At the American Library Association Mid-Winter meeting in January, Baker & Taylor announced their entrance into the ebook market. B&T has not included any details about their ebook service on their website, so the information I can share is limited to a B&T flyer and from a demonstration at ALA. 

Baker & Taylor's ebook system appears to be called "ed" (in lower case) and it is very similar to the netLibrary model. Each library selects it own customized collection of ebook titles from B&T's entire collection of titles. The library can then chose how to administer the ebooks, including number of titles per patrons and duration of checkout. Access to the ebook collection is from a website customized to match the library's current web presence. When asked about the availability of MARC records, B&T stated that they were aware of the desire for MARC records and that they "would be looking into it." 

As with netLibrary, patrons must create an account that associates themselves with a particular library. Once the account is created, a patron can access the library's ebook collection using any internet connection. A checked-out title can be downloaded and read off-line. Unlike netLibrary, B&T's "ed" will allow titles to be downloaded onto portable Palm Pilots, as well as computers with Windows operating systems. 

As with netLibrary, "ed" only allows one user to be viewing a copy of an ebook at any given time. However, "ed" allows for "garbled preview" (their term, not mine!). If a patron tries to view a book that is currently checked out, the option of a garbled preview of the book is provided. The idea is that the patron may be able to understand enough of the content to determine if the book is really pertinent and needed. If so, the patron can request that an email be sent when the title is available. The demonstration of garbled preview was on a title that was retrieved as the result of a keyword search. The garbled preview provided an intelligible sentence or two around each instance of the keyword within the text. Everything around those sentences was gibberish. I do not know how the garbled preview would work if a title was the result of an author or title search-- what determines which sentences are garbled and which are readable?

As of ALA, B&T had deals with only 3 publishers, but were confident that more deals would be made in the near future. B&T believe that "ed" can compete with netLibrary, in spite of the limited functionality differences between the products, for three reasons (all taken from B&T's flyer, capitalization and font color theirs): 

1. Baker & Taylor is the Leader in the Industry- And the Name You Trust
2. B&T E-Books are Integrated with Baker & Taylor's Key Products & Services Take Advantage of One-Stop Ordering - Baker & Taylor is the Place for Everything

Additional Information:

Baker & Taylor
2709 Water Ridge Parkway
Charlotte, North Carolina 28217
1-800-775-1800