ebrary Announces New Public and State Library Advisory Board

PALO ALTO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--To better understand and address the needs of public libraries in North America, ebrary, a leading provider of digital content products and technologies, today announced that it has formed a new advisory board. The new group will provide ebrary with insight and strategic direction as the company continues to expand into the public library market. ebrary plans to develop similar advisory boards in international markets later this year.

“ebrary offers a unique approach in that it provides multiple models for acquiring e-books as well as technologies and services that can be combined to meet specific market needs. I look forward to helping ebrary develop offerings that can help library patrons of all types be more productive and knowledgeable.”

ebrary’s new Public and State Library Advisory Board includes the following members:

Lesley Boughton, State Librarian, Wyoming State Library
Steven Butzel, Assistant Director, Portsmouth Public Library
Teffeny Edmondson, Children's Department Manager, Atlanta Fulton Public Library
Richard James, Administrative Librarian, Delaware Division of Libraries
Barbara Quint, Editor-in-Chief -Searcher, Columnist -Information Today Magazine, and Journalist- Infotoday.com NewsBreaks

“It is a very exciting opportunity to work with an innovative company like ebrary,” said Lesley Boughton, State Librarian, Wyoming State Library. “ebrary offers a unique approach in that it provides multiple models for acquiring e-books as well as technologies and services that can be combined to meet specific market needs. I look forward to helping ebrary develop offerings that can help library patrons of all types be more productive and knowledgeable.”

“While ebrary has served academic and corporate libraries for more than a decade, we believe that our content, technology, and services are well suited for the public library community as well,” said Kevin Sayar, President of ebrary. “By leveraging the expertise and experience of our advisory board members, we can ensure that we offer the right products and services to best meet public library needs.”

As an initial project, ebrary’s new advisor board will evaluate the company’s new Public Library Complete pilot program, which currently includes the following:

A growing collection of more than 21,000 full-text e-books from leading trade and academic publishers in multiple subject areas for schools & studying, career development, fiction, practical life skills, arts & leisure, and more. It also includes more than 4,200 Spanish language titles. Preview the selection at http://site.ebrary.com/lib/publiclibrarytitles.
Affordable, subscription-based pricing with simultaneous, multi-user access – no checkouts required.
Free access for local public high schools.
DASH! for uploading, integrating, and sharing searchable databases of government forms, community college programs, ephemera, special collections, and more.
Complimentary marketing services and 24/7 web-based training with a real person.

Additional Key Features and Benefits

Highly affordable with discounts for states, systems and consortia.
Available 24/7 through any web enabled device including the iPad -- no cumbersome downloads.
Continued collection growth at no extra cost throughout the subscription term.
Text-to-speech and other accessibility features.
Free MARC records.
COUNTER-compliant usage statistics.
Powerful tools for easy researching:
- Multiple options for searching, navigating, and browsing.
- ebrary InfoTools™, which turns every word into a portal to additional information on the web. InfoTools can be customized to link patrons to resources of the library’s choice.
- Notes and highlights that are automatically stored on a personal bookshelf.
- Ability to copy/paste and print text with automatic citations and URL hyperlinks back to the source.
- Personal bookshelves with moveable folders that can be emailed to others.
- Much more!

State, public, and other libraries interested in a demonstration or more information may email sales@ebrary.com.

About ebrary (www.ebrary.com)

ebrary helps libraries, corporations, publishers, and consumers get the most out of their digital content. The company offers a growing selection of more than 170,000 digital books, handbooks, reports, maps, journals and other valuable content from over 425 of the world’s leading publishers under flexible subscription, purchase, and usage-based models. Additionally, ebrary offers content services—DASH! (do-it-yourself), Software as a Service (SaaS) and licensed—for customers to cost-effectively distribute their own PDF content online.

All ebrary products and services can be integrated and delivered via a single easy-to-use interface that includes powerful tools for finding, discovering, and managing information. With ebrary InfoTools™, every word in the ebrary system is a network to other online resources of the customer’s choice, extending content value while increasing end-user knowledge and efficiencies.

Founded in 1999, ebrary is privately held and is headquartered in Palo Alto, CA, USA.