Our Journal of Perpetual Sorrow (Student Edition) (2011) 1
A Changing Landscape: The Role of EBooks in Scholarly Communication
S.Gunderson School of Library, Archival, and Information Studies, University of British
Introduction
What does it take to become a monograph? Webster dictionary defines monograph as “a learned treatise on a small area of learning” also “a written account of a single thing”.1 This speaks to the intangible nature of the monograph, but what about its physical form? As a tangible product, mentioning a monograph is likely to conjure up images of hundred‐plus page ‘books’ complete with ink, paper, binding, and page numbers. Print publishing of monographs has stood as a respectable and meaningful form of communication for centuries now, yet the viable future of the hard copy now faces a formidable counterpart: the electronic book (hereafter referred to as the eBook). In this paper, the changing landscape of academic book publishing and distribution will be explored, namely by analyzing the emerging role of the eBook.
At the heart of this paper is a simple notion, that much like the transition from print to electronic journals that has taken place since the 1990s, a similar transition from print monograph to eBook is already underway in scholarly communications, and is being driven by a number of forces that will be presented throughout this discussion. Without question, writing a monograph for print publication can be a critical academic achievement for scholars, particularly those pursuing tenured positions.2 Our Journal of Perpetual Sorrow (Student Edition) (2011) 1
This is just one of the many challenges that eBooks still face. Such questions and challenges will also be discussed in this paper.
In the first section, a brief history of the eBook will be covered, and focus will be given to the question of whether eBooks are merely a passing fad. An examination of eBook popularity in the non‐scholarly realm will also be presented.
The next section will deal with a host of issues facing the eBook industry, namely piracy, distribution concerns, preservation issues, and cost. After looking at these and other issues, an analysis of eBook in scholarly communities will be given.
Finally, implications for academic libraries, highlighting the key advantages and disadvantages of eBooks will be covered.
To assume that eBooks will soon replace print volumes in major academic libraries is both simplistic and naïve. EBooks do offer a number of efficiencies, and are constantly improving to make better use of modern technology, but they cannot be thought of a mere replacement of physical collections. The proactive librarian, however, benefits by keeping an open mind to new opportunities and platforms.
EBooks have moved quickly to establish a role in academic library collections, and appear to be gaining in momentum. Indeed, a hybrid approach to monograph publication and dissemination has already begun.
History and Background
The concept of the electronic book is not recent one. Decades before the advent of modern computing and networked communications, the first true eBooks were created as part of Project Gutenberg, a “[…] visionary project launched by Michael Our Journal of Perpetual Sorrow (Student Edition) (2011) 1
Hart to create electronic versions of literary works and disseminate them worldwide.”3 From these humble beginnings, Project Gutenberg has continued to digitize out of copyright books, and now uses the web to disseminate its ongoing efforts. In Canada, Project Gutenberg continues to pursue its digitization agenda, and seeks to digitize any Canadian or international book that is in the Canadian public domain.4
Over the next two decades, despite regular advancements in computing technology, commercial publishers did not embrace eBooks. Finally, in 1994‐1995, commercial publishers took steps to enter the eBook arena, led by National
Academy Press and MIT Press, who successfully began migrating many of their academic monographs into digital formats, and distributing these eBooks free of charge.5 As Marie Lebert outlines in her A Short History of eBooks, the 1990s were a period of rapid development and expansion for eBook publishing.6 By this point, the potential of eBook technologies was beginning to gain support. Writing in 1999,
Mary Summerfield and Carol Mandel made the following observation about the potential of eBooks to the scholarly community: “On‐line books might enhance the scholarly process of research, dissemination of findings, teaching, and learning.” and that they may “[…] enable publishers, libraries, and scholars to reduce the costs of disseminating and using scholarship.”7
Over the past decade (2001‐2011), the growth of eBooks has steadily increased, particularly for trade retail eBooks. Demonstrating the rapid growth in digital publishing sales, the International Digital Publishing Forum, a leading eBook industry association, reports that the eBook industry has grown from a modest Our Journal of Perpetual Sorrow (Student Edition) (2011) 1 industry (with $5‐10 million in annual US eBook sales), to an emerging megaindustry with billion dollar annual sales becoming a very real possibility.8 Few predicted the rapid upsurge in demand for eBooks prior to the current wave of popularity that eBooks now enjoy. Demand is so high, in fact, that eBooks have, as of
April 2011, officially begun outselling print books sold through Amazon.com at a ratio of 105 eBooks for every 100 print books (hardcover and paperback).9
Despite the surging sales numbers and popularity of eBooks, even proponents remain skeptical of its ability to fully ‘cross over’ into all book categories, as explained by Forbes blogger Alex Knapp: “[…] I love reading on my Kindle. But when it comes to children’s books, reference materials, and serious use in academia, I think that print books will be dominant for a long while.”10 This leads to the obvious question: are eBooks here to stay as the new reading medium of choice, or are they little more than a passing fad? While the jury is still out regarding the sustainability of the current eBook sales frenzy, it is hard to imagine readers abandoning their eReaders anytime soon, especially considering the potential technological improvements that future generation eReaders are likely to offer.
Another driver of eBook popularity that seems unlikely to falter in the near future is the advent of tablet computers such as the iPad and Blackberry Playbook, both featuring numerous apps and programs for eBook compatibility.
After nearly four decades of development, eBooks have finally arrived on the publishing landscape. The challenges will be to maintain the momentum already built up, and to capitalize on new opportunities, namely further expansion into scholarly publishing and greater prominence in academic libraries, including Our Journal of Perpetual Sorrow (Student Edition) (2011) 1 reference services. As a 2008 Library and Archives Canada report on eBook publishing in Canada states: “The consumer behaviour, technology platforms, and sales channels that the eBook market needs to thrive are increasingly in place.”11
The biggest challenge facing the eBook, according to this same report, however, is the reconciliation of diverging perspectives on digital rights management (DRM), and who actually owns an eBook after a purchase is made.12 Now, a closer look at this and other opportunities and challenges of eBook acceptance will now be presented.
Challenges and Opportunities
EBooks, given their technological adaptability, have the potential to overcome many of the traditional barriers faced by print books. Printing a hardcover or paperback monograph, particularly for books with limited commercial appeal, is a costly endeavor. When a publisher agrees to publish 1000 copies of a new monograph, beyond forecasting market demand, there is little guarantee that each of these 1000 copies will be purchased by libraries or individuals. EBooks, however, are not printed in advance of sales. This leads to two advantages, first: an eBook publication should never run out of copies for sale, and second: that eBooks can stay ‘in print’, or available for immediate purchase much longer than print books can, given their infinite supply and reduced cost of online distribution.
Quite simply, eBooks won’t be collecting dust while awaiting purchase on bookstore shelves, or in supplier warehouses. Once a book goes out of print, publishing a second or third run of copies to meet demand not originally forecasted Our Journal of Perpetual Sorrow (Student Edition) (2011) 1 does not happen overnight. In a world where ‘hot topic’ issues come and go within a few weeks, the quick reflexes of an eBook publication can (in theory) allow older books to be immediately matched with market demands, rather than forcing readers to wait for new copies to hit the bookshelves months later, by which time their interest on the subject may have waned. These and other cost efficiencies of eBooks are just a few of the reasons why publishers have been so willing to embrace this new form of reading material.
EBooks and eReaders, meanwhile, are not without their limitations. Ironically, it is the same technological drivers (tablet computing and wireless internet access) that threaten to ‘pull the carpet’ out from under the eBook publishing marketplace.
Highlighting this, within weeks of the iPad release in North America, a noticeable spike in unofficial eBook downloads was observed, with many attributing the rise in eBook piracy to the unpopular DRM restrictions placed on eBook purchases from authorized retailers.13
As was alluded to earlier in the Library and Archives Canada statement, consumers left feeling dissatisfied by DRM measures are showing signs of resistance to what they perceive to be unfair practice, and are calling for retailers to ease up on such restrictions.14 In 2009, sparked by the sudden mass disappearance of downloaded copies of George Orwell’s 1984, eBook customers were outraged to discover that retailer Amazon.com had the ability to ‘delete’ eBooks purchased through its site.15 Comparing this practice to traditional retailing, New York Times reporter Brad Stone rightly notes that: “Retailers of physical goods cannot, of course, force their way into a customer’s home to take back a purchase, no matter Our Journal of Perpetual Sorrow (Student Edition) (2011) 1
how bootlegged it turns out to be.”16 Amazon, for its part, was quick to learn from this potentially damaging debacle, and has since avoided such overt forms of mass recall. At issue here, of course, is the question of whether a download equals an exchange of payment for either a good (a copy of the eBook), or a service (the ability to access the eBook for an unspecified period of time).
At this point, it should be emphasized that the vast majority of eBook offerings are still reliant on books being published in both print and eBook format, or on reproductions and re‐releases of existing popular works that have been available in print for many years. Few Amazon.com or New York Times eBook bestsellers are true ‘born digital’ works, where publication focuses solely on the eBook version rather than print publication.17 Arguably, however, if eBooks continue to overshadow print book sales, a future where bestselling books are released solely in electronic format is entirely realistic. Five years ago, eBook skeptics were quick to explain why print books were an irreplaceable medium, claiming: “[…] ebooks are a solution in search of a problem. Print books work.” and that “If someone's not interested in reading a book‐length text, putting that long text on an electronic device won't make it more palatable.“18 While such sentiments are likely to persist amongst devoted fans of the hard copy, claiming that eBooks weren’t capable of remedying print‐publishing deficiencies, or improving the reading experience, proved to be short sighted, as recent developments have shown. No doubt, there are still barriers facing eBook technology and its distribution, most notably the DRM dilemma and the piracy implications that eBooks face. Reflecting on these and other issues, it is clear that the eBook is still a contested format, and that the traditional Our Journal of Perpetual Sorrow (Student Edition) (2011) 1 solutions appropriate for print publications are not always the best approach to resolving eBook specific concerns.
Ebooks in Academia
One arena where perceptions of eBooks are still developing is amongst academics, where the pursuit of peer‐review, tenure, tradition, and hard‐copy published evidence remains as strong as ever. Sharing his perspective on this issue, W. Scott
Thompson, Professor of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University (and proclaimed eBook enthusiast) still feels that: “For a book to have standing in the empire of universal civilisation, it must have had peer review. It must be printed first in hardback.”19 For many, eBooks and eReaders have become intimately associated with reading for pleasure, rather than for study.20 EReaders such as the Kindle,
Nook, or Kobo devices face additional technological challenges in this regard, particularly when attempting to present scientific or technical materials where large charts, graphs, or visual representations are required. Tablet computers, meanwhile, have a distinct edge in this regard, and have taken direct aim at doctors,
CEOs, and other professionals through recent marketing efforts. Yet, questions about the suitability of eBooks and eReaders for academic resources remain. After all, as writer Webb Shaw contends: “I can't envision anyone curling up on the couch or on a transatlantic flight with a digital copy of the Human Resources Management
Guide or the OSHA Compliance Manual.”21
Dedicated eReaders may require substantial technological improvements before academics fully embrace their value. The role of eBooks in academia, Our Journal of Perpetual Sorrow (Student Edition) (2011) 1 however, is already quite significant. A study conducted by Springer in 2008 concluded that in several leading academic institutions, the movement to eBooks is most likely to be spearheaded by research‐related activities, primarily due to the speed, convenience, and searching capabilities of eBooks over print volumes.22 In the study, respondents were questioned about their willingness to read eBooks.
Interestingly, at the time of the survey in 2008, only 35 percent of respondents indicated that they would read more print than electronic books.23 Given the advancements and increased availability of eBooks experienced over the three years since this data was collected, one might assume that this resistant minority may have decreased to even smaller numbers. Again, these numbers speak to the role played by eBooks, but are not necessarily indicative of dedicated eReader acceptance. Many eBooks provided by academic libraries, moreover, are not even compatible with dedicated eReaders. Ebrary is one such example. Though Ebrary provides thousands of academic books to libraries, they only allow patrons to view their eBooks online, rather than permitting downloads for usage on offline eReaders such as the Kindle or Nook. Their position on this issue is that: “[…] ebrary books can only be read online; they cannot be downloaded as pdf’s or onto e‐readers such as a Kindle. This is because of copyright/legal arrangements ebrary has with publishers.”24 Such limitations represent a meaningful barrier for eBooks in scholarly communities. Despite the increased prevalence of wifi and remote internet access, requiring users to be online at all times when viewing eBooks means that fewer commuters will read eBooks, travelers might have to pay excessive data roaming fees to connect to their library materials, and that readers are unable to Our Journal of Perpetual Sorrow (Student Edition) (2011) 1
(even temporarily) hold hard copies.
Ultimately, for scholars looking to publish, eBooks do hold great potential.
Academic communities have already embraced eBooks, as evidenced by the growing eBook collections in research libraries that will be explored next, and as users, researchers appear to value the speed and convenience of the electronic format. The next step will be to see whether a transition to fully digitally born academic eBooks can be accomplished without compromising the critical functions of peer review and tenure promotion. As it stands now, the print monograph still comes before the eMonograph, though an increasingly hybridized model, where books are made available in both formats, is increasingly becoming the norm.
EBooks and the Library
Academic librarians understand the importance of effective book selection. Gone are the days of generous budgets and vast monograph spending sprees. In the modern academic library, cost is king, and eBooks are capable of providing cost savings to libraries, though not always necessarily through lower prices alone, as will be discussed later. Still though, acquiring and maintaining an eBook collection in an academic library requires new strategies and tact, and by no means have eBooks come near to replacing print monographs, at least not yet. Speaking to the growth of eBook collection, one reference librarian writes: “Within academic library collections, electronic journals are a mainstay. EBooks, on the other hand, have established themselves as a viable alternative to the print book more slowly.”25
Despite this slow but steady progress, eBooks hold numerous other benefits Our Journal of Perpetual Sorrow (Student Edition) (2011) 1 that matter to libraries, and are increasingly being recognized as a critical component of a strong collection. Beyond cost, eBooks do not require physical storage, allowing libraries to repurpose any additional flooring for student study space, learning commons, or administrative offices. Unlike expensive print monographs, the decreased likelihood of eBook ‘theft’ is also a benefit to libraries, though alternative forms of eBook theft and piracy must still be addressed. Another advantage inherent to eBooks is that they come fully loaded with metadata, namely the text itself. Unlike a print book, reference librarians and users can take advantage of full‐text keyword searching; potentially saving time and energy that might otherwise have been spent looking for specific instances or keywords within a print monograph.
Of concern to many libraries is the balance between growing a print and eBook collection simultaneously.26 On one hand, if a library spends its budget primarily collecting eBooks, the uncertain long‐term viability of these new acquisitions may bring about problems in the future, and valuable print‐only monographs may be overlooked. On the other hand, to ignore the increasing preference amongst both students and academics for easily accessible full‐text eBooks is a dangerous approach, potentially decreasing the usefulness and relevance of a library, and the breadth of a collection may be limited by the expensive prices set on many print monograph publications. In their recent article entitled ‘EBook Approval Plans’,
Matthew Buckley and Deborah Tritt, librarians at Nova Southeastern University, outline an effective way for academic libraries to develop their eBook collections while at the same time not alienating print monographs. To accomplish this, they Our Journal of Perpetual Sorrow (Student Edition) (2011) 1 suggest that libraries adapt an eBook approval plan that focuses on acquiring eBooks for disciplines where quick and accurate online information is prioritized,27 rather than the ‘reading experience’ itself.
Finally, one other approach to eBook implementation that some libraries have adopted is to use a ‘patron driven’ approach to eBook spending. At the University of
California‐Irvine (UCI), a pilot project using a ‘patron initiated access’ (PIA) model where eBooks are automatically purchased if (and only if) an eBook is accessed by three patrons on different occasions, has so far yielded positive results.28 Despite the cost‐saving and increased access potential of such a model, however, the idea of using a variable pricing model may ultimately be a difficult strategy for librarians to pursue, given tight budgets and pre‐planned spending strategies.
Indeed, libraries are faced with difficult decisions ahead. While commercial trade retail eBooks appear to be well on their way to long‐term mainstream appeal, the economics and accessibility issues of eBooks in academic libraries are far from being settled. As today’s librarians are faced with mounting costs, ownership issues, and copyright concerns for electronic journals that have come to be dominated by a select group of large companies, tomorrows librarian must prepare wisely and account for the uncertainty of scholarly eBook publishing and distribution going forward, or risk facing the same issues all over again. Awareness, understanding, and preparedness will be key!
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1 Merriam‐Webster. (2011). Monograph. Retrieved June 12, 2011 from: http://www.merriam‐webster.com/dictionary/monograph 2 Sinochoda, P. (2008). Scholarly Publication at the Digital Tipping Point. The Journal of Electronic Publishing. 11(2). 3 Lebert, M. (2009). A Short History of EBooks. Retrieved June 12, 2011 from: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/29801/29801‐pdf.pdf 4 Project Gutenberg Canada. (n.d.) Our Mission. Retrieved June 12, 2011 from: http://www.gutenberg.ca/links/ourmission.html 5 Lebert, M. (2009). 6 Ibid. 7 Summerfield, M. and Mandel, A. (1999). On‐line Books at Columbia. In Technology and Scholarly Communications. University of California Press: Berkley. 8 International Digital Publishing Forum. (2011). Industry Statistics. Retrieved June 12, 2011 from: http://idpf.org/about‐us/industry‐statistics 9 Knapp, A. (2011). What do Amazons E‐Book Sales Mean for the Future of Books? Retrieved June 13, 2011 from: http://blogs.forbes.com/alexknapp/2011/05/19/what‐do‐amazons‐ebook‐ sales‐mean‐for‐the‐future‐of‐books/ 10 Ibid. 11 Library and Archives Canada and Turner‐Riggs. (2008). Audiobook and eBook publishing in Canada. eBook. 12 Ibid. 13 Spence, N. (May 19, 2010). Report: Apple iPad Popularity Blamed for Rise in EBook Piracy? Retrieved June 13, 2011 from: http://www.macworld.co.uk/digitallifestyle/news/index.cfm?newsid=3223950 14 Library and Archives Canada and Turner‐Riggs. (2008). 15 Stone, B. (July 17, 2009). Amazon Erases Orwell Books From Kindle. Retrieved June 15, 2011 from: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/18/technology/companies/18amazon.html 16 Ibid. 17 Thompson, W. S. (March 16, 2011). Even EBooks Start Out as Real Books. New Straits Times. March 2011. 18 Crawford, W. (2006, October). Why Aren't Ebooks More Successful? EContent. 29(8). 19 Thompson, W. S. (2011). 20 Shaw, W. (2010, June). The Forgotten Ebook Market. Information Today. 27(6). 21 Ibid. 22 Special Libraries Association. (2008). Transition to eBooks Fastest in Research Areas: New Survey by Springer Finds that EBooks are Best Suited to Specific Research and Information Retrieval Purposes. Information Outlook. 12(10). 23 Ibid. 24 eBrary. (2011). Can I Read ebrary Books Offline or Download Them to an E‐Reader Like a Kindle? Retrieved June 15, 2011 from: http://support.ebrary.com/?p=86 25 Buckley, M. and Tritt, D. (2011). Ebook Approval Plans. Computers in Libraries. 31(3). 26 Ibid. 27 Ibid. 28 Kaser, D. (2010). Ebook Update and Outlook: Considering your Digital Collection Strategies. Computers in Libraries. 30(10).