The aims of the FinELib project E-textbooks for Finnish higher education are:

• More Finnish e-textbooks available
• Good usability of ebooks, for both end users and the library acquisition management
• Lisensing models which take into account the high usage peaks of e-textbooks
• Finnish publishers more aware of the needs of libraries regarding e-(text)books

Project started in January 2014, and the pilot phase is active during August 2015 - July 2016. The project is organized by The National Library of Finland and FinELib consortium, and participants include higher education libraries (both universities and universities of applied sciences), publishers Edita, Gaudeamus, PS-kustannus, and Vastapaino, together with ebook platform provider Ellibs.

Project includes 250 book titles, which are available for the participating libraries to purchase with two different pricing models.

• Simultaneous users
  • Packages: 3/5/20/50 simultaneous users
  • Valid for 6/12 months
  • Each library decides the length of their loan period
  • Patrons can make reservations
• Loan tokens
  • Packages: 25/50/100/200/400 loan tokens
  • Validfor max. one year from purchase
  • Loan period pre-determined as 7 days
  • 10 min preview (not counted as loan)
  • No reservations necessary

We are collecting e-book experiences from HE students and teachers with two surveys, which are open until the end of May.

• E-books supporting studies – a survey for students
• E-books supporting teaching – a survey for teachers

The project report will be published in autumn 2016. We hope that the experiences will benefit all, with more publishers selling e-books to libraries, with models that work for all parties.

Further information

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: finelib (at) helsinki.fi