Who are the winners? E-book consortial purchasing

Abstract

The e-book consortia pilot project was funded by Jisc Collections during 2012/2013 and managed by Information Power Ltd. The aim of the project was to see if there is an effective way to purchase e-books on a title-by-title basis with a collaborative group of academic libraries. The project explored a range of questions including: did all books receive sufficient use to provide value for money for libraries; how such an initiative could be equitably funded by libraries; how much would publishers charge; what benefits there would be for participating publishers; and how it would be managed. The project focused on engineering e-books, and usage data and cost data was collected and analysed in depth.