As academic institutions continue to offer online and remote courses, whether by design or as an alternative to on-campus learning, it’s clear that the need for e-books in academic libraries is here to stay. GOBI understands that need and helps make e-book acquisition easy and streamlined for libraries by providing the broadest selection of e-book acquisition models and platforms in one place.
GOBI has partnered with Taylor & Francis to make the following eCollections hosted on the Taylor & Francis eBooks platform available through GOBI.
- netBASE Collections
- Routledge Subject Collections
- Routledge Handbooks Online
- Interdisciplinary Collections
- General Academic Collections
We asked Liz Burton, Director of Content, eResources and Development at Taylor & Francis, about their General Academic Collections. The creation of these was a collaborative effort between Taylor & Francis and the EBSCO Collection Development team, who used key data based on the subject areas that have the most potential usage to help develop these curated collections.
How does Taylor & Francis decide what topics to cover in their eCollection offerings?
It’s a challenge! With such a large and far-ranging corpus of content to select from, this decision was really difficult. So we looked to what was happening in the world around us, where we could see students, instructors and researchers actively looking for and seeking out verifiable information that they knew they could trust, that reflected current thinking and would be easily accessible, no matter where in the world they were located.
We were also interested in curating content from across our subject areas to present a more holistic view of any given topic area, again reflecting the increasingly interdisciplinary approach we’re seeing in many courses. We were keen to see if we could create something smaller that we could take to market quickly, that would provide our customers with important, cost-effective content in a wide variety of different areas.
eCollections allow T&F to make a wide variety of books available in assorted packages to institutions using flexible acquisition models. This gives libraries choice on how much they want to purchase, across which subject areas, using a preferred purchase model.
eCollections allow T&F to make a wide variety of books available in assorted packages to institutions using flexible acquisition models. This gives libraries choice on how much they want to purchase, across which subject areas, using a preferred purchase model.
What drove the creation of the General Academic Collections?
We publish textbooks and research titles that cater to students at the lower level to those taking advanced level courses after graduation. We typically find that when students are looking for course materials they’re directed to very specific titles, so part of the thinking behind the Collections was to encourage wider reading, interest and engagement around reading materials via the institutional library, where the books would be widely discoverable.
We were also happy to have the opportunity to work with the EBSCO Collection Development team, who were instrumental in helping select the topics and titles for the General Academic Collections.
How did you decide what titles to include in each of the eCollections?
The EBSCO Collection Development team looked at GOBI profiling data, including subject and academic rigor of titles to select titles for the six General Academic Collections: Business & Social Science, Fine Arts & Music, History, Performing Arts & Media Studies, Psychology & Religion, and Science & Technology. They then passed those title lists on to us to create the collections on our Taylor & Francis eBooks platform. We also wanted as many libraries as possible to be able to acquire these new collections, so the aim was to create collections of 100-150 titles in order to make them affordable and easy to buy without budget holder intervention or sign-off. Another way we were able to make these easy for libraries to acquire was to make them available through GOBI.
What value do eCollections provide for libraries?
eCollections allow T&F to make a wide variety of books available in assorted packages to institutions using flexible acquisition models. This gives libraries choice on how much they want to purchase, across which subject areas, using a preferred purchase model. There’s also the reassurance that the quality of the content is high, the material is relevant, and content comes from trusted sources.
About eCollections in GOBI
In addition to title-by-title, Demand-Driven Acquisition (DDA) and Evidence-Based Acquisition (EBA) acquisition options, GOBI offers eCollections, which enable libraries to get perpetual ownership of a large body of high-quality content at a lower cost per title. GOBI partners with more than 15 top academic publishers to make eCollections hosted on the publisher platform available for purchase in GOBI. In addition to e-book acquisition and collection development support, GOBI also offers a range of support services for eCollections, including duplication control, full cataloging services, invoicing and renewal support, as well as assistance in collection management and selection.
