E-books exchange of experience – Friday 5th March

WHELF organised this event at UWIC in Cardiff as an opportunity for librarians in Wales to share their experiences of e-books.

In the morning, librarians from three of the universities (Swansea University, UWIC, Cardiff University) talked about their e-book collections.

[slideshare id=3508202&doc=ebooksatswanseauni-march2010-100322072605-phpapp01]

[slideshare id=3584606&doc=ebookpresentationuwic-100329075229-phpapp02]

[slideshare id=3523519&doc=whelfpresentation-100323091146-phpapp02]

Karl Drinkwater has a good summary of the ensuing discussion on his blog – this includes the issue of publicity for e-books and many of the good ideas which were suggested.

In the afternoon Karl gave two presentations, a short one on the E-books for FE Project, and a long one on E-book Readers and their potential uses for libraries. If you are interested in the latter subject then he has written an article on it which should appear in the next issue of SCONUL Focus.

Finally, Sue Mace gave a short presentation on the WHELF deal with NetLibrary (shorter than expected because of the fire alarm and subsequent evacuation of the building!) This also included a brief overview of  the NOWAL NetLibrary deal. The November 2009 presentation by Sue Hodges, Consortial E-books – Skeleton in the Cupboard or White Elephant? can be viewed online at: http://www.nag.org.uk/documents/NAGNoWALpresentation26Nov2009Sue.ppt

 [slideshare id=3412398&doc=reviewofnetlibrary-march2010-100312122853-phpapp02]

The next steps include a survey of e-book collections and suppliers being used in Wales and a decision regarding the WHELF NetLibrary deal.