Citing from e-books

[music]

I have a Kindle, and for whatever reason I read more often, and for longer, than with paper books. I'm hoping to use it quite a bit during grad school, also for the financial savings and reduced load on my back. I take notes straight into Mendeley, and feel like an eco-goddess for so doing It's a new departure for me, since I have always been a hardback and notepad type of girl.

 

However, I have a Kindle 2... and there are no real page numbers, only the Kindle page numbers (apparently this got updated for a limited number of books for the Kindle 3). What is the standard way to cite an e-book in this instance? Or am I obliged to go and dig out a hard copy of everything I want to read to add in page numbers for the citations?

[TakeruK]

It sounds like this is something that varies based on the citation style your field would use! In my field, we only cite titles, never page numbers, and we do not specify the medium in which we accessed the material, so this would be no different than the hardcopy version. However, I was curious about other styles and this is what I found:

 

MLA: http://www.mla.org/style/handbook_faq/cite_an_ebook

APA: https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/10/ (there are sections on how to cite electronic books generally as well as Kindle works specifically)

 

Hope that helps lead you to what you need!

Edited September 1, 2014 by TakeruK

[music]

My google-ing did come up with a few things like that but it doesn't seem like there is really a firm consensus/rule about it. I guess my real question is whether it's ok to cite e-books at all as a source, or whether it's safer/wiser to always cite a hard copy until e-book citations become standardised in academia.

 

My field (ethnomusicology) does require me to cite some funky sources, and get creative with formatting in that regard, but I am just really surprised that e-books don't seem to have found their way into the mainstream of academia yet...

[victorydance]

^

 

I don't get it. You source the work, it doesn't matter which format or medium you get it from. Why would you need to cite it as an e-book when it is the same source whether it's in paper or digital form?

 

I cited a bunch of things from e-books, but the citation doesn't change one iota than if it were a physical book. The same goes for journal articles.

Edited September 1, 2014 by victorydance

[rising_star]

victorydance, my guess is that the OP is struggling with how to cite quotations taken from e-books. That is definitely tricky since most citation styles require the exact page number to be included. I'd probably just try to avoid using direct quotations, which is generally a good practice in writing anyway, just to avoid the entire issue. If you do need page numbers, consult the specific style guide and/or ask the editor if it's a manuscript and the journal's style guide doesn't address that specific issue.

[dr. t]

The medium matters. The point of proper citations seems to me to be the ability to pull the document in question off the shelf and find the source for an assertion. Most libraries (as far as I know) don't really collect e-books and most of them seem reluctant to start. Who wants to start paying book subscription fees on top of journal fees?

 

I know that as someone reading a paper, I would get really quite annoyed at trying to track down an e-book citation without a page number reference to a printed edition - my library has the hard copy. I would suspect that I am not alone in this, and suggest that you stick to hard copy citations unless there is a major ground shift.

[music]

Risingstar and Telkanuru, that's what I was getting at. Frustrating and a little backward, but not worth the risk at least in the early stages of an academic career. I guess I will stick to indirect quotations where possible, and track down hard copies where necessary.

 

Boo you, academia. 

[dr. t]

I have to say I'm sympathetic to a library not collecting e-books. Could you imagine if your library had to pay Elsevier for those, too? Ugh.

Edited September 3, 2014 by telkanuru

[TakeruK]

I have to say I'm sympathetic to a library not collecting e-books. Could you imagine if your library had to pay Elsevier for those, too? Ugh.

 

If paying twice is the worry, then I'd say libraries should move towards collecting e-books and stop collecting hard copies. It'll save tons of money and space!

 

My thought is that academic libraries exist to serve its users--if people are citing e-books more often, they should be collecting more e-books! But I also appreciate music's point that early career academics have a lot to risk and little chance to effect change when we "rock the boat".

[victorydance]

I would say libraries actually save money by having e-books if done on a certain scale, not lose money. Of course, there are drawbacks and benefits of e-book collections. Furthermore, there are actually a multitude of university libraries that have thousands of e-books or extensive electronic libraries.

Edited September 3, 2014 by victorydance

[rising_star]

There's actually a lot of drawbacks to libraries for switching to e-books. One is that certain publishers force libraries to buy additional e-copies of the same book after a certain number of checkouts, which doesn't happen with physical books. Also, switching to e-books requires users to have certain technology (or at least access to that technology), which may mean the library also has to purchase e-readers for checkout (some public and college libraries have actually done this). And, of course, if some change happens to the format (ie the switch from cassette tapes to CDs), the libraries may be in a world of trouble. Personally, I'm glad libraries are sticking with physical books, especially with the studies coming out that say you absorb and remember material better when you read it in a physical book.

[dr. t]

If paying twice is the worry, then I'd say libraries should move towards collecting e-books and stop collecting hard copies. It'll save tons of money and space!

 

You've misunderstood, or I've been unclear. If libraries start collecting e-book on a large scale, you can bet your bippy Elsevier and its ilk will start charging yearly subscription fees for them instead of selling them outright. In fact, in some cases this is already true.

 

Your seller can change the terms of use for a hard copy.

[juilletmercredi]

Is it really true that most libraries don't have e-books?  Are we talking about public libraries or electronic libraries?  Because both my Grad School City's public libraries and my actual university library had plenty of e-books.  Yes, they do force the public library to purchase more than one copy of the electronic book and there is a waiting list for it sometimes - which is, of course, ridiculous, since it's just data.  But the publishing companies have got to find some way to limit consumption, otherwise the library would purchase one copy of the e-book and lend it out to everyone who wanted the book at the same time, indefinitely, meaning that publishing companies - and all the people who work there - and authors wouldn't make any money.  There are still costs to be borne in making that book, and physical books have their limitations that prevent you from doing the same thing (they wear out, rip, tear, each borrower needs one...)

 

If the e-books are being consistently updated with new information, or libraries are paying a yearly subscription for a parcel of electronic books together, then it might make sense.  Instead of ordering (and shipping) the six hundredth edition of some dusty tome, they can just electronically update the information - probably for cheaper.  But if it's just a regular academic book being published that doesn't get updated, I don't see Elsevier charging a yearly subscription because nobody would pay for that...unless it were cheaper.  The Handbook of Social Psychology, for example, is a classic text in my field and the two volumes cost $211 together.  Why would anybody pay $50/year for it when you will quickly exceed the costs in 4 years?  Even if they give it to you for $20/year, you know that people are still going to be using that book in 10 years (I mean, the book was first published in 1935) so the academic librarian would pass and buy the hardcover version.

 

At least right now I can't imagine a model in which any publisher could get away charging a yearly subscription fee to books that don't change (as opposed to books that are updated with editions every year.  The Handbook does have editions, but the book is nearly 80 years old and it's only on the 5th edition).  Perhaps in 20-30 years when/if libraries are relying primarily on e-books and nobody really reads paper books anymore, then the publishers might have the upper hand.

 

Anyway, in response to the question: this answer may not be kosher, but when technology has outpaced the APA and hasn't come up with an appropriate way to cite something I'm using, I kind of make something up.  By which I mean I modify an existing citation style in order to cite whatever it is.  I can't remember what it was I was citing an NYC DOHMH surveillance report recently in a paper and/or my dissertation and there simply wasn't a style to support that, and I searched the Internet and scoured my publication manual.  Zip.  So I took a similar entry and used that one, slightly modified to include relevant information that would help the reader find it if they wanted to (and the in-text citations were still pretty easy - author, year).

 

In your case I would try to see if I could find the page number on Google Books.  If I couldn't, and I absolutely needed to use the quotation for some reason, I would just do something like (Smith, 2009, l. 2385).  I mean, no, it's not standard - but the way I see it, a citation style's purpose is to help a reader find the information that they want.  By adding the location number in an admittedly non-standard way, I'm including information that helps them find what they want.

 

Of course, this also depends on the venue for the paper.  I would do this for a paper for class or even my dissertation and see what I could get away with, but for publication, I would avoid anything potentially confusing.

Edited September 4, 2014 by juilletmercredi

[TakeruK]

You've misunderstood, or I've been unclear. If libraries start collecting e-book on a large scale, you can bet your bippy Elsevier and its ilk will start charging yearly subscription fees for them instead of selling them outright. In fact, in some cases this is already true.

 

Your seller can change the terms of use for a hard copy.

 

Just to clarify, I don't really mean that all libraries should stop physical book collections completely I was just saying that I don't think the "cost" argument against e-books is justified because I think e-books really would cost less than physical books even with all the additional fees. 

 

I agree with juillet as well about the subscription fees. I think it does make sense for publishers to charge libraries based on the expected usage of ebooks, if, in exchange, there are no actual limits on the number of simultaneous checkouts. Currently, most ebooks my library carries has something like a limit of 10 simultaneous checkouts (which simulates having 10 physical copies of the book) and you are user #11, you get a message saying that you have to wait until one of the other 10 users closes the file before you can access it. But, I can see a different model where libraries pay a set annual subscription to all books from a publisher that is tied to how many users actually access the books. This could be good if the limit on # of user per title is also removed. As e-book usage increases, physical copies usage might decrease so the cost savings there might be able to offset increasing e-book fees.

[dr. t]

I've yet to figure out a way to quote and answer multiple pieces on this forum, so this is a bit of a grab bag.

 

Most libraries have e-books, they just don't have them in quantity, particularly if you move out of the realm of straight literature. I also think e-books make more sense for public libraries than they do for academic libraries.

 

If libraries realize that maintaining a higher percentage of their collection as e-books empowers publishers at their expense (and they do realize this), doesn't that give them significant, legitimate disincentive not to acquire more e-books?

 

Of course Elsevier et al. would absolutely love to charge a subscription fee for e-books, and of course they'd do it if e-books weren't such a minor part of the academic market share that they'd just get bad press. Subscription fees generate more money than one-time sales. Whether or not the book changes isn't really relevant. After all, stop paying your journal subscription and you don't get to keep access to the journals you already have. 

 

What publishers currently charge universities for journal (and some e-book) subscriptions usually has more to do with the wealth of the institution in question than actual usage rates. 

 

I don't see how adding a line number or percentage helps anyone find your reference since most people will be using hard copies.

 

When we're talking the quantities academic presses are used to dealing with (ca. 500 copies), I have it on good authority (senior editor of Penn press) that e-publishing will not have any significant impact on a manuscript's price. Unlike a pulp paper back, most of the cost of an academic manuscript goes to overhead, not raw materials.

 

Also, here: 

 

 

Your seller can change the terms of use for a hard copy.

I meant to say can't.

Edited September 4, 2014 by telkanuru

[music]

I don't see how adding a line number or percentage helps anyone find your reference since most people will be using hard copies.

Honestly, I so rarely look up the precise page reference. The issue is when it's you doing the citations, and following correct etiquette of giving adequate and specific credit to the original author. By using a non-standard reference (eg line instead of page, or ebook instead of print copy page) I'd be concerned that I'm risking being pulled up for lazy/imprecise/incorrect citations, which is absolutely not acceptable in academia. 

[TakeruK]

I've yet to figure out a way to quote and answer multiple pieces on this forum, so this is a bit of a grab bag.

 

You can hit the "MultiQuote" button just to the left of the "Quote" button and a little pop up will appear at the bottom left corner. Hit "MultiQuote" for all the posts you want to quote and then hit the bottom left pop up when you are done. This will create a reply box with all of the quoted posts you selected!

 

Most libraries have e-books, they just don't have them in quantity, particularly if you move out of the realm of straight literature. I also think e-books make more sense for public libraries than they do for academic libraries.

 

If libraries realize that maintaining a higher percentage of their collection as e-books empowers publishers at their expense (and they do realize this), doesn't that give them significant, legitimate disincentive not to acquire more e-books?

 

Of course Elsevier et al. would absolutely love to charge a subscription fee for e-books, and of course they'd do it if e-books weren't such a minor part of the academic market share that they'd just get bad press. Subscription fees generate more money than one-time sales. Whether or not the book changes isn't really relevant. After all, stop paying your journal subscription and you don't get to keep access to the journals you already have.

I don't know the exact numbers, but I would think that there are actual significant advantage for libraries to pay subscription prices instead of buying each title individually. It is hard for libraries to know exactly which articles/journals/books academics would want to use, so instead of buying one of everything, it could be more effective to buy the right for its users to access anything created by a certain publisher. 

 

What publishers currently charge universities for journal (and some e-book) subscriptions usually has more to do with the wealth of the institution in question than actual usage rates.

 

This seems okay to me--schools/organizations that are able to pay more can help subsidize the costs of schools that cannot pay as much so that access to information is equal as much as possible. Of course, I agree that it's possible that publishers use this excuse to overcharge!

 

When we're talking the quantities academic presses are used to dealing with (ca. 500 copies), I have it on good authority (senior editor of Penn press) that e-publishing will not have any significant impact on a manuscript's price. Unlike a pulp paper back, most of the cost of an academic manuscript goes to overhead, not raw materials.

 

I agree that most of the cost is overhead, not actual printing. In my field, many journals are going to switch to electronic-only formats because there is no demand for print copies. Also, it's super annoying that we have to create 2 versions of every figure--one in colour and one in black and white. If we want colour figures to be printed in the print version, it's $500/figure or so. And, if we don't provide a grayscale version, they will just "grayscale" the colour version which could look really ugly. Also, every caption has to say "For a colour version of this figure, please see the electronic journal edition." or something like that. Even though very few are likely to be reading the print version. 

 

However, I was thinking of money savings for the library, not for subscription costs. I think by moving towards collecting more electronic versions and fewer print versions, libraries can take up less space. So, a library can significantly grow its collection without growing in size. As print versions become less and less used, they can store them in robotic retrieval systems (i.e. user looks up a title on the computer, requests it, the robot finds it in a 3-storey room full of shelves and picks it, and the user picks up the book at the collections desk). This is a much more compact and cost effective way of storing books because there is no need to accommodate human limitations (shelf heights, space between shelves, logical book ordering). UBC did this in the early 2000s and now a lot of its "main branch" library has been converted to more useful space like group study spaces, and other student spaces.

[dr. t]

Honestly, I so rarely look up the precise page reference. The issue is when it's you doing the citations, and following correct etiquette of giving adequate and specific credit to the original author. By using a non-standard reference (eg line instead of page, or ebook instead of print copy page) I'd be concerned that I'm risking being pulled up for lazy/imprecise/incorrect citations, which is absolutely not acceptable in academia. 

 

I'm really not sure what you're trying to say here - your first sentence seems to contradict your last. Can you rephrase?

 

 

 

You can hit the "MultiQuote" button just to the left of the "Quote" button and a little pop up will appear at the bottom left corner. Hit "MultiQuote" for all the posts you want to quote and then hit the bottom left pop up when you are done. This will create a reply box with all of the quoted posts you selected!

 

 

Success?

 

I don't know the exact numbers, but I would think that there are actual significant advantage for libraries to pay subscription prices instead of buying each title individually. It is hard for libraries to know exactly which articles/journals/books academics would want to use, so instead of buying one of everything, it could be more effective to buy the right for its users to access anything created by a certain publisher. 

 

If the publisher's yearly revenues aren't breaking even vs. hard copy, there would be no reason for them to offer the service in the first place. I am far from an economist, but it would seem to me that there's no way a library might pay out less money for the same product.

 

This seems okay to me--schools/organizations that are able to pay more can help subsidize the costs of schools that cannot pay as much so that access to information is equal as much as possible. Of course, I agree that it's possible that publishers use this excuse to overcharge!

 

 

I'm conceptually fine with the idea, but oh boy do they overcharge, and you get libraries creating absurd restrictions on use. For example, you can't even enter the main Harvard libraries if you don't have a current affiliation because that's one of the things they did to negotiate a lower price. 

 

I agree that most of the cost is overhead, not actual printing. In my field, many journals are going to switch to electronic-only formats because there is no demand for print copies. Also, it's super annoying that we have to create 2 versions of every figure--one in colour and one in black and white. If we want colour figures to be printed in the print version, it's $500/figure or so. And, if we don't provide a grayscale version, they will just "grayscale" the colour version which could look really ugly. Also, every caption has to say "For a colour version of this figure, please see the electronic journal edition." or something like that. Even though very few are likely to be reading the print version. 

 

 

 

 

As someone who works a lot with GIS, I feel your  pain.

 

However, I was thinking of money savings for the library, not for subscription costs. I think by moving towards collecting more electronic versions and fewer print versions, libraries can take up less space. So, a library can significantly grow its collection without growing in size. As print versions become less and less used, they can store them in robotic retrieval systems (i.e. user looks up a title on the computer, requests it, the robot finds it in a 3-storey room full of shelves and picks it, and the user picks up the book at the collections desk). This is a much more compact and cost effective way of storing books because there is no need to accommodate human limitations (shelf heights, space between shelves, logical book ordering). UBC did this in the early 2000s and now a lot of its "main branch" library has been converted to more useful space like group study spaces, and other student spaces.

 

UChicago's weird bubble library does the robot thing, too, with something on the order of 7m volumes. The capital expenditure necessary for such a project, however, is quite large, particularly at a time when library budgets are being hacked to pieces (or spent mostly on journal subscriptions!) and campus architecture projects tend to be new athletic facilities, dorms, or a business school. That is, things that make money and don't spend it. In other words, there's substantial inertia in the system, and it's not just the grouchy people like me who need to read everything in hard copy.

[music]

I'm really not sure what you're trying to say here - your first sentence seems to contradict your last. Can you rephrase?

 

It's in no way contradictory. I personally don't look up page numbers that I've come across in other peoples' citations. But I understand that it's important to give due credit in a way which is considered within the bounds of normality in academia, ie the exact page number in some contexts. Would I personally care if people referenced both ebooks and hard copy books with different line/page numbering systems? Nope. Would other people, who, as an early-career researcher I don't want to piss off? Yep.

[rising_star]

This conversation has really morphed. I've actually spoken to librarians at two different university libraries about e-books in the past few years and I'll share what they've told me. At one library, the librarian pointed out that the had a growing collection of academic e-books. Most of these come in packages of varying sizes, so you end up with some really excellent books and some that are not so good (lots of texts published in India, I've noticed, and available by going through Springer for example). The librarian told me they were paying for these because it enabled them to expand their collection more than they could with physical books. But, she also noted that the availability of specific e-book titles could change from one year to the next depending on what the cost and options are. I feel like that was definitely an important caveat and she emphasized it. Also, the price they pay apparently determines how many simultaneous checkouts are allowed for a particular title. She told me that the library itself was the one setting limits on the length of the checkout.

 

I also asked her about why public library's have worked to enable their users to read e-books on their e-reader but the university library books all required a laptop. That answer got way complicated and technical and I wouldn't be doing it justice to explain. But, a lot of it relates to the proprietary software used to view those books (eBrary or NetLibrary, for example) and their incompatiblity with Kindles/Nooks. Sorry I can't provide more on that one.

 

As for whether or not libraries will pay subscription fees for things that don't change, I think they've already demonstrated that they will. The move to get rid of older copies of bound journals and instead pay for subscriptions to databases that have those back issues is one such example. Sure, you also have to subscribe for the recent issues. But, at least in looking at the journal subscriptions for the 3 schools I've been at most recently, there's almost always a year beyond which you can't go back electronically (either because your school doesn't subscribe to the deep archive or because they haven't been digitized). So if and when libraries get rid of those older issues (and some are because they want/need the space for other things), they go from paying once for something to having to pay for it year after year even though the content hasn't changed.

 

Back to the original question, I just had a thought. Even if your specific issue isn't covered in the published style guide, might it be covered on their website somewhere? I mostly use Chicago Manual of Style and they have a searchable website as well as a Q&A section that covers various citation and style topics (http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/qanda/latest.html). You might want to see if there's something similar for MLA or whatever style it is you're trying to use.