eBooks and eContent - where are we now?
Jinfo Blog

By Penny Crossland

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As LiveWire has been reporting for several months, consumer demand for eReaders and eBooks is on an upward spiral. Only at the beginning of this month, LiveWire quoted figures from research company Enders Analysis, confirming an eBook "explosion" on both sides of the Atlantic, with sales predicted to soar in the next three years. As far as the technology is concerned, consumers are eager to embrace new eReading devices. Amazon’s Kindle is going from strength to strength, as Nancy Davis Kho has reported, and there is also plenty of evidence to show that business information users at least are ready to switch from traditional libraries to digital libraries. However, the majority of books available to read via electronic devices are novels. While some progress is being made, there is still a long way to go for STM or educational content to be as ubiquitously available electronically as the novels we read on holidays. In fact, this was a topic of recent Freepint Research into STM purchasing patterns, which showed that eBooks with STM content have not yet been widely accepted by end users.

All these topics were addressed at last week’s conference on eBooks and eContent at London’s UCL. A capacity audience listened to representatives from the publishing, technology and library sectors talking about devices, content and consumer demand.

The overriding theme of the day was: content providers have not been able to keep up with the technology available. In other words, the devices are there; consumers are keen to use them, however not enough eContent is being produced in the right format to keep up with demand, particularly in the education and sector.  This is mainly due to the complex nature of the various strands that are involved in ePublishing, all of which were addressed at the conference: from file format to digital rights management and eBook lending policies in libraries.

Some institutions, like the Open University have already gone beyond the standard eReading devices in terms of content delivery: Director of Library Services, Nicky Whitsed reported on the OU’s delivery of course materials to iPads via iTunes. She firmly believes that by 2020 mobile will be the chief device for obtaining learning material. In her opinion educational material is still too text-based for today’s students. Hannah Perrett of Cambridge University Press predicted the disaggregation of content, which for publishers will involve moving to a single interface, allowing for faceted search. This was reiterated by Research Information’s editor Sian Harris, who called for an integration of eBooks and eJournals, particularly for academic researchers. We learned of the concept of "chunking" – making smaller parcels of information available to readers. Cash-strapped students having to cope with higher university fees will particularly like the idea of purchasing parts of text books relevant to their studies. On the technology front, Harris expected games consoles to enter the device arena for research information in the not too distant future.

Digital rights management (DRM) is obviously a hot topic. While some publishers struggle to obtain electronic rights from authors, there are many STM publishers who have no DRM policies in place at all, since they are less concerned about misuse from their end users.

From library representatives we learned that lack of technology standards and lack of legal clarity in terms of digital rights were impeding eBook lending at public libraries in the UK. While Martin Palmer, Director of Essex County Libraries, welcomed Amazon’s recently announced policy allowing library lending of Kindle books, he said that there was plenty of work yet to do regarding access models. Many digital publishers insist on relicensing content after 26 downloads, which is not easy to manage for budget-constrained libraries.

In all, an interesting and constantly evolving sector, with many complicated strands. I have no doubt that everybody came away from the conference with points of interest relevant to their work environment.

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