This presentation combines highlights from two 2014 ER&L presentations: Never Mind I’ll Just Buy It: Why Users Won’t Jump Through Your Hoops and DDA 2.0: Evidence-Based Selection of E-Books. Via an entertaining compare and contrast, this presentation explores disconnects between e-books via library PDA and third-party platforms compared to “real world” resources such as Kindle e-books. Then, the presenter will show how UConn Libraries PDA program is quite successful from an acquisitions perspective, but access to DRM-encased e-books is a less than ideal user experience and share how UConn Libraries is working to provide access to thousands of DRM-free e-books while only purchasing titles with highest use. The purpose is to illustrate how library resources and commercial resources aim to meet user needs in radically different ways, and how libraries can fix it.

1. May 6, 2014
This work is licensed Galadriel Chilton under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-Share Alike 4.0 International License.
Why Users Won’t Jump Through Library E-Book Hoops and How To Fix It
Galadriel Chilton
galadriel.chilton@lib.uconn.edu
Abstract
This presentation combines highlights from two 2014 ER&L presentations: Never Mind I’ll Just Buy It:
Why Users Won’t Jump Through Your Hoops and DDA 2.0: Evidence-Based Selection of E-Books.
Via an entertaining compare and contrast, this presentation explores disconnects between e-books via
library PDA and third-party platforms compared to “real world” resources such as Kindle e-books.
Then, the presenter will show how UConn Libraries PDA program is quite successful from an acquisitions
perspective, but access to DRM-encased e-books is a less than ideal user experience and share how
UConn Libraries is working to provide access to thousands of DRM-free e-books while only purchasing
titles with highest use.
The purpose is to illustrate how library resources and commercial resources aim to meet user needs in
radically different ways, and how libraries can fix it.
Image Talking Points
Hello! Today I’m going to share with you
highlights from two 2014 ER&L presentations –
the first entitled Never Mind I’ll Just Buy It: Why
Users Won’t Jump Through Your Hoops, I co-
presented with my colleague Joelle Thomas and
the second was entitled DDA 2.0: Evidence Based
Selection of E-Books.
Let’s begin with a comparison of Kindle e-book
access to Library e-book access; specifically e-
books via third-party platforms.

2. May 6, 2014
This work is licensed Galadriel Chilton under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-Share Alike 4.0 International License.
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Kindle e-books: three clicks or taps and you have
your e-book and it can be accessed on a Kindle or
any device with a Kindle app.
Library e-book access – long, text-heavy
instructions on how to access an e-book on your
computer, download it, and maybe transfer it to
another device.
To download e-books from some platforms, we
are inflicting 1 minute and 43 seconds of pain on
our users, and it’s more if a user doesn’t have an
EBSCO account already.
If a user misses the small print, than, the book
can’t be transferred to another device.
Once you’re done with the e-book, deleting it
from Adobe Digital Editions doesn’t really mean
that you’re deleting it.
Another example of text heavy, detailed
instructions, that when encountered by one
faculty member, prompted them to ask:
“Why is the library buying e-books that are so
hard to use?”

3. May 6, 2014
This work is licensed Galadriel Chilton under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-Share Alike 4.0 International License.
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Truth.
Yet, more and more people are acquiring the
devices to read e-books.
E-book readership is going up.
Yet, many library users don’t know that libraries
offer e-books.
And those that do, suffer.
We have assumptions dissonance.
Since 2003, users have been expecting e-objects
with intuitive, easy to user interfaces.

4. May 6, 2014
This work is licensed Galadriel Chilton under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-Share Alike 4.0 International License.
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Yet, we seem to want them to expect the
complex gadget with many pages of instructions.
We are not meeting users’ expectations, and…
Complexity isn’t an excuse.
Piracy isn’t an excuse either.
Instead, we need to build new models of
acquiring e-books.

5. May 6, 2014
This work is licensed Galadriel Chilton under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-Share Alike 4.0 International License.
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So that users aren’t encountering closed doors…
Or having to settle for less.
Especially when they are used to e-journal article
access of one-click PDFs.
And when we can provide e-book access within
the context of our already-subscribed e-journal
content.
So, I did some analysis of our PDA profiles and
use…

6. May 6, 2014
This work is licensed Galadriel Chilton under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-Share Alike 4.0 International License.
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And had an idea that could bring us closer to the
DRM-free, unlimited simultaneous user, user-
driven, title-by-title e-book access that we need,
and that users expect.
Oxford is piloting title-by-title instead packages.
We’re in an evidence and usage-based
acquisitions pilot of content with Gale for
Archives Unbound, Wiley for e-books, and Multi
Science Publishing for specialized e-journal
articles.
As I understand, Taylor & Francis, SAGE, and
Alexander Street Press already have or are
working on evidence/usage based acquisition
models.
There are also new models of opening and
expanding e-book access such as Knowledge
Unlatched
(http://www.knowledgeunlatched.org/) and
Gluejar (http://www.gluejar.com/).
This needed so that we can unlock access to e-
books and other content…
And provide users with a lovely experience to the
information they seek.

7. May 6, 2014
This work is licensed Galadriel Chilton under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-Share Alike 4.0 International License.
Image Talking Points