The Ebook solution at CERN

1
The Ebook solution at CERN

• Joanne Yeomans
• CERN Scientific Information Service
• Milan July 2006

2
CERN characteristics

• CERN is a particle physics research institution
  employing experimental physicists, theoretical
  physicists, computer scientists, engineers and
  administrative support staff
• 3000 staff are employed on site
• At any time there are about 6500 visiting
  scientists
• A huge number of physicists around the world
  access the library resources
• There is a summer programme for several hundred
  students

3
CERN Library

• The Central Library contains books, journals,
  etc.
• The Library catalogue is more than just a
  catalogue it contains 200,000 full-text
  articles, links to online conference proceedings,
  photographs, minutes of meetings and many more
  things

• For this reason, the catalogue is very frequently
  accessed by scientists both at CERN and elsewhere
  in the world

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Why does EBL work for us?

• There is a large collection of up-to-date books
  from different publishers
• We can choose only those books we want high
  level, specialised books on physics, engineering
  and computing
• Selected individual titles can be added to the
  catalogue, and treated and searched in the same
  way as our other full-text resources
• We only pay for what we use
• Access for users off-site is possible
• When the summer students are here and there is
  high demand for the same titles, multiple
  simultaneous access is possible
• The company is flexible and sensitive to our
  requests

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How EBL works at CERN

• Metadata for a list of titles selected by the
  librarians has been uploaded to the catalogue
• At the moment, the ebook has a separate catalogue
  record from the printed book (if we hold a copy)
  but we intend to change this and merge the two
  records
• Key titles have been bought in advance so that
  access to these is via the linear-lending model
• Other titles can be browsed for 5 minutes before
  the reader is asked if they want to use the book
  for longer at which point a charge is made which
  is between 5-25 of the cost of the book
• An auto-purchase is set to be triggered on the
  second loan request

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How EBL works at CERN

• Screen shot of full list of ebl

7
How EBL works at CERN

• Screen shot of catalogue with print and ebook
  displayed (veltman)
• Highlight on mouse the ebook access link

8

• 000899021 001__ 899021
• 000899021 003__ _SzGeCERN
• 000899021 005__ _20051025180707.0
• 000899021 020__ a0306471213
• 000899021 020__ a0792345576upaper version
• 000899021 020__ a978-030647121-6
• 000899021 020__ a978-079234557-2upaper
  version
• 000899021 035__ 9EBLa196727
• 000899021 041__ aeng
• 000899021 050__ aQC174.12
• 000899021 082__ a530.12
• 000899021 100__ aNakamura, K
• 000899021 245__ aQuantum versus
  chaosbquestions emerging from mesoscopic cosmos
  
• 000899021 250__ aelectronic version
• 000899021 260__ aDordrechtbKluwerc1997
• 000899021 300__ amult. p
• 000899021 340__ aeBook
• 000899021 490__ aFundamental theories of
  physics
• 000899021 595__ aSIS EBL2005

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How EBL works at CERN

• Screen shot of catalogue with print and ebook
  displayed (veltman)
• Highlight on mouse the ebook access link

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How EBL works at CERN

• Screen shot of login page

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How EBL works at CERN

• Screen shot of Final ebook page

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Managing EBL at CERN

• Metadata is supplied in MARC format so it has
  been easy to upload records and automatically
  make the few small changes needed to match our
  own cataloguing style
• At the beginning we had to test demand and usage
  to tweak the settings a little bit
• But day-to-day now we do not need to manage the
  system very much
• We will be setting up a subject-based alerting
  system so that the acquisitions librarian can
  learn about new titles of interest and select
  them for adding to the catalogue
• We are invoiced monthly and in the management
  portal we can check the usage

13
Level of use of EBL at CERN

• Feedback from users has been strong and positive
• I was working at home on my thesis and was
  missing some information so I just thought Id
  log-on and see if there was something in the
  library that might help, I found this perfect
  book and then saw there was some kind of link,
  and it was brilliant the whole book was there
  online so I got what I needed without having to
  wait. It saved me loads of time. This librarys
  brilliant!
• Comment received by the library desk staff from
  a user
• Overall use is higher than we expected every
  day someone is using an ebook
• There has been use of books on subjects we hadnt
  recognised as being of high interest to our users
  so this has prompted us to buy printed copies and
  look for titles on similar subjects

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Live demonstration

• http//cdsweb.cern.ch/

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Are we happy with EBL?

• YES!
• Quote from Linda Bennett of Gold Leaf, a company
  that provides business development consultancy
  and market research to the book industry
• with respect to their lending model, EBL are
  ahead of the game
• UKSG seminar on ebooks 9 Nov 2005

16
Any questions about our experience

• Joanne Yeomans
• Joanne.yeomans_at_cern.ch
• 41 22 76 70548