36 · Survey Results: Survey Questions And Responses
Please enter any comments about owning vs licensing e-books for your library. N=29
Both actually. Some things, like things that go out of date quickly, we may prefer only to license them. But for some
things, we would prefer perpetual access.
Choice depends to some extent on the subject: the Humanities may prefer to purchase in some cases the Sciences
may prefer to license/subscribe to receive the most current edition.
Depends upon licensing options and long-term need for the particular title.
E-books working group is reviewing this as part of its work.
I have indicated “no preference” but the real answer is that our preference depends on the title or collections. For
example, we are not very interested in owning old editions of computer manuals so leasing those is our preference.
Ditto for some old reference books. However, we do want to own, rather than lease, e-books on historical topics.
In general, we prefer to own rather than lease access to online content. In some cases where older material is not
useful (such as computer science manuals) we do “rent” content on a temporary basis.
In general, we prefer to purchase. There are some collections that make sense to subscribe, and several where
subscription is the only option.
It depends on the subject matter of the content.
It would depend on the title. Why purchase a computer manual that is soon to be outdated? In that case, we would
rather subscribe to the latest edition. On the other hand, if it is a title that we wish to keep in the collection, we would
prefer to own.
Like many other libraries, we are concerned by the increasingly large proportion of our materials budget being
dedicated to serials purchases.
Not being able to purchase perpetual access would be a major negative factor.
Policies are still being developed with regard to purchase of individual titles.
Prefer to purchase, when cost-effective, licensed subscribed content that we will not lose if we cancel.
Preference based on content and licensing/pricing models.
Purchase usually more balanced to one time costs.
Some purchased titles are available as perpetual access and not available for local loading other than an archival
copy.
The preference for owning or licensing individual titles is going depend upon what we’re buying (subject, treatment,
etc.) and why (or for whom) we’re buying it.
There is not a clearly enunciated policy for our library. The preferences stated above are my own. Other selectors may
disagree.
Varies by discipline. For instance, in some fields or types of books such as computer handbooks that have short life
span of usefulness, leasing is OK but in other areas where there is a longer life span we prefer the outright purchase.
We assume that by “ownership” you mean “perpetual rights.”
We generally prefer to own materials, but pricing generally leads to us leasing collections.
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