Twenty years of eBooks: How libraries turned a quiet shift into a global revolution in digital access

Author: Harmen van Paradijs 

I remember conversations in the early 2000s with librarians who had spent careers honing selection policies, comparing binding quality, and marking up catalog cards with near ritual precision. The move from shelf to screen didn’t feel profound at that moment, it was a new idea which came to fruition slowly. A trial purchase here, a small collection there, a cautious pilot to learn whether digital “books” would really serve students and researchers. Looking back, that idea reshaped access, to the point where eBooks have become foundational to how academic communities learn, teach and advance discovery.  

As we look back on "When the shelf went digital" and twenty years of eBooks collections, it’s worth pausing on what changed, why it worked and how libraries themselves, often unsung, made it possible.

The moment access outpaced inventory 

If you ask librarians what tipped the balance, many will point to a practical reality: students and researchers needed authoritative content faster than physical supply chains could deliver. eBooks changed the pace of access. What once required weeks of interlibrary loan or special ordering became minutes, authenticated, permanent and ready to annotate. The change was not just convenience, it was continuity. Collections could expand without adding shelves, and campus libraries could serve their communities wherever those communities were learning, on campus, on placement or across continents.  

When Springer’s eBook program launched in 2006, librarians began licensing curated collections across subject areas, and archives soon followed, digitizing decades of book content and making foundational texts discoverable at scale. That early curation mattered. For selectors accustomed to title by title scrutiny, collection reliability became the trust bridge. Year after year, comprehensive sets arrived on schedule, coverage deepened and metadata improved, reducing administrative burden while widening access to disciplines, many institutions previously covered only in part. Today, Springer Nature’s portfolio spans 260,000+ eBooks across STM and HSS with thousands added annually.  

The DRM‑free advantage for unlimited library access

A pivotal library benefit, often overlooked by non-librarians, was the shift to DRM-free, multiuser access. In practice, that meant fewer barriers: no simultaneous user caps, no opaque use limits and file formats designed for real research behavior (downloading, excerpting, citing and reading). For librarians, this removed friction from peak demand periods; seminar weeks, exam seasons, lab rotations, when dozens might need the same chapter at the same time.  

The policy was and remains simple: institutional licenses allow unlimited concurrent use, PDFs are DRM-free, and many titles include EPUB for accessible, reflowable reading. For libraries and research offices, that clarity matters as much as the content, because it turns “Will my patrons be blocked?” into “How can we best promote equitable access?” the question that truly drives service design. 

Accessibility as a core of scholarly communication

Accessibility has been a central priority for libraries for many years, and in 2025 it became further enshrined as a legal requirement. Springer Nature has likewise treated accessibility as a core responsibility long before the European Accessibility Act (EAA) came into force, investing in accessible formats, inclusive design, and readerfriendly digital experiences. With the EAA beginning enforcement on June 28, 2025, digital products, including eBooks, must now meet defined accessibility standards. In response, libraries, publishers and digital platforms are aligning with WCAG based practices to ensure that content is fully navigable by screen readers, correctly structured with semantic tagging, and supported by meaningful alternative text for images.  

For academic institutions, this shift affirms something librarians have long advocated: access must serve every reader. EPUB standards, accessible PDFs, and platform improvements are becoming part of baseline expectations, not special projects. That alignment with policy is not just compliance; it’s community stewardship, ensuring that students and researchers with print impairments can participate in scholarship without extraordinary effort or delay.

Editorial expertise and AI protect research integrity

As eBooks scaled, research integrity has remained central. All books, including monographs, reference works and contributed volumes, undergo editorial assessment, peer review and checks for references and originality. Springer Nature has invested in transparency and tooling to support editors and authors, from integrity training to automated checks that flag potential issues early.   

Recent innovations include AI-assisted quality checks that verify ethics statements, data availability and compliance before peer review, streamlining workflows while keeping human editors in control of final decisions. For librarians and research offices, the takeaway is simple: digital scale should not dilute rigor. The systems now embedded in editorial pipelines exist to ensure the content your communities rely on can be trusted.   

What libraries gained and what they taught us

Looking back, a few library-centered lessons stand out:

• Selection shifted from scarcity to sufficiency: With curated collections, librarians could focus less on gatekeeping individual titles and more on aligning disciplines with curriculum and research priorities, then use usage analytics to refine holdings over time.   
• Metadata became a service in its own right: MARC records, discoverability improvements, and stable identifiers turned collections into navigable ecosystems rather than static lists. Accessible catalog integration and reliable preservation partnerships are now expected features.  
• Archives changed pedagogy: Digitizing backlists made “out of print” a historical concept, so faculty could assign seminal chapters, and students could trace ideas across decades without leaving the library platform.  

Perhaps most importantly, libraries modeled cultural change. They helped campuses embrace the idea that a book’s “place” is where the reader needs it, on any device, at any hour and that service quality is measured not by proximity to shelves but by continuity of access.

Why two centuries of scholarly publishing matter

Context helps. Springer’s book publishing heritage dates to 1842, evolving across journals, monographs, and reference works, and eventually to early online platforms like LINK (now Springer Nature Link). That long arc made the eBook transition less of a replacement and more of an integration: the format changed, but the function of scholarly books to connect ideas, synthesize evidence and teach complex concepts remained constant.   

For academic institutions, this continuity explains why books continue to complement articles. Journal literature often advances a single finding with precision; books interpret, frame and teach. eBooks didn’t shrink that role, they expanded their reach. 

The future of customizable scholarly book services

One emerging frontier is reader level customization, not in the sense of fragmenting books, but in aligning navigation and format with research tasks. Imagine assembling a course pack from chapters across multiple titles or enabling students to move seamlessly from summaries to full treatments as their understanding deepens. Many libraries already support this pedagogical flexibility with reserve systems; digital formats open new possibilities for transparent, rights aware compilation. As platforms and licensing mature, expect more options that match how researchers actually learn, while retaining the editorial coherence that gives books their enduring value. Today’s ecosystem already includes subject collections spanning STM and HSS, with interdisciplinary coverage built in.  

We are also in the process of streamlining and improving services for authors, ensuring our systems are integrated and that authors can easily see with one login, where they are in their journey towards book publication. Our goal is to deliver a fully transparent, end-to-end author portal that simplifies the process and makes authors’ lives easier. 

What twenty years of digital books have made possible

If the first decade of eBooks were about proving feasibility, the second was about scaling responsibly. The next will likely be about refinement, ensuring every learner can use content fully, every researcher can trust it and every librarian has the data, tools and terms to steward collections confidently.  

For everyone committed to scholarly communication, the true achievement isn’t the technology, it’s the people and the possibilities it enables. This milestone marks two decades of progress built on trust, accessibility and collaboration. It belongs to everyone who plays a role in the eBook publishing process, researchers, authors, reviewers, editors, librarians and our own teams. Together, we ensure that knowledge completes its journey, circulating from the research community to academic libraries and back again.  

When the Shelf Went Digital not only highlights some of the most memorable moments of the past 20 years, it shows how research has been at the heart of it all. From milestones driven by scientific progress, such as the discovery of a super earth in the habitable zone, to events that like the launch of Twitter (now X), that have reshaped perspectives and opened up new fields of study. Research has been a constant thread and as throughout our 180-year history, our books have documented these advances to aid learning and discovery.  

In 2026, we’ll share with you stories from early-adopter librarians who have been part of this journey, the views of authors whose books captured the events and breakthroughs that shaped recent history and the Springer Nature colleagues who are bringing these milestones to your screens. 

Let us know what you remember from "When the shelf went digital" and what you think will come next for academia and scholarly communication.

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• Evolving roles of academic librarians adapting to change and new technologies
• Eight proven steps to improve eBook collection development in libraries
• From VPATs to WCAG: ensuring digital accessibility in libraries
• 180 years in the making: a publishing evolution 
• The inside out librarian – How libraries are becoming essential research partners

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