 38% to prepare course material / handouts; 38% to carry out research; 8% to consult tables and formulae; 42% for general reference; and 42% for private reading / pleasure.
The academics were likely to obtain e-books from a variety of sources. 75% were likely to obtain e-books from the university library; 13% were likely to obtain them from other libraries; 21% were likely to obtain them direct from publishers; 21% from booksellers; and 58% were likely to obtain them free from the Internet. Again, the results may have been skewed by availability issues and limited knowledge caused by poor promotion.
16.20 responses to the FE lecturers’ questionnaire were received, from 16 FE colleges. The responders answered a request for help put out through the RSCs by Paul Davy of JISC, and therefore comprised a more random sample than the academics. Despite this, it became apparent that most of the
responders were enthusiastic users of learning applications, and use of e-books by the lecturer group (55%) was only 8% lower than for the academics. The sample was too small to be able to assess how typically they represented the FE lecturer population.
Only 25% of the FE lecturers were aware that their college had an e-books collection. It was without the scope of the study to conduct a check on how many of the colleges concerned actually had e-book collections, but at least one of the lecturers was unaware that his college held a (considerable) e-book resource. 25% of the lecturers used e-books for lecture preparation; 45% to prepare course material / handouts; 30% to carry out research; 5% to consult tables / formulae; 45% for reference information; and 10% for private reading / pleasure.
30% were likely to obtain e-books from the college library; 20% were likely to obtain them from other libraries; 35% were likely to obtain them direct from publishers; 5% were likely to obtain them from booksellers; and 60% were likely to obtain them free from the Internet, making this by far their most likely single source.
17.Three groups of students responded to the questionnaire, and two student focus groups were held. These students were studying at different levels, and in different learning environments, and therefore their responses have been analysed separately in Chapter Three. The following is a summary of all of their questionnaire responses:
There were 28 student respondents, from three universities. Each of the universities had an e-books collection, and 54% of the students were aware of this. 88% of the students had attended a library training session, and 58% of these remembered that it included information about e-books. 88% of the students used the web for studying and learning, and 39% of these used e-books.
3% were likely to use e-books to prepare for lectures and seminars; none were likely to use them to help prepare for examinations; 32% were likely to use them to aid in the preparation of essays and coursework; 7% were likely to use them to consult tables and formulae; 18% were likely to use them for general reference information; and none were likely to use them for private reading / pleasure.
The students were uncertain about where to obtain e-books. As part of the brief for the questionnaire, they were told that the library had an e-books collection, and 75% said that they would be likely to try to obtain e-books from the library. 25% said that they would be likely to obtain e-books from other libraries; 11% said they would be likely to obtain them direct from the publishers; 11% said they would be likely to obtain them from booksellers; 18% said that they would be likely to obtain e-books free from the Internet. Owing to the time of year at which the study was undertaken, only six
responses were received to the questionnaire from FE students, all at the same college. This sample was too small to be of significance. However, 3 of the responding students made the same comment: “E-books should be better publicised”.
18. Some academics and lecturers use e-books in innovative ways: their ideas could be disseminated more widely.
19.Students are confused about e-books and very imperfectly aware of them. However, most are willing to try them.
20.It is particularly important that e-books feature on the main vehicle of
information used by most students: the reading list. Among the academics and lecturers consulted, most agreed that it would be a good idea to put e-books on reading lists, but few were actually doing this.
21.Among the issues to be resolved by the other stakeholders, the greatest single barrier to uptake with regard to software and hardware is the lack of a
common platform for e-books. The Open E-Book Forum is trying to address this. Systems failure or breakdown is also an issue which was raised by librarians, academics, lecturers and students. There is the further important concern of whether there is static or dynamic linking between e-books and the library and related systems. A JISC working group has been set up to examine the last in more detail. Cross-industry influencing bodies such as PALS and JISC itself could help tremendously by taking practical action to promote e-books. Learned journals read by academics, lecturers and librarians could be encouraged to carry out and publish reviews of e-books.
22.A summary of the key issues as they relate to the three main user groups (Librarians, Academics / Lecturers and Students) is supplied in the grid placed between Chapters Three and Four.
23.Assessing potential demand for e-books is difficult, because of the imperfect information supply chain already identified, and because usage statistics provided by publishers and aggregators are often difficult to understand, and invariably inadequate for determining the quality and extent of usage. Some modest successes and a few spectacular ones have been recorded by referring to such usage statistics as are available. Of more significance in establishing potential demand is that 71% of academics, 80% of FE lecturers and 72% of students taking part in this study said that they would buy the e-book in preference to the print book if it were significantly cheaper.
24.Some detailed analysis of individual e-book products has been undertaken by separate groups of librarians; this work, some of which is reproduced in
Chapter Four, was time-consuming to produce, is very useful and could be shared more widely.
25.Librarians, academics and lecturers promote e-books in a variety of ways, which have been recorded in Chapter Five. Some of these constitute best practice, and could profitably be shared more widely. Librarians, in particular, should not blame end-users for poor uptake; should put e-books on the
catalogue; should offer targeted e-book training sessions; should work with academics on selecting suitable e-books; and should evaluate user feedback and usage statistics, and act upon them. Publishers and aggregators should also adopt as wide a variety of methods to promote e-books as possible. Examples of methods currently used are also recorded in Chapter Five. This study suggests that the most important things to get right are:
a) to ensure that the right people are being promoted to in the right way with the right products (i.e., that the information supply chain issues are being addressed).
b) that a mixture of print, personal and electronic promotional approaches are used, as being most effective (but that it should be noted that costs of promotion have to be borne, and by the customer).
c) that promotional attempts by all relevant stakeholders should be underpinned by the following abstract attributes: enterprising, pragmatic, energetic, innovative, and focused.
d) that imperfect (from the librarian’s point of view) provision of
cataloguing and metadata for e-books, though important, should not be allowed by librarians to constitute a barrier to uptake in itself.
26.Despite the point made in 18c) above, there is a number of cataloguing and metadata issues which should be resolved in order to achieve maximum uptake. These concern the listing of what is available in e-book format, how it should be described, and how to find it within the context of a library
collection The Cataloguing and Metadata panel, which considered these issues, offered the following recommendations as a result of its findings: a) Providers of bibliographic databases should be urged to include
e-books; the benefits of providing information to them should be explained to publishers.
b) The e-book intermediary services should be encouraged to work with the bibliographic database services to provide a comprehensive listing of e-books available and from whom they can be obtained.
c) OPACs and other bibliographical databases should be searchable by product form, but also provide links between paper and digital versions of the same product.
d) AACR2 should take better account of e-books and provide more guidance on their cataloguing.
e) The library community should be encouraged to ensure persistence of links by using DOIs or URNs.
f) Metadata elements should include the basic Dublin Core elements, Publisher Statement to clarify who is the actual publisher and who is the distributor, Bibliographic History providing information on other formats, publishers’ blurbs and abstracts to facilitate both selection and subject classification.
g) The benefits to publishers of Z39.50 compliance should be investigated.
h) The use of ONIX to expose metadata for OAI harvesting should be explored and piloted.
i) Policies regarding deposit of corrected and updated digital products should be articulated.
j) The work of ISO/IETC JTC1/SC29/WG11 (MPEG) in developing standards for a Rights Data Dictionary and Rights Expression Language should be monitored and publicised.
27.Writing on pedagogical issues, Huw Morris identified four types of academic (defined by attitude) e-book user: “synics”, surface adopters, strategic users and systemic believers. He concluded that there are at present relatively few ardent advocates of e-books among the academic community (represented by the last of these groups), because there is still uncertainty about which of the
technologies labelled “e-books” will become the industry standard; as a result few further and higher education lecturing staff have explored the full variety of ways in which the technology might be used to support teaching and
promote student learning. He foresees that it is likely that in the near future an increasing number of educational staff and students will “use e-books
alongside hardbacks and paperbacks”; and says that in order to make the most of this, there is a need for planning and development at national, institutional and departmental levels.
28.The following is a headline summary of the recommendations of this report. (The Cataloguing and Metadata recommendations are given separately in para. 26 above).
A. Publishers and Aggregators:
1. Drive e-book demand by making more content available.
2. Maximise e-book functional potential; follow the print book route and e-journals.
3. Persevere with business model experimentation in immature market. 4. Persevere with usage model, avoid restrictive DRM.
5. Assuage the netLibrary, Betamax, wrong platform jitters. 6. Promote and communicate to HE / FE.
7. Exploit metadata for discovery.
8. Promote and communicate internally within publishing houses.
B. Booksellers and Library Suppliers:
1. Assert your place in the e-book distribution and information supply chains.
2. Think innovatively in order to capitalise on the potential of e-book sales, rather than agonising over the drawbacks.
3. Think innovatively by working with new channel partners.
C. Librarians at all levels:
1. Maximise e-book discovery and access.
2. Promote and communicate to users and patrons. 3. Focus pilot activity.
4. Remember the best practice tenets. 5. Build new partnerships.
6. Help to maintain best practice.
D. Academics:
1. Work towards greater certainty in standards and practices. 2. Promote debate through the commissioning of special features
in the educational press.
3. Encourage the establishment of senior management groups within institutions, which bring together all stakeholders to plan
development of e-learning and e-book resources.
4. Review possibility of including e-learning specifications in teaching and learning strategies.
6. Ensure that staff are provided with continuous professional development time and resources, including the opportunity to review e-books.
7. Consider making funding available to promote experimentation with use of e-books by regional consortia.
8. Encourage the sponsorship of a nationally recognised qualification for learning technologists.
E. JISC:
1. Generally, make librarians and academics more aware of JISC and its activities, particularly, in this context, in the e-book field. 2. Capitalise on existing e-book initiatives; support wider e-book initiatives.
3. Commission targeted follow-up work based on the findings of this
study.
4. Lobby / negotiate within the wider community.
29.A series of case studies, including examples of best practice, has been developed for this study. These are given in supply chain order at the end of this report, and, if read as a continuous narrative, highlight how some of the perceived barriers to uptake can be removed, and how e-books can be promoted more fully by a wider range of institutions and individuals.
Chapter One
Academic e-books: an overview of the current commercial,
technological, educational and social context
1.1 Definition, history and evolution
What is an “e-book”?1 The question may seem facile, but the confusion caused by the lack of an acceptable definition of what an e-book is has becomeabundantly clear during the course of the research undertaken for this report, and this confusion in itself also constitutes a barrier to uptake. Conventionally speaking, there are two major types of e-book: the electronic version of a whole text (for example, of a book that already exists in print); or a database of linked materials, some but not all of which may exist in a print version (for example, scientific encyclopaedias which include interactive tables). Although most librarians include database versions when they are discussing e-books, many individuals (lecturers, academics, students, even some publishers) assume that the term refers to electronic versions of discrete books only. The working definition used by JISC is “an online version of printed books, accessed via the Internet”; although this may provide an adequate working tool for the JISC E-Books Working Group, it has variously been described as “too broad”, “too imprecise” and “misleadingly suggesting whole texts only” by contributors to this report. Patently, it does not apply to e-book originals. Other definitions of e-books deliberately exclude the database versions:
“I’d describe them as computer files embodying the content of a book that can be viewed on an e-book reader. What they’re not is the sort of product where material that could be published in a book is used within some larger software package – an …. encyclopaedia or an electronic dictionary are probably not e-books.”1
Non-conventional thinkers would broaden the term to include almost any electronic resource: they would argue that a website, a CDROM, even an e-mail might in some circumstances be described as an e-book. This report concerns itself mainly with commercially available products that have been named “e-books” by those who supply them; but it is useful when reading it to keep in mind both the lack of an niversally accepted definition, and the possibilities that the term might embrace. u
Products called e-books have existed in some form for a long time, from perhaps as early as the 1950s, but they first became widely available as a result of Project Gutenberg, which was founded in 1971 by Michael Hart, sometimes described as a “visionary ahead of his time”2, whose ambition was and is to make information, books and other materials available to the general public in forms a “vast majority of the computers, programs and people”3 can easily read, use, quote and search, at little or no cost. The absence of cost means that most if not all of the books available from this source are out of copyright. In 2002, Hart claimed that there were 5,000 e-books in the Project Gutenberg collection, separated into three categories: reference works, light literature and heavy literature.
1
“E-Books: A Traditional Publisher’s Perspective”, paper by Graham Bell, Harper Collins, delivered at “E-Books and the Supply Chain of the Future”, a PIRA conference, on 26th April 2001.
2
The Second Gutenberg, http://promo.net/pg/upi_interview_05_02.html. Accessed 30/06/2003 3
After Project Gutenberg, e-book initiatives gradually gathered momentum: for example, Oxford University Press has been selling reference material via on-line databases since the mid-1980s. HarperCollins, the first British trade publisher to enter the e-book market, launched with the The E before Christmas in December 2000, shortly after the huge wave of publicity caused by Stephen King’s free e-book, Riding the Bullet, which reportedly achieved 5,000 downloads during its first 48 hours of availability.
Among general UK booksellers, W.H. Smith’s and Amazon now sell e-books (both via digital warehouses, which are described later in this chapter), and of the academic booksellers and library suppliers operating in the UK, Blackwell’s (retail and library supply), Coutts, Dawson’s, John Smith’s and Swotbooks all have e-book offerings, though some of them are limited to links to the Taylor and Francis eBookstore and none of them currently claims to be achieving significant e-book sales.
Commercial provision of academic e-books greatly accelerated in the late 1990s, partly owing to the well-publicised founding of netLibrary4 in the United States in 1998. netLibrary is an e-book aggregator. Its vision is to make collections of academic books, both those still in copyright and those out of copyright, available in PDF electronic format to academic institutions. The first British institutional
subscriptions to netLibrary began in 2000.
Other collection-based offers from aggregators – for example, books24x75 – have been developed which present the texts in XML format. Some academic publishers have created strong e-book initiatives: for example, Taylor and Francis6, which set up its eBookstore7 in 2001, seeks to sell e-books direct to individuals via its website, to individuals and libraries via booksellers linking to its website and NetLibrary, and direct to libraries via JISC initiatives8. Other academic publishers – including many of the major textbook publishers – are very reluctant to get involved with the e-book market to any significant degree. A representative from a giant international
academic publishing house, interviewed for this report, said:
“Supplementary / complementary learning materials to accompany textbooks are of most importance to our electronic development strategy. At present … our aim is to secure and improve market share for the business in what it perceives to be a weak market, suffering from economic down-turn.”9
There is a further group of academic publishers that is interested in e-books, but has either not yet worked out its e-book strategy, or is deliberately waiting to see how the market develops before making a commitment.
These first few introductory paragraphs already touch on some of the rich complexity and ambivalence which, because of its mode of evolution, has permeated the e-book 4 www.netLibrary.com. 5 www.books24x7.com. 6
See also Case Study No. 3. 7
www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk. 8
A JISC consultation document on licensing electronic books (Taylor & Francis Collections) was issued in May 2003, and at the time of writing is still being assessed by potential takers.
9
market. In the first place (in common with other products accessed or sold via the Internet, but enhanced by awareness of Project Gutenberg and other free e-book initiatives such as Riding the Bullet), there is a user perception that e-books should be either free or cheaper than print books. Secondly, whether or not they agree with this proposition, publishers are not yet in a position to understand how e-books will affect their established revenue streams. Academic publishers, in particular, are afraid of losing sales in their core textbook market: and the larger ones have already invested considerable sums of money in providing on-line support materials to print texts, rather than making the texts themselves available in e-format. Thirdly, there is the lack of a commonly understood definition described at the start of this chapter. Fourthly – as evidenced by the limited bookseller involvement and low bookseller sales, and by the direct involvement of a major author (the famous example of Stephen King has been taken from trade publishing, but some academic authors are also experimenting with the provision of free e-books) in allowing free electronic access to his work – e-books, in common with many new technologies, have disrupted the traditional book supply chain. One significant result of this disruption, which will be explored in greater detail in the next chapter, is that some of the principal supply chain targets have been displaced, but not necessarily to good effect. For example, currently the librarian, and not the academic, is perceived by many publishers and most e-book aggregators as the key figure to target with academic e-book products, though academics and students, not librarians, are the main end-users of e-books. Similarly, aggregators are the most wholehearted commercial promoters of academic e-books, but they too are intermediaries and, unlike publishers, neither originators of the material nor, like booksellers, able to offer specialist expertise in the fields of knowledge that they purvey. The roles both of the librarian and the aggregator, and the robustness of the current e-book supply chain within the academic context, will be examined in detail in Chapter 2.
1.2 E-books: basic technological information
All of the ground covered in this section may be found in greater detail elsewhere, but since the format and means of accessing e-books invariably baffles newcomers (a further barrier to uptake), a brief explanation of e-book technology is included at this stage.
1.3 e-book Readers
In order to access an e-book, a piece of software called an e-book Reader is necessary. This may be downloaded from the Internet, or supplied by the manufacturer on an installation CDROM.
There are several, and have in the recent past been many more, different proprietary e-book Readers. The most successful and well-known are probably Microsoft Reader and Adobe Acrobat e-Book Reader; others have not succeeded commercially and have therefore “died” – examples include Versaware and Franklin eBookman. However, there are essentially just two formats:
1. Page-based PDF formats, e.g., the Adobe Acrobat e-book Reader (formerly called Glassbook), which preserves the “look” and all design elements of each page of the print book. This has recently been re-branded Adobe Reader 6.
2. Stream-based XML-type formats, such as those favoured by Open e-Book (OEB), Microsoft Reader, Gemstar (formerly called RocketBook) and Palm Reader (formerly called Peanut Reader) which divide up the text into
“screenfuls” as it is read. Re-flowable text is often used to describe this type of format, too.
E-books can be accessed via a piece of dedicated hardware, also often called an e-book Reader (the fact that this term has been applied to both software and hardware products is responsible for much confusion – device is a clearer word to use) –
Gemstar is an example; via a Pocket PC or a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) – Palm is an example; or via a desktop or laptop PC. Early adopters are also experimenting with access via mobile phones. At present, the academic community has concentrated on PC access; but a number of experiments which involve using PDAs for electronic learning are currently taking place in the UK, and the vanguard of the education industry is exploring the potential of mobile phones10.
Some (software) Readers are bundled with the Operating System (OS) of the device; for example, a Palm device will come with the Palm Reader on an installation CD: this is a software distribution decision, not a functional outcome. The owner of a Palm will not be able to run Microsoft Reader: there is a program development decision by Microsoft not to support the Palm platform. Others are device-independent, and the Reader can be downloaded for whichever device the user owns. Microsoft and Adobe are all platform independent formats and can run on more than one OS.
Gemstar is an example of a software reader that will only run on one proprietary OS. E-books which are accessed via relational databases and large (though discrete) reference works often need specialised software, because the default software is not sufficiently powerful: extra search and display functionality may be needed. For example, for Wiley on-line products11 the user will usually need to be in possession of a device or PC which runs a recent version of Windows and Internet Explorer or Netscape, and some Wiley e-books need “plug-ins” – these are additional pieces of software that make applications work, e.g., Macromedia Flash, which are free with the product and have to work in real time. The full versions of these products can be expensive, but most institutions have a licence for them; the publisher therefore provides a free download of a limited version that will enable access to the text. (“Plug-ins” can cause technical problems, and publishers tend to regard them as a necessary evil.)
For libraries, putting e-books on their computer systems can create complications relating to catalogue integration and user access. Systems failure is still common in some university libraries, which may mean that academics are reluctant to rely too heavily on e-learning products. Technological issues relating to e-books are covered more completely in Chapter 3.
10
See, for example, the book of abstracts published after the MLEARN 2003 “Learning with Mobile Devices” conference, which was organised by the Learning and Skills Development Agency and took place in London on 19th-20th May 2003. www.LSDA.org.uk/events/mlearn2003.
11
Wiley on-line products can be inspected free of charge at http://he-cda.wiley.com/WileyCDA/section/id-100272.html.
Publishers wishing to sell e-books either through booksellers or direct to the customer may choose to obtain an effective and relatively cheap way of offering product, running a transaction and delivery service, and managing digital rights and royalties payments by employing a digital content wholesaler. This has been well described as “a prefabricated electronic retail service.”12 ContentReserve (run by Overdrive)13 and Lightning Source14 are examples of digital content warehouses that operate both in the UK and the US. Each has developed a slightly different model, but essentially their function is to include content in a digital warehouse catalogue consisting of thousands of titles in various e-book formats, from which retail sites can select the titles they will (virtually) sell. Publishers are able to restrict access to their titles to whichever retail sites they choose. They can also use the content warehouse to “back-end” their own branded websites – obviously, in this case they would only feature their own product. Lightning Source currently supplies Powells.com and Booksite.com, Amazon US, UK, DE and JP, and publisher websites such as wiley.com and
cliffnotes.com; ContentReserve supplies, among others W.H. Smith and Swotbooks in the UK, and Follett’s in the US. Kluwer is one example of a major academic
publisher that uses ContentReserve’s bespoke publisher website option.
It should be emphasised that digital wholesalers are entirely invisible to the purchaser. Their role is limited to operating an electronic back-office facility, albeit a
comprehensive and sophisticated one. They have been mentioned here because of their stakeholder status in the emerging e-book supply chain. Distribution issues are discussed further in Chapter 3.
1.4 Finding E-books
It can be a major challenge for a librarian or other would-be e-book purchaser to find out whether the book that they want is available in e-format. There are two reasons for this: the first is that there is no comprehensive commercial bibliographical repository for e-books15; the second is that cataloguing e-books, both from the
publisher’s and the librarian’s perspective, is a complex process for which recognised standards have yet to be fully worked out. Chapter 6 examines cataloguing and metadata issues in more detail.
1.5 Buying E-books
The individual who wishes to buy an e-book can purchase it either from a bookseller’s or a publisher’s website. If it is a first-time purchase, he or she will need to download the appropriate Reader at the same time. Failure to download the Reader properly, either because the transaction takes too long and the purchaser gets cut off, or because the purchaser fails to perform the action correctly, is the main cause of customer complaints about e-books.16 Most but not all e-books are cheaper than print books,
12
By Ann Lawson of Oxford University Press, in a confidential in-house report written in 2002 which she has kindly put at the disposal of the current project. I am also indebted to her for some of the detail about e-book software and hardware attributes in this section.
13
www.overdrive.com
14
www.lightningsource.com
15
Nielsen BookData lists some e-books if the details are supplied to them by publishers. 16
Both a prominent publisher and a prominent bookseller concurred that complaint rates run at about 10% of all purchases. As the publisher said: “This is far too high, given the small size of the market.” Publisher Interview No. 4.
though VAT is a complicating factor17. The role of VAT in academic publishing itself needs to be explored more fully, as educational institutions don’t pay VAT (but private consumers do, even if they are students). Publishers appear not to have made this distinction when establishing prices. Some publishers operate a pricing model that varies according to whether the purchaser wishes to read only, download part of the book or print part of the book.18 Others are considering charging a premium price for certain publications for which they feel the e-version offers added value.19 Whatever the charging structure, it is fairly easy for the individual customer to assess whether or not they think that they are being offered value for money. Conversely, for libraries and other institutional customers, the situation is complex. In a relatively short period of time, the publishing and e-aggregator industries have managed to devise a rich proliferation of pricing models for e-book collections20. These fall into two basic categories: price structures which per book bear a relation to the print price; and price structures based on licensing arrangements, which bear no relation to the print price. The publisher or e-aggregator is also responsible for supplying the library with usage statistics, but often these are difficult to analyse. This combination of factors can make it exceedingly difficult for the librarian to assess whether e-books represent value for money for his or her institution. Publisher issues are discussed in detail in Chapter 3; pricing models and usage statistics are respectively examined further in Chapters 3 and 4.
1.6 E-books and E-learning within the current academic context
It is outside the scope of this report to consider in detail the various government initiatives that have shaped further and higher education in the UK during the past decade, but some pointers to the educational context within which academic e-books are being promoted may be useful:
• In 1992, the UK’s polytechnics were given university status, as part of a plan to make higher education accessible to all who wanted it (sometimes referred to as “the massification of education”). Once a common funding mechanism was established for all higher education institutions, many older universities also expanded their student numbers, while across the board there was a declining unit of resource (both from teaching and ancillary support services such as libraries) available per student. More recently, the current Prime Minister has stated that “50% participation” is a government objective, meaning that the government’s aim is for 50% of the 18 – 30 year old age group eventually to be graduates. Since the polytechnics achieved university status, a number of other institutions have been given the right to count themselves universities, and therefore to award degrees autonomously. Many
17
“The original pricing principle adopted …. was that e-books would be 20% cheaper than paper books. Now they are the same price as paper, but in effect cheaper. This is because the electronic price “hides” the VAT. Customers don’t appreciate this.” Publisher Interview No. 3.
18
“[We] have a simple model. If someone wants read-only rights, they are charged 50% of the printed book’s cover price. They are charged 80% of the cover price for Read, View and Print. For slice-and-dice, there is a sliding scale matrix based on per-page access.” Publisher Interview No. 7.
19
“[We] are looking to increase the price of some products – e.g., some lexical dictionaries which are excellent compared to their competitors.” Publisher Interview No. 9.
20
colleges of further education have also begun to teach to degree level under the auspices of a “host” or “parent” university. At the same time, they continue to teach a wide range of courses at a lower level, including Basic Skills courses, “A” levels, National Certificate and Higher National Certificate (HNC), Higher National Diploma (HND), and numerous vocational courses. Conversely, some universities (mainly the “new” ones created in 1992) also teach HNCs, HNDs and some vocational courses.
• In 1997, Sir Ron Dearing presented a report commissioned by the National Committee of Enquiry into Higher Education, Higher Education in the
Learning Society21. It recommended the use of Information Technology as a key way forward in addressing the time and cost challenges created by the burgeoning university student population.
Similar points were made by Helena Kennedy in 1997 in a report commissioned by the Further Education Funding Council22.
• Also in 1997 came the Fryer Report on lifelong learning.23 This and a government White Paper24, issued the previous year, together represented the British response to the challenges highlighted during the European Year of Lifelong Learning (1996). In the latter paper, lifelong learning is described as follows:
“Lifetime learning is not a Government programme, or the property of one institution. It is a shared goal relating to the attitudes and behaviour of many employers, individuals and organisations. Government has a part to play but governments alone cannot achieve the cultural changes involved in making a reality of lifetime learning.”25
The letter sent out to institutions at the time that the report was published highlighted three main points:
a growing awareness of the importance of lifetime learning in maintaining competitiveness and employability
the effectiveness of government policies in working with partners to promote a culture of lifetime learning
the effort and commitment at all levels to deliver lifetime learning on the ground.26
Academic institutions that wished to make lifelong learning a serious objective also noted that it meant working in closer partnership, and in more innovative ways, with business and industry. Once again, I.T. was invoked as a principal enabling instrument.
21
National Committee of Inquiry into Higher Education. “Higher Education in the Learning Society: the Dearing Report.” London, HMSO, 1997.
22
Further Education Funding Council. “Learning Works: Widening Participation in Further Education: the Kennedy Report.” Coventry, FEFC, 1977.
23
National Advisory Group for Continuing Education and Lifelong Learning. “Learning for the Twenty-First Century: First Report of the National Adviser Group for Continuing Education and Lifelong Learning: the Fryer Report.” NAGCELL, 1997.
24
Department for Education and Employment. “Lifetime Learning: a Policy Framework”. DfEE, London, 1996.
25
Ibid., p.4 26
Quoted by Elliott, Lifelong Learning: the Politics of the New Learning Environment, Jessica Kingsley, London, 1999, 1 85302 580 1. p.33
• In 1998, the government introduced annual university tuition fees of £1,000 (thereafter index-linked to inflation), payable by all but the poorest parents of students. By this time, the student maintenance grant had been phased out, except for those from very modest backgrounds or studying in circumstances of especial difficulty, and replaced with a loan, to be repaid in instalments after the student graduated and reached a certain earning level. The effect of this on students’ ability and willingness to purchase books and other learning resource materials has been widely debated, and will be returned to later in the report.
• As the twentieth century drew to a close, some of the new universities founded in 1992 and later, and indeed some of the older foundations, found it
increasingly hard to remain out of debt. This is a problem that has worsened during the first three years of this century, to the point where some institutions face the prospect of bankruptcy and closure. Temporary teaching contracts, long a feature of the further education landscape, and of pre-1992 universities focused on research, have become increasingly common in higher education, and enforced staff redundancies (almost unheard of in the past) have been made at some institutions. Universities have responded by trying to attract students from more diverse backgrounds, and by offering them more flexible study options. Mature students, part-time students and distance-learning students based both in the UK and overseas have all been targeted, and some have been able to choose courses which involve little or no attendance at the awarding institution.27
• As a response to many of the issues and challenges outlined above, universities have become increasingly interested in developing Managed Learning Environments (MLEs) and Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs)28. For a time, there was a confusing proliferation of these, but it would now appear that Blackboard and Web CT are emerging as the two market leaders. Installation of these applications heralds an opportunity for new approaches to learning and teaching methods, including the incorporation of (usually in the form of chapters or excerpts) e-books into learning materials.
This very brief account attempts to paint the commercial and educational
backdrop against which academic e-books first began to be promoted in the UK in 2000. It is interesting to note that most of the seminal papers on academic e-books written in this country date from the years 2000 and 2001, shortly after their “launch”.
27
It is perhaps worth pointing out that the Open University pioneered such methods of study in the 1960s. This report will include some insights obtained from its long experience.
28
A brief definition of each may be obtained at http://www.english.ltsn.ac.uk/learninglink/resources/vle/.
The JISC definition of each is as follows: “…the term Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) is used to refer to the “online” interactions of various kinds which take place between learners and tutors … the term Managed Learning Environment (MLE) is used to include the whole range of information systems and processes of a college (including its VLE if it has one) that contribute directly, or indirectly, to learning and management of that learning.” JISC Briefing Paper No. 1: MLEs and VLEs Explained.
1.7 Teaching, learning and study factors: social and cultural issues
Response at the institutional executive level to political directives and economic trends by the purchase of enabling technologies and technological products does not, of course, automatically lead to immediate adoption and acceptance from those expected to use the products to carry out their everyday business – in this case, academics, lecturers and students - of teaching, learning and study. The factors which may influence the successful (or otherwise) transition from
traditional teaching and learning methods to virtual ones are complex. As well as general issues of time, awareness and training, these include more profound considerations of culture and social interaction and hence of the long-term effect of new technologies on the teaching and learning process29. As an unpublished proposal for a study into the use of handheld readers at the University of Huddersfield (the results of which are referred to in Case Study No. 8) states: “It is now universally acknowledged that technical innovations by themselves do not create learning gains for students, and that before the benefits of using a new technology can be leveraged, there must be close attention paid to the organisational and cultural impacts … The use of PDAs along with the Internet and other digital technology to which students have access creates the condition sometimes referred to as “ubiquitous
computing”. In such a rich digital environment, understanding the social and cultural implications of a technology is of paramount importance …”30.
Chapter 7 looks at pedagogical issues in much more detail.
1.8 Broader cultural and technological factors
There have also been broader relevant cultural and technological factors at work, some of which have helped to promote e-books, and others which have militated against their adoption. The launch of amazon.co.uk in 1999 resulted in a major increase of on-line purchases of books by people from all walks of life, including students, and encouraged many people who had not purchased on-line before to become familiar with the concept. Most universities, and a growing number of private homes, now have broadband, which makes access to the Internet easier and faster. 54% of UK adults now live in a household containing a PC31 and most of these have Internet access (though comments from students who contributed to this report suggest that at many universities among the second and third year undergraduates, who tend to occupy non-university-owned accommodation, incidence of ownership of PCs or laptops and Internet access are both low. According to librarians and academics, distance-learning students suffer from the same problem more often than they had anticipated.32) Mobile phones are a fact
29
There is a growing body of work which examines this. The following two journals offer some good insights: Association for Learning Technology Journal. www.alt.ac.uk. Published three times yearly. British Journal of Educational Technology. www.blackwellpublishers.co.uk/journals/BJET.
30
Pearson, M. “Researching the Use of E-Books for Teaching and Learning: a Pilot Study”. The University of Huddersfield 2002. Unpublished. Accepted and funded by the University. Due to be completed in August 2003.
31
Crabtree, Nathan and Reeves. Reality IT: Technology and Everyday Life. The Work Foundation. July 2002. 1843730022. p.32.
32
Explained perhaps in both cases by income levels: “Getting on for two-thirds of those in households above the mean income have access, but fewer than a quarter of those in below-mean-income
of student life (a recent report published by the National Union of Students suggested that the average student spends £300 per year on mobile phone bills), and although they have yet to be capitalised upon to any significant degree for learning purposes, their future potential lies dormant but in place.
Less helpful factors include the “dotcom bubble burst” which began in 2001, and made many people mistrust activities connected with the Internet,33 particularly when they were allied to a new and unfamiliar product, with the attendant risks of volatility and some casualties that all new products experience before the market shakes out. Technophobia, or feelings of helplessness, inadequacy or even an overtly reactionary response in the face of the relentless waves of online
information to which they consider that they are being subjected, is perhaps more common among academics, but also not insignificant in the increasingly
heterogeneous student community.
Such feelings may indicate that, although to advocates of the use of new technologies in colleges and universities, progress seems maddeningly slow, sometimes attempts may be being made to move too far too fast, with counterproductive results. A little personal reflection will easily test this statement. How many people in your circle had a PC / mobile phone / Internet access / used e-mail ten years ago? Five years ago? Today? Or, to put it more elegantly:
“The adoption of new technologies is similar to all change, and may be characterised in the phrase “slowly, then suddenly”. While change is underway, progress always seems to be extremely slow. Looking back at change, its effects seem often to be precipitate. Change will almost always appear to be incremental and sometimes frustratingly slow whilst one is in the midst of it, but looking back five, ten and particularly twenty years from now the effect of that change will prove to have been very dramatic indeed.”34
1.9 E-books: comparisons with other publishing technologies
It is common when exploring the opportunities and problems attendant upon new technologies to compare their development with that of others which seem related or relevant, and e-books have proved not to be an exception to this practice. What are e-books like? Do the characteristics and promotional development of other products really offer insights into how e-books and their use will be developed, and how issues such as e-book promotion and marketing should be addressed?
In the last year of the twentieth century, when corporate excitement about e-books reached its peak, very senior jobs were created, particularly in the US, for
executives who were going to storm the world with the product. Now, some of these executives have already become impatient with the slowness of the market, households, and there are negligible levels of ownership in households below the official half-median income poverty line.” Crabtree, Nathan and Reeves. ibid., p.32.
33
Several librarians have ascribed their cautious approach to e-books to the fact that NetLibrary nearly went into liquidation in 2002, before it was “rescued” by OCLC.
34
Bide, M. and Others. “The Scale of Future Publishing in Digital and Conventional Formats”. The British Library. London, 2000. p.11. Available from http://www.bl.uk/concord/otherpubblpu.html
and moved on. The product does not feel glamorous any more. Within this context, e-books have been compared to that most staid of publishing products, the audio tape:
“The marketplace for e-books will be like the marketplace for audio books twenty years ago. The publishers refused to publish because they thought it would take sales away from paper books. Now audio books represent a comfortable 10% of the industry – and are either bought by people who would never buy paper books, or people who buy the paper book as well.”35
Some librarians and authors of published articles have compared the development and distribution of e-boo
