On Wed, 9 Mar 2011, Steve Jones wrote:
It would be interesting to know whether academic libraries are keen on purchasing e-books. Does anyone have any insight or data? They're certainly comfortable purchasing licenses to electronic versions of journals, but how about books?
UNSW's current policy for new acquisitions is: "UNSW Library will purchase electronic versions of material in preference to print/hardcopy. UNSW Library will take the suitability of format for particular discipline areas into consideration." That said, researchers are given an option and I always request a print copy. (My ideal would be that the library purchase both.) Given the constantly changing state of licensing of ebooks, I am concerned (possibly paranoid) that licensing books rather than purchasing them might cost institutions more down the track. (See http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/story/2011/03/08/f-vp-misener-ebooks.html) There are books I have ordered for the UNSW library that are the only library copy in all of Australia (which makes it available for inter-library lending, public browsing and 'off-screen' reading etc.) Journals are a different story.