E-Books in Swedish Public Libraries: Policy Implications

The aims of the paper are: review the situation of e-books delivery in the Swedish public libraries (as it looked at the end of 2012); identify the barriers that public libraries encounter in providing access to e-books; highlight the policy-related problems of e-book provision through public librar...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inResearch and Advanced Technology for Digital Libraries pp. 29 - 34
Main Authors Maceviciute, Elena, Wilson, Tom D.
Format Book Chapter
LanguageEnglish
Published Berlin, Heidelberg Springer Berlin Heidelberg 2013
SeriesLecture Notes in Computer Science
Subjects
e-books
information policy
public libraries
Sweden
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Summary:The aims of the paper are: review the situation of e-books delivery in the Swedish public libraries (as it looked at the end of 2012); identify the barriers that public libraries encounter in providing access to e-books; highlight the policy-related problems of e-book provision through public libraries. A survey was carried out in October, 2012 of all public libraries in Sweden. 291 questionnaires were issued. 185 were completed, response rate was 63.3%. The provision of an e-book service has arisen as a result of either demand or an ideological belief that the ethos of democratic values and equality of access requires libraries to offer material in all media. Librarians find the situation of e-books provision through libraries unsatisfactory: the provider of titles removes them from the catalogue without warning or explanation, there are too few titles for children and students, and access to popular titles is delayed.
ISBN:9783642405006
3642405002
ISSN:0302-9743
1611-3349
DOI:10.1007/978-3-642-40501-3_4