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

[Emily LeViness Poworoznek <emily.poworoznek@unh.edu>]

Hello,

I confess that I have not seen the New York Times in hardcopy for some
time, but did read the lengthy (for a newspaper) article referenced in Ann
Okerson's note.  According to Lexis-Nexis, the cite is:

>December 9, 1999, Thursday, Late Edition - Final 
>SECTION: Section C; Page 1; Column 2; Business/Financial Desk 
>LENGTH: 1964 words 
>HEADLINE: Racing To Convert Books to Bytes; Evolving Market for E-Titles 
>BYLINE:  By DOREEN CARVAJAL 

It's quite interesting and mentions a few more companies, new and old, as
well as some pricing considerations.

Cheers,

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Emily Poworoznek					   
Engineering & Physical Sciences Librarian, University of New Hampshire	

Email: emily.poworoznek@unh.edu  
Phone: (603)862-4168 FAX:(603)862-4112
Post:  Engineering/Math/Computer Science Library
       Kingsbury Hall, 33 College Rd.
       Durham, NH 03824-3591   USA
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~



>_____________________________________________________________
>Ann Okerson wrote:
>
>> 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
>> ____________________
>> 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)
>