NetLibrary™ Launches Partnership With Amigos Library Services

Amigos to Offer 28,000 NetLibrary™ eBooks to Participating Libraries in Southwest

BOULDER, COLO. – Sept. 8, 1999 – NetLibrary™(www.NetLibrary.com), the world' s premier provider of electronic books and information, announced a shared eBook resources partnership today with Amigos Library Services, Inc., a membership-based library network serving more than 600 public, academic, and special libraries in the southwestern United States.

In this groundbreaking partnership, Amigos has agreed to acquire a collection of as many as 28,000 electronic books from NetLibrary and offer them as a shared resource to member libraries in the Amigos network. The three-year agreement is valued at $1.6 million with the initial 12 months of the agreement providing for 13,000 eBooks valued in excess of half a million dollars.

In addition, participating libraries may voluntarily elect to become part of an ongoing program to obtain individual library collections through Amigos and NetLibrary.

To date, 100 Amigos member libraries have signalled their intent to participate in the shared eBook resources program, and additional libraries have expressed interest in acquiring individual library collections through Amigos and NetLibrary. Libraries participating in the shared resource and individual collection purchase programs can offer their patrons seamless access to both collections. Computerized tracking of reader usage patterns will enable Amigos and NetLibrary™ to work together in the coming years to fine-tune their electronic book offerings.

"The NetLibrary™ resource sharing program greatly enhances our ability to provide excellent service to our member libraries," says Robert L. Watkins, Amigos' director of Member Program Development. "We have every confidence we are building a relationship with NetLibrary™ and member libraries to endure for years to come."

"Amigos is an organization at the vanguard of technology adoption to better serve its member libraries," says Tim Schiewe, CEO of NetLibrary. "We are proud to be aiding in their mission to provide libraries in their network – and, ultimately, the readers who patronize those libraries – with the latest technologies and best content available on the Internet today."

About NetLibrary™

Libraries using NetLibrary™ services offer anytime, anywhere access to a comprehensive collection of reference, scholarly, and professional electronic books. Electronic content may be viewed, searched, and checked out via the Internet by patrons with a personal computer and an Internet browser (version 4.0 or higher).

NetLibrary' s mission is to integrate the convenience, access, and capabilities of the Web with the familiarity and depth of content patrons experience today at their local or university library. NetLibrary™ has signed agreements with over 75 leading publishers, including Harvard Business Press, AMACOM, ABC-CLIO, Cambridge University Press, Columbia University Press, Grove' s Dictionaries Inc., Houghton-Mifflin, Macmillan Publishers Ltd. UK, The McGraw-Hill Companies, The MIT Press, and O' Reilly, to provide its customers with an extensive selection of scholarly, reference, and professional books in electronic format.

NetLibrary™ converts hard-copy books to a proprietary electronic format, storing them on NetLibrary™ servers and then converting them to HTML as library patrons request them from a personal computer. NetLibrary™ gives libraries the ability to better serve their patrons by reducing or eliminating overhead and infrastructure costs associated with book storage, replacement, and maintenance. Interlibrary loans can be handled via the Internet, eliminating the need for shipping expenses and ending the delay associated with traditional loans.

For individual readers, NetLibrary™ offers services beyond what is possible with hard-copy books. Besides 24-hour-a-day, seven-day-a-week access, users can search volumes of material by author, subject, title, keyword, phrase, or idea. A search for a phrase or keyword will not only pull up eBooks with the requested information, but will take you directly to the page where it appears.

About Amigos

Amigos Library Services, Inc., is dedicated to serving libraries. A nonprofit organization, Amigos is one of the nation' s largest library resource-sharing networks and a leader in providing information technology to libraries. The Amigos Membership consists of over 600 libraries and cultural institutions located primarily in the southwestern United States that utilize its comprehensive line of services, including cataloging, reference, resource sharing, preservation, consulting and training.

Contact:
NetLibrary
David Melançon
303/415-2548
david@netlibrary.com