In the tangled world of e-books, there are lots of lessons to be learned.
Readers are learning:
- That an e-book you bought this week may not be available for purchase next week
- That there are fake e-books around and that you need to keep an eye on lots of things before clicking BUY
Authors are learning:
- To write more and write it faster!
- To keep a constant watch for fraud
- How to publish their own books, some even very successfully
- And, that publishers contribute quite a lot
Publishers are learning:
- That it’s tricky to decide on how to price e-books
- That they have lots to argue about
Libraries are learning:
- If you find an e-book in Google Scholar, you may only get a portion of the content; whereas if the book is in Catalyst, our library online catalog, we have the whole book
- Most academic e-books are NOT in the major subject databases (e.g., PubMed, Compendex), so that people aren’t finding them
- Many people don’t know how to find e-books in Catalyst — here’s a video to show you how
Please ask your librarian or check the E-Books Guide if you have any e-book-related question!