Information Today
Volume 17,  Number 5 • May 2000
netLibrary and EBSCO Publishing to Jointly Sell E-Books

netLibrary, a provider of e-books and Internet-based content/collection management services, has announced a new e-book distribution alliance with EBSCO Publishing, a producer and marketer of electronic information for libraries, schools, corporations, and consumers worldwide. netLibrary and EBSCO will work together to distribute selections from netLibrary’s e-book collection, which now stands at nearly 17,000 titles, to public libraries, junior college libraries, and community college libraries in the U.S. The firms also will jointly market e-books to certain academic and public libraries in international markets.

“EBSCO Publishing has developed highly effective info-commerce channels; netLibrary offers a product that can flow efficiently through those channels,” said Rich Rosy, netLibrary’s executive vice president of sales. “We are excited about working with EBSCO to introduce tailored collections of e-books to a wide variety of library customers.”

As part of the agreement, the two companies will link EBSCO’s database search tool, EBSCOhost, with the netLibrary Web site. The linking of netLibrary with EBSCOhost will enable individuals to obtain search results from both sites from a single search query.

The new alliance also calls for cooperation between netLibrary and EBSCO in collection development and cataloging. EBSCO will assist netLibrary in developing appropriate collections for the community and junior college, public, and international library markets. For public libraries, the collections may contain the catalog of approximately 1,500 e-books included in netLibrary’s Public Library eBook Introduction Program.

“netLibrary has developed an extensive collection of e-books available online, and EBSCO has created powerful databases and information retrieval tools,” said Tim Collins, EBSCO Publishing’s division general manager. “Through our new alliance, netLibrary and EBSCO will be able to create highly marketable e-book and information resources to sell to colleges and public libraries around the world.”

Source: netLibrary, Boulder, CO, 303/381-8703; http://www.netlibrary.com.


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