eRead Illinois!

I met the wonderful Veronda Pitchford (who is my new BFF) at ALA Midwinter in January when there was a meeting of lots of different ebook projects.  We then shared a booth at BEA (with three other groups), and so I've been learning a lot about her project, eRead Illinois.

Here's her summary of her project for this blog:

1. Is this an owned-content model? The eRead Illinois projects works with Baker & Taylor’s Axis 360 and 3M Cloud platforms. Under these platform, eRead Illinois does own the material in the shared collection. The Axis 360 shared collection is open to RAILS and IHLS non-SHARE public, school, academic, and nonprofit special libraries. (www.railslibraires.info) Only IHLS SHARE members are eligible to participate in the 3M Cloud Library. (www.illinoisheartland.org/)

 2. Is the platform/hosting owned, or are you using a vendor? Axis 360 and the 3M Cloud are both vendor created platforms.

 3. If you're using a vendor, who is it? We have two vendors. Baker & Taylor and 3M.

 4. Do you negotiate directly with publishers? Baker & Taylor negotiates with publishers with feedback and input from the eRead Illinois project staff.

 5. Do you have a shared collection? Yes, all participating libraries have access to the shared collection. Individual libraries may also purchase a local collection on either platform if they wish. 6. When did you go live? Both platforms went live in December 2013.

 More information about the eRead Illinois project can be found on our website(www.ereadillinois.com) and through our Twitter(@eReadIllinois).