Douglas County Libraries sign agreement with Colorado Independent Publisher

May 19, 2011

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Colorado Independent Publishers Association (CIPA) and the Douglas County Libraries (DCL) announce the May 18, 2011 signing of their historic agreement.

Key features of that agreement include:

• CIPA agrees to facilitate the sale (not the rental) of ebooks to the library for checkout through the library. That is, the library owns and manages the files on its own servers.
• DCL agrees to buy one copy for each simultaneous use of a title.
• CIPA will encourage its members sell books to the library at the lowest retail rate.
• DCL agrees to catalog and attach Digital Rights Management to each uploaded title.
• CIPA will offer their finest selections – including their Evvy Award winners – for this agreement.
• DCL agrees not to resell or transfer the files purchased under this agreement.
• CIPA members agree to sell their books to library patrons at the same price as paid by the library.
• DCL agrees to offer a link to the purchase of CIPA member titles through the catalog.

At the signing were CIPA President Nancy Mills and DCL Director Jamie LaRue.

“It was a day of beginnings,” said Mills, “Many people made contributions to this partnership and many, many more will benefit.”

“Our patrons will appreciate gaining access to this rich new resource of literature,” said LaRue.

The technological infrastructure for the project – based on an integration of Adobe Content Server, the Open Source Vufind discovery tool, and the library catalog – is now complete. Some sample files have been uploaded already.

CIPA titles will be ready for checkout in June.