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EBL logoWhat if you couldn’t buy a Chevy or a Honda without a buggy whip? Alas, the buggy whip mentality is alive and well in some e-book vendors’ dealings with libraries, which can lend only one copy of one e-book at a time. Want more library users at once to be able to check out a title? Then, in many cases, you need to buy more copies. Imagine the headaches for librarians, who cannot always predict what the demand will be.

Now, however, Ebook Library, a partnership between EBooks Corporation and Dawson Books, is offering better approach, which will start out in academic libraries and hopefully make it to public libraries. Details from a press release:

Drawing on extensive experience in print and digital publishing and on advice from respected members of the library, publishing and technology communities, eBooks Corporation has developed a pioneering approach to ebook lending. Non-Linear Lending enables libraries to better meet the peaks and troughs of full-text demand.

EBL provides an intuitive interface for flexible purchase and lending of a growing collection of digital book titles that is designed to suit the specific needs of academic and research librarians. The new service allows publishers to provide their content through a choice of flexible lending models, including multiple concurrent use, unlimited access and short-term circulation. Additionally, individual ebook chapters can be set aside for reserve lending or inclusion within course packs.

Kari Paulson, General Manager of EBL, said,

 
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