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NetLibrary Broadens Focus with Move into New Markets
eBooks from 200 publishers available to libraries, corporations, schools and consumers
BOULDER, COLO. – April 17, 2000 – NetLibraryTM,
a leading provider of eBooks and Internet-based content/collection management
services, today announced a new management structure aimed at strengthening
and growing its offerings in the library market and leveraging its industry
leadership for expansion into new markets. In particular, the Company seeks
to enter markets for corporate libraries, textbooks as well as more consumer-focused
markets. Leading this team is President and Chief Executive Officer Robert Kaufman,
37, previously NetLibrary's chief financial officer.
"Rob has been highly successful in building NetLibrary's financial foundation,"
said NetLibrary Chairman Timothy R. Schiewe. "Furthermore, he has contributed
greatly to our organization's growth and the connections we have made with key
strategic partners. He is the right person to lead NetLibrary into the future."
Kaufman has been noted as the architect of NetLibrary's three highly successful
rounds of strategic and venture financing, now totaling more than $110 million.
Investors include firms and individuals from the publishing, book distribution,
interactive media, and venture capital industries.
"Our experience in the library market has allowed us to better understand and
appreciate the needs of institutional customers and their patrons, and of
publishers," said Kaufman. "NetLibrary delivers a complete eBook solution to
institutional customers in conjunction with established channel partners, to
individuals via the eBook device or software of their choice, and to publishers
in the creation, archiving and serving of content to end-users across the entire
breadth of the publishing market, including professional, reference, textbook and
trade publications."
While meeting the needs of customers in the academic, public and institutional
marketplace has been key to NetLibrary's success, the foundation of this success
are NetLibrary's strong relationships with publishers. These efforts, from both
a marketing and operational perspective, are being strengthened under Chief
Operating Officer Nancy Talmey. With distinct but integrated departments aimed at
both title acquisition and publisher relations, NetLibrary is redoubling its focus
on meeting the needs of publishers with innovative and flexible product offerings.
To approach the corporate marketplace, NetLibrary has created a new division
consisting of collection development librarians, technologists, and sales and
marketing staff. This division will report to Executive Vice President Rich Rosy,
who leads NetLibrary's effort in all institutional markets. The corporate library
product offering today includes specially assembled eBook collections of business
and technology titles, and will eventually be combined with other resources such
as periodicals, journals, and reference materials geared toward specific industries.
Corporate libraries will be able to seamlessly integrate NetLibrary's electronic
knowledge offerings into their intranet and extranet sites, providing instant access
to a large and highly flexible body of information.
In addition to moving into the corporate library marketplace, NetLibrary also
recently launched a new division to provide eTextbooks and other enhanced learning
materials to educators and students at all grade levels. The nascent division, which
will report to Chief Marketing Officer David Melancon, will include the personnel and
assets gained from NetLibrary's recent acquisition of Orlando, Fla.-based MetaText
Inc. and is currently running pilot eText programs, with full-product launch expected
before the Fall semester.
Moving beyond the educational and institutional marketplaces, NetLibrary and its
handheld eBook division, peanutpress.com, encountered strong consumer demand during
the recent eBook-only release of Stephen King's "Riding the Bullet." During the first
day of sales of "Riding the Bullet," NetLibrary and peanutpress.com sold 10,000 copies
of the eBook. NetLibrary is currently working with publishers to offer more eBook
specials in the coming months.
To meet this growing demand from publishers, NetLibrary has launched a new division to
provide a solution for publishers seeking to deliver eBook versions of trade and popular
titles to consumers through online channels . The new division will manage the creation
and distribution of eBooks for download to computers, eBook reader devices, and personal
digital assistants. This effort will also report to Melancon.
Rounding out NetLibrary's executive team are: Chief Financial Officer Nicholas Cuccaro,
Chief Technology Officer Craig McSavaney, Executive Vice President of Human Resources
Tom Deany and General Counsel/Executive Vice President Paul Smith.
"When we started NetLibrary 20 months ago, there was a sense of apprehension about eBooks
among all but a few early adopting publishers, libraries, and consumers. The picture is
quite different now, as publishers have come to regard eBooks as an integral channel
for their intellectual property and libraries have started to see them as a basic part
of their collection," concluded Schiewe. "As the market has matured, so has NetLibrary's
management team. We now have seasoned veterans from the publishing, library, marketing,
and technology spaces in key executive positions."
Since being founded in August 1998, NetLibrary has experienced rapid growth, even by
Internet start-up standards. Beginning with eight employees, NetLibrary now employs more
than 400 people at its Boulder campus. The company recently surpassed a milestone of
signing its 200th publisher. More than 17,000 books from those publishers have been made
into eBooks and are available to NetLibrary's institutional and individual customers.
NetLibrary is a leading provider of eBooks and Internet-based
content/collection management services. NetLibrary has established relationships
with more than 200 publishers of trade, academic, reference, and scholarly books,
and has created digital versions of more than 17,000 titles. NetLibrary hosts and
manages eBook collections for numerous public, academic, corporate, and special
libraries around the world. The company also sells eBooks directly to consumers at
the NetLibrary website. With NetLibrary, consumers can choose between PC-based eBooks
for reading online or offline, and eBooks for portable reading on a variety of handheld
computers, such as those running the Palm and Windows CE operating systems.
Contact:
Brian Bell
(303) 381-8703
bbell@NetLibrary.com
Heather Robinson
(415) 974-7265
hrobinson@cgigroup.com
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