OCLC Sell NetLibrary to EBSCO

The world’s largest library business OCLC, has sold its NetLibrary Division to the world’s largest subscription agent business, EBSCO Publishing. The purchase includes the NetLibrary eBook and eAudiobook platform.

In 2002 Netlibrary was fighting for its life, with bankruptcy staring in its face, when OCLC stepped in and purchased it, in a move then aimed at protecting libraries' investments in eBook content and also to explore its potential under the OCLC umbrella. Today NetLibrary continues to be a significant digital aggregator but in what is fast becoming a crowded space.

EBSCO will provide OCLC MARC eBooks records to libraries free of charge and will maintain NetLibrary’s eBook content purchase model and platform and whilst it also explore eBook subscription options. EBSCO plan to also give access to the NetLibrary eBook content on the EBSCOhost® platform.

It makes sense for EBSCO to acquire an instant ebook collection, platform and library contracts to compliment their market offer. It also makes sense for OCLC to focus on its core business and dispose of a non core division. It must make others look at their businesses and realise that it is no longer good enough to have a repository and platform, but you now have to have a complimentary service that can extend it organically.

Digital LibraryWorld Part 2: The Public Library Landscape

What is the current landscape of the digital LibraryWorld and it challenges and opportunities?

Today it is possible to sit anywhere in the world, log onto your public library, authenticate yourself and borrow a digital download of an ebook. The download is protected from being copied and printed and once the lending period has expired so does access to the copy of the book. No need to ever go near the physical library. Some libraries are even considering lending you the reading device too! The reading experience is free and there are no second-hand bookstores with used books with those library stamps inside!

Why wouldn’t public libraries embrace such a model?
Why wouldn’t readers embrace such a model?

The digital shelf is no longer restricted and can be virtual and may be national or even global. The library may not even have to buy the stock but merely pay for it on demand. Inter library loans can become virtual with no waiting for the transfer to happen. The library can be open 24x7 with every digital book ever produced on its digital shelf and available.

Why wouldn’t public libraries embrace such a model?
Why wouldn’t readers embrace such a model?

The current prime Library real estate could be released and resources reduced. Why wouldn’t any governing body in today’s economic climate embrace such an opportunity?
What we have described is not a vision of the future it is here in many different examples today. The New York Library is just one of many thousands who operate a virtual library based on a valid library card. Across Europe many are following the model driven by local digital service providers and content. We have ourselves supported the operation of leading players such as Ebog.dk in Denmark, which today is widely used across the country by libraries. We have seen the rise of library digital suppliers such as Overdrive who have a very strong growing digital library service in the US and now are bidding to capture the UK. The US giant,OCLC library service, who own the digital division NetLibrary, claim in their January OCLC Newsletter to support 1,212,383 libraries world wide, handle 166,041,975,140 transactions a year, or 5265 transactions per second and are therefore clearly in a position to help many go digital. We then have the Google Book Settlement and although currently confined to the US libraries they clearly would like to extend it.

Why wouldn’t public libraries want to embrace digital and adopt proven models?
Would readers care whose model was adopted?

We then have libraries around the world with either joint initiatives to share their collections of rare books, maps, films, manuscripts and recordings online for free. These may not compete with the High Street and retail models but can provide an added value layer. Initiatives such as the World Digital Library will function in 7 languages – Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish and including content in additional languages. Its objectives are to promote international understanding, to expand non-English and non-western content online, as well as to contribute to research and education. The EU is developing its Europeana, an online archive of European culture from more than 1,000 European national libraries, museums and institutions content. Its launch attracted 10m hits an hour and this even temporarily overwhelmed the service. The British Library has announced that it is to make 65,000 19thcentury works of fiction available for free downloads by the public in 2010 and allow readers to order print on demand copies via Amazon.com.

Why wouldn’t readers embrace free digital archives from national libraries?

The thorny issue of commerce is now central. Do borrowers get digital free or pay to rent? Do digital rentals relax the restrictions on the physical model? Do we enter the world of library buying consortia and are collections bought, rented or paid for on demand? Do libraries have the funding to go digital and is it supplemental or substitution to the physical? How can bookstores compete with a ‘free’ model offered by public funding from public libraries who still own prime locations? We thought the charity shops were offered an unfair commercial advantage but some would argue that even they could be at a disadvantage in the digital LibraryWorld.

Having defined the public library and now looked at the landscape we will next look at the digital publishing and supply opportunities.

What is the Impact of Digitising Public Libraries?

Today we read of the surge in library demand and the obvious return to free public libraries when money is tight.

Last month we wrote about the Cleveland Public Library and CLEVNET member libraries offering downloads of epub eBooks from the library's website onto the Sony reader via digital aggregator Overdrive’s service.

This month we read OCLC’s NetLibrary response, offering ebook collections which can be once again read on the Sony reader. NetLibrary’s service includes a Sony PRS 5056 reader and once again a service for the librarian to download files to the reader. Libraries with ‘Mobile Collections’ will be able to let members check out Readers for onsite or offsite use. However the device appears to be tethered to the collections acquired by the library and the licence.

Thousands of public libraries in the US offer online collections to members. Members simply need a valid library card and a PC with an Internet connection in order to start borrowing and enjoying eBooks. Borrowed eBooks automatically expire after the lending period.

So we return to the question no one wants to answer. Where does the free ebook from a library stop and the bought ebook from a retailer start? What is the impact if libraries lend out readers as part of the service? In a physical world libraries demanded attendance and a return journey but in the online world you don’t have to leave the house. In a digital world libraries can pay on a lend basis and shelf space is no longer a constraint. Just to top the offer Google is planning to put a PC into a library. Once content is perceived to be ‘free’ putting it back in the box is not easy.

Insights into UK Digital Library Demand

Two interesting library insights into digital books in libraries have been recently published.

Major digital aggregator NetLibrary, has performed a survey involving around 300 UK libraries on the acquisition of eBooks by academic and public libraries.

Today the UK public library sector is just starting to grapple with ebooks and not unsurprisingly, some 85% indicated that they wanted to develop fiction eBook collections. This again raises the issue that we continue to ignore, on how these will compete against retail, when one is effectively free the rent and the other is a purchase only model. The music standardization on the open MP3 format and the wide availability of devices is further fueling library interest in the development of their eAudiobook collections. Leaving the commercial issues aside, we still have a stated principle from many publishers to adopt MP3, but for a host of reasons, a continuation with DRM restricted material, a near monopoly position with Audible and a market clearly not rising to its full potential. Some 65% of public libraries responded positively to developing their collections.

Of the academic libraries who responded to the survey, half indicated that their use of eBooks was to support their core reading lists in various subject areas – the main ones being Business / Management (13%), Medicine / Health (9%) Education (6%) and Engineering (5%). At a recent regional JISC event on ‘Exploring e-books’ for library, information professionals and technical experts there were was a sharing of experience and research with a view to maximising the benefits of e-books for users and for institutions. The advantages of ebooks were found to be: online access, search ability, cost savings, portability, convenience, eco-friendly, storage, easy to navigate, multiple users, easy to locate . The top ten drivers for a national ebooks project to ensure all had equal access to collections were: Interoperability and better technology , student expectations, publisher buy-in, updated teaching styles, standard policy and adoption, author buy-in, budgets, space, new business models, open access.

By themselves these insights tell us little we probably didn’t know but what they are clearly intimating is that there is a gathering pace of enlightenment within all libraries both intuitional and public to digital content, its potent and importantly their thirst to get it.

Click here to listen to the podcast of the JISC event.