Forced to curb ambitious plans to launch its Informata unit as a stand-alone electronic publishing company last year, Baker & Taylor has reorganized Informata as the company's technology support unit and launched e-Content Delivery (ED), a new digital service that will offer e-book distribution to the library market.
ED is B&T's first e-book initiative and was unveiled at the ALA Midwinter Meeting in New Orleans (News, Jan. 28). The service will launch in the spring or early summer and allow B&T library accounts to "use the same procedures and collection development and approval tools to order e-books that they use for other books," said Pamela Smith, B&T's marketing chief. Smith said that e-Content Delivery will not be offered to the retail market at this time. The service has signed content deals with Greenwood Publishing, Palgrave, University of North Carolina Press and Indiana Press, and Smith said B&T expects ED to expand to more than 100 content partners.
ED will allow library patrons to preview and read titles online, do title searches or download e-books to a personal computer for specific time periods, said Evelyn Fazio, v-p of electronic content at B&T. All ED e-books will be offered in the Adobe format through a customized, branded library Web site, while B&T operates in the background. Despite complaints from librarians about the restrictions on multiple e-book circulation, the service will offer "one copy to one user," said Fazio. "Publishers remain nervous about consumer copying," she noted.
Informata was launched in 2000 with the expectation that it would be a comprehensive e-publishing services vendor, incorporating all of B&T's electronic and online services. But B&T's plans were stalled by the economic downturn and the departure of several top B&T executives, including B&T CEO and Informata chief Craig Richards in early 2001. "The marketplace has changed," said Smith. Informata will be directed by Smith and chief technology officer Matt Carroll, who both report to B&T CEO Gary Rautenstrauch.
Smith said Informata will direct all of B&T's digital publishing services, managing "a couple hundred employees" across several B&T businesses. Informata will oversee services offered by e-Content Delivery; Replica Books, B&T's print-on-demand publishing unit; Library Place, a community Web site for librarians; Title Source II, an online title database of more than three million book, music and video works; and the Content Server, a database of jacket art and tables of contents with regularly updated information on new and relevant titles in fiction and nonfiction. Informata will also oversee B&T's recent agreement (News, Jan. 7) with Lightning Source, Ingram's retail-oriented POD unit.
"Despite netLibrary's setbacks, there is a great deal of interest in e-books by libraries," said Smith. "No one knows how e-books will evolve. But our library customers want us to be in the e-book marketplace."
