Overdrive Inc.
Many new eBooks services are setting themselves up with claims to be the next Netflix or Spotify. They aim to be the subscription service for eBooks. But are they just dreaming and hoping that there is a market? Are they truly aligned, or are they adrift of consumer demand? The pundits and soothsayers all have their opinions, but does anyone really know, or are they merely playing to their respective audiences? The truth today is that no one knows and a gut feel is just that - a gut feel.
Simon & Schuster was the last major publisher that resisted the sirens call establishing relationships with libraries in the US. Penguin-Random House, Hachette and many others have most of their catalog available and library patrons can checkout audiobooks, eBooks and magazines. Today, Simon & Schuster has expanded upon a limited pilot project that started in New York and will now start distributing titles on a wider scale.
Simon & Schuster has selected 31 public libraries in the OverDrive network to participate.
McGraw-Hill Professional, a leading global provider of print and electronic content and services for the business, education, technical and medical communities, and OverDrive, the world's largest eBook, audiobook, music and video lending service for schools and libraries, announced today that McGraw-Hill Professional's eBook catalog is now available for K-12 school libraries and public libraries worldwide.
Much has been written about publishers' early reluctance to license or sell any e-books to libraries. That is mostly past.
But don't get crazy and think that this must mean there is actual agreement or standards about how to structure the relationships between e-book publishers and their library customers.
Steve Potash, President and CEO of OverDrive, the Cleveland-based provider of technology for managing and distributing digital content for lending libraries, described the various schemes that publishers and producers have structured for charging their library clients for their digital materials.
Sometimes living in Maine has unexpected advantages beyond lobster, seaside air, and friendly people, as I discovered yesterday when learning one of the newest beta sites for the Espresso Print-on-Demand system was being unveiled at a South Portland Books-a-Million store. Publerati is located in nearby Portland.
Cleveland, Ohio, November 12- OverDrive announced today that its "inside the library" eBook, audiobook, music and video sampling and checkout terminal, OverDrive Media Station, is now broadly available. Launched as a pilot program earlier this year with 50 public library systems in five countries, the in-library eBook kiosks enable readers to browse eBooks, audiobooks and other media on a touchscreen monitor in libraries or any location where libraries want to introduce readers to their eBook catalog.
A book is a book is a book—is it not? Not in the hall at the former Church of Christ, Scientist, now turned into the magnificent home of the Internet Archive on Funston Avenue at the edge of the Presidio in San Francisco. The Archive, established in 1996 with the goal of offering permanent access to records that exist in digital format, is the venue for the annual Books in Browsers conference, which took place on October 24th and 25th. This reporter attended this year for the first time, and had her mind blown.
I have been assembling BEA take-aways from the lively and informative reports of seasoned observers and trade professionals, without having attended in person. These provided me a lot to chew on, along with vivid memories of sitting through panel presentations, hiking through the aisles and corridors, and schmoozing at the booths at the Javits Center. They have added more substance to what I otherwise learn working with new business development and online publication services each day.
OverDrive has launched a pilot program that will allow millions of library patrons to check out the same eBook all at once during a two-week period. The Big Library Read project will let members of more than 7,500 libraries globally simultaneously access The Four Corners of the Sky by Michael Malone.
Public libraries provide an essential community service by promoting literacy and a culture of reading. With the rise of ebooks, public libraries are at a crossroads. Some book publishers, fearful that library ebook lending will cannibalize retail sales of books, are reluctant to supply ebooks to libraries at the very time that library patrons are clamoring for greater access to such materials.
Rather than standing idly by as publishers jeopardize their future, some libraries see an opportunity to take control by proactively cultivating a newer, more library-friendly source of ebooks. These libraries are developing community publishing initiatives in partnership with