Really worthwhile article in Inside Higher Ed by librarian Barbara Fister. Fister says:
It’s partly a function of the kind of library I work at—undergraduate, residential, small—and partly my skeptical nature, but I still am not convinced we should invest in vast collections of books we don’t choose and don’t really own. So before I market something, I need to be persuaded my community needs it. And so far, there’s no demand. …
Given that survey after survey has found students reluctant to buy into e-textbooks with limited rights, I’m wary of assuming they’ll embrace ebooks in the library. And while I can see why a research library would find ebook bundles attractive, undergraduates are not eager to have access to everything; in fact, Project Information Literacy found undergraduates use a variety of strategies to actively narrow the range of possibilities because they are overwhelmed by the options. Browsing the shelves of a small collection of hand-picked books works better than searching a database with a million books in it.
Well worth reading the rest of the article. Thanks to Michel von Glahn for the heads up.