Now Available: Preliminary Findings From a ReadersFirst Follow-Up to an Elending Project Study Focusing on Three Vendors in the USA and Canada

From an Introductory Blog Post/Summary:

The ReadersFirst work group has made [a] study of library e-book lending by three vendors in Canada and the USA.

The impetus for this study was mainly due to the work of Rebecca Giblin of Monash University and her Australian colleagues.  They began by examining 546 titles from 5 ebook vendors in Australia. See their work at http://www.elendingproject.org/.

Members of ReadersFirst were intrigued by the results of the Australian study which found substantial variations in availability, price, and licensing models for the titles across the 5 vendors. The ReadersFirst team decided to see what the results might be if major ebook vendors in the USA and Canada were compared.

Additionally, the Monash team went on to complete a 100,000 title study, looking at the same 546 titles for one vendor (OverDrive) across the five countries. Two papers on the studies have been published and can be found here and here.

Direct to Preliminary Findings
Note: Final results will be published in October 2019. 

Read the Complete Blog Post/Summary

See Also: Availability, License Terms and Pricing of eBooks: an Interview with Rebecca Giblin (via IFLA)

See Also: Research Article: “Available – But Not Accessible? Investigating Publisher e-Lending Licensing Practices” (Preprint) (April 6, 2019)