Your first question will be, why is e-book business models important and why should a normal librarian even an eBook user even care. As an academic this normally should not be important but these models might influence access to resources, but more so availability. You will then ask why e-books on an institutional license will not be available. The reason is simply, money! Publishers need to adjust business models to retain and increase revenue, making it very difficult for users to keep up with various access models, platforms and platform rules.
The purpose of this page is therefore to discuss the various business models and how it will influence accessibility and functionality to eBooks TUT want to acquire but more so towards what we already have access to.
On one of the other pages in this guide I already touched on licensing and I will therefore not say much, but unfortunately licensing terms and conditions influence everything around e-resources.
As discussed previously, there are two types of licenses, namely personal use licenses and institutional licenses. In order to understand some of the business models available we have to start with the license types to determine what business models are available within these licenses and what you can expect on each of these licenses.
For a very long period e-books with personal use licenses was not available to institutions, but we have finally bridged the gap where we will be able to deliver on some of these eBooks but not without extreme limitations.
Traditionally, books that has been classified as prescribed books were not electronically available to institutions, as publishers wanted to assure that their streams of revenue are protected. Platforms like VitalSource, Kortext, Snapplify but not limited to, were used to make these books electronically available to students, but they refused institutional access. Other textbook publishers like Pearsons created their own platforms and were not even interested to talk to institutions if they did not agree to their personal use licensing conditions and if you were to say you are from the library, the phone was swiftly disconnected.
Snapplify, acknowledged the gap and developed a library module to provide limited access to these books. The business model will allow a number of users access, the books once publishers agree to host the material on the Snapplify platform, depending on the library's policy pertaining the number of copies to be acquired. Access will be granted for one day, on the Snapplify reader, which users will have to download.
Once more suppliers come onboard with similar platforms, we will list them here.
The Library and Information Services wish whole heartedly that these processes and business models could be easier and from the questions we need to answer some academics do believe, that these books are available in the format and with the conditions determined by TUT. For those academics, I will have to unfortunately disappoint your expectations. Books are available on the business models as determined by the publisher and even if it is on an aggregator, user terms and conditions has also been determined by the publisher. Herewith some of the broad spectrum business models available for eBooks:
Pick & Choose models relate to books that are available, from either publisher or aggregator platforms, to an institution to pick and acquire it without having to acquire the whole collection or limitations pertaining to the number of books that can be supplied at a specific time, before a transaction can be concluded and access be established. These models are available from aggregator platforms, as with some publishers and herewith the rules pertaining to each type of platform.
Books that are made available on a pick & choose model and made available on a publisher platform are preferable, since most of those books are made available DRM free and on unlimited terms and conditions. Unfortunately not all the books are available in this format, and these lists are decided by the publishers only. Books that is on prescribed status will not be available in this format, although some publishers do make exemptions, but price wise need to be considered carefully, as budgets using pick & choose textbook models might deplete the library budget very quickly. Most publishers require the signing of a license agreement upon acquisition. Access are usually very easy and available from the publisher platform in pdf format. Books can be downloaded at any time based and access is based on a fair use principal. Some platform examples include Wiley and Taylor & Francis, but not limited to.
An aggregator is a platform that hosts content from thousands of publishers on one single platform. Most books on an aggregator is available via a pick & choose model. The majority of them unfortunately comes with DRMs and with limitations concerning simultaneous access. Accessing book normally on the HTML format is easy, but as soon an off-campus option is selected, readers are necessary, such as Adobe Digital Editions, BlueFire or ePub. The initial steps to get the readers downloaded and setup could be an intimidating process, but once done, downloading is easy. Please note that downloaded books will be available for two weeks and should be downloaded again after the period, if there are no other additional readers demanding access. These titles can be accessed via the TUT LIS catalogue, the TUT LIS Discovery Service and directly from the aggregator platform.
Examples include EbscoHost and ProQuest eBook Central, but not limited to.
E-Book collections can be divided into 2 categories namely Aggregator and Publisher collections. Unfortunately most publishers make use of the collection purchasing models and in most cases books are not available on Pick & Choose options, if it has been published by a world renowned publisher. Within these options each and every aggregator and publisher has its own business models, although we can qualify a few, while the options has their own benefits and detriments.
Publishers have a couple of Business Models available for the supplying of e-books in collections. Some publishers, like Springer only make their e-books available in collections. This can be annual collections or subject collections, based on the business model availability from specific publishers. These Business Models are as follows:
Minimum Selection Model
The Minimum Selections Model consists of a minimum number of books from that specific publisher to be bought in order to open an account, where individual books can be bought afterwards. Once an account is opened any book can be purchased at any time. In most cases these models consists of no maintenance fees and the books are usually cheaper than the print. It is a once-off and once a newer edition is published a new book is to be purchased. These books consist of an unlimited number of simultaneous users and normally DRM free. Access is easy with a downloadable pdf and can be accessed from the TUT LIS catalogue, the TUT Discovery service and directly from the publisher platform.
The Annual or Subject Collection Model allows you to purchase an annual or a subject collection from a specific publisher. They also allow you to buy backfiles of e-book collections. These legacy collections are sometimes cheaper, but relevancy are not always applicable to the need of our users. Cost per book is much cheaper, but the overall collection cost could be quite expensive. Some publishers, like Springer, only allow for collections and most of their books are not available via pick & choose models. Access is usually unlimited and DRM free and is easily accessible via a pdf download. These collections are accessible directly from the publisher's platform and via the TUT LIS Discovery Service.
Evidence Based Acquisition is also a collection based acquisition model. The publisher will supply access to their full collection for a negotiated price, prior to access. Based on usage books are acquired at the end of the year. This model will work if usage are high, but must be considered with careful consideration. Titles acquired are easy to access in a downloadable pdf format accessible directly from the publisher's platform.
PDAs or DDAs are based on the prior payment of a negotiated price and acquisition is driven by the length of time a user use a book or the amount of clicks to access the content despite time. The TUT internal auditors did not approve these acquisition models. These models are therefore not allowed for evaluation purposes.
Aggregators do supply a number of collections, namely general academic collections or subject specific e-book collections. Because they host various publisher books on one single platform it is advisable to have only a couple of aggregator suppliers. Access are usually unlimited, although downloads must adhere to specific readers for that specific aggregator. These downloads will be available for about two weeks before it disappear from any device it was loaded on. Most of the aggregators have DRM restrictions, depending on the publisher requests for each title. Therefore some titles will allow limited downloading and printing and some will not. TUT therefore must be very cautious to the aggregators we use. It is also a fact that publishers do not supply their latest and most sold books via aggregators and would rather have institutions buying their collections to get hold of the books. The books supplied by aggregators are usually the older versions although it is not a norm for all the publishers and TUT must know what they want in publisher collections prior to their decision to buy from aggregators. Most of these collections are subscription based and the content will change every year. If lecturers want to make use of books from a aggregator, we must ask the aggregator to keep access in the collection.
In some cases Electronic Books are only available on a subscription model. Subscriptions are usually acceptable when the user need the information to complete a project or when the content of the books is only valid for a certain period. This will be in subject areas that change often or develop fast. In these cases TUT will rather subscribe to books than to buy them as they will quickly become outdated and useless for example Biotechnology and Information Technology. This option will in most cases save the University considerable amounts of money as it is cheaper to subscribe and no shelf costs and additional risks of theft can be taken into account. It is also possible to subscribe to a number of titles in order to see how clients will react and use the collection before TUT invest money to buy the collection. Sometimes e-books are presented as a subscription because the collection is growing or because you will be able to pick and choose a new collection including new editions.
Open Access business models is where authors pay for the publishing of a book, to be accessed by anybody free of charge. Because the book is openly available it does not mean that the book does not contain copyright. Depending on the license the author signed, commercial use of the content, copying and downloading might still be restricted. These terms and conditions usually accompany the book, where it is hosted under a range of terms. These terms can usually be found under the "Terms of use", "Terms and Conditions", "Copyright statements" etc. These books are usually available on credible publisher websites or official Open Access websites and the book's cover pages will clearly indicate that it is available on an Open Access basis.
Books that are available at a cost on one site and free of charge on another site, does not mean it is available on an Open Access model. These books are usually illegally published and accessing these should be avoided at all cost. Search Engines that search across pdf files on the Internet are usually not reliable sources as these might search illegal pdf documents of books and book chapters that has been posted. Another clear indication will be that pages of the book might be missing and it might look as if the book was copied before scanned. If in doubt, always contact the TUT's copyright office.