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The Freading ebook platform has only been live for about three months, but it is already showing a fairly rapid rate of growth, thanks in part to its low fees and the immediate access it gives libraries to a collection of about 20,000 ebooks on a multi-user, simultaneous basis.
Even as anxious publishers are hoping to increase friction in the ebook lending experience, librarians have been clamoring for vendors of integrated library systems (ILS) to make e-lending a unified, sleek experience. Rather than navigating their patrons away from the library’s web presence to Balkanized, often commercial, third-party platforms, each with a different discovery and delivery experience, librarians have been demanding a single, easy-to-use, easy-to-search platform — an integration of the ILS with ebook vendor platforms.
This article has been edited to include additional information from 3M and Polaris. The 3M Cloud Library ebook lending service will now be integrated with the Polaris Integrated Library System (ILS), so patrons of participating libraries will be able to browse and check out both physical books and ebooks from one unified interface. The system [...]
After an “upbeat and productive” meeting with leaders of the American Library Association on Tuesday, Random House reaffirmed its commitment to library lending of the company’s entire portfolio of ebook titles. At the same time, the company has announced that effective March 1 it is raising ebook prices that it charges library wholesalers such as OverDrive, 3M, and Ingram, which set the ultimate price libraries will pay to lease ebooks.
The panel on ebooks strategy in public libraries took a turn to the practical, with the focus on platforms (OverDrive, B&T’s Axis 360 and Blio, and 3M’s Cloud Library ebook), collaboration through consortia, selection, purchasing, and marketing of ebooks.
Two things were crystal clear, however: ebooks use has exploded in public libraries. And OverDrive isn’t the only kid on the block. In answer to questions from attendees on how to select a vendor, those who have added other ebook platforms along with OverDrive all said they were looking at providers’ maintenance fees and at their own financial resources.
The challenge of a digital world is how to connect a patron’s needs and interests with the right digital information. Libraries will play a vital role in showing people books the wide variety of books and authors that are available. Without variety we could becomes a nation of books only read from a top 10 list.
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