WISER Science Ebooks for Life Sciences Medicine Juliet

WISER Science E-books for Life Sciences & Medicine Juliet Ralph and César Pimenta May 2007

What do we mean by e-books? Online versions of books which are also available in print, with full-text access via a networked pc E-journals are well established in Science & Medicine, but e-books still an emerging market Oxford starting to dip its toe in the water

Freely available e-books Many older (out-of-copyright) books can be accessed on the internet Including Oxford University’s partnership with Google to digitise the Bodleian Library’s 19 th century books But not so useful for current students and researchers in science!

Pros for the user 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 24/7 x 365 Remote access (usually via Athens) Multi-user access Full text searching Create your own booklists & bookmarks Add notes & highlight text Shared access Links to dictionaries & encyclopedias

Pros for libraries Space saving “Extra” copies available Staff time No processing new books No re-shelving No lost books No wear and tear No binding or replacement costs

Issues - technical Accessibility for visually impaired readers Plagiarism – Avoidable by “Automatic citation” Findability & linking to OPAC Plug-ins Multiple providers and platforms

Issues - cultural Attitudes – Vary from one subject to another Availability of titles Textbooks – not many available Costs and purchasing models – Bundle or cherry pick – Hire vs Buy – Single or multi user licence Promotion & awareness Critical mass needed to generate interest

JISC e-books project Demand for core reading by taught course students in HE is not being met Publishers nervous at possible loss of revenue from print sales Concerns among libraries & publsihers over licensing & pricing models 4 subjects under evaluation inc Medicine http: //www. jiscebooksproject. org/

E-books as reference tools Usage stats show Average session is about 15 mins Average user time in any one title about 8 -10 mins How would you use them?

Forthcoming trials by OULS Four of the major aggregators to run 1 month trials here during 2007: Net. Library Ebrary Myi. Library EBL (E-Book Library) Let us know what you think! Contact the OULS E-books group: fiona. richardson@ouls. ox. ac. uk

E-books at Oxford 335, 600 + titles already available! Mostly in humanities Primary texts – Original sources – Useful for History of Science & Medicine – Collections such as EEBO & ECCO (see next 2 slides)

Early English Books Online (EEBO) digital facsimile page images of virtually every work printed in England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales and British North America and works in English printed elsewhere from 1473 -1700

Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO) Digital images of 150, 000 books published during the 18 th Century

Secondary texts Collections such as Oxford Scholarship Online Taylor & Francis online Cambridge Companions Online …in the Humanities & Social Sciences

Finding e-books at Oxford via Oxlip http: //www. bodley. ox. ac. uk/oxlip/ Under Dictionaries, Encyclopædias and Reference Works Or Electronic Journals and E-books for links to collections Individual titles starting to be listed on the OLIS catalogue, e. g. Taylor& Francis collection EEBO & ECCO titles being added onto OLIS soon

What about Life Sciences & Medicine? So far we have bought some reference works – Encyclopedia of Life Sciences – International Encylopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences – Images. MD And identified some freely available textbooks

Life Sciences & Medicine Encyclopedia of Life Sciences – Spans the entire spectrum of life sciences http: //www. mrw. interscience. wiley. com/emrw/047001590 X/home International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences – inc. experimental psychology http: //www. sciencedirect. com/science/referenceworks/9780080430768

Oxford Reference Online Quick reference collection, including English and bilingual dictionaries English grammar & thesaurus Subject dictionaries, inc. medicine http: //www. oxfordreference. com/views/GLOBAL. html? authstatuscode =202

Images. MD Encyclopedia of medical images Over 50, 000 medical images from more than 90 collections and 2, 000 contributors. Access to full-sized, high quality images in step with the latest developments in medicine http: //www. images. md/

Textbooks Free on the internet are NCBI Bookshelf (hosted by Pub. Med) Growing collection of biomedical books Many core textbooks on Oxford reading lists NB may not be the latest edition! http: //www. ncbi. nlm. nih. gov/entrez/ query. fcgi? db=Books

Gray’s Anatomy "Anatomy of the Human Body", by Henry Gray 1, 247 engravings from the classic 1918 publication subject index with 13, 000 entries http: //www. bartleby. com/107/

We are here to help Queries about electronic resources eresources@ouls. ox. ac. uk Radcliffe Science Library enquiries. rsl@ouls. ox. ac. uk cesar. pimenta@ouls. ox. ac. uk juliet. ralph@ouls. ox. ac. uk

We welcome feedback You will get an e-mail with the online evaluation form in due course. Next WISER Science session: E-books for Physical Sciences, Wed 30 May, 12. 30 to 13. 30