Springer EBook Survey; AAUP Strikes Deal with Tizra; ebrary Expands in Both Hemispheres
-- Library Journal, 9/25/2008 1:18:00 PM
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The LJ Academic Newswire Marketplace Notes for September 25, 2008:
In what is yet more evidence that ebooks are useful, even if still largely unused for long-form or pleasure reading, a new survey from STM publisher Springer, an aggressive ebook booster with its titles, once again shows that users like ebooks for “research and study purposes.” While respondents cited benefits like 24/7 access for multiple users, searchability, and easy access as positive aspects of ebooks, they again report difficulty reading books from a screen and expressed a preference for traditional print books.
None of this will be news to librarians, but the survey, which follows up on a 2007 Springer survey, is yet more evidence that although users seem quite ready to accept and use the ebook for some purposes, print still offers the preferred reading experience, suggesting a future where electronic doesn’t replace print, but creates an effective tandem. The full-text PDF of the white paper, eBooks – The End User Perspective is available on the Springer web site here…
The Association of American University Presses (AAUP) this week unveiled a cooperative venture with e-publishing service provider Tizra, Inc., to offer an application for distributing and selling ebooks and other digital content. AAUP members signing up under the plan will get their own customized ebook web sites, retaining “full control over the presentation, organization and sales terms” of their content.
The non-exclusive agreement between AAUP and Tizra offers an undisclosed discount to AAUP members at different tiers, and “modest revenue” for the association. MIT Press recently launched an ebook site, providing an example of the capabilities at Tizra officials said the AAUP program is well-suited to those presses seeking to better balance print and electronic publishing. “AAUP presses are exactly the kinds of organizations we designed Tizra Publisher to help,” said Tizra CEO David Durand. “They have great content and great marketing ideas but often lack the technical resources…”
Major new deals north and south of the Equator were announced for surging e-content vendor ebrary this week: in the northern hemisphere, ebrary said it has inked “multi-million dollar deal” with Gibson Library Connections of Canada to supply the Canadian Research Knowledge Network (CRKN), a national consortium, with access to participating publisher content via the berry platform. The collection, which will be available under a simultaneous, multi-user access model, will be delivered via Gibson’s Canadian Electronic Library, which is powered and hosted by ebrary. In what ebrary called “an industry first,” the collection will also be locally hosted by the Ontario Council of Universities’ Scholars Portal, using ISIS, ebrary’s standalone, licensed e-publishing system.
In addition, ebrary said BRA Virtual content Limited (Brave CONTENT) licensed a region-wide subscription to ebrary’s Academic Complete ebook database and has exclusive rights to resell the comprehensive collection of more than 38,000 titles in 43 Sub-Saharan African countries for one year…
Overdrive has announced that, through its third-generation library platform Media Console 3.1, its audio books are now transferable to the Microsoft digital media player Zune. The new Zune, priced between $149 and $249, supports audiobook formats from Audible.com as well, but OverDrive is currently the only vendor to offer a Zune-supported library download platform. Zune previously was compatible only with Microsoft-provided software, but now also works with digital rights management (DRM)-protected WMA and DRM-free MP3 audiobook formats...
