A new CILIP Policy Dept paper has a useful summary of issues and resources on ebooks:
Ebook Acquisition and Lending Briefing Public, Academic and Research Libraries
‘This paper presents some of the legal, strategic and technical problems that arise from the addition of scholarly and trade ebooks to library collections, together with possible solutions. Some of the most common business models are briefly set out. The latest data on ebook usage is also included’.
It makes good point about differences in the public library/trade publishing and academic library /scholarly publishing sectors and summarise some key legal issues—especially useful from the public library side:-
There is a link to it (and other useful resources inc, from a public library perspective a useful (US) briefing doc by the Berkman Center) on the ebook pages of:-
Local Government Library Technology (LGLibTech)
http://lglibtech.wikispaces.com/E-Books
and SCONUL’s Higher Education Library Technology wiki
I thought the following [page 14], regarding the position of public libraries, suitably alarming:
‘Without any changes to the 1964 Act we could find the principle of free access to public library services becoming a thing of the past’.
Ken
Ken Chad Consulting Ltd,
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Higher Education Library Technology wiki: http://helibtech.com/
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