On Libraries and New Media, powered by Library Journal and School Library Journal
Califa, Douglas County Libraries, and The Internet Archive’s Open Library have made purchase commitments to acquire variations of the top 10,000 best-selling ebooks from indie distributor Smashwords. All told, the three separate commitments total about $100,000. The sales will occur through Library Direct, a new service that Smashwords has launched to facilitate the transfer of large collections of ebooks to libraries.
The San Mateo-based Califa Group, which is the largest library network in California, has made major strides in its project to create an ebook ownership model along the same lines as the Douglas County Libraries in Colorado.
The Douglas County Libraries pioneering model for purchasing ebooks directly from publishers is gaining a significant amount of traction.
Colorado’s Marmot Library Network, Anythink Libraries, and Wake County Public Libraries in North Carolina will all soon begin working with the DCL model. The news comes less than two months after San Mateo-based Califa Group, the largest library network in California, also announced plans to adopt DCL’s library-owned, library-managed ebook model.
The largest library network in California is going to adopt the pioneering ebook business model of Colorado’s Douglas County Libraries, which allows libraries to truly own, not rent, their ebooks.
Latest from INFOdocket:
