Birmingham, UK, 21 November 2008: A recent survey in the UK conducted by 
NetLibrary; OCLC’s eContent division has found that three-quarters of 
academic libraries and half of public libraries that responded intend to increase 
their collections of eBooks over the next year, in spite of the current fiscal 
climate.

Nearly 300 libraries responded to the survey highlighting key issues in 
perceptions and usage of eBooks currently and going forward within the UK.

Although the survey indicates significant planned increases in the acquisition 
of eBooks for both academic and public libraries, other key themes born out of 
the survey findings provide valuable insights into what is driving usage and 
collection development in these two key sectors.

A massive 85% of public Libraries responding to the survey indicated that they 
were most interested in developing fiction eBook collections despite recent 
research that suggests eBooks are most often used for reference purposes.  
Possibly this trend is being fuelled by the growth in take up and availability of 
eBook reading devices among public library users such as Amazon’s Kindle and 
Sony’s Reader. Similarly a rise in the usage of MP3 players could be attributed 
to the fact that 65% of publics also indicated an intention to further develop 
their eAudiobook collections:

“eAudibooks are an area of significant interest to NetLibrary” explains Michelle 
Harper, Global Product Manager for eBooks and eAudiobooks, “The imminent 
release of our new Media Center application will support libraries in the 
promotion of eAudiobooks to users. It’s a free application that will make it 
faster and easier for your users to search, manage, and listen to NetLibrary 
eAudiobooks through a range of devices”.

Of the academic libraries who responded to the survey, half indicated that 
their use of eBooks was to support their core reading lists in various subject 
areas – the main ones being Business / Management (13%), Medicine / Health 
(9%) Education (6%) and Engineering (5%).  

Michelle Harper continues: ‘NetLibrary offers a range of bundled titles in these 
subject areas.   Our custom collection service also provides titles specifically 
tailored to your library’s collection development requirements’.

Anyone interested in hearing more about the results of this survey or how 
NetLibrary can help them in their collection development should contact 
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About OCLC
Founded in 1967 and headquartered in Dublin, Ohio, OCLC is a nonprofit library 
service and research organisation that has provided computer-based 
cataloguing, reference, resource sharing, eContent, preservation, library 
management and Web services to 60,000 libraries in 112 countries and 
territories.  OCLC and its member libraries worldwide have created and 
maintain WorldCat, the world’s richest online resource for finding library 
materials.  For more information, visit www.oclc.org. 


For further information please contact:
Fiona Leslie
Marketing Communications Manager
Tel: +44 121 456 4656
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