Library

In German libraries, e-books still eke out a relatively obscure existence. But with the steady expansion of digital libraries and technical innovations grow too the opportunities for electronic books.

On Christmas Day 2009, for the first time the U.S. website amazon.com sold more e-books than printed books. But despite the odd success story from abroad and chic new reading devices, in Germany the e-book is still waiting for its big breakthrough on the book market. Although the supply of electronic books is constantly growing, even the biggest German e-book service provider, ciando GmbH, currently has only some 35,000 titles in its program.

E-Books in libraries: a scarce commodity

So it is not surprising that e-books also play a comparatively small role in German libraries. According to German library statistics from 2008, all electronic media – that is, along with e-books, e-journals, educational software and games – comprised 1.4 million titles and made up just over 1.4 per cent of German public libraries’ total holdings. At academic libraries, the situation is somewhat different. There, approximately 21 million “individual digital documents” were counted in Germany in 2008. That is rather more than 9 per cent of the total holdings. In addition to e-books, however, the comprised categories include digital university journals, material digitalized by the libraries themselves and the like.

“We currently have about 15,000 e-books that we’ve bought or licensed ourselves”, explains Volker Schallehn of the University of Munich Library. “In addition, we provide access to an e-book pool that is made available under a national license.” Overall, this includes nearly 400,000 titles. But compared with the total holdings of approximately 6.5 million titles, it is still very few.

“The main problem is lack of content in the non-academic field”, says Frank Daniel of the Cologne Public Library, which has just under 2,000 e-books in its media offerings. Particularly in demand in Cologne are e-books in the areas of jobs and career, business and IT. “Self-help books – for instance, on learning techniques, counseling and job application – are especially popular”, says Daniel. “But we’d like to have from publishers more material relevant to school children, contemporary fiction and non-fiction bestsellers.”

Access without opening times

The e-book has a number of undeniable advantages. Its search functions offer a variety of convenient uses. “Our users appreciate that e-books enable fast and direct access to desired parts of a text and that readers no longer have to carry thick computer manuals around with them”, confirms Daniels.

Moreover, regardless of library opening hours, e-books land within a few minutes on the reader’s computer via the Internet. There he can read them with a web browser or Adobe Reader. A Digital Rights Management System (DRM) ensures that, after the loan period has expired, the e-book is automatically deactivated and can no longer be opened.

Necessary technical improvements

Nevertheless, electronic books are not for every reader: “Many of our users don’t like reading whole books on a computer or other reading device”, says Daniel. Moreover, further technical improvements are necessary.

“It would be desirable if e-books could be read on all reading devices”, explains Volker Schallehn. “That still isn’t the case today.” Searching for e-books should also become more convenient: “Since as a rule e-books aren’t stored physically on university library servers but rather at the individual service provider, the user is confronted with a variety of user interfaces and search tools. There’s currently no provider-independent text search.”

New challenges for publishers

For the future of e-books, according to Frank Daniel, it will be decisive “to convince publishers that they should make their main products electronically available to us and not view the e-version as only a secondary publication”. Schallehn goes even further: “Publishers themselves are called upon not only to offer e-books as a one-to-one copies of printed books, but also to exploit the potential of the new medium.” At present, he says, the e-book is only another way in which the reader can read a book, “but there is, apart from the search functions, enough room for innovations that go far beyond the printed book”.

Even if both librarians forecast a growing importance for e-books, we will probably have to wait a long time for the news that German libraries lend more e-books than printed books.