Title: The Evolution of E-books and Interlibrary Loan in Academic Libraries Author: Heather Wicht (U. of Colorado) Source: Collaborative Librarianship (3.4, 2011) Abstract: As academic libraries add electronic monographs (e-books) to their collections in increasing numbers, they are frequently losing the ability to lend this portion of their collections via Interlibrary Loan (ILL) due to licensing restrictions. Recently, new options have emerged as alternatives to traditional ILL for e- books. These options introduce new opportunities for collaboration across library departments and with- in consortia. This article discusses the changing nature of resource sharing as related to e-books, ex- amines e-book lending capabilities as they currently exist,...

Egypt's Library of Alexandria has announced that it's placed 19,000 works from its collection on the Espresso Book Machine (EBM) network, and plans to add another 150,000 Arabic titles soon. The library operates three EBMs, but this also means people around the world can print replicas of the library's titles from their nearest EBM. You can read the press release on On Demand Books' News page. Via INFOdocket...

I just posted about how Amazon, via self-publishing and agent-based publishing, poses a threat to publishers who still haven’t updated their business model to compete. Here’s a post from self-publishing booster J.A. Konrath’s blog that points out one of the reasons why Amazon is such a threat. Responding to one bookstore calling for a boycott of Stirred, the book he’s publishing under Amazon’s new Thomas & Mercer imprint (and which will consequently be placed as printed editions in bookstores as well as published electronically), Konrath points out that he has done a lot for bookstores over the years, and...

On the Self-Publishing Review blog, self-publishing author Rich Evans ponders whether it’s time to go e-book-only on his next self-published title. His first book, Asylum Lake, was self-published via an Espresso Book Machine, giving him a printed 6x9 paperback book for $10 each. He was able to start out with small print runs and sell them for $15 per book, plowing revenues back into getting more copies to have on hand. He did all right selling the print book for a while, especially after promoting it by releasing the first six chapters serially on-line. The Facebook page for the...

From the press release: Ingram Content Group Inc. today announced it will expand its presence in the Asia-Pacific market by establishing a full-scale Lightning Source print-on-demand book manufacturing operation in Australia. “The expansion of our Lightning Source global print solution into Australia is a significant step in the ongoing mission of Ingram Content Group to help content reach its destination swiftly and efficiently to retailers and readers worldwide,” said David “Skip” Prichard, President and CEO, Ingram Content Group. “This expansion of Ingram’s global presence, from the United Kingdom to France and now Australia, provides publishers with expanded market reach and sales...

A few days ago, Book Business ran an interview with Chief Operating Office Tom Allen of On Demand Books, the manufacturer of the Espresso Book Machine (EBM) “ATM for books”. We have covered the Espresso a number of times already; it has the potential to bring the full effect of “print on demand” publishing to local bookstores, libraries, and other institutions everywhere. As of the interview, Allen said, there were 51 EBM devices either installed or pending installation—39 in the USA and Canada and 12 overseas. This was up from 9 installed at the beginning of 2009, and...

Over the course of this summer I've read a couple of great Yankees books: Munson and The Bronx is Burning.  The former was read on my iPad and the latter, because it's not available digitally, was read from a dead tree.  After seeing countless references in both to another Yankee classic, The Bronx Zoo, I decided that should be on my reading list too.  Unfortunately for me, that's another book that's not available digitally.  I also was unable to find a copy at the local brick-and-mortars or even the second-hand bookstore, which got...

Publishers Weekly says that mass market romance publisher Dorchester Publishing will drop print publishing and go 100% to an ebook/print on demand model. According to Dorchester, retail sales are down 25% and it is getting harder and harder to get its titles into stores because shelf space for mass market books has been reduced. They even had to let their field sales force of seven go. The ebook business, however, has had “remarkable growth” which he expects to double again in the next year. Still, digital sales accounted for only 12% of total revenue prior to the company making...

The Authors Guild sends warning letters to its members when it thinks publishers are trying to take advantage of them. We’ve mentioned recent Authors Guild warnings about Random House’s statement on e-book rights, and Random House and HarperCollins’ attempts to lock authors into 25% e-book royalty rates. Today, Galleycat reports that the Authors Guild sent out a warning over a letter from Wiley & Sons, the new owner of Bloomberg Press, to Bloomberg writers concerning changes to the accounting system. Notes the Guild: We've asked an independent royalty auditor to review the effects of...

Publishers Weekly is reporting that Scribd has teamed up three vendors to provide print on demand service to its customers. Blurb.com will be doing paperback books, HP's MagCloud will be doing periodicals and Mimeo will be for documents of just a few pages. Scribd said that it will be looking for further POD partnerships in the future. Blurb will deliver paperbacks in 7-10 days after an order and it worked out its own API to make publishing of material posted on Scribd an easy thing to do. ...

According to Publisher's Weekly, the maker of the Espresso Book Machine has teamed up with the National Association of College Stores to market the machine to NACS members. The article goes on to say that college stores were the earliest adopters of the machines, with the first machine in North America going to the University of Alberta bookstore in Canada. You can find the full press release here. Thanks to Resource Shelf for the heads up....

John Ingram, Ingram Industries; Evan Schnittman, Oxford University Press; Michael Tamblyn, Kobo; Roland Lange, Google Kobo: started by pbook seller who felt was going to loose 5 to 10% of sales to ebooks. Idea was to "compete" with the book seller and keep ebook sales under the same roof. Will be working with publishers, OEM, retailers and carriers. Feel devices will get more and better and that you should be able to read the book on all of them. Book should follow you from device to device. 2m books in catalog and delivered books to 200 countries. Purchased...