From: Joseph Esposito <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Sun, 5 Oct 2014 11:37:22 -0400

"Partners with" means "sells stuff to," in the sense that a license to
digital goods comprises a sale.  I don't know about the 96%, but OD is
certainly the market leader.

As for the roadshow, the intent may be to drive up library usage,
which would augment OD's revenue.  Many public libraries have ebooks,
but their patrons do not know about them.  This is true of my tiny
local public library, which is an OD customer.

At publishing trade shows, conversations over drinks not atypically
turn to when Amazon will acquire OD.

Joe Esposito


On Sun, Oct 5, 2014 at 8:32 AM, LIBLICENSE <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> From: "Jim O'Donnell" <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Fri, 3 Oct 2014 16:20:42 -0400
>
> Riding along in my automobile today:  my curiosity was running wild
> when I was passed by an 18-wheeler splashed with signs about e-books
> and offering the URL: www.digitalbookmobile.com.  It took some doing to
> see that this vehicle travels to public libraries on behalf of something
> called Overdrive, Inc., which (it claims) "partners with" 96% of the
> libraries in the United States.  Big flashy vehicle, series of events:
> I have several questions.
>
> 1.  Does "partners with" mean "sells stuff to"?
>
> 2.  96%? really?  That's remarkable market penetration if so.
>
> 3.  I'm curious about how a roadshow to demo ebooks to the populace
> makes sense?  (I do understand that they are a licensor of ebooks.)
>
> Puzzled on the road,
> Jim O'Donnell
> Georgetown