E-books: how do you get to the top of the league?

I’ve had a few enquiries from librarians who want to see their college’s position in the JISC e-books for FE usage rankings improve and would like some tips and advice on how to improve e-book and e-resource use. Although you shouldn’t get too hung up about your place in the league table, statistics are a useful tool in planning your strategy for promoting e-resources and giving you an indication of its success, or not. 

E-resource usage statistics
Individual e-resources are starting to make available more and more detailed statistics - take the time to interpret these. If individual titles or databases aren’t being used, despite promotion, maybe it’s time to cancel them and consider alternatives? For Shibboleth users, the new Raptor tool is available to help you make sense of usage – it does need technical input to install it though.


Authentication and launch page
There is plenty of evidence that complicated sign-in procedures, or links buried deep in websites will turn off users to your e-resources. Make signing in as easy as possible and improve the prominence of your e-resource links. It's also worth branding your e-resource collection (why not “e-library” or “library 24/7"?) to raise the profile of the resources you have to offer. 

Library OPAC and VLE links
When I’ve contacted contact colleges with high levels of e-book access, it was clear that the high usage rates were often due to just a few copies (or in some cases even pages) being used heavily by many students and had been highlighted by tutors, often with a link from a VLE course page. This underlines the point that it’s vital that tutors are part of your promotional strategy, as many students will only look at material recommended in the classroom as essential reading. 


E-resources and e-books are often difficult to search and may be beyond the skills of some learners. To help overcome this, a good step is to ensurethe most appropriate e-books (at least) are catalogued on your library system and visible and clickable through your OPAC. A further step is to tag them with course codes or course titles, so relevant e-content can be found even more easily. 


Case studies
A case study from Neath Port Talbot College (thanks to JISC RSC Wales) highlights the importance of library staff awareness of e-resources. 
Here the LRC staff focus on up-skilling themselves to gain a detailed knowledge of the resources they have to offer and how they can be used to support teaching and learning. This assists in their face-to-face training and enquiry work, as well as in production of relevant support materials. 


In another case study, Hull College focused on providing a critical mass of resources, with potential impact on all subject areas, as well as improving ease of access and a broad promotional strategy, targeted many groups of potential users.


Staff awareness
To promote a “product” you need to understand and believe in it (so the sales people tell us). This is true for e-resources too. One way of improving take up, is to ensure your own staff are familiar with your e-resources and how they could be used by different groups (staff, HE students, vocational students etc.), as well as understanding the variety of different ways they can be accessed and limits on printing etc. 


Marketing and promotion tips and tricks
Once you have a reasonably broad collection of e-resources and you've solved any access issues, it's worth having some kind of launch event or promotional push, as well as the day-to-day promotional materials like flyers and shelf "wobblers". 


Below are a couple of lists of tips and tricks you may like to try. Finally, one college in our region is experimenting with QR codes, which are printed on the shelves and books themselves, to indicate an e-book is available. By scanning with a mobile device, the QR code links directly to the online version of the book.


8 Step Plan (thanks to Chris Skerrow of Hull College)
Tips List (thanks to Scott Hibberson, RSC Yorkshire & Humber)