parallel2E.ppt 5841KB Jun 23 2011 10:34:02 AM

“eBook Loans – an e-twist on a
classic interlending service”
Bronwen Woods & Michael Ireland, NRC-CISTI
Presented by Michael Ireland to
The 10th Interlending and Document Supply Conference,
Singapore, October 30, 2007

The CISTI eBook
Loan Project
Overview
From opportunity to launch
eBook Loan Service project from the CISTI perspective:
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Why eBook Loans

Project goals, challenges, risks
Project tasks and workflow
Project lessons learned, best practices and findings
Benefits to users and libraries
Conclusions & Next steps
How it works

About CISTI

The CISTI eBook
Loan Project
Overview
From opportunity to launch








Why eBook Loans
Project goals, challenges, risks
Project tasks and workflow
Project lessons learned, best practices and findings
Benefits to users and libraries
Conclusions & Next steps
How it works

Books at the
beginning

Wild times in lending
history …

King Ptolemy III of Egypt ‘borrows’ books for the
Library of Alexandria

Electronic books

Why eBook Loans?

Current scholarly book access models are limited:
 Purchase books or eBook
 License eBook collections
 Interlibrary loan

eBook loans are more accessible and economic:
 Cheaper than purchase or licensing eBooks
 More efficient than print interlibrary loans

Current state of
print book loans

End user-initiated orders
End user delivery

The CISTI eBook
Loan Project
Overview

From opportunity to launch








Why eBook Loans
Project goals, challenges, risks
Project tasks and workflow
Project lessons learned, best practices and findings
Benefits to users and libraries
Conclusions & Next steps
How it works

Project Goals

Challenges of the

eBook Loan Project
 Solve the problem of how to
loan e-books to external clients
 Barriers faced = restrictive ebook licences and publisher
locks prevent affordable
access for temporary needs

Partnership to achieve
a common goal
CISTI out-of-the-box
solution to the achieve
project goals by forming a
collaborative partnership
with an e-book aggregator,
MyiLibrary.
MIL had the rights to
disseminate e-books through
publisher agreement and
could obtain ILL rights and
wanted to increase its reach.

Collaborative project
management across the
world

The project management process was unprecedented for
CISTI because it was partnering with a commercial
entity located on another continent.

Project Risks
Main risks and complexities associated with the project
from the CISTI perspective were:
 The co-development of a new library service model with an
external, commercial partner
 The geographical and organizational distances between the two
parties
 The loading of the publisher metadata onto the CISTI Catalogue
platform
 Client acceptance of the new business model
 Internal service procurement issues

The CISTI eBook
Loan Project
Overview
From opportunity to launch








Why eBook Loans
Project goals, challenges, risks
Project tasks and workflow
Project lessons learned, best practices and findings
Benefits to users and libraries
Conclusions & Next steps
How it works

Critical tasks
In August 2006, a joint project team was assembled at CISTI
and MyiLibrary to produce a new service model for lending ebooks.

To embark on this joint venture, two tasks critical to project
success were completed:
 A client survey (summer 2006 )
• 59% of respondents said “yes” they were interested in this service,
sight unseen

 An agreement was signed between CISTI and MyiLibrary to
implement the new service and share in the investment

Division of
responsibility
MyiLibrary was responsible for:
 Negotiating with the publishers to
offer this loan service
 Making necessary changes to their

system
 Providing the publisher e-book
metadata
 Marketing and client support
(shared with CISTI)

CISTI was responsible for:
 Technology architecture planning
and business analysis
 Metadata loading and management
 Website interface design input and
translation
 Marketing and client support
(shared with MyiLibrary)

Workflow

The CISTI eBook
Loan Project
Overview

From opportunity to launch








Why eBook Loans
Project goals, challenges, risks
Project tasks and workflow
Project lessons learned, best practices and findings
Benefits to users and libraries
Conclusions & Next steps
How it works

Lessons learned:
Communications
Problem: At times, the distances

and preoccupations with other
tasks resulted in slow
communications and delays.
Mitigation strategy: The project
steering committee, which included
executives from both organizations
provided support on decisions to
allow the project to move forward.
Learned: Timely communications
led to the resolution of key project
road-blocks.

Lessons learned:
Loading problems
Problem: Some diacritics and table of
contents publisher metadata provided
by MyiLibrary was of poor quality –
delaying Catalogue record loading.
Mitigation strategy: MyiLibrary
pinpointed the problem as occurring in
the source metadata records. Some
data was corrected on the spot with
more corrections promised in future
loads.
Learned: Given the relatively small
number (6%) of records involved
affecting findability and with the
promise of future metadata updates,
the project team decided to accept the
status quo and move ahead with
project launch.

Lessons learned:
Getting Publisher
sign-on
Problem: Delays in signing
publishers created complications
because the publisher e-book
records could not be displayed and
offered to clients until the publisher
had signed.
Mitigation strategy: CISTI loaded
all of the records but had to keep
unsigned publisher records
“suppressed” from public view if they
were not signed.
Learned: Because of the hard work
of the negotiators, MyiLibrary signed
on some of the world’s largest e-book
publishers Springer, Elsevier and
Taylor and Francis before the official
launch.

Lessons learned:
Authorizing users
Problem: CISTI and MyiLibrary had a disagreement
over authorizing end-users accessing the eBooks.
MyiLibrary wanted to create an additional end user
password login. CISTI preferred not, wishing to put
the emphasis on client usability and the
minimization of barriers. MyiLibrary had a legitimate
business concern about unauthorized use and also
wanted to offer additional features to end-users only possible if they had their own password.
Mitigation strategy: At the end, an agreement was
reached on having no additional login with an
understanding to re-visit the issue if there was
proven abuse. Currently all eBook loans expire after
four weeks and terms & conditions state they are for
personal use only.
Lessons: Partnership is about collaboration and
compromise.

Best practices

 Creating use cases at the outset
of the project
 Maintaining a shared project
task list
 Keeping an issues log
 Incorporating client feedback for future updates

Findings
The project was a success because:
 Produced a new eBook loan service where all the stakeholders
(CISTI, MyiLibrary, publishers, clients, users) reached a
common goal to improve e-book accessibility.
 CISTI, as a public sector organization, and MyiLibrary, as a
commercial enterprise, shared a vision and carried it through to
a successful conclusion.
 A project conducted “virtually” over two continents succeeded in
its goals and was completed on time.

The CISTI eBook
Loan Project
Overview
From opportunity to launch








Why eBook Loans
Project goals, challenges, risks
Project tasks and workflow
Project lessons learned, best practices and findings
Benefits to users and libraries
Conclusions & Next steps
How it works

Value Proposition for
users
eBook Loan Service allows the user to:
 Find and obtain relevant scientific, technical, medical, business
and social science eBooks from major e-book publishers
 No mailing wait, download immediately from
email link to web browser
interface
 Search and read eBook on line for 30 days
 Copy, paste and print a certain number of pages

Value Propositions
for libraries
eBook loans allow libraries to …
 Have immediate access
 Avoid mailing wait / no unfilled
 Borrow unlimited books
 Reduce loan processing costs
 Renew loans
 Forward eBooks to end users wherever they are
 Avoid recalls / late returns / lost books
 No annual eBook license or subscription required

Advantage eBook Loans

NRC employees

The CISTI eBook
Loan Project
Overview
From opportunity to launch








Why eBook Loans
Project goals, challenges, risks
Project tasks and workflow
Project lessons learned, best practices and findings
Benefits to users and libraries
Conclusions & Next steps
How it works

Conclusions
 The eBook Loan Service project and the implementation of
the service break the barriers of time, distance and cost.
 CISTI took a practical approach to increasing access to ebooks through a collaboration with an aggregator and
publishers.
 Fair use / dealing issues for e-books are not resolved by this
service. The primary goal is to improve client access to ebooks beyond the existing licensing and purchase models
available.

Next Steps

 Promote the service world-wide
 Facilitate other forms of payment
beyond credit cards, working with
other organizations such as OCLC
 Expand the service to include more
publishers and other providers
world-wide to ensure that users
have the fullest range of choice
 Look for other opportunities to
partner to achieve our goals

The CISTI eBook
Loan Project
Overview
From opportunity to launch








Why eBook Loans
Project goals, challenges, risks
Project tasks and workflow
Project lessons learned, best practices and findings
Benefits to users and libraries
Conclusions & Next steps
How it works

Open Shopping Cart &
Payment Server

Select an eBook and
put in shopping cart

View Shopping Cart

Enter Payment Details

Send Email to enduser

Email to Payer

Email to enduser

Et Voila! eBook Loan
display & features

Take away thought
“What technology often does is help us re-invent
situations which have already existed but are now
ready for modernisation
or moderation”
Graham Cornish, 2002

Questions?

Thank you

Bronwen Woods
Phone 613-990-9140
Fax: 613-952-8239
bronwen.woods@nrc-cnrc.gc.ca
Michael Ireland
Phone 613-991-9988
Fax:613-993-0747
michael.ireland@nrc-cnrc.gc.ca
NRC-Canada Institute for Scientific and Technical Information (CISTI)