Definitely notable Charles and the Fulcrum platform at the University of Michigan Press is something for all publishers to aspire toward!
If I may, Ann, I’d like to add to this thread the recently announced launch of our new University Press Library eBook Collection from De Gruyter. These 2020 eBook collections are the result of a five-year pilot project working with thirteen academic libraries, three university presses and consortia on how to create a sustainable eBook model that allows for the acquisition of complete digital collections of unlimited-use and DRM-free titles with perpetual access and no ongoing fees. De Gruyter represents each partner in our University Press Library individually and does not aggregate the content to be sold. This positioning allows the library to assess, evaluate and gain insights into the makeup and merits of each university press on its own.
Our position as an international publishing house supporting global distribution of university press content since 2012 has been a unique one where we have been able to participate first-hand as partner and publisher in the challenges of eBook acquisitions. Whether it is the groupings of presses from AUP (1-4) or the research intensity at academic libraries or the varying degree of services, rights and formats available from aggregators, the ecosystem as a whole is quite complex and requires the skills of a seasoned conductor at the press or library to optimize results.
The UPL Collection is just one option that contributes to this ecosystem and we are very excited that we get to share the outcome of our project with the scholarly publishing community in 2020. In addition, we look forward to sharing our results and best practices from the pilot in greater detail once it officially concludes at the end of this calendar year.
Best regards,
Steve
Vice President, Americas and Strategic Partnerships
DE GRUYTER
121 High Street, Third Floor
Boston, MA 02110, USA
Office +1 (617) 377-4392
Mobile + 1(646) 492-1346
From: Charles Watkinson <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Tue, 15 Oct 2019 08:39:43 -0400
Dear Ann,
You may disagree that it is a "major" ebook collection, because University of Michigan Press is a smaller publisher and it is only comprehensive since 2011, but the University of Michigan Press Ebook Collection is DRM-free. Like parts of Bloomsbury, we have also been concentrating on multimedia enrichment, which is why we run our own platform. MIT Press and Duke University Press also have their own, DRM-free, collections of course. But perhaps this is less notable because we are all non-profit publishers and have been distributing DRM-free ebooks via Muse and JSTOR (and more recently EBSCO, ProQuest) for years. We've tried to offer our ebooks in the UMP EBC collection via GOBI but there is a waiting list and EBSCO says they won't get to us for a year or more. They are starting with the big players.
Charles
--
Charles Watkinson
Director, University of Michigan Press
Associate University Librarian, Publishing
University of Michigan Library
839 Greene Street, Ann Arbor, MI 48104-3209
(office) 734 936 0452, (mobile) 609 933 2410
My pronouns are he / him / his
The University of Michigan Press Ebook Collection is now live: https://www.fulcrum.org/michigan
On Mon, Oct 14, 2019 at 9:52 PM LIBLICENSE <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
From: Ann Shumelda Okerson <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Mon, 14 Oct 2019 21:14:43 -0400
We saw a release today that Bloomsbury Publishing/Digital Resources is
now offering its e-book collection through EBSCO’s GOBI platform.
While liblicense-l doesn't normally post notices of new products for
sale, this one caught my eye for offering “more than 8,000 individual
DRM free eBooks across 22 subject areas and more than 170 eCollections
available on Bloomsbury Collections.”
Given that their collection embraces a variety of well-known ‘brands’
(Arden Shakespeare, I.B. Tauris books), this is a noteworthy offer.
Are there other major e-book offerings that are DRM free? We'd be
glad to hear of any, and also to receive comments on the approach for
posting here.
Ann Okerson