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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.
OverDrive’s most recent agreement touts plans for “deep API integration” with Innovative Interfaces Inc. (III) products, including Sierra and the Encore Discovery Services Platform, including new API updates that “will include the ability to check out and place a hold on ebooks from a library’s online catalog,” according to a company announcement. The integration will also enable a “seamless experience,” within OverDrive’s Content Reserve collection portal, offering the option of viewing a library’s physical and digital holdings side-by-side
OverDrive is in the initial stage of rolling out more robust data and reporting tools that company officials say will allow libraries to improve their services.
This weekend, iVerse Media announced that its Comics Plus: Library Edition will be available to school and public library patrons via tablet computers, desktops, and mobile devices beginning on April 1. In recent months, more than 250 libraries have been beta testing the service, which offers about 10,000 comics and graphic novel titles, including “Adventure Time,” “Doonesbury,” “Bone,” “Mouse Guard,” “Sesame Street,” and “Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time.”
On a late rainy Monday afternoon at the end of the American Library Association’s Midwinter meeting, 39 leading librarians and library vendors gathered for about 90 minutes around a horseshoe-arrangement of tables on the fourth floor of the Seattle Public Library to discuss how to create a new lending experience. The group came together at […]
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.
“School libraries, I believe, will be the coming focal point for ebook licensing,” write Chris Harris. “We have strong relationships with our K–12 publishing partners, but now we must reach out to the trade houses. As the print market weakens, the time is right for schools to present a new business proposal.”
The Cuyahoga County Public Library (CCPL), Pioneer Library System (PLS), Hennepin County Library (HCL), and Mid-Continent Public Library (MCPL) were among several library systems that broke single-day ebook and audiobook-lending records this past Christmas, according to an announcement by OverDrive.In separate news, 3M last month achieved a milestone in its goal to make ebook searching a completely seamless experience.
Steve Potash, OverDrive President and CEO, discusses several new developments at the company, including new APIs to simplify ebook integration, the new OverDrive Read browser-based ereader, and the company’s new WIN catalog, as part of a series of Q&As leading up to “The Digital Shift: Libraries, Ebooks and Beyond,” LJ’s third annual ebook summit on Wednesday, October 17.
The American Library Association (ALA) on Friday denounced Hachette Book Group’s decision to implement steep price increases on its back-catalog of ebooks sold to the library market. OverDrive broke the news to its customers in an email on September 13, stating that “Hachette will be raising its eBook prices on October 1, 2012 on their currently available eBook catalog (~3,500 eBook titles with release dates of April 2010 and earlier). On average prices will increase 220 percent.” ALA President Maureen Sullivan expressed disappointment at Hachette’s choice, noting that ALA had believed that the publisher was moving toward more favorable terms for libraries.
