Library in Transition

The Economics of Publishing and eBooks by Ron Boehm, Chairman and CEO, ABC-CLIO Publishing

"As many librarians responsible for collections know all too well, licensing agreements often are complex, lengthy documents filled with arcane and unfamiliar terms such as indemnity, severability and force majeure. In an effort to assist librarians (and information providers as well) to understand the issues raised by these licensing agreements, we have prepared an Analysis of Licensing Agreements for Digital Information. The pages that follow include a collection of common terms usually found in licensing agreements, along with a discussion of the pros and cons of specific language in such agreements. We have tried to present language that we believe to be fair and workable for libraries and information providers as well. We have also included examples of provisions that we believe are unduly burdensome or otherwise do not adequately reflect the needs of libraries in providing digital information to their users."

Following the successful completion of the MyCopy pilot project, the specialist publishing group Springer Science+Business Media has, with immediate effect, extended this eBook service to all academic libraries in the USA and Canada that have purchased Springer eBook Collections. All registered library patrons will be able to order a softcover copy of a Springer eBook for their personal use by clicking on a button on the Springer platform www.springerlink.com.

"Following the successful completion of the MyCopy pilot project, the specialist publishing group Springer Science+Business Media has, with immediate effect, extended this eBook service to all academic libraries in the USA and Canada that have purchased Springer eBook Collections. All registered library patrons will be able to order a softcover copy of a Springer eBook for their personal use by clicking on a button on the Springer platform www.springerlink.com."

Michael Jensen on publishing's future

Our work aims to foster the further understanding of the significance of digital and analog books and their role in humanities scholarship. We are very grateful that a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) research cluster award made possible the preliminary work presented on the website. Research questions Key questions to be addressed include: * What do we really know about the ways in which we interact with new texts that replace the print artifact and re-present to us the knowledge and experience of the past, as well as deliver the direct-to-digital record of the present? * How do we understand the ways in which we interact with these knowledge objects, and the information they contain? * How do we understand the impact that the confluence of media formats in these digital objects has on our use of them, such that we may best facilitate interaction with the new digital artifact?

espresso in action

Stanford

Our Interlibrary Loan Office was recently approved to officially start a pilot loaning Amazon Kindles to our university faculty.