E Books

I have been to a meeting in Swansea having presentations from E book suppliers today. We had 3 from different companies, all offering something a bit different, all geared to libraries, but.....

One is a library book supplier who has decided to go down the ebook route as well, so they know the library scene in the UK extremely well, and are owned by a wholesaler so have a great deal of access to stock, but they are new on the scene.

One is the main supplier in Europe and the USA and Canada - Overdrive. The didn't send someone to do a proper presentation, but sent someone who was supposed to facilitate an online presentationn. However as Swansea were having connectivity problems (which in itself is entertaining and ironic as we are discussing things to download from the internet) we got a slide show which wasn't even customised for the UK and 3 of the 36 slides were showing us some big van only available in the USA. Plus they gave no costings at all. We were very underwhelmed by them and think they assume we will use them because they are the main provider at the moment. Hmm.

The third was Ebsco who are very well known for serials, non fiction and reference ebooks, but not for popular fiction and non fiction. Although they sent 2 people, and they are keen enough to have paid for lunch (always a good sign) they just don't have the stock coverage at the moment so are really out of the running.

Unfortunately this was delayed from December because of snow and we are now a month behind, and need to get it all sorted before the end of February.

This means we need to find out how many of the 22 Welsh local authorities want to join a Consortium purchase of ebooks. We need to put a formal questionnaire out to the 2 suppliers, get the answers and costs back, make a decision and go for it, all in 6 weeks.

Eek.

As though I didn't have enough to do, as I am Chair of the Consortium for book purchases I have ended up leading on this now, although I thought I was just chairing the meeting.

Double eek.

Plus we go live with our first self service kiosks next Monday and we don't have all the information to get them working properly yet

Triple eek.

I know sound like a mouse so will finish there and run and find a hole in the skirting board to hide in.