As of now, students at the University of Oslo can download 150 000 e-books sitting in their own living rooms. The University of Oslo Library is going electronic.

– What´s new is that we have now got electronic literature that won´t demand special technology to be read, says Live Rasmussen, main librarian at the University of Oslo Library (UB).
Electronic literature has previously been shamed by limitations when it comes to printing, access and application. The new documents are free and available from every computer connected to the university´s network, and there are no limitations when it comes to printing.

– Opportunity and threat

According to sales- and marketing director in Akademika Pål Løwe, the e-books represent both a market opportunity and a market threat.
– Initially, this is not something new. Libraries have pretty much always offered books free of charge, and booksellers haven´t gone under because of that, says Løwe.
Main librarian Rasmussen thinks electronic non-fiction will take over for the one printed on paper, within certain fields.
– At MatNat (The Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences), much of the non-fiction will probably be electronic in five to ten years. When it comes to law and the humanities, however, I think it will take many more years, she says.

More and more e-curriculum

Student of Political Science Therese Bosrup Karlsen says that she has earlier had one e-book with a limit on printing on her curriculum. – I ended up not reading it, she says.
Karlsen and other students at the university that Universitas have spoken to, can say that more and more texts on the curriculum are made available electronically. They think this is positive, seeing that it is cheaper than buying texts and books printed on paper. The students can also imagine purchasing e-book devices, if the technology improves.

– It will have to work a bit faster, and also be easier to use, says law student Yngve Opsvik.
– I want to wait until the market stabilizes, and they agree on a format that works, says Tobias V. Langhoff, student at the Department of informatics at MatNat.

Electronic pilot project

At the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim, the pilot project «E-pensum» is starting these days. This means that six students in two different subjects will be given e-book devices containing all of their curriculum. At this point, there are possible plans for a similar project at the University of Oslo next autumn semester.
– If the plans are realized, we want to do them in a slightly larger scale, says Rasmussen.
Whether the plans are realized or not will be decided in the beginning of February.

In the library at BI Norwegian School of Management there are just below 100 titles available electronically, and non-fictional curriculum is one of the most important areas of commitment. Most of the most important titles, however, is not available as e-books yet. BI also fails to get rid of the user limitations that come with the e-books.
– It is possible to print the pages, but there are certain regulations that make the process a bit complicated, so printing is not something we do, says Kristin Danielsen, librarian at BI.

These limitations are, according to Danielsen, made by the publishers, and are beyond the libraries´ control.