A DATA-DRIVEN INVESTIGATION INTO THE AVAILABILITY OF BOOKS FOR E-LENDING: COMPARING AUSTRALIA, THE US, THE UK, NZ AND CANADA

Concurrent session 7
Tuesday 31 July 2018, 11:50am - 12:15pm

Abstract

As part of an ARC Linkage project we have been working with library partners to investigate the availability of e-books to public libraries for lending – and the terms of that access. At APLIC, we will present the results of three of those studies. The first examines availability and terms for 546 titles across all five of the main aggregators operating in Australia: Overdrive, Baker & Taylor (Axis360), Wheelers (ePlatform), Bibliotheca (cloudLibrary) and Bolinda (BorrowBox). The second investigates availability and terms for those same 546 titles across a single aggregator in Australia, the US, Canada, the UK and NZ. The third investigates how long it has been taking for recent bestsellers to become available to libraries for e-lending.

We will also publicly make available our source data, and launch powerful interactive dashboards for free use by anyone interested in replicating our results or engaging in further analysis.

Enriched by interviews with representatives from all five main aggregators, our results contain surprises, mysteries, disappointments - and quite a lot of good news!

Presentation Slides

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