Following the Thursday keynote, a 2-day focus on libraries and e-books began. E-books continue to be a topic of high interest and their usage in libraries is growing rapidly. The first presentation in this track featured a report from Canada with some of the unique characteristics of the Canadian market, followed by a description of some models developed by eBrary.
Ken Roberts (L) and Michael Ciccone (R)
Ken Roberts, Chief Librarian, Hamilton (Ontario) Public Library, described some of the unique characteristics of the Canadian market for publishers. Major international publishers have Canadian plants and are using Canada as test markets because it has a population of 25 million people–much less than the US or some European countries. The Canadian Urban Libraries Council (consisting of 50 of largest library systems in Canada) is the agency working with publishers. It represents about 70% of the Canadian population. Publishers are represented by the Canadian Publishers’ Council. Here are some lessons learned from the interactions between the publishers and libraries:
Canadian law says that if a publisher has a representation in Canada, libraries must buy from the Canadian publisher, not directly from the parent company in another country (probably the US). This protects the publishing industry in Canada, but it only applies to print materials, not to electronic, which has meant many sales are still siphoned off to the US. Thus, the Canadian distributors are worried and want to sell to libraries not through Amazon, for example.
Publishers worried about losing revenue from library users, so the Hamilton library proposed that publishers report average sales to libraries of their backlists and midlists for last 3 years, and library would agree to pay that amount for complete access to all titles for everyone in Hamilton. Random House Canada agreed to this. The library gets lots of content and users get access to lots of good information. Publishers cannot lose under this model because their base income is fixed. ACP also liked the model.All the sales stay in Canada as do the license fees, so they do not lose sales to the US distributors.
Matt Barnes
As described by Matt Barnes, VP of Marketing, eBrary has developed four model for selling e-books:
- Subscriptions: provides a base collection for users and backlist revenue to publishers.
- Perpetual archive (ownership): ensures the library owns critical titles and supports faculty and researchers. Replicates print models. Over 400 publishers have signed up for this model.
- Patron driven access: A cost-effective way to expand access and support key programs.
- Short term loans: A way to support programs without making a commitment. New revenue stream for publishers.
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