Embracing Ebooks : Acquisition and Collection Development Landscape in Philippine Academic Libraries

Sexton, Rachael

Janice D.C. Peñaflor, & Justina Garcia. (2017). Embracing Ebooks : Acquisition and Collection Development Landscape in Philippine Academic Libraries. Journal of Educational Media & Library Sciences, 54(2), 221-232.

Academic libraries became early adopters of e-books.  Some libraries are adopting an approach that prioritizes e-books over physical books.  Philippine academic libraries are also embracing e-books.  This article focuses on acquisition and not on evaluating the collection based on e-book usage.  The authors got their information from a 9-question survey.  Of the 39 Universities sent the survey, 27 responded.  Some of the Universities, amounting to 30%, did not have any e-books.  Another 37% had less than 100 e-book titles.  Libraries need to revise their collection development policy to include e-books.  Among the libraries surveyed, 32% had not added e-books to their collection development policy.  There are matters of budget to be considered as some e-books cost more than their print counterparts.  Over half of the respondents said that 5% of their budget went towards e-books.  Finding the right acquisition model can be challenging.  Less than half of the libraries said that they prefer choosing title by title versus buying packages.  Perpetual access to the e-books was favored by 63% of the libraries.  Consortia help to improve the pricing and simplify business relationships.  Libraries in the Philippines are practicing being a part of consortia.  However, almost 80% of libraries in the Philippines are not part of a consortia.  The major deterrent for not acquiring e-books is that it requires good internet connection.  A lack of standard file format is also a hindrance. 

Evaluation:  This was an interesting article about the current state of e-books and libraries in the Philippines.  The most surprising thing to me was the fact that only 5% of their budget was spent on e-books.  That seems like a small percentage to me.  This article would definitely be useful for other countries just starting out in acquiring e-books.