“The company has provided a chapter level approach to the e-books, with individual DOIs assigned. The HTML or PDF documents are fully searchable and can be downloadedÂby individual chapterÂand printed. The service allows unlimited, simultaneous access to the e-books. There are no course-pack or other restrictions. A key differentiator is that libraries will own in perpetuity any e-books they buy and can store and archive them locally if they wish. The company hopes this model, combined with attractive pricing, will accelerate the adoption of its e-books in academic and corporate markets.”
I like the fact that the material is sold, not licensed, to the libraries but to be honest, I’m still skeptical about the whole e-book thing. Sorry, I just love the printed book.
Michael Sauers is currently the Director of Technology for Do Space in Omaha, NE. Michael has been training librarians in technology for the past twenty years and has also been a public library trustee, a bookstore manager for a library friends group, a reference librarian, serials cataloger, technology consultant, and bookseller since earning his MLS in 1995 from the University at Albany’s School of Information Science and Policy. Michael has also written dozens of articles for various journals and magazines and his fourteenth book, Emerging Technologies: A Primer for Librarians (w/ Jennifer Koerber) was published in May 2015 and more books are on the way. In his spare time he blogs at travelinlibrarian.info, runs The Collector’s Guide to Dean Koontz Web site, takes many, many photos, and typically reads more than 100 books a year.
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One Reply to “Enhanced SpringerLink Offers eBook Collection”
Michael,
As you know, I’m with you on the print book thing–but I wonder whether the Springer collection might not be a valuable addition to the “pseudobook” category that NetLibrary and Safari do so well: That is, book-length texts where expected use is of a few paragraphs, a few pages–not reading the full text.
In such cases, digital delivery with or without reading from the screen makes a good deal of sense.
Michael,
As you know, I’m with you on the print book thing–but I wonder whether the Springer collection might not be a valuable addition to the “pseudobook” category that NetLibrary and Safari do so well: That is, book-length texts where expected use is of a few paragraphs, a few pages–not reading the full text.
In such cases, digital delivery with or without reading from the screen makes a good deal of sense.