Springer eBooks
Review by CCL-EAR Committee Springer eBooks purchase model is unique compared to many other eBook vendors as it includes no digital rights management (DRM), unlimited usage, concurrent users, perpetual access/ownership, and electronic ILL allowance. Springer is a global publishing company known for its peer-reviewed journals, books, and more recently, its e-Books. Springer eBooks advertises itself as the “largest collection of STM [science, technology, and math] books online.” The Springer eBook collection covers disciplines in science and engineering disciplines as well as social sciences and humanities. The collection also includes books published in foreign languages, including Dutch, French, German, and Italian. The name of the collection, Springer eBook, is a misnomer because in addition to books, book series and textbooks, the collection includes journals and major reference works. Reviewers recommend Springer’s eBook collection with its open-eBook model and quality publications in the sciences as well as other disciplines. It would be ideal if Springer can put together a package where the research level is geared toward community college students. The new SpringerLink platform slated for January 2013 release is an improvement from the previous platform. Download the full text of our evaluation for more details.
If you have any experience with this product, please leave a comment and rate its appropriateness for use in a community college environment.
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For access contact Amy Beadle, Library Consortium Director, 916.800.2175.
Comments
We just got our new Springer ebooks database up and going, but unfortunately when you perform a search, there is a check box marked to show “include preview-only content”. This brings up a search results page filled with locked articles and book chapters that students don’t have access to. For community college students, this user interface flaw is awful. Most of our students don’t make it past the first page of search results and many of them are not savvy enough researchers to know to uncheck the box that brings up the previews.
I’ve emailed Springer Tech support and Ariana Bian, but they said they can’t change the default. I’m just so disappointed in the database portion. I know our students will be able to get access to the books through our catalog (when we get the MARC records loaded) but the database (platform) is definitely not a place I would send them because they will just get frustrated. In fact, it even confused us as librarians.
It seems that the default may no longer be set to "include the preview-only content" when you first go into the Springer database. However, if you opt to do an advanced search, the default is for that box to be checked. I agree with Julie that this is unfortunate. I would prefer to be able to change the default to NOT have the preview-only box checked across all search options. Springer should allow us to change this in the admin dashboard.
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