Effective Wednesday, March 17th, EBSCO Publishing and OCLC finalized an agreement whereby EBSCO has acquired NetLibrary, a leading eBook platform and service. It has been a pleasure working with OCLC, who saw EBSCO as the ideal candidate to continue to serve NetLibrary customers, and take the service to new heights.
EBSCO’s goal is to better serve research by offering the strongest possible collection of materials and the greatest accessibility and usability. As eBooks become more prominently used and relied upon by libraries, they are an ideal addition to the EBSCO suite of resources. As EBSCOhost is the single most-used premium research platform in libraries worldwide, and overall usage continues to steadily increase, it follows logically that searching databases and eBooks on a single platform would create a more complete, fruitful one-stop research experience for end users. Many librarians have requested we move in this direction, and we are pleased to be doing so.
At present, EBSCO will continue to support and enhance the NetLibrary platform, with the goal of enabling EBSCOhost to appropriately incorporate eBook availability in the near future. In the coming months, we will be conducting focus groups, advisory sessions and usability testing to better understand the strengths and weaknesses of eBook platforms, and investigate the various models for accessibility and purchase. We will provide updates on our progress as we move forward. Additionally, we plan to maintain the dark archive of eBooks to ensure accessibility for customers who have purchased and will continue to purchase NetLibrary eBooks. MARC records for these eBooks will also continue to be provided (at no cost).
Thank you for your patronage and support of EBSCO resources. We are excited about what the future holds for EBSCOhost users. If you have any questions regarding your current NetLibrary account, or would like to explore eBooks in subject sets or on a title by title level, please contact your EBSCO representative.