The South Dublin Digital Book Service, available from the Download Zone at www.southdublinlibraries.ie is the first digital book service provided by an Irish Local Authority.

Focus group work indicated that visually impaired citizens were struggling with traditional audio books on CD.   Methodologies and technologies which would allow streamlined access to eBooks were also required. South Dublin Libraries also wanted a mechanism for epublishing Local Studies and Heritage books which had traditionally been published in hard copy only and a move to digital publishing was seen as cost effective and bringing an international audience to the County.  The market for eBooks is expanding as major publishers began to develop digital copies of popular books. South Dublin Libraries wanted to at the vanguard of this development in order to maximize possibilities for users of the eBook service. 

 Developed to streamline access for visually impaired citizens to the world of books and information, the service is the first of it's kind in Ireland and one of very few worldwide. Customers using the site can download eBooks and eAudio books for free to their MP3 players and portable devices (laptops, PDAs, Mobipocket etc)  using their library card for authentication. Digital books offer complete sustainability as items cannot be lost or damaged, can be borrowed without the need to visit a library, have an  automatic return date and are in demand from a wide variety of customer profiles.

 The need to expand access to library services for excluded citizens was a primary driver in the development of an eBook service. As more and more citizens become time poor, the drive towards 24/7 access to services is becoming more critical. Usage of the Digital book Service is growing exponentially as more and more mainstream customers adapt to this new way of interfacing with the written word. 

Benefits, Impact and Lessons Learned

• The South Dublin Digital Book Service promotes eInclusion and has dramatically improved access to the rich world of reading and information for visually impaired customers as well as young people and adults with learning and literacy difficulties.
• Inter agency working played a critical role in the development of the service as stakeholders across disciplines informed the process
• A tested, replicable model is now in place 
• ICT skills levels within the authority have been considerably enhanced
• Citizens can now access their library at anytime from anywhere across the globe.
• Library staff within our local authority are now trained and comfortable with this new wave of service delivery and are well placed to assist citizens with developments such as Sony eReaders, ePubformats etc
•  Cost savings and sustainability have proved to be excellent as traditional books on CD were becoming increasingly more expensive (averaging over €75 per book) and difficult to manage as up to 20% of all CDs were lost and damaged per annum. Digital books cost on average €12 per book and once purchased remain in stock until removed by stock audit.
• A major pilot study is now underway with an Irish education publishing company and a local post primary school to road test the use of digital books in an eEucational context
• South Dublin Library service are now digital publishers

Policy Context

South Dublin Libraries, as a department of the South Dublin County Council,  works within the Irish local authority environment. The framework and contextual conditions governing the South Dublin eBook Service include the local, national and European strategies for the promotion of eGovernment, eInclusion and an inclusive society. This case through the development of ICT capacity and innovative service delivery models, enhances eAccessibility and removes many barriers to the information society for a range of citizens. Development was guided by the Barcelona Declaration, The Riga Ministerial Conference,Minerva eEurope,  South Dublin County Council's ICT Strategy, Ireland’s National Disability Strategy,  and Toward's 2016 - Ireland's social partnership agreement.  South Dublin's  eBook Service supports the development of local content online, enhances social inclusion, develops competencies and promotes universal engagement and participation in eGovernment services.

Description of target users and groups

 

 The initial target group was Visually Impaired people living and working in South Dublin County. The percentage of people nationally with a visual impairment is 10% and in South Dublin which has a population of 246,000 the figure is  3,755 people.These are the statistics reported from the Central Statistics Office from the latest census.

The second target group were children and adults with reading difficulties. In South Dublin there are 52,000 school children under the age of 19 years. In age ranges this equates to 17,707 aged 5-9, 16,322 aged 10-14 and 18,156 aged 15-19. The Department of Education and Science estimate that on average 10% of children attending school have reading difficulties as such the target population here is over 5,000 children. Ireland ranks poorly in terms of adult literacy with an estimated 25% of people having some literacy difficulties according to the latest cencus which equates to almost 60,000 citizens in the county experincy problems reading.

Working with Gill and Macmillan, Irish educational publishers, we are currently running a pilot study on digital books in poet primary education. Using St Aidan's Community School in Tallaght testing is currently underway to acertain the effectiveness of the medium in a learning environment.

The service was also targeted at citizens in general and in fact usage has spread across Ireland, Europe and to the USA.

 

 

Description of the way to implement the initiative

As a totally new concept within Ireland the development of Digital Book Service from South Dublin posed many challenges and opportunities. Content and accessibility as well as ease of use were the most important issues which drove decision making in the early days of the project. 

The Project Team:  A team of five people headed by the ICT Executive Librarian and a librarian who had worked for NCBI was formed. The team included the ‘change agent’ from the library department who formed part of an authority wide team delivery innovation and improved business processes. This team along with corporate ICT and a member of the bibliographic services personnel formed the core group for the design of the new ebook service. 

ICT management: a multi departmental strategy between corporate ICT and the project team allowed for quick solutions to problems –such as firewall issues, management of SIP protocol etc- streamlined the roll out of the eBook service.  

Management and Documentation Strategies:  Agile team management was necessary as the project evolved as new possibilities emerged and added functionality was identified. Milestone planning using open source Gantt charts allowed structure within  the project and helped visualise milestones and tasks. Weekly progress reports were provided to stakeholders and test pages from the site were made available, as the build continued, to all staff with suggestions and comments welcomed. Documentation of the project was managed using iDocs, an online document management system available from the corporate Intranet. 

Partnerships within the project: Working in partnership with NCBI, VICS, focus groups and existing library users a strategy developed  for delivering the service from scratch.

 Priorities of the project: Critical to the success of the project was the need to provide from the library website  universal accessibility. The design of a ‘virtual’ branch library then began from which digital media could be delivered. This required a re-engineering of existing process in terms of internal activity from the department’s viewpoint but also externally from customers viewpoint. Underpinning the project planning were the following criteria: 

• Seamless experience for users
• Contemporary, interesting, informative and challenging content for readers and learners
• Easy content and collection management
• Clear mappable costs and financial implications
• Future proofing of the service and flexibility as technologies evolve
• Managed licensing of digital content
• A back end reporting system which would deliver real time information on the digital site and it’s usage
• In house digital publishing capabilities
• Long term library to library content sharing of local material

Overdrive, an American digital book provider were identified as the supplier of digital content. Webinars were used to share ideas and discuss elements of the build.

Human resource management:  Webinars were also used to train staff across South Dublin Libraries on how the new service would operate. A ‘digital’ champion within each service point further developed the new skills required as the service was rolled out.

A pilot project was designed and tested with user groups across South Dublin.

 Costs for the pilot study was provided from National Disability Strategy funding to SDCC.Resources and spending were managed by the ICT Executive Librarian in association with the financial and resources senior executive librarian.Costs of the ongoing service are now managed by South Dublin Libraries.

Project Evaluation:  The pilot project was evaluated after a seven month period period and based on extremely positive feedback form users the service was launched in January 2008.

 

Technology solution

Digital publishing for mainstream consumption is still in it's infancy. Publishers in Europe are still looking for ways to distribute books digitally without compromising the rights of the creator or their own income streams. As a public library department we needed to offer a product that had built-in digital rights management and which could be offered through our own website. The customer experience needed to be seamless and easily managed. With all these factors in mind we chose, after a year of research, Overdrive, a digital book service which provided some of the solutions we required. Interoperability with the Library Management System was also required, using SIP technology to allow authentication and statistical analysis. 

Technology choice: Proprietary technology, Accessibility-compliant (minimum WAI AA)

Main results, benefits and impacts

• The primary benefit of the Digital Book Service is that visually impaired citizens now have a free, streamlined web based digital book service offering over 5000 eAudio and Ebooks 24/7 (eInclusuion)
• Children and adults with reading difficulties can now listen to eAudio books featuring the latest bestsellers, picture books, graphic novels and a range of information books(eInclusion)
• The citizens of the region and nationally are now well place to take advantage of the burgeoning digital publishing phenomenon
• A model which is replicable for library service providers across Ireland and Europe is now in place
• South Dublin County Council can now, through digital publishing, offer open acceess to all its documentation and information
• South Dublin Libraries are now digitally publishing, in a range of languages, books of cultural and heritage value thus increasing access and inclusion
• The Digital Book Service is a sustainable and green service. Once the virtual service is in place, books remain in use until removed for stock audit purposes. Running costs of €11,000 per year provide a 24/7 service. Negligible staff time is needed to maintain the system and new stock can be purchased online and are available to citizens within hours of purchase.
• South Dublin Libraries are now positioned at the head of a digital wave - customers with Sony eBooks, iPods and other devices are using the service at an ever increasing rate..

The stakeholder communities including Irish Libraries, visually impaired groups, people with reading and learning difficulties, educators, cultural and heritage groups, Local Authorities, publishers, national egovernment champions and general citizens have been using the service regularly and providing very positive feedback. Presentations have been requested on the service from national and international groups and the lessons learned in the delivery of the service have been widely disseminated to stakeholders from Irish book publishers to specialist librarians across the island of Ireland.

While initially designed as a service for the visually impaired, the Digital Book service has been mainstreamed and is being used by over 1500 citizens per month and offering a range of added value elements.  

Return on investment

Return on investment: €500-999,000

Track record of sharing

Lessons learned from this case are already being shared with peers and other public and private sector groups. Invitiations to give presentations, lectures and workshops on the Digital Book Service continue to flow in. Webinars with other local authorities as well as presentations at conferences have taken place. Given that the build of the system took place within a local authority corporate digital network, heads of IT from other local authorities have had information sharing meetings with our team. Librarians and others involved in bibliographic services have had training and skills exchanges with the staff of South Dublin Libraries. The National Council for the Blind of Ireland have liased with the group as has the Visually Impaired Computer Society of Ireland.

Lessons learnt

• Never underestimate the power of technology to allow inclusive citizenship to develop. It can and does change lives
• Take risks - make changes, re-engineer your everyday processes.
• Disseminate what you have learned - others sometimes do not know what questions to ask

Scope: Cross-border, International, Local (city or municipality), National, Regional (sub-national)