In Need of New Models for Online Books

["Hamaker, Chuck" <cahamake@email.uncc.edu>]

The new issue of the Charleston Advisor has a free op-ed by by Margaret
Landesman:

http://charlestonco.com/features.cfm?id=85&type=ed

Libraries, Publishers, and Libraries as Publishers - In Need of New Models
for Online Books - ebrary Might be a Good One

Margaret Landsman (Marriott Library, University of Utah)
Published in Volume 3 no. 4 April, 2002

We need new models for online books, because the models we have are not
working well. New models will be at first clunky and full of glitches.
They will have innovative features dear to their creators. Librarians may
be dubious about them. Some features will prove valuable; others may not.
Online books will break accustomed boundaries in the budgets libraries
create--boundaries between capital and non-capital expenditures; between
book budgets and fees for document delivery and duplication; and between
free, subsidized, and fee-based services.  There is a realistic hope, I
think, that new models will enable libraries, publishers, and libraries
wanting to become publishers, to better serve current readers and
researchers and to reach out to presently under-served groups...

snip

Ebrary is a different model. And we think it is promising. It might work
for the University of Utah Libraries as a way to build e-book offerings.
It might work for the University of Utah Press as a distribution channel.
It might work for the libraries as one outlet for the online titles we are
publishing based on our collections and in collaboration with groups
including the Utah State Historical Society and the Utah Museum of Fine
Arts. ...

--end--