Hello Lauren,
it has been long time I watching Code4lib and today I can finally
contribute. After more than 10 years in the library, I moved to a company
where we develop the technology for accessing electronic documents
including lending services for library (consult with the University
Library at Charles University and the Prague Municipal Library in Czech
Republic).
We have developed administration and editing environment for electronic
publications and also reading application.
This is actually just a technological solution that is able to receive
electronic publications in epub or pdf from anyone - optionally is to
enrich our own DRM - and finally an application on iOS or Android and PC
(binary solutions or browser) to enable lending/reading ebooks.
The main goal was not just lending platform for various content, but also
user-friendly reading and use all the possibilities of the virtual
environment to enrich the reading experience. For example, you can add the
author's comment into publications as a video file or insert direct link to
library website with other content or services etc.
Maybe I could also help :-)
Best,
Bara
2015-03-26 5:52 GMT+01:00 Lauren Magnuson <[log in to unmask]>:
> Eben - Thanks for the Library Simplified link, that's exactly what I was
> looking for! It seems like academic libraries have work to do to lobby our
> vendors to enable us to create better / smoother user experiences. I
> suspect they won't make it easy though.
>
> The larger issue seems to be Adobe DRM. A white label BlueFire app seems
> like a good potential solution, but it's pretty pricy and might be cost
> prohibitive for a lot of libraries to adopt. Just to license the
> technology to use / interact with Adobe DRM stuff is pretty costly on its
> own. The reason the Library Simplified project seems like a promising
> direction is that it's libraries taking ownership of the solution, rather
> than relying on vendors to deliver apps.
>
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