E-book Platform Project: An Amigos Journey

by Christine Peterson, E-book Project Manager and Continuing Education Librarian

We have now been working on the E-book Platform Project for 10 months. We have come a long way, have learned a great deal, and are excited that the first version is coming to you soon.

Our focus for the project is to provide e-books for libraries and their patrons by negotiating directly with the publishers. For libraries that already provide e-books for their patrons, this project would enhance that service. For other libraries, this may be their only e-book service. In addition, we will provide libraries with the knowledge to help local authors create e-books, load them into the library's e-book collection and, if desired, provide them for other libraries.

Once we're up and running, a library would subscribe to our service, browse titles from the publisher’s e-books we host, choose to purchase and/or lease titles, and provide them to their patrons through their public catalog, their discovery service, or through an Amigos interface. For those libraries that prefer to purchase e-books directly from publishers, we could provide the DRM-based hosting that would be necessary.

Amigos would take on the bulk of the administration necessary for this service, e.g., negotiating with and paying publishers, authenticating patrons and, of course, maintaining the technical infrastructure. We are hoping that this will expand options for libraries.

You may remember that in June 2013, Amigos received this project from the North Texas Library Partners. In the first few months, we spent time evaluating the project that came to us. Since the inception of that project, the e-book landscape had changed. We wanted to take time to be sure of our direction before continuing.

During this time we spoke to many groups, including three that went before us: Douglas County Libraries, Marmot, and Califa Library Group. Each had built an e-book platform to provide e-books for their patrons, each in a different way depending on their needs. Our needs are also different.

Amigos serves primarily academic and public libraries, but also school and special libraries. Building a collection that has titles of interest to all types of libraries is very important. In addition, with almost 800 Amigos members, this service has to scale to be able to perform successfully for all who take part.

In July, we invited 18 librarians to a brainstorming session at the Amigos office to ascertain what our members wanted this platform to do for them. By the end of the day, the group had created prioritized lists of requirements: one list from academic librarians and one from public librarians. We have since used the lists as the basis for more detailed requirements.

Based on our research and on the requirements created at the brainstorming session, we determined that there was nothing currently available from vendors that we could use. So, using pieces of the Douglas County, Marmot, and Califa projects, we decided to build the platform ourselves. This first year of development focuses on creating a basic service. The second year – starting this summer – will be devoted to more advanced functionality.

Since that decision, many things have happened. We have an alpha service currently working in-house. A contract programmer just joined the project, focusing primarily on our second year development. We formed an Advisory Group, a Publishers Working Group, and a Cataloging Working Group, all guiding us in various aspects of the service. Nine libraries have volunteered to help us with the pilot service, which should be available in the spring. We are working with 10-15 interested publishers, and have four agreements in place. We should have a name for the service very soon.

We estimate that our basic service will be available to all Amigos members (and non-members) this summer. If you want to keep up with our progress on this project:

• Read AmigosNow. As milestones are reached, we will let you know about them through articles in our bi-weekly online newsletter.
• Like our Facebook page. More regular updates will be made to our Facebook page. Be sure it displays in your News Feed!

The journey so far has been filled with its ups and downs. When you are creating something new, you have to expect that. However, the feedback we have gotten from libraries so far has been very supportive. We look forward to presenting our e-book service to you soon.

If you have questions about the project or this new service, please contact me at 800-843-8482, ext. 2891, or peterson@amigos.org.

This program is funded (in part) by a grant from the U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services and Texas State Library and Archives Commission. (2014)