University presses, many of them non-profit and kept afloat by their respective universities, are becoming concerned about e-books, according to an article published in University World News. Many of the university presses may reportedly go broke if they cannot keep up with the changing digital landscape.
According to the article, unlike e-journals, university libraries are still holding back on e-book purchases. But university presses are under pressure to begin offering electronic editions even before the market for them is fully developed, the article noted. Even in the US, e-books account for only 2 percent of scholarly book sales.
Many in the sector caution that university presses cannot afford to wait for the much debated 'tipping point' when academic e-books overtake printed book sales. There is an immense need to prepare and invest now, it has been observed.
E-journals, the price of which has rocketed in recent years, are reportedly taking up a greater proportion of library budgets than in the past. Unlike profitable presses such as the Cambridge University Press and the Oxford University Press, most university presses are small and rarely break even, the article notes. According to some small and medium-sized university presses, the savings on e-books, compared to paper books, are minute with their small print runs. There is very little incentive to digitise whole back catalogues and provide them in a way that is attractive for libraries. These small and medium-sized university presses lack the resources to undertake this kind of initiative on their own, it is noted.
In the US, there is already a move to come together as consortia to trade collections of e-books to academic libraries. About 60 of America's 110 university presses have already expressed there interest in joining the new University Press eBook Consortium Project. This project, led by New York University (NYU) Press and Temple University Press, was announced earlier this year. It is expected that the consortium will launch with over 2,000 new e-book titles and 23,000 older digitised titles in subject collections as well as a complete collection offer, in the second half of 2011.
Earlier, in October 2010, MUSE, the non-profit e-journal collaboration between publishers and libraries in the US, announced that nine more university presses had signed up to its new initiative to offer e-book collections alongside its e-journal collections. These presses join nine university presses that were already part of it.
In another new initiative, the Association of European University Presses was formally launched at the Frankfurt Book Fair in October 2010. It includes university presses in the UK, Germany, France, the Netherlands and Belgium.
University presses in Asia are also realising the need to come together to digitise and sell e-books. According to Joseph Siu, sales manager for international and digital publishing at Hong Kong University Press, in Asia it is very difficult for university presses to form consortia because of the language barrier. Most university presses in Asia publish only for their local market.
In addition it is difficult to compete on price with cheap, locally produced textbooks, particularly in the big English-speaking markets of India or the Philippines. A myriad of different digital formats also poses a problem. Libraries have been resisting buying academic e-books in part because they fear the expense of having to convert their holdings into a different format in future.
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