Print and digital reference publisher World Book Inc. is launching World Book eBooks, a subscription service that offers librarians and educators access to an online interactive platform of digital reference products. The subscription service will launch with 29 titles, and librarians can offer unlimited simultaneous access to the entire World Book reference collection.
The World Book eBooks subscription service features educational and reference titles enhanced with multimedia content, including video, audio and games. The service will allow librarians to offer 24/7 access to patrons with unlimited simultaneous access. (Librarians are often required to loan e-books as if they were print titles.) The service also eliminates the need for holds, or waiting. While World Book is launching with 29 titles, it eventually plans to offer up to 80. Included in the fall 2013 collection are such titles as Animal Lives, Building Blocks of Mathematics, and Inventions and Discoveries.
Users access the World Book eBooks platform via Web browsers and a customized online viewer on a personal computer or table; the platform supports Apple and Android devices. All titles also support ePub3.
World Book, Inc., president Don Keller said: "The launch of our e-book platform is a necessary and exciting expansion of our current format offerings. Our users increasingly require access to information in digital form that can be conveniently viewed on various devices. World Book is meeting these needs by significantly broadening accessibility to our content while continuing to create trustworthy, quality educational products that are fun and engaging for readers—and in the format they want."
