3M, one of a handful of companies that is working diligently on the issues swirling around library ebook lending by providing ebook content to partner libraries, announced at the Frankfurt Book Fair this week that it is now aligned with the ReadersFirst movement to make the ebook lending experience suitable for all patrons.
ReadersFirst, a movement within the global lending community, has a set standard of goals for content providers to achieve in order to make library lending a workable priority. 3M’s Cloud Library eBook Lending Service is now aligned with those goals to help libraries and their patrons.
According to ReadersFirst’s goals, “e-content providers must be willing partners, and offer products that allow users to:
Search and browse a single comprehensive catalog with all of a library’s offerings at once, including all e-books, physical collections, programs, blogs, and donor opportunities. Currently, content providers often only allow searches within the products they sell, depriving users of the comprehensive library experience.
Place holds, check-out items, view availability, manage fines and receive communications within individual library catalogs or in the venue the library believes will serve them best, without having to visit separate websites (libraries, not distributers, should be enabled to manage all interactions with users).
Seamlessly enjoy a variety of e-content. To do this, libraries must be able to choose content, devices and apps from any provider or from multiple providers, without bundling that limits a library’s ability to serve content they purchase on platforms of their choice.
Download e-books that are compatible with all readers, from the Kindle to the Nook to the iPad and so on.”
“We are excited to launch this open API to ILS vendors, OPAC [online public access catalog] vendors, and our customer base,” said Matt Tempelis, global business manager, 3M Cloud Library, in a press release about the initiative. “As the ReadersFirst movement has shown, this is the kind of flexibility that libraries need to evolve into the future.”
Mercy Pilkington is a Senior Editor for Good e-Reader. She is also the CEO and founder of a hybrid publishing and consulting company.
