3M Publisher Portal Provides Data to Publishers

In all of the criticisms and debate surrounding the current state of library ebook lending, the publishers are often painted as the bad guys. Some major publishing houses don’t allow lending for their titles at all, while others impose hefty price increases for libraries. Others restrict how many times an ebook can be checked out before the library must purchase a new digital copy. What many critics fail to accept is the publishers’ claims that they are in uncharted territory when it comes to digital lending. Conceivably, every library need only purchase one copy of a book, as that file will never become lost or damaged. At the same time, publishers insist that piracy remains a very real concern, no matter the restrictions that can be put in place. A number of initiatives have come about recently in order to show publishers that yes, this concept can work. OverDrive and Sourcebooks are working on their collaborative Big Read project, which allowed simultaneous users in over 3,500 libraries to all borrow the same Sourcebooks title, which early reports now say has been downloaded at least 24,000 times. At BookExpo this week, 3M Library Systems will unveil its publisher portal, allowing publishers to stop by the booth and test drive the level of feedback that they can receive whenever their titles have activity through partner libraries. Several strategic publishers assisted 3M in the development of this portal, which is being demonstrated now. "We know publishers can find great value in the metrics generated through libraries," said Matt Tempelis, global business manager, 3M Cloud Library, in a statement. "Sharing data with publishing partners not only strengthens relationships, but it also shows the importance of selling eBooks to the library market." In these instances, the success of these pilot programs and experiments have had a unifying factor: publisher cooperation. In order for ebook lending to move forward on a broader scale, forward-thinking publishers will have to continue to reexamine their long-held beliefs about their products and be willing to look at the data that so far has clearly shown that ebook lending benefits readers, consumers, authors, and publishers. 3M Publisher Portal Provides Data to Publishers is a post from: E-Reader News

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