The American Library Association issued a statement on Friday in response to Random House’s new, higher pricing for sales of ebooks to libraries. ALA President Molly Raphael said in the release: “While I appreciate Random House’s engagement with libraries and its commitment to perpetual access, I am deeply disappointed in the severe escalation in ebook pricing reported today. Calling on our history together and our hope to satisfy mutual goals moving forward, the American Library Association strongly urges Random House to reconsider its decision. In a time of extreme financial constraint, a major price increase effectively curtails access for many […]
Libraries
OverDrive Acquires Booki.sh
OverDrive acquired Australian cloud-based ebook discovery site Booki.sh (not to be confused with still-to-launch US-based ebook discovery site Bookish) for an undisclosed sum. Booki.sh founders and principals Joseph Pearson, Virginia Murdoch and Peter Haasz will join OverDrive from their existing offices in Melbourne to expand the global distributor’s publishing, library and school initiatives. OverDrive in turn will expand the Booki.sh distribution and digital bookstore platforms as well as integrate Booki.sh HTML5 and EPUB reading technologies into OverDrive library and school services. “Joseph, Virginia and the Booki.sh team have created a fresh, direct and immersive reading experience that uniquely serves the […]
Random House Raises eBook Wholesale Prices Significantly
Random House announced their library ebook pricing, effective as of March 1, which will dampen some of the enthusiasm for the house’s commitment to the “unrestricted and perpetual availability of our complete frontlist and backlist of Random House, Inc.” in ebook form. The new prices, which librarians tell The Digital Shift represent up to a tripling, are calibrated to “bring our titles in price-point symmetry with our Books on Tape audio book downloads for library lending. These long have carried a considerably higher purchase price point than our digital audio books purchased for individual consumption.” The new price structure for […]
People, Etc.
Webster Younce will join Free Press as senior editor on February 27. He spent the past two years in Berlin at Suhrkamp, where he oversaw the company’s English-language and international literature program. Prior to that he worked at Holt and Houghton Mifflin. The Paris Review has announced that Jeffrey Eugenides will join their board of directors. At Little, Brown Children’s, Lisa Moraleda has been promoted to associate director of publicity, and Jessica Bromberg moves up to publicity manager. The London Book Fair will present their ninth annual Lifetime Achievement Award in International Publishing to Jorge Herralde, proprietor and director of Anagrama in […]
Penguin Withdraws From Overdrive; Looks For New Library Partners
Penguin announced late Thursday that as of February 10 (today) it “will no longer offer additional copies of ebooks and audiobooks for purchase via Overdrive” and is severing their ongoing relationship with the vendor. Libraries will continue to have access to titles they have already purchased, and Penguin is negotiating a “continuance agreement” with Overdrive to service the products that have already been sold. The move is an outgrowth of the publisher’s suspension of sales of new titles to libraries in late November. At the time they said that “due to new concerns about the security of our digital editions, we […]
DBW: Talking Around the Edges of Libraries and eBooks
The dialogue between publishers and libraries over the potential for ebook lending continued at DBW on Wednesday. In the panel Discovery and Libraries in an Age of Few Bookstores, librarians and their allies talked up the library as a place for publishers to make direct connections to readers, and the value of readers’ advisory, the librarian as a human discovery engine. Random House director of account marketing Ruth Liebmann said Random House, the only big six house that provides library ebook lending without limitations, is now telling the audio reps they send to libraries to talk about other formats as […]