Baker & Taylor's George Coe

In his 30 years as a library wholesaler, first as VP and general manager of Brodart Books, Library, and School Automation divisions and since 2000 as president of the Library & Education division of Baker & Taylor (B&T), George Coe has been instrumental in a whole host of innovations. They go way beyond the selection, processing, and delivery of books and other media to libraries, encompassing the workflow in libraries' acquisition systems and OPACs. More recently at B&T, he's overseen the development of customized library services and the expansion of collection development outsourcing capability à la Phoenix Public Library.

Now Coe has set his sights on extending the workflow that exists for print to electronic downloadable books and other media, integrating both “p” and “e” from selection to fulfillment. “Unfortunately, as electronic distribution and electronic demands have expanded, they've been handled outside the existing workflow,” says Coe. Starting in March, B&T has made a number of strategic alliances, first with ebrary on the academic side (served by B&T's Yankee Book Peddler), then with OverDrive for the public library market. Coe calls both partners “best of breed in the industry.”

LJ saw Coe in his element firsthand when we spearheaded the renovation of the devastated Alvar Street Branch Library in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. Coe galvanized his team to work with New Orleans Public Library staff to build an entirely new collection and deliver it shelf-ready in time for the library opening in less than three months, in June 2006.

Last month, we talked to Coe about the present and future of the book market and B&T.

LJ You've spent the first half of this year building partnerships for digital content. Do they enable you to meet librarians' requests for combined ordering across formats and for records for these formats from B&T?

Coe Yes. When you look at the need for content distribution and the need to source content across all formats, it was a necessary migration for Baker & Taylor. Electronic content, whether it be e-monographs [books] or e-reference databases, creates a whole new landscape. So how can we work within the current workflow and migrate libraries to a service that deals with a platform rather than a circulation system? That's why we created the alliances with OverDrive and ebrary.

Many public libraries already provide downloadable popular ebooks through a hosted website like OverDrive's. But as more patrons want e-content, libraries are going to want their own repositories. And that was our goal: to give every library, no matter their budget, large or small, access to this application as demand grows.

With ebrary and OverDrive's platforms, B&T can integrate workflow solutions, including collection development, acquisition, fund control, to allow libraries to order individual titles or collections of titles. By combining both print and electronic formats in the same selection process and workflow, a library can make acquisition decisions as to how much p they need versus how much e they need as the transition from p to e happens.

How do you distinguish yourself from other wholesalers?

We believe our aggregator partners [OverDrive and ebrary] have the premier platforms for the search and discovery of electronic content and for our customers to use content within the platform that they acquire from B&T and YBP.

The digital side has a lot more opportunity for B&T because we're not just selling the product anymore, we're working with partners in understanding how content is used. When we sell a physical book, it's integrated into a circulation control system and that system will provide user statistics as the book circulates, but we don't really understand how the content is truly used. With applications such as OverDrive and ebrary, along with other aggregators we partner with such as EBL and NetLibrary, we can look at how users read, how users research, how users study, and what the ultimate goal is for them, whether it be educational or enjoyment. With that knowledge, we can take it to the next level and help our customers funnel the most appropriate content for that user.

What percentage of the book business do you think will be ebooks in five years?

Print to electronic collections have the most traction in the college, university, and educational markets, where migration is happening more rapidly. As the student population grows, they expect more materials to be accessible in electronic form. The publishing community for STM material understands that.

Today acquisition of electronic monographs is in the five percent to ten percent range of the library's budget. In the next three to five years, I see that being just shy of 40 percent.

The challenge universities have is the gap between publication of the [print] book and the ebook. Now, it can be one to six months. It's imperative that this gap closes so our customers can make choices of how much p and e they're going to buy. When we compared our profiles of academic titles published in the last 12 months (65,000 unique titles) to titles that were published in electronic format, it was only 15–20 percent. The demand for electronic content is not meeting the demand of what we ship in the physical world.

How does that compare to what's happening in public libraries?

The public library market is a reflection of what is happening on the consumer side. Amazon has the Kindle, Barnes & Noble recently announced its own handheld, there are other devices. As the cost of those products becomes more attainable and as nonproprietary software becomes prevalent, with one device to handle all our needs—and as they deal with DRM [digital rights management] when necessary, demand for high-visibility ebooks will accelerate. Many public libraries have already seen that happen, but most of it has been on a laptop.

Predicting the migration of p to e is a little more difficult. Today, public libraries spend approximately 40 percent of their [print] book budget on adult, high-visibility, popular books. When devices are readily available and affordable, public libraries will spend 30–35 percent of the total monograph book budget on e editions in the next five years, most on satisfying the demand for adult best sellers.

Given the huge budget cuts many libraries are experiencing, is there any leveling off of costs, any programs that B&T has?

The economic downturn is not new to us. B&T's strategy for many years has been about providing libraries with efficient workflows or complete outsourcing of technical services and collection development to manage expenses in order to preserve their materials budget. We see more demand for those customized library services now—to get products shelf-ready and to [help librarians] make better evaluations of the products they buy. It's not just about pricing. It's how we accelerate these services as more and more libraries need them.

Is the demand for the Phoenix model (Phoenix Public Library turned over selection to B&T for adult titles and to BWI for children's/YA several years ago) accelerating, too?

The collection development process is growing faster than almost any value-added service we have. The degree of how we get involved in the actual selection of material is library by library. It is not a standardized process. It's a new frontier for us.

Most of the demand we're getting from libraries, however, is for customized, in-depth consideration lists for materials of all formats together with plans for standing orders and automatic shipments for content they know that they need. Then professional librarians can focus on the selection of materials that respond to local needs.

Talking about selection, we've heard some complaints about the functionality of Title Source [TS3], B&T's selection tool.

We look at Title Source as the conduit to our services and have spent millions of dollars developing that product line. It helps support customization. We're beginning the process of rewriting TS3 now, and we're going to be working with many of our customers in the development process. We plan to integrate TS totally with every functionality that B&T offers, including music and DVD selection, order tracking, invoicing.... In the next two months, we will put together a task force to develop the next generation of collection development web applications.

Some libraries are changing how they merchandise their collections and are moving from Dewey to BISAC (Book Industry Standards and Communications). How is that working?

Many of the trailblazers have made those classification switches to accommodate the habits of library users. BISAC subject headings help the patron find the material they want faster.

Libraries are using a modified BISAC. There'll still be a need for some system like Dewey to manage the breadth and depth of materials libraries carry, for long-term titles. To me, BISAC headings deal better with new popular and high-circulation titles.

Our title file provides BISAC codes for every title we have. Plus, we enhance those with additional BISAC and subject descriptor codes to help with evaluation and selection. There are no additional fees for that. But the more a library goes away from standard, the more customized, the more costly it is.

Where is the Spanish-language business going?

The need for Spanish materials continues to be on the rise. But in this economy the percentage of the Spanish–language budget hasn't grown in libraries, and it's very costly to bring product over and to manage the shelf life. We're working with both local and offshore publishers in Mexico and Spain to establish a repository of [print on demand] titles to make it more cost effective for libraries to acquire Spanish-language books. In the next year to two, we hope to have 60-75 percent of our Spanish-language titles available in POD format.

That model isn't just for Spanish. The demand for all kinds of languages continues to grow whether it's for Eastern Bloc languages, Chinese, or Japanese. The capabilities and proceeds from distributing Spanish-language will allow us to grow in other areas.

One final question. Where do you see B&T heading?

The exciting thing is where we're going in relation to all kinds of content, particularly electronic. And the capability to work with partners who can provide data on how product is used and how content is discovered. That opens up all kinds of doors. Personally, I'm looking forward to building new services and programs; that is what I've done most of my life. This is a whole new world for building collection development services, approval plans, and on the educational side, creating textbooks on the fly.