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Baker & Taylor (B&T) has announced the release of axisReader, a new ereader app developed specifically to work with the company’s Axis 360 digital media platform. The axisReader app is now available for library patrons to install on both Android and Apple iOS tablets and phones via the Google Play store and iTunes.
Hachette Book Group today announced that it will once again sell its frontlist ebook titles to libraries, beginning on May 8. Hachette’s entire catalog of 5,000 ebooks will now be available through OverDrive, Baker & Taylor’s Axis 360 platform, and the 3M Cloud Library, under a pricing and licensing model similar to the one employed by Random House.
Polaris Library Systems and Baker & Taylor (B&T) have announced that they are working together to integrate B&T’s Axis 360 digital media platform into the Polaris integrated library system (ILS). The integration will allow patrons to browse, place holds, and check out ebooks digital materials sourced from Axis 360 without navigating away from a library’s catalog.
With a flurry of partnership announcements pending before ALA Midwinter in Seattle, SirsiDynix is within weeks of the official launch of eResource Central (eRC).The electronic resource management system promises to make ebooks and other digital content from multiple vendors seamlessly available through its Symphony and Horizon ILS systems via the SirsiDynix Enterprise and Portfolio discovery tools.
The National Federation of the Blind has honored Baker & Taylor’s Axis 360 digital media platform with the Dr. Jacob Bolotin Award, which recognizes individuals and organizations that have “made outstanding contributions toward achieving the full integration of the blind into society on a basis of equality.”
Baker & Taylor announced on May 22 that the latest release of its Axis 360 digital media platform includes accessibility functions that will allow visually-impaired patrons to use a library’s digital collections. The platform is now compatible with several leading assistive screen-reader technologies, including JAWS (Job Access with Speech), Window-Eyes, NVDA (non-visual desktop access) and System Access To Go.
Ebrary’s flagship ebook product is Academic Complete, but the ProQuest unit has also offered for two years a parallel product in the public library channel called Public Library Complete that some libraries are finding a congenial fit as they sort through the growing number of offerings on the market.
When EBSCO acquired NetLibrary from OCLC in March 2010, it obtained a fully formed ebook platform that already had a large collection of about 200,000 ebooks from 500 publishers available in 17,000 sites worldwide. The challenge was to smooth out this platform, now known as Ebooks on EBSCOhost, so that it could migrate to the EBSCO interface and there be remade.
COSLA believes that ebooks will be the preferred format for reading materials in the future. As a result, it has set a goal for all U.S. public libraries to offer ebooks and downloadable media by 2015. As a step in that direction, LJ is publishing a series of articles that closely examines the various ebook platforms available, including this environmental scan.
Baker & Taylor and Findaway World LLC will partner to launch a digital audiobook platform for public libraries and retailers later this year, the companies announced April 10. Findaway is the creator of Playaway and Playaway View, preloaded audio and video devices, and in 2012 followed up with the creation of Catalist Digital, a new [...]
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