In spring 2014, the consortium launched a project aimed at increasing the availability of Finnish e-books at institutes of higher education using pricing models suitable for libraries. The aims of the FinELib project E-textbooks for Finnish higher education were:
- More Finnish e-textbooks would be available for HE institutions
- Good usability of ebooks, for both end users and the library acquisition management
- Lisensing models which will take into account the high usage peaks of e-textbooks
- Finnish publishers would be more aware of the needs of libraries regarding e-(text)books
The project was organized by The National Library of Finland and FinELib consortium, and participants included higher education libraries (both universities and universities of applied sciences), publishers Edita Publishing, Gaudeamus Helsinki University Press, PS-kustannus,and Vastapaino, together with ebook platform provider Ellibs Ltd.
During the one year pilot in the 2015–2016 academic year, two licensing models were tested: simultaneous user licenses and loan token packages with total of 250 book titles.
National Library also collected e-book experiences from HE students and teachers with two surveys, which were open in January - May 2016.
We hope that the experiences from this project will benefit all, with more publishers selling e-books to libraries, with models that work for all parties.
Further information
Report: E-book Survey for Higher Education Students and Teachers in Finland (part of the E-textbook project)
Licensing models for e-textbooks in Finland. Presentation at Nordic E-book conference, 2.10.2015, Copenhagen, and SLiC eBooks Conference, 9.10.2015, Glasgow.
FinELib office: [email protected]
