Ithaka Releases Report on Business Models for Academic E-Book Monographs

Ithaka S+R's Tracy Bergstrom and Makala Skinner recently reported on the results of a study that examined stakeholder perceptions of the business models used for academic monographs published in the humanities and social sciences. To assess the value and impact of those models, they relied on desk research as well as qualitative interviews with librarians, authors, content aggregators, and publishers in the US and Europe. 

Among the key findings is that both librarians and publishers are concerned about the sustainability of e-book business models. For librarians, some of that concern is due to the skills and resources required to manage the acquisitions process:

Some libraries identified that a major challenge to acquiring e-monographs was the lack of experienced staff who understand how to navigate the complexities of acquisitions across publishers and aggregators.

The study also assessed attitudes and behavior around OA models for e-books and found strong support for them among libraries; authors' opinions on OA, however, vary from field to field, and some still perceive OA content as lower in quality. The researchers also found that librarians prefer evidence-based acquisition over demand-driven acquisition models.

Visit the Ithaka S+R website for the full report.