$1million at U Texas/Austin on E-Books?

[Ann Okerson <aokerson@pantheon.yale.edu>]

According to the New York Times (12/09/99) and Edupage (12/10/99) citing
the NY Times, the University of Texas at Austin is soon to spend $1million
on licensing electronic books.  We didn't know there were that many to
be licensed out there, do dear readers, do tell us what sources exist
apart from netLibrary.com?

The Moderators
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RACING TO CONVERT BOOKS TO BYTES

Although skepticism remains as to whether readers will embrace
digital books, interest in the electronic format is growing, with
young people leading the trend.  The University of Texas at
Austin plans to spend $1 million to increase its current
collection of 6,000 electronic books.  Students are checking out
the university's digital books at astonishing rates, says
librarian Dennis Dillon.  "Usually a book has a one-third chance
of being checked out," Dillon says.  "So to have some title
checked out 25 times in two months--that's shocking."  Companies
such as Microsoft are preparing for a wave of digital reading,
predicting that electronic books will overtake print books within
10 years.  Meanwhile, traditional publishers such as Random House
are skeptical about the new format but are still moving to
digitize all of their titles.  Startups such as netLibrary, which
sells electronic books to libraries, are working to draw readers
by offering a large selection of titles.  However, in order to
get publishers to sell titles, these companies need to prove that
sufficient demand exists for the digital format.
(New York Times 12/09/00