When I recently posted a summary of Jane Burke's posts on the InfoViews blog, I hadn't realized InfoViews was owned by a ProQuest employee. Mike does point out that the views posted are his, and not those of ProQuest, but it's something to be aware of, and explains why he's collecting so many guest posts from ProQuest employees! :-)
Which brings us to the latest post, How Individual Book Buying Experiences are Reshaping Academic Library User Expectations for Ebooks, written by Leslie Lees, Vice President of Content Development at ebrary (recently acquired by ProQuest). She points out how Amazon and iTunes have influenced the way the general public expects to purchase information generally, and possibly non-fiction books as well:
As compared to journals and other forms of academic literature, books are purchased much more widely by individuals for personal use. If academic monographs in libraries had continued to be the only game in town, libraries would have retained more of their influence, but the explosion in the purchase of books for individual use has had a major impact on user expectations.
She also references a fascinating-sounding book (not available on ebrary) which I now have on hold at my library: Blair, Ann. Too Much to Know: Managing Scholarly Information before the Modern Age. New Haven [Conn.]: Yale UP, 2010. Print.
Rumour time! I see that Mike posted an interview with Slavin Zivkovic, CEO of Springshare, makers of the wonderful LibGuides product. I wonder if ProQuest is going to acquire Springshare? :-)
