UC Libraries Forum 2025: Standing Up and Standing Out in Turbulent Times

In 2023, the UC Libraries Direction and Oversight Committee (DOC) signaled a green light to implement a prototype of Lyrasis’ Palace ebook reader at a UC campus to allow for further evaluation. Benefiting from work at New York University and Columbia University, UC Davis launched a pilot in Spring 2025 delivering a mobile ebook reading service with over 140,000 scholarly ebook titles available to students and faculty. Additionally, a new partnership with the California State Library Palace Project, added another 300,000 ebooks and audiobooks to the collection.

This session reveals how launching a disruptive technology is only one step towards creating resilient library infrastructure.While the easy-to-use app utilizes library-developed open-source software, the project ran into substantial challenges with collection development, acquisition and metadata. The pilot’s reliance on one for-profit publisher nearly resulted in disruption as the business announced their upcoming departure from their ebook sales practices. And while the technology supports a level playing field for access to both subscription and open scholarship, the absence of standardized OA metadata results in chapter-based material not displaying in a book level app. As academic libraries join public libraries to use Palace, bridges are still needed in licensing, linking technologies, and reconsidering permanence in the scholarly record for perpetual ebook purchases.

Facilitator:
Michelle Polchow