Book Review: Building and Managing E-Book Collections: A How-To-Do-It Manual for Librarians

Abstract

Building and Managing Collections: A How-To-Do-It Manual for Librarians. Edited by Richard Kaplan. Chicago: Neal-Schuman, 2012. 197 p. $75 softcover (ISBN: 978-155570-7767). How-To-Do-It Manuals. Intended for a broad audience of librarians at many different kinds of institutions, Building and Managing Collections provides a strong starting place to get an e-book collection program underway. The manual is divided into three parts: Part I: E-Books in Context; Part II: E-Books in Detail; and Part III: E-Books in Practice. Beginning with a history of e-books and perspectives from both publishers and libraries on the market for e-books, Building and Managing Collections continues with an overview of collection management from selection to assessment, and concludes with six examples of successful implementations at a wide range of institutions. Academic libraries--health science libraries in particular--are especially well represented by contributors. True to the manual's intent to appeal to a broad audience, however, the how-to chapters address concerns that would be faced by any library. In addition, editor Richard Kaplan has assembled case studies from professionals with experience in public libraries, school libraries, and publishing. Part I: E-Books in Context sets the stage. Although e-books are no longer newcomers to library collections, their business models, workflows, and service models are in flux. The relationship between libraries, publishers, and patrons in the ecology of e-books remains unsettled. Nadia J. Lalla in chapter 3, E-Book Publishing--The View from the Library, offers a framework through which all of the chapters that followed may be considered: As soon as the decision is made to purchase books in digital format for a library, a myriad of decisions must be made. Should e-books be purchased via a single exclusive publisher or a third-party vendor? What format will the e-book have? On which e-book platform will it appear? How should libraries acquire e-books? The answers to these questions can unexpectedly shape a library's collections and its future decisions regarding the funding of those collections. (23) In a period of ongoing transition, collection management decisions must be made with a long view. Part II: E-Books in Detail tackles pragmatic questions regarding the specific collection management activities of selecting, licensing, budgeting, cataloging, and assessing e-book collections. In addition, an entire chapter focuses on best practices for e-book collection management in public libraries. As a whole, this section presents the meat of the manual, that is, the chapters that will be most thumbed through over time. One topic that may have deserved its own chapter in the second section is the long-term preservation of e-books acquired in perpetuity, as opposed to those acquired by lease, since e-books present unique digital preservation concerns. …