e-books – A (fairly) comprehensive aggregation of e-book metadata is at hand at last!

Having blogged about the SWETSWise’s promised new online service to allow librarians (and others) to discover which books are available in e-format, and to compare purchasing models, licence conditions and prices, last autumn, I can now state that it has come to pass.

SwetsWise issued a press release on their ‘eBook procurement portal’ on April 6th and I was able to see the new service for myself at the UKSG conference yesterday (April 12th).

Of course the service is not fully comprehensive. It does not include every e-book that is available, however it does include links to the ebooks provided by more than 1,000 publishers which is very impressive and SWETSWise staff are working hard to extend this number.

And the site looks as good too. It’s clearly set out, existing users of SWETSWise will find the navigation very familiar but it looks intuitive for anyone to use. It does provide alternative pricing models and licensing conditions. The service is free to anyone who has a SWETSWise account and, for anyone who does not, you can simply contact SWETSWise and they will set up a trial access for you also for free.

The service will continue to be freely available throughout 2010. Possible pricing for access in the future is under discussion.