Digital Books: ReadersFirst Introduces “Publisher Price Watch”

From a ReadersFirst Blog Post by Michael Blackwell:

Librarians need to know how publishers compare with each other, although of course we will often be forced to license from some at usurious rates due to public demand for their titles. We also need detailed and accurate information to present to legislators when we work with them to get better terms, having little other choice than government action due to publisher intransigence. And thus ReadersFirst unveils the Publisher Price Watch.

Created by Carmi Parker and the team at Whatcom County Library System, with feedback from the ReadersFirst Working Group and others, Publisher Price Watch (PPW) shows what we pay on average to license digital from larger publishers compared to print based on may examples. This is just the first iteration. Over time, we will add more publishers and update data on the existing ones. Watch the space for more. If you are a librarian or employee working for a non-profit and want to be involved, there is place on the page for you to express your interest.

Speaking of non-profit, ReadersFirst is all-volunteer and completely non-commercial. We don’t take money from advertisers. We, like ConsumerReports, can thus give fair and unbiased ratings to the publishers’ digital offerings, based upon comparative print costs.

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Filed under: Companies (Publishers/Vendors), Data Files, Libraries, News, Publishing