Welcome to the May 2021 issue of our e-books for FE newsletter.
E-book usage in April usually takes a dip compared to previous months, no doubt due to the holidays, and last month was no exception. However, usage was 45% up on April 2020, reflecting the digital resource boom of this academic year.
In addition, we are proud to announce a notable milestone: e-book user sessions for this academic year have now exceeded one million (1,010,415), a figure never previously reached – and there are still three months to go! We would like to thank all LRC and library staff for their part in this achievement, and for promoting Jisc resources to students and staff.
Purchasing round
The e-books for FE Focus Group convened via Zoom on Monday 26 April, along with Pete Collins and Andrew Jackson from the FE & Skills team, to discuss the titles on offer from ProQuest (who manage titles from Hodder, Collins, Bloomsbury, Leckie & Leckie, Taylor & Francis, Jessica Kingsley, Sage) and Pearson (who we deal with independently). This is the first year we have had titles on offer from Leckie and Jessica Kingsley, the latter in response to suggestions from library staff over the past year.
There were 793 titles on offer in the ProQuest list, and 96 titles on offer in the Pearson list. Prior to the meeting, members of the Focus Group had the mighty task of marking each title with a Yes, No, or Maybe. The meeting discussions focused mainly on those titles with 40-60% Yes votes, with the top 40% considered ‘safe bets’ for consideration. We scanned those with the least votes to make sure there were no specialist / nation-specific titles worth considering.
In addition, we have a number of renewals of current titles in mind, i.e. those which have had significantly high usage over the past two years.
It was a productive three hours, including some interactive fun and games on Miro: https://miro.com/about/. A huge thanks to Focus Group members for their input and expertise!
Following that meeting a longlist has been created, including the consensus Top titles and the worthy middle-tier titles, and it is now down to Pete and Andrew to match the available budget to a final list. As ever, this restriction will necessitate difficult choices, but we will do our best. For reference, in last year’s purchasing round we purchased 83 titles, of which 26 were renewals of existing subscriptions.
#ebookSOS
Library and teaching staff in HE have recently started a campaign to investigate the pricing of e-books in the academic sector, with a web site here: https://academicebookinvestigation.org/
This will be of equal interest to FE librarians who are facing the same budgetary challenges. The campaign has now set up a Jiscmail discussion list for e-book pricing issues, which you can join here: https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?SUBED1=EBOOKSOS&A=1
The hashtag #ebookSOS is being used on Twitter in order to highlight the campaign and related issues.
Top 20 users in April 2021
Well done to all organisations who reached a spot in the top 20.
| Rank | Organisation | User sessions |
| 1 | New City College London | 2637 |
| 2 | LTE Group | 2457 |
| 3 | HCUC – Harrow College & Uxbridge College | 2446 |
| 4 | Varndean College | 1659 |
| 5 | South Thames College | 1566 |
| 6 | Brighton, Hove and Sussex Sixth Form College | 1551 |
| 7 | West Nottinghamshire College | 1341 |
| 8 | York College | 1196 |
| 9 | Richard Huish College | 1192 |
| 10 | Middlesbrough College | 1182 |
| 11 | West College Scotland | 1175 |
| 12 | Newham Sixth Form College | 1157 |
| 13 | Trafford College Group | 1153 |
| 14 | Grŵp Llandrillo Menai | 1124 |
| 15 | Truro and Penwith College | 1080 |
| 16 | The WKCIC Group | 1040 |
| 17 | Leicester College | 1015 |
| 18 | Oaklands College | 1008 |
| 19 | Bradford College | 961 |
| 20 | Hereford Sixth Form College | 904 |
Mergers: If your organisation has recently merged with another, ProQuest may not have the most current merger information and your merger may not be reflected in the usage data. Please check with ProQuest and request that they update your account to reflect the merger. Their e-book support contact address is: ebooksupport@proquest.com
Top 20 titles in April 2021
| Rank | Title | User sessions |
| 1 | CACHE Level 3 Technical Extended Diploma in Health and Social Care | 7149 |
| 2 | CACHE Level 3 Child Care and Education : Early Years Educator | 6178 |
| 3 | BTEC Nationals Health and Social Care Student Book 1 | 4241 |
| 4 | BTEC Nationals Business Student Book 1 : For the 2016 specifications | 3207 |
| 5 | CACHE Level 2 Diploma for the Early Years Practitioner | 2871 |
| 6 | BTEC Nationals Applied Science Student Book 1 | 2553 |
| 7 | CACHE Level 2 Extended Diploma in Health and Social Care | 2482 |
| 8 | BTEC Nationals Health and Social Care Student Book 2 : For the 2016 specifications | 2135 |
| 9 | BTEC Level 3 National Health and Social Care: Student Book 1 | 1617 |
| 10 | BTEC Level 3 National Health and Social Care: Student Book 2 | 1568 |
| 11 | Psychology: the Science of Mind and Behaviour (8th edition) | 1527 |
| 12 | BTEC Nationals Business Student Book 2 : For the 2016 specifications | 1517 |
| 13 | AQA A Level Biology (Year 1 and Year 2) | 1420 |
| 14 | Anatomy and Physiology (5th edition) | 1249 |
| 15 | BTEC Level 3 Nationals Applied Science Student Book 2 | 1215 |
| 16 | AQA A-level Psychology Book 1 : For A-level Year 1 and AS | 1201 |
| 17 | BTEC National Computing Student Book | 1110 |
| 18 | OCR Sociology for A Level | 1102 |
| 19 | AQA A-level Sociology for A-level Year 1 and AS : Book 1 | 1023 |
| 20 | BTEC Level 3 National Public Services Student Book 2 | 1018 |
Support queries
Email: content.feandskills@jisc.ac.uk
Website: https://support.ebooksforfe.jisc.ac.uk/
Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/ebooksforFE