E-book and print book price and desirability for university libraries: a comparative study
| Date | 05 February 2018 |
| Published date | 05 February 2018 |
| Pages | 82-102 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/EL-06-2016-0142 |
| Author | K.N. Rao,Sunil Kumar,Manorama Tripathi |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management,Information & communications technology,Internet |
E-book and print book price and
desirability for university
libraries: a comparative study
K.N. Rao
Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India
Sunil Kumar
Planning and Development Division, Indira Gandhi National Open University,
New Delhi, India, and
Manorama Tripathi
Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India
Abstract
Purpose –The purpose of this paper isto compare the prices of print and electronic versions of thesame
scholarly titles chargedfrom a university library. This study also examines whether preferencesfor print or
electronic formatsdiffer with disciplines and whether high preferences for the electronic versionin particular
disciplines lead to taggingof high prices for e-books in those disciplines. This study evaluates associationin
prices of e-books and their print versions for scholarly books. It also explains trends in gaps of prices of
electronicand their print versions over the time to understandchanging price policy of e-bookswith time.
Design/methodology/approach –This is a case study analysing and interpreting prices of 717 book
titles availablein electronic and print versions out of 1248 book titles recommendedby the faculty members of
the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in early 2014. The minimum prices quoted by publishers or
aggregators for thesebooks became the secondary data for the study. The research methodologyis based on
quantitativedescriptive and inferential statistical techniques.
Findings –The study statisticallyrejected the hypothesis that price tagsof electronic and print versions of
books do not differ significantly. E-booksare usually more expensive than their print counterparts.They are
more highly priced in disciplines, where the users prefer electronic books over the print ones. There is a
moderate association in prices of electronic and their print versions; libraries can estimateabout the budget
which would be required for procuring books in electronic format with the help of price of print version;
however, the accuracy of thisstipulation would be only 20 per cent. The study has highlightedthat 95.4 per
cent of the scholarly e-booksin English medium are published in the USA and the UK. The university presses
of Cambridge, Oxford, Columbia, Princeton and MIT and commercial publishers like Routledge, Palgrave
Macmillan,Ashgate and Springer are the major publishers and providers of the scholarlye-books.
Originality/value –This study provides insightsinto pricing policy of electronic and their print versions
of scholarly book titles for libraries. Thus it may be relevant and helpful for library administrators in
informeddecision making while developing their collections for books.
Keywords Academic libraries, E-books, University libraries, Costs, Acquisitions
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
E-books are the latest arrivals on the information landscape. Students and researchers have
actively incorporated them into their information and learning activities. Inherent
characteristics of e-books, such as ease of access, using and retrieving information anytime
and anywhere,taking notes and highlightingand adding annotationswhile reading facilitate
EL
36,1
82
Received26 June 2016
Revised26 January 2017
Accepted12 May 2017
TheElectronic Library
Vol.36 No. 1, 2018
pp. 82-102
© Emerald Publishing Limited
0264-0473
DOI 10.1108/EL-06-2016-0142
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/0264-0473.htm
user learning and research endeavours. In response to user preference for e-books, libraries
are actively procu ring them. Pickett et al. (2014)predicted that e-books would be the futureof
academic libraries due to their growing popularity and the declining circulation of print
books, and urgedlibraries not to ignore user demandfor the acquisition of e-books.
The acceptability of e-books in libraries is evident from the rising demand and a boost in the
circulation of e-books in recent years. There has been rapid growth in the sale of e-books. The
Annual Report of the Association of American Publishers (APP) covering the year 2014
reported the sale of over 510 million e-books with an annual growth rate of 3.8 per cent. This
APP report consolidated the sale records of 1,200 publishers in the USA. Thus, the actual rise in
e-book sales may be much higher as this report did not include those published and sold in the
rest of the world nor even all publishers in the USA. Rivero (2013) forecasted that the share of
digital textbooks in the USA would be 50 per cent by 2017. The growth in the sale of e-books
reflects the favourable attitude of readers towards academic e-books and foretells that e-books
will be an integral component of library collections. The APP report further stated that 94 per
cent of libraries in the USA had already adopted e-books, and that the rest of the libraries are
willing to embrace e-books but are encumbered by budgetary constraints (APP, 2015).
Publishers havetaken advantage of the rapid increase in demand for e-books in libraries
by raising the pricesof e-books. Jensen (2015) noted the sudden increase of 20-50per cent in
the price of e-books for single use in libraries. There is an immediate need to provide
additionalbudget funding to librariesto offset the rise in the price of e-books.However, most
of the academic institutions function on shoestring budgets and different units of the
universitysystem compete for theoutstanding share of thebudget. Library budgetshave not
kept pace with the rising prices of e-books which results in cancellations of subscriptions.
Librariesneed to work out a solutionto sustain their bookcollections on limitedbudgets.
Some academic book titles are simultaneously available in electronic and print forms. It
is a challenging task for libraries to decidewhich format of a book to procure to ensure the
optimum collection of books with a limited budget and also meet user requirements
satisfactorily. The selectionof print and e-books must be economical. Libraries can keep the
acquisition of books inexpensive and ensure a larger collection of books by purchasing the
cheaper format, eithere-book or print. Bailey et al. (2015) endorsed that the selection between
the print or e-book version of an academic title should be justified in terms of the price
differential betweenthe two versions, print and electronic.
In this context, the present study attempts to discover if there is any difference in the
prices of print and electronic versions of the same scholarly academic titles. It identifies
the core publishers of e-books and highlights that over 95 per cent of academic e-books in
the English language have been published in the USA and the UK. The study delves into
preferences for electronic versions and demand for the newest titles, and how this differs
from discipline to discipline. It also reports on the trends in gaps of prices between print
books and their electronic versions with the passage of time to explain changes in e-book
pricing as they gainpopularity.
Background
The Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU;www.jnu.ac.in) was established in New Delhi under
the JNU Act of 1966.The publicly funded university houses ten schools of studies and four
major centres which offer a broad spectrum of courses in the areas of the sciences, social
sciences and humanities at the graduate, postgraduateand doctoral levels. The schools and
centres are committed to pursuing and maintaining the high and rigorous standards of
academic and research excellence. The constituency of the university comprises over 600
faculty members,8,500 students and 1,350 non-teaching staff.
E-books in
university
libraries
83
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