Canadian Publishers Collection
Fact Sheet for Publishers
This page is designed to answer questions from Canadian publishers
considering electronic book distribution.
The Digital Library: A new purchasing and distribution model
The digital library is a vision that has taken hold in the library
world in recent years. Ocer the past decade, libraries have become
familiar with the benefits of electronic access to newspapers,
journals, magazines and bibliographic or fulltext databases. These
resources are now commonplace in libraries at all levels (special,
school, public and academic.) However, these benefits have not been
realized in the realm of monographs, which are the stock in trade of
the traditional publishing community. Lately, however, library
advocates have been calling for change in this area. Library
associations in several provinces have secured significant government
funding to acquire and provide province-wide access to electronic
resources, including books.
This development will result in the expenditure of millions of
dollars in networked access to library resources in coming years. In
2008, the CRNK partnership allocated about $50 million to the licensing
of electronic resources for a consortium of 67 Canadian universities. More information on the CRKN license.
Over $11 million was returned to publishers participating in the
Canadian Electronic Library from this purchase.
The Digital Library: A new paradigm for users
The digital library is also a new way of presenting text to
users/readers, being used to the worldwide web, have different
expectations and ways of interacting with information resources. These
people write and read simultaneously; they engage in dialogues and
share texts. Information for them is a collage, not a narrative. To
this generation of users, the authority of text comes not from its
format, but its relevance to their need. They want to be able to move
easily from one text to another, to link easily from one text to
another as interest dictates. And they expect to find information in
"print" resources as they do in electronic: serendipitously and through
awareness tools. You might say that the digital library is to print as
the iPod is to the CD. Same content, different manifestation. Another
analogy is the Amazon "Search inside the book" service.
What do librarians expect from the Digital Library?
There are certain features sought by the librarians who are making
the purchasing decisions for this new generation of users. They want to
be able to offer their users personal "bookshelves," the ability to
annotate, sophisticated search tools, multiple links between texts,
valid citations for excerpted material, MARC records, federated
searches, enhanced metadata, and easy sharing of texts and portfolios.
How does the Canadian Electronic Library answer these needs?
The ebrary technology platform offers a range of features that
answer these needs and address the new generation of users described
above.
How can monograph publishers participate in digital library
initiatives?
Many publishers are already publishing electronically through one or
more e-book services, or even through their own websites. Amazon, Adobe
and many other vendors offer e-book distribution services, and
publishers may submit individual titles for inclusion in these.
However, these are aimed at individual users, not institutions. Library
consortia are not equipped to deal with individual publishers; in order
to realize the economies of scale in the Digital Library, they must
find aggregate solutions which not only collect a number of titles
under one "roof" but also provide economies in terms of technical
processing. These aggregate solutions are widely available for journals
and reference works, which have been distributed electronically for
years. But for monographs, there are relatively few. The Canadian
Electronic Library is one of these.
How do we become a publishing partner with GLC?
We work under contract with publishers.
Here is the CEL publisher license agreement (PDF).
What are the main advantages offered by the Canadian Electronic
Library to publishers?
By placing a copy of every title included in libraries throughout
Canada and the world, the CEL offers publishers an additional way of
creating awareness for their titles and authors. By placing a MARC
record for every title in every client library's catalogue, the CEL
offers increased visibility for titles and publishers. By providing
sophisticated fulltext search capabilities, the CEL offers unmatched
access to the contents of each title, leading users to the
serendipitous discoveries that are such a vital part of the internet
experience, and which are demanded by the younger generation of users.
And by providing instant access to all titles in the collection, the
CEL offers a degree of user satisfaction that is rare in the library
world, where normally discovery of a resource leads to a wait for its
delivery. And all of this comes with little expense and no downside
risk to the publisher, because the online experience is not conducive
to cover-to-cover reading. Once alerted to the existence of a book,
author or idea through CEL, the user requiring full content will turn
to his bookstore or library for a print copy. Publishers are encouraged
to add hyperlinks to their websites to each title submitted to enable
users to locate and purchase copies.
What are the main features of the GLC contract?
The contract is a three-year non-exclusive agreement with renewal
provisions. Publishers are not restricted in any way from using other
forms of distribution or entering other electronic rights contracts.
The decision on which titles to submit is entirely that of the
publisher. There is no direct cost to the publisher; the only indirect
cost is the overhead of submitting titles (see below.) Revenue from
sales of the Canadian Electronic Library is shared with publishers on a
royalty basis. See below for more detail.
What are the licensing or sales models offered by CEL?
There are two: Licensed Access and Perpetual Access. Publishers may
choose either or both, and they may apply specific licensing to
specific titles if they wish.
Licensed Access
(LD): This is a subscription or rental model, under which
libraries pay annually for access to a collection of titles. As
specified in the contract, half of the payment collected is paid into a
pool which is divided among the titles in the collection according to a
usage-based formula.
Perpetual Access (PA): This
is a sales model, under which libraries may purchase access to the
online book in perpetuity, just as they would a print edition.
What are the advantages of each model?
The Licensed Access model offers publishers income without requiring
the commitment to sale of the title. This is attractive to some
publishers who fear that the online book will erode print revenue. (As
noted below, this has not proven to be the case.)
The Perpetual Access model offers better revenue opportunities. As
outlined in the contract, PA licenses are priced at a multiple of
list price, which is set by the publisher. Since libraries have shown a
preference to purchase online books, the PA model opens more sales
possibilities.
Most publishers in CEL elect both models for most titles, reasoning
that because terms and conditions may be easily changed for any title,
any unexpectedly harmful effects from a license condition may be
alleviated by changing the terms.
What are the usage models offered by CEL?
There are two: Single-user (SUPO) and Multiple Simultaneous User
(MUPO.) These options apply only to Perpetual Access licenses, since by
default all subscription licenses are MUPO.
These conditions govern the number of authorized users who may
access the book simultaneously. SUPO restricts this number to one,
while MUPO allows for unlimited multiple-user access. As outlined in
the contract, the return to the publisher is 50% higher with MUPO.
Which usage model to choose?
Most CEL publishers have chosen the MUPO option for the simple
reason that the revenue possibilities are better. But if there is
concern over loss of sales, SUPO is always available.
What are the costs to publishers?
There is no charge for submission of titles. Your only obligation
under the contract is to provide us with a valid PDF copy of every
title you wish to submit to the service. You do this by transferring
these files to a reserved FTP site on our secure server.
What is the processing routine and the requirements for publishers?
The best way to answer this question is to offer an example. One of
our partners, a medium-sized scholarly publisher (issuing about 100 new
titles per year) has designated one staff member to do this work. It
takes this individual about 2-3 days per year to handle the transfer
and other work associated with posting files to the Canadian Electronic
Library. Once the files are received, we pass them through a validation
process, convert them to the ebrary Exchange Document Format and add
them to the Canadian Electronic Library. We also create MARC records
for every title as well as metadata, both of which enhance the search
process. For complete information, see Submission
Guidelines for Publishers.
How does the Canadian Electronic Library preserve the integrity of
publishers' imprints and titles?
We recognize the publisher's abiding interest in the integrity of
its intellectual properties. Your company's name will be displayed
every time one of your publications is accessed by a user. Your books
will appear to users exactly as you publish them. And any material
printed or selections copied from your books will carry automatic
citations with copyright notices.
Will joining the Canadian Electronic Library affect our print sales
to libraries?
Again, the best way to answer this is to cite the experience of
publishers who are currently participating. The scholarly publisher
mentioned above is very conscious of library sales, which form a
significant part of its business. After three years with ebrary, the
Director of the firm has not seen evidence of any impact on library
sales. If he should notice an impact in future, he plans to exercise
his right to remove titles from the service: a feature of the ebrary
contract which offers protection against such a development.
What about sales outside of Canada?
Ebrary collections are sold to libraries around the world through a
network of agents and distributors. Our publisher contract naturally
restricts electronic rights to those territories covered by the
publisher's original rights. Where world rights are available, we will
create collections that will be sold worldwide through this network.
A word about the future
Libraries of all kinds (school, public and academic) are well on
their way to transforming themselves from physical entities into
virtual centres of knowledge accessible to users around the clock and
from any location. As noted above, they have achieved this
transformation through online catalogues and databases of journals and
other bibliographic data. So the digital library is here for those
resources. That libraries have not generally been able to offer their
monograph holdings through digital channels has to do in part to the
reluctance of publishers to embrace the model, and in part with the
lack of technology platforms that are suitable for the special
requirements of monographs.
A further consideration for monograph publishers is the fact that
library financial resources are being increasingly directed away from monographs (trade publications) and towards online resources,
where libraries receive more "bang for their buck" in terms of
widespread usage and processing savings.
The digital library is one dramatic way in which library resources
can be given new life. The argument is compelling and the outcome
inevitable. As noted above, provincial governments (the source of
school and public library funding) have recognized this and have put
the wheels in motion to bring it about.
And finally…
We hope that the above will convince publishers to look at the
possibilities offered by the Canadian Electronic Library. We will be
happy to assist by answering further questions. We ask for only a
three-year commitment, which we believe is enough time for publishers
to gain the experience needed to properly evaluate the risks and
possibilities offered by the digital library.
For more information, please contact:
Bob Gibson
Gibson Library Connections
PO Box 1029
Saint-Lazare, QC J7T 2Z7
Phone: 450-458-0677, Fax: 450-458-0400
bob@gibsonlibraryconnections.ca
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