Could you order the ebook?

COVID-19 increased the need for digital content rapidly. Historians -myself included- who love to read, smell, feel paper books and search for serendipity in our beautiful stacks, had to make a quick shift when in March paper books were suddenly no longer accessible. Because a lot of literature is still not open access on internet, I bought a lot of ebooks the past few months. But not all literature is available as an ebook for a university. Seeing a digital book on bol.com, for instance, does not mean a university can get access to it. In this blog post I will explain why.

 Different ebooks 
Due to copyright restrictions the ebook that you buy at amazon or bol.com can be downloaded for 1 person only. This does not apply with organizations, like universities. Because an ebook should be made available there for a large number of people. That is why university libraries buy access to an ebook on a certain platform of a supplier (for instance: EBSCO, Taylor & Francis, JSTOR, Project Muse etc). The advantage is that the ebook is usually available in our CataloguePlus within a week. All employers and students of the UvA are then able to access the book with their UvAnet ID. 

Prices
The costs for access to an avarage ebook on a platform is about 4 times the amount of a paperback version. It does not mean that buying a paper book is cheaper than an ebook for the library, because they have to make a catalogue record, have physical space to put the work on a shelve, lend it out and maintain it in a good condition so people can borrow it.

The price of an ebook on a platform is determined by several factors:
  • the expected sale of a book. Especially access to an ebook that many students have to use, like handbooks, could rise from  $400.- to $800.-, 
  • the choice of the platform (supplier),
  • the amount of users that can access an ebook simultaneously (usually the choice is: 1, 3 of unlimited),
  • if it is DRM (= Digital Rights Management) free, so you can download the whole book without restrictions.
We buy access to ebooks via GOBI. This programme provides an overview for each book title of the platforms (suppliers) available and the costs. The options for an ebook in GOBI could look like the image above.

Buying access to an ebook or not? 
I prefer an ebook that has: unlimited amount of similtaneous users and is DRM free.
But it could be that those options are either too expensive or simply not available. In the first case I go for less simultaneous users and check if the ebook is at least downloadable for a much cheaper price.

It could also very well be that a certain ebook is available at bol.com, but not via a platform available in GOBI. It depends what the agreements are between author, publisher and supplier. Not all publishers can afford to have an ebook version offered this way. Althought JSTOR -for instance- invites smaller publishers to collaborate with them.

 How do you know the ebook is available via a supplier?
I can check it in GOBI and order it. So send me an email.
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