E-Book Companies See Role for College Stores
2/24/99

Executives from three e-book companies told a crowd of course materials professionals representing college stores, publishers, and other suppliers that there is a definite place for the college store in the sale of digital readers and in the delivery of content over the Internet.

The program was the opening general session at ConTEXT '99, the NACS Conference on Textbooks and Technology, held Feb. 18-20, in Panama City Beach, FL. Participating in the session were Martin Eberhard, cofounder and CEO of NuvoMedia, Inc., manufacturers of the Rocket E-Book; Thomas Pomeroy, cofounder and chief publishing officer of SoftBook Press, Inc.; and Karolyn Kelly-O'Keefe, vice president of marketing for Everybook Inc. The session was moderated by Steve Silberman, senior cultural writer for Wired News.

"I think it will be quite a while before e-books take away from the demand for paper books," said NuvoMedia's Eberhard. "However, the Internet isn't going away, and every (college) store had better decide to have some sort of online presence if they are going to succeed in this new environment."

More than 400 attendees were exposed to 17 informative educational sessions eight vendor presentations, five topic rooms to discuss specific issues, three dynamic luncheon speakers, a trade show with 40 exhibiting companies, and three lively general sessions. A videotape of the second general session, "Introducing New Business Models for the New Millennium," featuring James Baumann, president of the Follett Higher Education Group; Robert Christie, president and CEO, International Thomson Publishing; and Jade Roth, vice president and general merchandise manager, Barnes & Noble College Bookstores, will soon be available from NACS.

College store managers and buyers left the conference with a strong message that they must have some sort of online presence in a fairly short time. In addition, college stores have a terrific opportunity to respond to the new online competition by taking advantage of their connection to their own campuses and by providing even greater service to their customers. Although evaluations have not yet been tabulated, early indications point to this being a very highly rated conference. ConTEXT 2000 will be held Feb 17-19, 2000, at the Regal Riverfront Hotel in St. Louis, MO.

The opening general session on e-books will be broadcast on BookTV, the weekend programming devoted to books on C-SPAN2. The session, "E-Books: Delivery of Content Through the New Digital Reader Devices," is scheduled to air Saturday, March 6, at 9 a.m. EST and Sunday, March 7, at 2 a.m. EST. C-SPAN2 is part of the government and public affairs network provided by the cable television industry.

Sound Off!

Michael Pritiken (mikep@bookie.sbc.wsu.edu) 2/26/1999 5:16:39 PM

It is good to hear that there was a general consensus that we all need to be online, but what General Book Department is online now, and is it important to have real time inventory included on the web page.

If you are out there and you do have your General Book Department online, what was your experience, how long did it take you, who do you reccomend to do the site, etc..

I think the Digital Readers would be a good alternative, but my understanding is that you have to have the web site to advertise them. I guess it would be a good bagaining point to having a web site to do this from.

Sound Off!
Share your views on this topic with other readers. Just fill out the form below and then click "Post Message." You will need to "reload" or "refresh" your browser to view your comments.

Sound Off!

Sound Off! Share your views on this topic with other readers. Just fill out the form below and then click "Post Message." You will need to "reload" or "refresh" your browser to view your comments.

Sound Off!
Share your views on this topic with other readers. Just fill out the form below and then click "Post Message." You will need to "reload" or "refresh" your browser to view your comments.