Librarian's eBook Newsletter

OCLC Closes Purchase of netLibrary

On January 24th, the sale of netLibrary to OCLC was finalized. netLibrary's purchase price was approximately $10 million, far less than the over $100 million that netLibrary raised in venture capital during its early years (from Rocky Mountain News). According to Publishers Weekly, netLibrary will remain in Boulder, under the oversight of Rob Kaufman, founder and CEO. The ebook operations will become a division of OCLC, while MetaText, a digital textbook company previously purchased by netLibrary, will become a for-profit subsidiary of OCLC.

As soon as the purchase of netLibrary was approved by the courts, OCLC announced changes to netLibrary's services and payment options. Effective January 24th, netLibrary discontinued access its eBook Reader, a software that supported off-line viewing of netLibrary ebooks. In addition to low usage and general customer dissatisfaction with the software, netLibrary also attributes the decision to the growing number of titles in pdf format; a format that the eBook Reader does not support.

A second change concerns access and payment options. Effective April 1, 2002, the cost of "Prepaid Ongoing Access" (previously called "Access Fee Prepayment") will increase from 50% of retail list price to 55%. Moreover, netLibrary has added a caveat that should new technology make it necessary to migrate ebook titles to a new platform, the library could be assessed for the cost of that migration, should the library elect to migrate. The "Annual Service Fee" option (previously called "Annual Access Fee") has been increased from 9% to 15% of the cost of the title, annually and the same technology migration caveat applies. Full details concerning the access fee changes are available from netLibrary's website.

So, what does the purchase of netLibrary by OCLC mean for libraries? The general sentiment of librarians appears to be relief. The association of netLibrary with the well-established and respected OCLC organization appears to lend stability and credibility to netLibrary. Moreover, OCLC provides netLibrary with a depth of understanding about libraries that no amount of focus groups and librarian advisory boards could ever have generated for netLibrary. My only concern stems from the fact that many libraries purchased and will continue to purchase access to netLibrary collections through their regional OCLC network. Now that OCLC owns netLibrary, what incentive does an OCLC regional network have to negotiate a "good" netLibrary deal on behalf of its membership?



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	OCLC Closes Purchase of netLibrary On January 24th, the sale of netLibrary to OCLC was finalized. netLibrary's purchase price was approximately $10 million, far less than the over $100 million that netLibrary raised in venture capital during its early years (from Rocky Mountain News). According to Publishers Weekly, netLibrary will remain in Boulder, under the oversight of Rob Kaufman, founder and CEO. The ebook operations will become a division of OCLC, while MetaText, a digital textbook company previously purchased by netLibrary, will become a for-profit subsidiary of OCLC. As soon as the purchase of netLibrary was approved by the courts, OCLC announced changes to netLibrary's services and payment options. Effective January 24th, netLibrary discontinued access its eBook Reader, a software that supported off-line viewing of netLibrary ebooks. In addition to low usage and general customer dissatisfaction with the software, netLibrary also attributes the decision to the growing number of titles in pdf format; a format that the eBook Reader does not support. A second change concerns access and payment options. Effective April 1, 2002, the cost of "Prepaid Ongoing Access" (previously called "Access Fee Prepayment") will increase from 50% of retail list price to 55%. Moreover, netLibrary has added a caveat that should new technology make it necessary to migrate ebook titles to a new platform, the library could be assessed for the cost of that migration, should the library elect to migrate. The "Annual Service Fee" option (previously called "Annual Access Fee") has been increased from 9% to 15% of the cost of the title, annually and the same technology migration caveat applies. Full details concerning the access fee changes are available from netLibrary's website. So, what does the purchase of netLibrary by OCLC mean for libraries? The general sentiment of librarians appears to be relief. The association of netLibrary with the well-established and respected OCLC organization appears to lend stability and credibility to netLibrary. Moreover, OCLC provides netLibrary with a depth of understanding about libraries that no amount of focus groups and librarian advisory boards could ever have generated for netLibrary. My only concern stems from the fact that many libraries purchased and will continue to purchase access to netLibrary collections through their regional OCLC network. Now that OCLC owns netLibrary, what incentive does an OCLC regional network have to negotiate a "good" netLibrary deal on behalf of its membership?

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