Shaping the strategy for e-books: A Hong Kong perspective

The shift in the production of books to a combination of paper and electronic versions means that librarians need to carefully consider the economics of e-book models together with user preferences to acquire the appropriate balance of electronic resources versus the printed formats. This paper examines the business models of four e-book aggregators and the factors affecting collection development decisions, such as usefulness of contents, pricing structure, access model, retention policy, and functionalities. Results from the usage of netLibrary are included in the analysis to determine the extent to which e-books are needed to complement print collections.