Mary Summerfield
Coordinator, Online Books Project
Columbia University Libraries
651 Butler Library
535 West 114th Street, Mail Code 1103
New York, NY 10027
(212) 854-3031
(212) 222-0331 fax
ms128@columbia.edu
http://www.columbia.edu/~ms128


As an economist, a planning and marketing professional, and then a consultant to the Columbia University Libraries and Academic Information Systems, I was involved in the analysis and management of intellectual property for about twenty years before I assumed my current role as day to day manager of the Online Books Project at Columbia. For about five years, first as a consultant and since January 1995 in my current role, I have worked with Columbia to evolve strategic plans for developing a viable digital library.

The Online Books Evaluation Project, funded by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, seeks to evaluate the potential for various types of online books to supplement or replace traditional printed works in research libraries. The Project looks at three key elements: (1) factors affecting user adoption of online books; (2) lifecycle costs of online books relative to print books for publishers, libraries, and users; and (3) intellectual property issues governing the commercial viability of online books.

My personal Web page links to the Web page describing the evaluation effort in detail. "The Online Books Evaluation Project: Analytical Principles & Design" document contained therein details our plans for measuring user adoption and costs as well as related environmental factors. "Online Books: What Roles Will They Fill for Users of the Academic Library?" is a paper I wrote last January. It contains conclusions drawn from interviews of Columbia faculty and graduate students as well as an in-depth literature review.

I am looking forward to Allerton '96 to assist me in continuing to formulate ideas about how to tackle the design of online books and the measurement of users' reaction to them.

In a breakout session, I would be happy to discuss either my paper "Online Books: What Roles Will They Fill for Users of the Academic Library?" and additional early findings of the Online Books Project or the results of a survey we did of students' choices in studying the art images at the core of a required Art Humanities course. Many of these images are now available online on the ColumbiaWeb; we were seeking to determine how the students felt about the various methods available for studying the images.

An issue that I would very much like to discuss at a breakout session is how to conduct online surveys or to otherwise obtain feedback from users of online materials. However, at this point, I have questions, not answers. I am hoping that participation in Allerton '96 will provide some insights that we can apply to the Online Books Evaluation Project.