You may start noticing a number of new eBooks coming through in the new titles lists.  As signalled in the review of non-continuing resources, we have decided to purchase a number of heavily used Taylor and Francis eBooks on the EBL short term loan profile, replacing these with publisher direct, digital rights management (DRM) free versions.  We are also hoping to purchase 3 Springer eBook collections: namely the 2014-2015 Engineering and 2015 Earth and Environmental Science collections.  The Taylor and Francis eBooks are now going live and we hope to have the go-ahead for the Springer eBooks shortly.  These purchases are made possible through trust funds and wouldn’t have been something we could otherwise afford with the Library’s information resources budget.

The bigger picture is that as well as user benefits of there being no DRM, we were seeing rising costs against our EBL eBook opex budget, with most purchases being Taylor and Francis eBooks.  By outright purchasing more Taylor and Francis eBooks that have evidence of repeated demand we will be able to reduce the size of our EBL eBook profile which should help to reduce our eBook opex spend in 2016.  The Springer collections are also DRM free.  Previously purchased Springer collections have been popular, well used and there is evidence of demand for the three collections selected for purchase from turnaway statistics.

Tim Stedman