Ingram Digital Group’s MyiLibrary, the CIC Consortium, and Springer Science+Business Media announce ground breaking eBook deal.

NASHVILLE, TN – Ingram Digital Group today announces a major agreement for their MyiLibrary aggregated eBook library solution with the CIC (Committee on Institutional Cooperation) and Springer Science+Business Media.

This ground breaking partnership will provide access to all published Springer eBook titles for consortium members on both the MyiLibrary and SpringerLink platforms.

CIC selected MyiLibrary for access to the Springer Content (including archival material), as part of a wider expansion of consortial uptake of eBook content. The innovative arrangement will see Ingram Digital Group working with the CIC as they advance efforts to develop their eBook infrastructure to accommodate current content flowing in from myriad publishers as well as locally digitized book content. “The arrangement allows all CIC member libraries to acquire eBook titles and collections as efficiently as possible, whether as individual titles on ‘approval’ programs, specific subject collections, or broader based content catalogs from major publishers” explained Kim Armstrong, Assistant Director of the Center for Library Initiatives at the CIC. “By working directly with Ingram and Springer, the CIC is able to deliver significant value to its members. It was important for us to act as a consortium, building upon the digitization work being collectively undertaken with Google. Aggregating current commercial output is equally important as the work that is underway to bring our own retrospective print collections into digital form via Google. Ingram is committed to helping us develop an environment that brings all this content together in a way that’s understandable to users. Accordingly, we think the Springer content will prove to be the foundation for realizing a larger vision among our libraries,” continued Ms. Armstrong.

“We are thrilled that every researcher, faculty member and student in CIC partnering libraries will have access to all Springer eBooks” commented Richard Bennett, Vice President of Library Sales for Springer. “This deal has proven that close cooperation between the CIC consortium, Ingram Digital and Springer can open new possibilities for member institutions in this fast changing world of eBooks. We are sure this will lead the way as libraries grapple with the issues surrounding eBook acquisition. Ingram Digital’s combination of services provides an interesting opportunity both for libraries and for publishers to deal with some of the questions surrounding print-on-demand, approval plans and aggregation of book content. This deal will allow the individual CIC member institutions to continue to acquire eBook collections from other sources and aggregate them with the Springer content, whilst at the same time allowing them to benefit from pricing arrangements that will cover all institutions”.

“We’re pleased that MyiLibrary was chosen by CIC to make more eBook titles available to their library members,” said James Gray, President and CEO of Ingram Digital Group.  “The truly unique thing that CIC has done here will, we think, set an example to other libraries in seeking integrated solutions that deliver the content that readers want directly to them in the most user friendly fashion possible. The MyiLibrary solution delivers multiple benefits for customers – with nearly 100,000 individual titles available and millions of patrons regularly accessing the content. We’re excited that more and more libraries and publishers alike are seeing the benefits and taking advantage of our services.”

ABOUT CIC

The CIC is a consortium of 12 research universities, including the 11 members of the Big Ten Conference and the University of Chicago. With campuses in 8 states, CIC universities enroll more than 300,000 undergraduates and 76,000 graduate students, and employ some 33,000 full-time faculty and 139,000 full-time staff. The CIC is guided by the Provosts of the member universities. Its mission is to advance academic excellence by sharing resources and promoting and coordinating collaborative activities across the member universities. For more information, visit www.cic.uiuc.edu

ABOUT MYILIBRARY

MyiLibrary is a global provider of digital content accession, storage, management and delivery services to publishers and other content owners. MyiLibrary specializes in the production of world-class technology solutions for the distribution and hosting of electronic books, journals and other content. MyiLibrary provides eBook titles from academic, commercial, and governmental publishers throughout the world. For more information, visit www.myilibrary.com

ABOUT INGRAM DIGITAL GROUP

Ingram Digital Group is an operating division of Ingram Industries Inc. and provides publishers and other content owners with a comprehensive offering of digital content accession, storage, management and distribution services. Ingram Digital Group along with its services of MyiLibrary and VitalSource Technologies provides a full-service array of digital solutions and support. The Ingram companies – Ingram Digital Group, Ingram Book Group and Lightning Source Inc. – provide a broad range of physical and digital services to the industry. For more information, visit www.ingramdigital.com

ABOUT SPRINGER

Springer Science+Business Media (www.springer.com) is one of the world’s leading suppliers of scientific and specialist literature. It is the second-largest publisher of journals in the science, technology, and medicine (STM) sector, the largest publisher of STM books and the largest business-to-business publisher in the German-language area. The group publishes over 1,700 journals and more than 5,500 new books a year, as well as the largest STM eBook Collection worldwide. Springer has operations in about 20 countries in Europe, the USA, and Asia, and some 5,000 employees. Visit http://www.springerlink.com