This article was downloaded by: [Thammasat University Libraries]On: 08 October 2014, At: 03:31Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registeredoffice: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK

Journal of Electronic Resources inMedical LibrariesPublication details, including instructions for authors andsubscription information:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/werm20

The ebrary Electronic Books PlatformShalu Gillum aa University of Central Florida College of Medicine , Orlando ,Florida , USAPublished online: 30 May 2014.

To cite this article: Shalu Gillum (2014) The ebrary Electronic Books Platform, Journal of ElectronicResources in Medical Libraries, 11:2, 69-77, DOI: 10.1080/15424065.2014.908031

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15424065.2014.908031

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eBOOKSHELF

Amanda Chiplock, Column Editor

The ebrary Electronic Books Platform

SHALU GILLUMUniversity of Central Florida College of Medicine, Orlando, Florida, USA

Ebrary is a web-based platform designed primarily for readingpublisher-provided electronic books and for viewing library-created user content. While ebrary offers e-books and purchasingmodels for many types of customers, including academic libraries,public libraries, and corporations, it has a large selection of titlesavailable for health sciences libraries in a variety of disciplines.This review will assess the content, navigation, and search func-tions of the ebrary platform and will describe some possible issueswith the platform of which medical libraries should be aware.

KEYWORDS E-books, ebrary, ProQuest

INTRODUCTION

Ebrary is a ProQuest product that provides electronic book solutions foracademic and public libraries and for corporate, government, high school,and publisher customers. For academic libraries, ebrary provides several

# Shalu GillumThis review does not contain screen shots of the ebrary platform. The author requested,

but was unable to obtain, permission to use screen shots for the purposes of this review.The author thanks Pamela Herring and Deedra Walton, Electronic Resources Librarians at

the Harriet F. Ginsburg Health Sciences Library, for their invaluable insights and assistance.Comments and suggestions should be sent to the Column Editor: Amanda Chiplock

(ac1815@nova.edu).Address correspondence to Shalu Gillum, JD, MLS, AHIP, Public Services Librarian,

Harriet F. Ginsburg Health Sciences Library, University of Central Florida College of Medicine,6850 Lake Nona Boulevard, Suite 210B, Orlando, FL 32827. E-mail: shalu@ucf.edu

Journal of Electronic Resources in Medical Libraries, 11(2):69–77, 2014

Published with license by Taylor & Francis

ISSN: 1542-4065 print=1542-4073 online

DOI: 10.1080/15424065.2014.908031

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different acquisition models, including short-term loans, patron-drivenacquisition, and traditional subscription-based services with unlimited, mul-tiuser access.1 Ebrary offers more than 75,000 titles in a variety of subjects,including medicine, nursing and allied health, psychology, and many others.The ebrary platform is viewable on any web-enabled browser. A free ebraryapp is available for both iOS (iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch) and Androiddevices. The app allows for reading ebrary content both online and offline.The most unique feature of the ebrary platform is the InfoTools menu, whichallows for highlighting keywords in e-books and looking them up using vari-ous online resources, including Google. A personal bookshelf feature givesusers the ability to highlight and annotate text with notes, and to save and sharethose highlights and notes with other ebrary users. Ebrary also offers a ‘‘DASH!(Data Sharing, Fast)’’ feature, which allows libraries to upload their owndigital content and view it on the ebrary platform, but which is beyond thescope of this review. Several languages are available for on-screen functionsof the ebrary platform including English, Spanish, French, Arabic, Japanese,Chinese, and several others. Ebrary provides libraries with free MARC recordsand COUNTER-compliant usage statistics. Another unique feature is thatcontent can be ordered directly from ebrary or through vendors such as YBP.

AVAILABLE CONTENT

Titles for the ebrary platform are available in a wide variety of disciplines. Formedical libraries, titles are available in life sciences, medicine, nursing andallied health. Subjects covered by ebrary’s medical titles include administra-tion, cancer, communicable diseases, emergency medicine, epidemiology,history of medicine, medical ethics, medical informatics, psychiatry andmental health, public health, and toxicology.2 Titles are also available fromseveral different publishers such as World Health Organization, National Aca-demies Press, Johns Hopkins University, Springer, and John Wiley & Sons.

ACQUIRING CONTENT

There are several ways libraries can acquire content for the ebrary platform,as well as several different models for purchasing content.3 Titles can beordered directly from ebrary, from various book vendors such as YBP, Baker& Taylor, and Harrassowitz, among others, or from some resellers.4

Subscription Model

For medical libraries looking to create a basic collection of e-books, ebraryoffers a traditional subscription model that provides multi-user access withpricing based on number of users.

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Patron-driven Acquisition Model

For libraries looking to purchase only those titles that are actually used,ebrary offers a Patron Driven Acquisition (PDA) model. Titles are triggeredby usage, and once triggered, a library has the option to purchase andown a perpetual archive of those titles. Libraries have the option of settingparameters for PDF-eligible titles, including subject, publisher, price, date,and others. Ebrary also has an ‘‘Extended Access’’ service that allows librariesto purchase titles under the single-user model license but still give access tomultiple users.5 For example, if a title is in use but is needed by another user,libraries can upgrade that title to the multi-user access model, purchase anadditional copy, or take a short-term loan on the title. Libraries also havethe option to have this process automated or to receive email notificationsso they can control the triggering of additional purchases.

Purchase (Perpetual Archive) Model

Under the Purchase or Perpetual Archive model, libraries choose titles toarchive in perpetuity, either for single-user or unlimited multi-user access.

Short-Term Loans Model

Ebrary also offers short-term loans on titles triggered based on usage. Loansare available for one-day or for seven-day periods. Libraries can use short-term loans with the PDA model to grant extended usage before titles are trig-gered for purchase. After the loan period ends, libraries can either purchasethe title through the PDA model or can take out another short-term loan.Libraries can get up to three short-term loans per title.

E-approvals Model

Libraries purchasing content through YBP have the option to automaticallypurchase books for ebrary based on a pre-established profile using YBP’sapproval system.

Software as a Service (SaaS) Model

A unique feature of the ebrary platform is that it is available to libraries thatwant to make available their own digital content online, or as an alternativeto an institutional repository system. This goes along with ebrary’s DASH!Service, which is beyond the scope of this review.

THE PLATFORM

To get an idea of what e-book navigation on ebrary is like, users cango to ebrary’s Title Preview website <http://site.ebrary.com/lib/

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academiccompletetitles/home.action>, which mimics the look and feel ofthe actual e-book platform. On the platform, tabs across the top of the screenare available for Info, Search, QuickView, and Bookshelf. Once a librarybecomes an ebrary subscriber, their institution’s name will appear in abanner across the top of the platform.

Info Tab

For users unfamiliar with the ebrary platform, the Info tab is a good place tostart. Here users will find a link to ebrary’s training site where they can sched-ule training from an ebrary representative or see available webinars. Alsounder the Info tab, a ‘‘Quick Guide’’ link exists for tutorials on key featuresand customization, including the QuickView tab, the main screen for e-bookviewing. These tutorials are Flash-based. Users can also find brochures anduser guides under this link. A link to browse all titles takes users to a listof titles to which their institution subscribes or has access.

Search Tab

Located next to the Info tab is the Search tab; however, a basic search bar isalways available in a banner under the four main tabs. Ebrary offers a varietyof search features, including simple and advanced searching, as well as theability to save and share searches. The Search tab contains three tabs of itsown, where uses can view results by title or chapter, and where searchescan be managed.

Simple Search

The simple and advanced search features are always visible on the ebraryplatform, regardless of which tab a user is in. The simple search box canbe used for basic searching. Once a search term is entered, users can focustheir search by narrowing it down to one of the 15 subjects listed, or a com-bination of subjects listed. Selecting multiple subjects combines the termsusing AND. The list of subjects provided varies slightly by e-book.

Advanced Search

Similar to the simple search function, advanced searching is always availableregardless of which tab a user is on. The advanced search link allows users tosearch up to nine fields at once. Users have the ability to add and removerows of search terms. Several fields are searchable, including text, subject,title, author, publisher, and many others. Users also have the option to hidethe advanced search functions in order to return to simple search.

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Title Results Tab

One of the three tabs under the Search tab is for Title Results. Here users cansee all ebrary titles to which their library subscribes or has access to, in whichtheir search term appears. The default view is a ‘‘medium’’ list of 20 titles. Otheroptions are a short list, which does not contain e-book cover images, and along list, which includes additional information including ISBN and OCLCnumbers. Results under this tab can be sorted by relevance (the default), title,contributor, publisher, or date. Search results can also be saved or exported.The default export format is a comma-separated values (CSV) file.

Clicking on a title in the results opens that e-book in the QuickViewviewer. Search terms are highlighted in the text. Under the TOC tab in thenavigation frame on the right of the platform, a magnifying glass iconindicates where search terms appear in the e-book. Bars of varying lengthsindicate the relevancy ranking of search terms in the e-book.

For each title listed under the Title Results tab, several parts of the searchresults are hyperlinked for greater cross-referencing and further searching.Users can click on a title to view that e-book, but can also click on a linkfor the author, publisher, or subjects. Clicking on any one of these bringsup another list of titles, and the advanced search fields are shown at thetop of the frame showing how the search was performed. For example, click-ing a hyperlinked author’s name in the title search results will reveal that theauthor’s name was searched in the author field.

For each title listed in the search results, users can look at an e-book’stable of contents, or download portions of a title. This last feature requires cre-ating a personal ebrary account and being signed in. Clicking on the down-load button under a title in the search results opens a new dialog windowin the browser with various options. Users can download one chapter or pagerange at a time in PDF format, up to a maximum of 34 pages. Alternatively,users have the option to download the entire contents of a particular e-bookfor up to 14 days in Adobe Digital Editions format. Choosing this optioncreates an encrypted file, which can be accessed with Adobe Digital Editions,free online software. Users should note that Adobe Digital Editions filesare accessible on most devices, but not on the Amazon Kindle. Finally, adownload options dialogue box notes to users that any annotations madeto downloaded files are not stored on a user’s ebrary Bookshelf.

Under the Title Results tab, users can also find similar titles to those listedin the results, and export to either EndNote and Citavi or RefWorks. Clickingon the RefWorks button under a particular title in the results takes users tothe RefWorks web site, whereas clicking on the EndNote & Citavi buttondownloads citation information in a format appropriate for those particularbibliographic tools. Finally, users can add a title from the search results totheir ebrary Bookshelf. This also requires that a user is first logged in to theirpersonal ebrary account.

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Chapter Results Tab

The second tab under the main Search tab is for Chapter Results. Here, searchresults appear in a table ranked by relevance with a link to the appropriatechapter where the search term(s) were found, as well as the title of thee-book. Similar to the Title Results tab, clicking on a link in the ChapterResults tab opens that particular e-book, with the search term(s) highlightedin both the e-book text and the table of contents. Users have the option ofhaving the terms highlighted or not.

Searches Tab

Users can click the Searches tab to view their search history from their currente-book session, which also shows the number of documents found for eachsearch. Here, users can re-run a particular search, remove a search from theirhistory, clear all searches, or save a search. Saving a search requires signinginto a user’s ebrary account.

QuickView Tab

Once in the ebrary platform, the default tab is QuickView. This is where usersread their e-book. Content is displayed in a frame on the left with navigationin a frame on the right. E-books are displayed in full color and closelyresemble the appearance of a print textbook. One benefit of ebrary is thate-books include page numbers—always an issue for students trying to findtheir assigned readings in an e-book or for professors struggling to assigne-book readings from their corresponding print version.

A navigation frame on the right side of the platform contains an e-book’stable of contents under a TOC tab. This tab allows users to search the table ofcontents for terms using a simple search box. Users can choose whether tohave search terms highlighted in the table of contents. Another tab existsfor notes, which is used in conjunction with the annotation feature describedbelow. Users can explode or collapse the table of contents by clicking onarrows next to a chapter title. The entire navigation frame can be hiddenfrom view by simply clicking on a small arrow at the top of the frame. How-ever, one downside is that the frames are not otherwise manually resizableby the user.

The QuickView tab has several features for e-book viewing. The firstis the InfoTools dropdown menu, which is described in further detailbelow. Arrows above the main reading frame allow users to move forwardor back one page within an e-book. Users can also double-click on theleft or right side of the page to go backwards or forward one page. Twobuttons with a magnifying glass allow users to find search terms appearing

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in the text of a particular e-book. A button featuring a minus and plus signfor magnification provide the ability to select the overall page size from75% to 200%.

Users can also highlight and annotate text; however, they must besigned in to their personal ebrary account in order to use these features.Once signed in, users can highlight text in different colors and annotate textby adding sticky notes or URLs to highlighted content. The highlighting func-tion is hit or miss with a mouse and often requires multiple attempts toensure the correct text is highlighted. All notes and highlights appear underthe Notes tab in the navigation frame on right side of the platform, next to theTOC tab. The total number of notes and highlights is shown on the tab itself.Clicking on a note listed under the Notes tab quickly returns the user to theportion of the e-book where the text was annotated.

Also under QuickView a Download button opens an ‘‘Export andDownload’’ dialogue box identical to that in the Title Results tab under Searchwith the same options to download all or part of the e-book. Above the navi-gation frame on the right of the screen, the current e-book page number isshown. Users can jump to a particular page by entering a number into thetext box. Two numbers appear in parenthesis after this page box (e.g., 97of 340), but no explanation is given as to what these number represent.Finally, a button above the navigation frame allows users to resize the entirewindow to fit their screen.

InfoTools Feature

One of the most unique features of the ebrary platform is the InfoTools func-tion. Under QuickView, an InfoTools button opens a dropdown menu thatallows users to search for highlighted e-book text in a variety of onlineresources. According to ebrary, libraries can customize the InfoTools functionto link to online resources of their choosing, including the library’s onlinecatalog, online dictionaries and encyclopedias, or even to Google or othersearch engines.

A copy function creates automatic citations for text that is copiedand pasted into Microsoft Word or any text software. These automaticcitations include a hyperlink to the original source. The print functionunder InfoTools allows users to quickly print the current page, or aselected page range or chapter, up to a maximum of 34 pages. Users canalso define a highlighted term; choosing ‘‘Define’’ from the dropdownmenu, for example, takes users to an online dictionary. This is not sohelpful for users of medical libraries looking up medical terms, but librariesmay be able to customize the external links on this dropdown menu.Users also have the option of creating a note directly from the InfoToolsdropdown menu. Finally, users can export a citation to the e-book directlyto EndNote or Citavi and RefWorks.

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Bookshelf Tab

The last main tab on the ebrary platform is the Bookshelf tab. Here users canmanage their saved titles and annotations. Titles added to a user’s Bookshelfare shown along with an image of the book cover. Clicking on a hyperlinkedtitle opens that e-book in the QuickView tab. Under each title is a list of allhighlighted text and notes. A small trash can icon appears on the right toallow for deleting of e-book tiles or annotations from the Bookshelf.

Users can also create folders into which annotations can be dragged anddropped. Folder contents can be exported to EndNote and Citavi or toRefWorks, which exports only basic bibliographic information about thee-book title(s) from which the annotations are derived. Folders in theBookshelf tab can be shared via email to multiple recipients. A link to eache-book title and clickable text for all notes and highlights are sent. Clickingon the Email this folder button opens up a new window in which userscan edit and send a link to their folder. Folders are set as private, but userscan click the Share this folder button, which displays a URL which can thenbe copied and shared with others. To view shared folders, users must firstcreate a personal ebrary account and be logged in. To view any sharedcontent, users must have access to those e-book titles from their library.

CAVEATS

Selecting a Channel ID

For medical libraries at institutions with a parent library, care should be takento create a unique ebrary ‘‘channel ID’’ for the medical library that is separateand distinct from any other library. A channel ID is how each library’s ebrarysite is differentiated, and is what appears in the URL for a library’s ebrary con-tent. Not having a unique channel ID could potentially create a problemwhen a library is acquiring titles separate and apart from its parent institution,especially if the two libraries are using different methods of acquiring content(i.e., ordering directly through ebrary versus using a vendor like YBP). If thetwo libraries’ channel IDs are too similar, e-book titles could mistakenly beadded to the wrong account, creating an invoicing headache, not to mentionaccess issues.

CONCLUSION

The ebrary e-book platform has many useful features, although the overallthe look and feel of the platform is rather dated, reminiscent of the firstInternet browsers. The QuickView tab where e-book content is read is a littletoo busy with what seems like a lot of icons to decipher, but which in the endall perform very basic functions. The InfoTools dropdown menu is a unique

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and handy feature for cross-referencing e-book information with otheronline resources. However, some of the features of this tool may be limitedfor medical library users.

Ebrary’s search feature is robust and offers multiple ways of findinginformation. Creating an account is simple and allows for downloading,highlighting and annotating text, although these features are rather clunkyand not user-friendly. Not enough instruction is provided within the platformitself on the connection between ebrary and Adobe Digital Editions fordownloading e-book content, or for mobile e-book access. Problems withsetting up ebrary access to content may be a deal-breaker for some librarieswith parent institutions, if the problems persist.

According to ebrary representatives, the company is planning are-design of the e-book reader platform, which will feature a more moderndesign and easier navigation. The new platform is expected to be revealedlater this year.

REFERENCES

1. Ebrary. ‘‘Subscription Database Title Preview: Academic Complete.’’ Available:<http://site.ebrary.com/lib/academiccompletetitles/home.action>. Accessed:February 28, 2014.

2. Ebrary. ‘‘Subscription Database Title Preview: Medicine.’’ Available: <http://site.ebrary.com/lib/medicaltitles/home.action>. Accessed: February 28, 2014.

3. Ebrary. ‘‘Model Overview.’’ Available:<http://www.ebrary.com/corp/models.jsp>.Accessed: February 28, 2014.

4. Ebrary. ‘‘Ordering Products.’’ Available: <http://www.ebrary.com/corp/order.jsp>.Accessed: February 28, 2014.

5. Ebrary. ‘‘ebrary Announces Extended Access.’’ Available: <http://www.ebrary.com/corp/newspdf/ebrary_extended_access.pdf>. Accessed: February 28, 2014.

6. Goodman, H.M. Basic Medical Endocrinology, 4th ed. Saint Louis: AcademicPress, 2008.

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