E-books now seem to be taking off with several other suppliers competing
alongside NetLibrary.
Leeds has just signed up to at least 2 suppliers and now faces the question
of how to integrate these offerings into Innopac. Obviously the OPAC is the
main area of integration, but we would like to also include the ordering
process in as far as this is possible (many of the deals now seem to permit
some selection of individual titles within an overall agreement). And how
have other libraries found the records which suppliers make available for
their ebooks - are there quality issues? In fact, is it desirable to have
the electronic copies on a separate record from print copies? - (MARC21 does
give the choice and Leeds has so far resisted creating separate records for
electronic journals where we also have the title in print format.
As we come to grips with questions such as these, it would be really helpful
to talk to colleagues in other Innopac libraries, but I'm not sure which
other libraries are similarly thinking about these questions (or have done
recently).
I guess there could be value in using the list for an ongoing discussion of
these issues if others were willing.
I am also conscious that there was a session on NetLibrary at last year's
conference, led by Bangor - unfortunately I was at the parallel session.
Are any notes available? And have things moved on since (certainly the
Bangor OPAC is most interesting in this regard!).
Thanks
Michael
********************************************
Michael Emly
Collection Management Services Team Leader
tel. +44 (0)113 343 6444
email: [log in to unmask]
Postal address:
Brotherton Library, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT
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