On December 27, 2012 Colorado’s Douglas Country Libraries first publicly announced they had partnered with Impelsys.
The announcement pointed out:
Once the beta test phase is complete, the dashboard will be available from Impelsys for purchase by other libraries.
The beta is now over (that was fast) and the service is now being formally launched.
From Today’s Launch Announcement:
Impelsys’ new eBook Ordering System was developed in partnership with Douglas County Libraries (DCL), a seven-branch public library system in Douglas County, Colorado. The eBook acquisition dashboard was beta tested by DCL’s professional staff and system modifications were made prior to commercial launch this week.
“The Library eBook Ordering System is an important addition to the 21st century librarian’s toolchest,” said James LaRue, director of Douglas County Libraries. “This acquisition dashboard greatly simplifies the process of managing purchases and relationships with a whole new universe of content creators.”
“The concept of this new management system is to allow a library’s collection development and acquisitions staff to receive new title metadata directly from publishers and then order the eBooks they want directly from those publishers, without the need of a third-party ordering system,” said Sameer Shariff, founder and CEO of Impelsys. “A publisher simply uploads its entire catalog to the Impelsys dashboard, which displays all of the crucial information library professionals need in order to consider purchasing eBooks for their collections, such as cover art, book description and pricing.”
There are five components to the new system:
Catalog Feed — Import catalog lists from publishers.
Create List — Select and add the titles for eContent acquisition.
Purchase Orders — Generate multiple purchase orders based on the number of different publishers.
User Management — Set up a new librarian user, new acquisition account or reset existing account passwords.
Email — Automatically generate email alerts to librarians for all new catalog updates, to acquisitions staff when a selection list is being submitted for purchase, and to a user when an account has been setup or updated.“This new service is very compatible with the ‘DCL Model’ for eBook acquisition and circulation,” said Jimmy Thomas, executive director of the Marmot Library Network. “Librarians leery of the high costs of eBooks will appreciate a tool that facilitates the direct purchase of eBooks, and eliminates needless mark-ups, without requiring too much extra effort by library staff.”
Direct to Full Text Announcement
Note: Btw, the James LaRue quoted in the news release is the person the library community knows as Jamie LaRue.
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