ProQuest is on a roll. After acquiring ebrary in 2011, it has now signed an agreement to acquire Ebook Library (EBL). The ebrary acquisition was timed to occur on the eve of the ALA midwinter meeting, and this has been duplicated with the EBL acquisition.
EBL offers around 300,000 ebooks from more than 500 publishers. Kari Paulson, EBL’s President, will be coming with the company and will manage the combined ebook business unit, according to the press release. She will lead the effort to merge EBL and ebrary into one optimized platform. Says the release: “EBL’s first-rate user experience, innovative business models, and acquisition tools are very complementary to ebrary,” said Kurt Sanford, ProQuest CEO. “These features will be combined with ebrary’s unmatched content selection, award-winning subscription service, and cutting edge, patent-protected core platform technology. The result will be an unparalleled ebook research platform that is connected to all of ProQuest’s products and services.”
EBL also includes an ebook retail site, ebooks.com, and eBook Services for publishers, ebookservices.com, but the release makes no mention of the future of these two units.
Paul Biba is a retired corporate international lawyer who has worked in 53 countries. Since he is a very fast reader he came to ebooks out of self-defense in order to avoid carrying a suitcase of books on his travels around the world. An early ebook adopter, he has read on Palms, Pocket PCs and practically every device that has been out there. After being a frequent contributor to TeleRead.com, the oldest ebook/epublishing blog on the net, Paul became TeleRead's Editor-in-Chief, a position he recently resigned. Send Paul an email to paulkbiba@gmail.com
