Saturday, January 24, 2009

Springer Has the Largest eBook Offer?

There are only a few publishers who can boast a significant ebook catalogue and Springer is clearly at the front of the list. Today they offer access to the largest collection of eBooks, more than 1,500 peer-reviewed Springer journals and 18,000 protocols for laboratories. Springer has continually increased the volume of titles and since starting its digital collection in 2006 and now has some 30,000 eBooks and plans to continue to increase this by some 5,000 titles each year.

Springer operates an open and liberal digital access programme for its library community , allowing unlimited simultaneous access, to fully searchable books that can be downloaded and printed. Importantly once purchased Springer's eBook Collection content, is owned by the library in perpetuity.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

"...allowing unlimited simultaneous access, to ... books that can be downloaded and printed. Importantly once purchased Springer's eBook Collection content, is owned by the library in perpetuity. "

Begging the question: who will they have left to sell to in two years? Springer appear to be giving away their backlist (at 80% discount to their print prices) and hoping that frontlist sales alone will drive their electronic business. It will be interesting to see what happens in 3 years time.