Elgar online for National Law University Library

[Kankana B Badan]

Balani Infotech has offered an e-book package named Elgaronline to my library. The total price of the pack is about 8 Lack. Just request some valuable feedbacks  whether it would be worth purchasing the same or not. Or else some suggestions on how to evaluate ebook packages before procuring for the library

[Digambar Bhaurao Waghmare]

Dear Madam

I attached herewith Key Issues for e-Resource Collection Development: A Guide for Libraries by IFLA

pl. see 2.0 Selection and evaluation of electronic resources regarding with your query

its in general information not for any specific E-Resource package  

Regards

Digambar B Waghmare  

[Siddu]

What would be an effective decision making parameter a) the price or b)the content.?

Only a group of subject experts, I feel, would be in a proper position to decide whether the contents of the package is worthy of the price.  I therefore suggest, the  matter  be left to the discretion of the experts (teachers) group. [If possible, ask for a trial access of the package and try including the views of the students by getting it evaluated by the students as well to know if the contents suits their level of understanding and covers their syllabi.]

Experts group should recommend and the decision makers should decide based on ROI (return on investment).

Just my opinion.  Request experts of the forum to refine this.

[venugopal]

Dear Sir,

Your reply is 100% correct.Before going to invest such huge fund we have to take our database information like high circulated/demanded titles.match these titles then proceed for further procurement. Many  ebook vendors are not supplying list of titles. Even if they supplied list of titles choose your requirements and pay as per title wise.

[Akash Singh]

Dear Kankana Ji

It is a matter of relevancy of books based on subjects taught in the University.  Please circulate the list of books among faculty members and students. A number of points must be considered before subscribing Ebooks in Law Library.

a)  Whether the books are relevant to subject of teaching.

b) Whether the books are latest edition (Published recently) or the titles are reminder titles.

c) Whether access of ebooks is on perpetual basis or you are paying for yearly subscription.

d) Whether vendor/publisher is putting any clause for renewal of ebooks every year.  (Sometime publishers/ vendors put condition to purchase at least one or two ebooks every year against renewal of the ebook database.

e)The most important part is the accessibility issue which includes i) Whether the books is in the same pdf (image format) as it appears in print edition or the vendor/ publisher provides ebooks in html format which not look nice. ii) Whether vendor/publisher restrict users to download or printout upto a certain number of page at a time. (Most of the ebook publishers restrict upto 30 or 50 page download at a single login and not allowed to download or print complete books at a time.

Most of the ebook publishers provide only that books which are not in much circulation or we can say not used as text book in any subject area of law.  These books are least useful in day to day academic activities rather these books are useful for higher research and moot court competitions.

[Kankana B Badan]

At the outset, I owe my heartfelt thanks to all of you for your invaluable suggestions and comments. As per the advices i received in the lislinks forum I have done some research on the said ebook package and its continuum of the contents and found that the actual costs of the ebooks are slightly higher than the prices that has been offered by the agency. The title list has been distributed to the faculty members. Moreover, the agency is asked to offer the trial access of the existing titles therein.