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The Massachusetts State Ebook Project (MA EBook Project), conceived by the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioner’s (MBLC) Statewide Resource Sharing Committee and the Massachusetts Library System (MLS), with funding from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), this summer concluded a pilot program, offering many insights into the challenges and promises that statewide consortial ebook lending programs may offer.
Shortly after Simon & Schuster’s June 26 announcement that it had concluded a 15-month pilot test and would make its entire ebook catalog available to all U.S. libraries, Macmillan last week announced that it will make all frontlist ebook titles available to U.S. libraries as well. These moves mark a milestone in terms of the availability of popular ebooks, as Macmillan and Simon & Schuster became the final two of the “big five” publishers to allow U.S. libraries to license and loan all titles in their ebook collections.
When ebooks or other digital materials are not readily available in libraries, publishers “are missing a key conduit to a market that [they] can’t tap any other way,” Rebecca T. Miller, editorial director for Library Journal and School Library Journal, stated in her opening remarks for the “The Untapped Retail Channel: Public Libraries” panel on Friday, May 30 at the 2014 BookExpo America (BEA) conference in New York. Leaders from top library ebook and streaming media companies weighed in on this issue during an hour-long discussion.
Simon & Schuster (S&S) last week expanded their library ebook pilot to systems outside of New York City and announced that OverDrive had become a new partner in the test. The pilot was launched in April 2013, with the 3M Cloud Library and BiblioCommons supporting lending and acquisition for the New York Public Library and […]
If schools want their students to become readers for life, then school libraries should be sure to include fiction ebooks as they build their digital collections, Debbie Swartz, Library Technology Facilitator, Mesquite (TX) Independent School District (ISD), noted during her “Meeting Students Where THEY Learn,” presentation during The Digital Shift: Reinventing Libraries, hosted by Library Journal and School Library Journal.
“Penguin will resume doing business with OverDrive as of this morning,” Penguin spokesperson Erica Glass told LJ on September 25. According to a blog post by Karen Estrovich, collection development manager for OverDrive, 17,000 Penguin ebooks are already “live and available for purchase in OverDrive Marketplace.” Although Estrovich refers to the transaction as a purchase, the books are being offered for a one year term on a one copy/one user lending model.
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.
