Publisher’s digitisation initiatives in Europe

Federation of European Publishers

Copenhaguen,24th -26th October 2007

Report from the European Parliament from the 26th October 2007 on « i2010:towards a European digital library »

25. Proposes that users of the European digital library should be able to find any kind of digital document, in image and text mode, and consult it freely, in their entirety in the case of works which are free of rights or in the form of short extracts in the case of protected works, with the agreement of the right holder;

26. Proposes that provision be made for on-line browsing of works which are subject to rights through specialised sites providing the security guarantees required by right holders;

27. Proposes in this case that the European digital library act as a simple conveyor of information;

28. Points out that specialised sites could provide access to the whole of a protected document in agreement with the right holder and in return for fair remuneration;

Some examples of publisher’s initiatives…

Libreka! in Germany

Boekenbank in Belgium

Dilve in Spain

Bookstore in the UK

Numilog in France

http://www.libreka.de

Libreka! is a central full-text online book search platform. It facilitates acess to education and literature increasing author’s and publisher’s reach

Started as « Volltextsuche online-VTO », by the German Book Trade Association.

The aim is to facilitate the search and availability of books in the internet while ensuring publishers and booksellers control of the works.

http://www.libreka.de

Started autumn 2006

Title upload since February 2007

Scan- service since October 2007

Public preview in the Franfurt Bookfair 2007

http://www.libreka.de

It will be possible to access content through the following channels:

1) Bookshops

2) Libraries

3) Other actors like search engines

4) Libreka! portal itself

Stages foreseen:

A) Enable full search and enhanced acess to bookshops and libraries

B) Enable the ordering of physical copies

C) Enable downloading online copies

Copyright

http://www.boekenbank.be

Initiative from the Belgium Flemish Book Trade Association to develop a full-text search platform.

Ongoing negotiations at the moment.

It is currently an effective tool for booksellers to order books and for users to find titles.

http://www.dilve.es

•DILVE is a technological platform for the management and distribution of the bibliographical and marketing information of Spanish books in print.

•Launched by the Association of Spanish Publishers ( Federacion de Gremios de Editores de España) and the Foundation German Sanchez Ruiperez. Agreement with booksellers in place

•It is an Internet-based system, designed for the exchange of information, in a quick and highly efficient way, between the professionals of the book world (Publishers, booksellers, distributors, librarians, online stores, book and reading web sites, the media... )

•It is a service which allows publishers with a single load operation, to manage and distribute their data to as many entities and agents as they wish.

•Users both in Spain and all over the world professionals of the book industry can obtain data in the formats they wish and by means of the transmission mechanisms required, to integrate them into their information, distribution, promotion and marketing activities.

•Participating at the moment are 400 publishing houses and 50.000 titles are being digitised.

Consumer-related issues

http://www.mpsbookstore.co.uk

BookStore is a digital warehouse which allows publishers to make content available for search a purchase online.

It enables to retain control of all copyright, metadata, licensing (incl. price, territory and duration), payments and customer data.

Several digital formats, the reader may purchase or download: Online Access to the content for a fixed or unlimited period Adobe Reader Microsoft Reader Mobipocket format

Distributed to bookshops, libraries, end consumers etc. and direct sales from the portal

Variety of business models to store, full text search, sell and archive the digital content.

Same technology as used in Libreka, but also with several EU and US publishers. The portal supports multiple international languages

http://www.numilog.com/

Numilog is a company gathering electronic books of several publishers on its technical platform. It digitises books, distributes them online and ensures safety of contents via DRMs.

- The contract it signed with publishers for the marketing of digital books on the website. It includes “electronic lending” of books for a specific duration, as an experimental initiative, against remuneration and information on the books lent for the publisher and in the framework of licences sold to libraries.

- In the framework of this experimental initiative, a library can obtain a license for a book, including provisions allowing electronic lending and its practical details to be negotiated (duration, number of lending per reader, etc…it would be proportional to the price of the licence).

- Students can download these electronic books either with their ID or from terminals in the library to their PC or their PDA, for the agreed duration.

- Business model: pay per view for individual users and licence based on the number of readers and the duration for libraries

Publisher’s digitisation initiatives in Europe

Thank you for your attention!

Olga Martín Sancho

Legal Adviser

Federation of European Publishers

31, Rue Montoyer, Box 8 - B-1000 Bruxelles

Phone: 00 32 2 770.11.10 Fax: 00 32 2 771.20.71

www.fep.fee.be