Presentation given to the Turkish Minstry of Culture and Tourism, public library representatives and publishers at the EU Taiex workshop on e-publication services in Istanbul, November 9, 2015

1. The necessary technological
infrastructure to offer e-publication
services
Mikkel Christoffersen, senior adviser
Copenhagen Libraries and ”eReolen”
TAIEX meeting, Istanbul, November 9th 2015

2. Disclaimer
Views expressed today are personal
and do not necessarily reflect the
official policies of the Danish public
libraries, Copenhagen Libraries or
eReolen as association!

3. Me
• BA in English and Greek, Copenhagen
University
• MLIS from Royal School of Library and
Information Science, Denmark
• 3 years of ass. professor and Ph.D. student
• Adviser at the Danish Ministry of Culture
• Representative to the Member States’
Expert Group on digitisation and digital
culture, DG Connect, Luxembourg

4. What is eReolen?
• eReolen is the Danish public libraries’ joint
ebook and digital audio books service
• It’s an association with all Danish public
libraries as members, an organisation with
lots of paid and voluntary employees, and a
web site and Android and iOS apps
• There are 11,500 ebooks and 4,500 digital
audio books
• 300+ publishers supply the material

5. Setup
Publisher Datawell
Selection OPAC eReolen
Publizon
Stores
National
Bibliography
An offer to
libraries
Publishers’ jointly
owned portal
Librarians’ committee

6. Lending models
1. License model: One copy one user. Mimics a
physical item. The license may have any
number of loans before expiry and the price of
the license may be calculated several ways
2. Click model: ”Unrestricted use” … but not
really. May be restricted by a set number of
maximum loans per year and local restrictions.
3. Subscription model: Real unrestricted use.
Also bypasses local restrictions. Libraries pay
once a year. Works like Netflix or Spotify.

7. Models in a book’s lifecycle
Demand
Time
License
Click
Subscription

8. History
• eReolen opened 2011, and most publishers
joined; everything was click-based.
• After the summer of 2012 the big publishers
pulled out citing sinking sales
• The 7 biggest publishers created the alternative
all-license service EBIB
• EBIB was never a succes, and the main reason
was both surprising and heartening
• All 2014 negotiations were held continuously to
once again join everyone on eReolen.

9. 2012 eReolen

13. Lessons from EBIB
• Queing is not in the media’s nature
• Controlling costs was a dream
• EBIB had no real promotion or other content.
It didn’t ”take” with librarians
• Promotional, educational work by librarians is
still essential in an online world!
• Libraries built up a digital stockpile of un-used
digital loans; unfortunate and expensive.

14. eReolen; hardly the victor
Number of
loans Nov-
2011 to Nov-
2014

15. Unique users / Unique titles loaned
0
1000
2000
3000
4000
5000
6000
Unikke lånte titler
Unikke lånerkort

16. Titles available / Unique titles loaned
0
2,000
4,000
6,000
8,000
10,000
12,000
nov-11
dec-11
jan-12
feb-12
mar-12
apr-12
maj-12
jun-12
jul-12
aug-12
sep-12
okt-12
nov-12
dec-12
jan-13
feb-13
mar-13
apr-13
maj-13
jun-13
jul-13
aug-13
sep-13
okt-13
nov-13
dec-13
jan-14
feb-14
mar-14
apr-14
maj-14
jun-14
jul-14
aug-14
sep-14
okt-14
nov-14
Lån
Unikke lånte titler
Unikke lånerkort
Antal titler

17. Loans per user
0.00
0.50
1.00
1.50
2.00
2.50
3.00
Lån pr. bruger

18. The old eReolen
• Losing great content from the big publishers
turned librarians off.
• The split with the big publishers raised a new
generation of digital audiobooks listeners, but
that’s beside the point today
• Controlling costs became easier, because
there were fewer and fewer patrons …
• A dwindling crowd of desperate users
searched frantically for new content.

19. The union
• In early 2014, eReolen became an association
– All Danish libraries are members
– One size fits all
– Good for taking responsibility, learning, knowledge
sharing and as negotiating partner
– Great for digitisation efforts
• In early 2015, the big publishers came back,
because an accord was reached; a compromise
• The digital audio books were wholly integrated
with surprising effects

20. The association ”eReolen”
Board
Editorial
group
Support Selection*
Project
coordination Negotiation
team
General assembly

21. The compromise
• eReolen acknowledges that publishers need to
protect their markets; especially for new titles
• Publishers acknowledge that eReolen does not
want the license model as the major model
• Most new titles are put in a license model for
the first 6 months, then moved to a click model
• Some start in the click model right away, a few
exceptions never leave the license model
• Licenses have 4 loans. The price of the licens is
retail price. Licenses are bought nationally;
loans distributed locally

22. Local restrictions
• Libraries have an administration hub to put in
local restrictions; money spent, number of
simultaneous loans etc.
• The system checks local user data and
permissions when the user logs in

32. The license model
• Invented by HarperCollins in the US
• One copy one user with a set amount of loans
• Harper-Collins 26, in Denmark 4(!)
• Denmark may have the most liberal ebook
models but they are also the most expensive!
• Mimics a physical book and with a fixed loan
period
• Librarians were wrong about the model initially

33. HarperCollins quiz
• Librarians predicted that the Harper-Collins
model would exhaust the 26 loans* very
quickly and bankrupt the library buying new
licenses. However, after more than 18
months only eight titles were exhausted.
Seven of them were by the same author.
Who?

34. Agatha Christie!
Only the Bible and Shakespeare
have been published in more
editions
1 bn. Sold in English. Another
billion in non-English
HarperCollins bought the rights
in 2010

35. Also …
• A broad-based expert group was established
with eReolen, publishers and libraries in
January 2015: ”How can we promote the use of
the back catalogue and move attention and use
away from the new titles?”
• The big publishers publicly complains that there
is too little use of new titles, too much use of
the old ones and generally declining sales
• People select available things and will not
queue up or buy like they’re supposed to do

36. Prices
• For all loans: 1,50 DKK to eReolen, 1,50
DKK to Publizon
• Licenses: Retail price for 4 loans. 1 loan
costs retail price / 4. E.g. a license is 100
DKK; each loan is 25 + 3 DKK.
• Click: Fixed priced based on age. 0-6
months 14,50 DKK, 7-24 months 13,00
DKK, 24+ months 10,50 DKK (+ 3 DKK all)
• Subscription: Still experimental. Libraries
pay one sum for some part of a publisher’s
catalogue. Price is based on this years use.

37. Loans monthly ebooks

38. Number of ebooks

39. Unique users monthly

40. Data
• We use patron library ID numbers
• Patron library ID numbers are almost
always identical to the their social security
number
• The law is very, very, very strict when it
comes to the use of social security numbers
• Getting data, working with data, correlating
data from different systems is difficult
• Who are the users? Are they identical to the
physical users? Do we create new users?

41. Time of day
0
1000
2000
3000
4000
5000
6000
7000
8000
9000
05 -
06
06 -
07
07 -
08
08 -
09
09 -
10
10 -
11
11 -
12
12 -
13
13 -
14
14 -
15
15 -
16
16 -
17
17 -
18
18 -
19
19 -
20
20 -
21
21 -
22
22 -
23
23 -
24
00 -
01
01 -
02
02 -
03
03 -
04
04 -
05
Antal
Tidspunkt
Udlån fordelt på tidspunkt
Total

42. Gender
0
10000
20000
30000
40000
50000
60000
70000
Kvinde Mand
Antal
Køn
Udlån fordelt på køn
Total

43. Gender and media use
0 10000 20000 30000 40000 50000 60000 70000
Kvinde
Mand
Antal
Køn
Udlån fordelt mellem køn og udlånsmedie
E-bog
Lydbog

44. User age
0
2000
4000
6000
8000
10000
12000
14000
16000
< 15 år 16-19 år 20-24 år 25-29 år 30-34 år 35-39 år 40-44 år 45-49 år 50-54 år 55-59 år 60-64 år > 65 år #VÆRDI!
Antal
Alder
Udlån fordelt på alder
Total

45. Thoughts
• Public libraries have encouraged reading and
promoted literature for a century
• Reading is under pressure from other media that
do not show the same beneficial effects
• Reading is the skill that underlies other skills
• We’re just an app among many others
• If users don’t get what they want, they move. If
there is no eReolen, do they move to commercial
alternatives or do they move to other media?
• What happens to reading and Danish literature
and language?

46. Digitisation efforts
• We want to transform the library in step with the
changing reading habits of users
• This requires ebooks and a digitally available
back catalogue
• We worry about the stability of the supply
• No digital lending rights and changing policies
from publishers
• We have two models: Collaboration with
publishers for newer works. Collective
agreements or collaboration for the older works.

47. The potential

48. Thank you!
… for making it all the way to here.
Questions and comments are always welcome
at:
Mikkel Christoffersen
Mob. +45 2049 1885
c45c@kff.kk.dk