Adding e-books and audiobooks to the search experience
How one vendor addressed customer needs and created a better e-book system for libraries
Abstract.
The case study describes and explores various costing and pricing models for content and service delivery from the point of view of a major library supplier.
Introduction
EBSCO Publishing (EBSCO) has been a long-time research database provider but with the acquisition of NetLibrary from OCLC in March 2010, EBSCO embarked on a new mission, to incorporate e-books and audiobooks into the EBSCOhost® research experience. Librarians had been encouraging EBSCO to add e-books to its list of offerings for years, and with the addition of NetLibrary, the time had come. EBSCO saw the opportunity to help libraries maximise their investments in e-books and databases by allowing both resources to be discovered and used within the same unified user experience. Having established the EBSCOhost platform as the most used research platform as a database aggregator, the goal was to enhance the interface to make way for the unique needs of e-book and audiobook searchers. Drawing on its extensive experience in developing successful, user-tested, highly usable interfaces, the EBSCO team was up for the challenge of seamlessly integrating e-books and audiobooks in ways that allowed their value to shine. In addition to making interface enhancements, EBSCO realised that it could leverage its relationships with publishers to add more e-book and audiobook content as well as to expand the licensing models that were currently in place.
The process
One of the first things done after the acquisition was to establish a NetLibrary Advisory Council. This advisory group was used to solicit new ideas as well as to vet EBSCO’s product teams’ ideas. Several surveys, e-mails and webinars were conducted, allowing the EBSCO team to understand the needs and expectations of librarians of all types, worldwide. Using this effective feedback cycle along with its traditional methods of usability testing and focus groups, a design for the user experience emerged that met the goals of the team:
1. Allow searching and usage of e-books and audiobooks to be done from within EBSCOhost and EBSCO Discovery Service (EDS).
2. Make the user experience as natural for e-book/audiobook users as it is for database users.
3. Allow special features and attributes of e-books and audiobooks to be highlighted where appropriate.
In March of 2011, a year after the acquisition, the research culminated in the launching of a preview site, giving EBSCOhost and NetLibrary customers a view of what was to come. The final migration of e-books and audiobooks from NetLibrary to EBSCOhost was completed in July 2011.
Searching on EBSCOhost
In moving e-books onto the EBSCOhost platform, one of the key value propositions for librarians was to be able to leverage resources with which their users are already familiar. This meant that searching e-books (and audiobooks) should be natural within EBSCOhost. From choosing databases to setting limiters to using result list controls, users should be able to find e-book content easily. This was achieved by having all e-books aggregated into an ‘e-book Collection’ EBSCOhost database. Likewise, audiobooks are available to users via an ‘Audiobook Collection’ database. Standard EBSCOhost limiters, facets and so on apply. These new collections fit seamlessly into the EBSCOhost experience.
Standard EBSCOhost features were now available to e-book and audiobook users, including saving, e-mailing, viewing citations and bookmarking results. The implementation team worked hard to make sure that pain-points in the previous platform were addressed. One highly anticipated improvement to the search experience was the rapid decrease in the number of steps required to download e-books and audiobooks – designed to provide a more intuitive and easy to accomplish, step-by-step process for end users. Functionality added includes allowing users to explore the table of contents (TOC) easily from the result list or the detailed record – in the NetLibrary interface a user had to access the full text (meaning the title was unavailable for other users to view) in order to view the TOC. EBSCO also invested in the addition of BISAC categories (user-friendly subject headings) to all e-book and audiobook records to increase findability.
Landing pages for both e-books and audiobooks were key features for the librarians that weighed in on features. They wanted an attractive, functional way to browse the content in their collections‒something that would stand up well to Amazon and other commercial services. In addition to these features there were many that came for free as e-books and audiobooks were added to the platform. These include a fully 508c1 accessible experience that offers COUNTER compliant reporting and permalinks to page numbers, and extensive branding options. And EBSCO is not finished. In 2013 EBSCO will include the addition of EPUB content. Adding EPUB content expands the number of front list titles available on EBSCOhost and enhances the downloadable e-book program.
Improving content and access
As much as creating an excellent user experience was an important goal, the growing importance of e-books in library collection development required a second set of improvements designed for librarians, including increased access to content, improved and expanded access models and a more intuitive way for libraries to manage their collections and serve their end users.
Content
Currently EBSCO provides 300,000 e-books and audiobooks. EBSCO’s content licensing team has been working with publishers since the acquisition of NetLibrary to increase the content available on the EBSCOhost platform and to negotiate new access models. At this point, thousands of e-book titles are being loaded each month from hundreds of leading publishers including e-books in more than 30 languages.
E-books and audiobooks available on EBSCOhost aim to serve the needs of all libraries and their users whether they are serious academic researchers looking for the latest information on a subject (from which he or she will now see e-book and audiobook results integrated with periodical content) to public library patrons looking for an e-book or audiobook to download to the latest mobile device. Mobile access is becoming a requirement for libraries and currently Adobe’s solution facilitates download for e-books on EBSCOhost allowing access from most dedicated e-book readers and other devices, including Sony, Nook, Samsung, iPad, iPhone and Android phones. The continuing growth of e-books and audiobooks available on EBSCOhost will see the expansion of titles serving the needs of academic, medical and corporate users while adding more popular fiction and non-fiction titles for public libraries.
Access
Publishers, concerned with how e-books would impact their business, initially set up access models that were cautious and restrictive: one book, one user (1B1U) was the most common access model and users accustomed to downloading what they wanted online were left to wonder how an electronic resource could be ‘checked out’ of the library.
With the move to the EBSCOhost platform, EBSCO has also been able to introduce a three user model (1B3U) and an unlimited user model (1BUU). Upgrade options are also a part of the new models being introduced. For instance, a library with a three user model could upgrade to an unlimited model when librarians determine that there is sufficient demand for a given title. The upgrade option, combined with Patron Driven Acquisition (PDA), allows libraries to expand the access to a title and offer it to each user without delay with a pay as you go mindset for the acquisition specialist.
Patron Driven Acquisition (PDA) is another library-focused initiative being expanded and improved by EBSCO. With PDA, money is set aside and librarians determine which books should be exposed to patrons – all at no initial cost. After the titles have been added to the online collection, patron usage determines which books are actually purchased. Publishers have worked with e-book aggregators to determine what defines usage and therefore how PDA purchases are triggered. When EBSCO acquired NetLibrary, PDA and its triggers were not commonly known or understood. However, in the subsequent years PDA has become more accepted and EBSCO has worked with publishers to implement industry standard rules determining usage. Titles are only triggered for purchase when a patron has actively pursued a means to view an e-book with the intent to read or use the content, including when the user:
views an e-book for more than ten minutes;
views more than ten pages of an e-book;
prints, e-mails or copies and pastes a portion of an e-book page;
Since saving money and limited budgets have become a way of life for libraries, PDA promises to be a way to add to a collection without the initial investment and risk of buying the wrong books. With PDA for e-books and audiobooks on EBSCOhost, librarians select e-book titles appropriate to the interests of their patron base – whether it is content from a specific publisher, frontlist content in a specific subject area or titles that are not in the library’s print collection. With PDA, the librarians decide which titles are made available to their patrons, again making PDA part of collection development. The next step is to expose that content to patrons. The bibliographic records are loaded into the library catalogue, allowing users to discover e-book titles by browsing or searching the library collection. At the same time those titles automatically become part of the e-book Collection and Audiobook Collection on EBSCOhost. As patrons find the titles and use them, libraries take ownership of these titles and funds are either deducted from a deposit or libraries are billed.
An enhancement that EBSCO is pursuing is a Smart PDA feature, which provides additional ownership options. Smart PDA allows a site to allow patron usage to not only determine the initial purchase of a title through PDA, but also allows that site to ensure that no user will ever be denied access while preserving the lowest cost possible. At the time of PDA set-up, titles are initially set up as 1B1U and an upgrade path is established as the list is created. For example, collection development staff might determine that they want to initially purchase at 1B1U, then if a second user needs to use that same title, the library would automatically purchase a 1B3U upgrade. Then, if a fourth simultaneous user ever came along the library would then purchase an unlimited license (1BUU) – all done in an automatic unmediated way.
Libraries could also choose an upgrade path that went immediately to unlimited use (1BUU). These upgrade paths and the initial purchase level can be set at a title-by-title basis if desired. These upgrade options prevent patrons from encountering a situation where e-resources are ‘checked out’ and lets libraries eliminate turnaways, i.e. users seeking an e-book or audiobook that is checked out or in use by another patron or researcher, and provide better access and service for the end user.
Using Smart PDA users never need to ‘wait’ for an e-book and libraries never pay for more access than is needed. Smart PDA lets librarians provide the ultimate in patron-driven acquisition with minimal overhead encountered by the library.
Patron-driven lease – the answer to inter-library loan for e-books?
Similar in concept to PDA, the Patron Driven Lease (PDL) programme allows libraries to select titles that are exposed to their patrons, but when a title gets triggered the library ‘leases’ the title rather than buying it. The cost of a lease is a percentage of the ownership price, saving libraries money. The same usage triggers apply, but titles are ‘owned’ by the library for shorter periods of time, as for example:
PDLs provide an e-equivalent to inter-library loan and offer a great opportunity to expose even more content to patrons at a controlled price. When PDA or PDL title lists are set up, the library can establish a not-to-exceed ceiling, controlling their overall financial liability.
Subscription collections
EBSCO will be offering collections that can be subscribed to by the library. These are not titles that are owned by the library, but rather are collections of e-books that are analogous to full-text databases. The mix of content in these collections is likely to be less current than the titles that might be purchased but can provide excellent value and allow libraries to greatly widen the e-books that their patrons can use. EBSCO is also developing e-book anthologies that contain high-interest titles in several different subject areas, available to libraries on a subscription basis.
Collection development on EBSCOhost
EBSCO is committed to providing easy tools to acquire and manage e-books and audiobooks and plans to continually enhance the EBSCOhost Collection Management Tool (ECM) and expand the acquisition models by which libraries can acquire e-books. Librarians can now use ECM or YBP’s GOBI3 to make purchasing decisions for the more than 350,000 titles available from EBSCO and they can acquire them by title-by-title purchase, by purchasing or subscribing to a number of new collections, by creating PDA lists and by making e-books available via short-term loan.
Current features that remain include popular features designed to ease collection development such as Subject Sets, Standard Collections and Custom Collections. Subject Sets are prepackaged sets of titles chosen specifically for their subject appeal. EBSCO’s collection development team members – librarians and collection specialists – use their expertise and knowledge to create collections and Subject Sets for libraries. To date, EBSCO has created more than 200 e-book Subject Sets. All of EBSCO’s Subject Sets include titles published within the past three years and have no duplication among current or past offerings.
EBSCO also creates Standard Collections as a starting point for libraries looking to begin selecting a wider range of titles within a given discipline. More than 200 standard collections have been created, each of which has between 500 and 2,000 titles. EBSCO also helps libraries develop their collections by offering Custom Collections. These collections are built by EBSCO’s collection development librarians and each one is based on the distinct needs of a given institution. Custom Collections work well for larger purchases. Librarians work with the EBSCO collection development experts. Content objectives are shared along with information about current collections and budgetary requirements to create custom collections for libraries to consider. These suggested titles become the basis of the decision-making process. Collections can be purchased in whole or refined to meet the unique needs of an institution. Ultimately, these remain ‘title-by-title’ acquisitions since librarians can elect to remove titles or add additional content as needed.
Once again, while the collection options remain, ECM is poised to take the place of TitleSelect and provide a simpler management experience for librarians. ECM will make it even easier for librarians to create or add to their collections on their own, build or augment collections with Subject Sets, create a profile (and be alerted when new titles or collections meeting the profile become available), participate in collaborative collection development with colleagues or work with EBSCO to create a custom collection.
Conclusion
EBSCO has answered the call of libraries to add e-books and audiobooks to its array of products. In doing so it has allowed libraries to enjoy greater value out of the platform that is already one of the most used. EBSCOhost was enhanced to optimise the usability of e-books and audiobooks, and feedback was incorporated from thousands of librarians worldwide. EBSCO has also taken steps to a greater range of content and leveraged its excellent relationships with publishers to provide new ownership and leasing options to libraries. Based on this, libraries can maximise their investments in e-books and audiobooks.
1.Web accessibility and navigation. The EBSCOhost platform has been upgraded, working with accessibility experts, to move beyond 508 compliance making it a site that can be used by people with visual and other disabilities using screen readers and keyboard controls.