ALA meets with Publishers in New York to Discuss Ebooks

Concerned about what they view as restrictive policies on ebooks sales to libraries, ALA President Molly Raphael along with other ALA representatives met with “the senior leadership of Penguin, Macmillan, Random House, Simon & Schuster, and Perseus.”  According to Ms Raphael “The discussions were substantive and productive. We were able to genuinely engage during each of these meetings at the highest level and were encouraged, in each case, by the desire of both the publishers as well as our delegation to understand the issues faced by both entities.”  In fact, Chris Harris reports in his blog E-Content that an immediate result of these meetings  is an “announcement from Random House on a new model for ebook lending with a higher upfront price” but no additional restrictions on loans.

Ms. Raphael promises a more formal report providing “more detail about issues discussed and what we (ALA) will be doing to reach our goal of opening access to all ebooks in libraries.”