Agreement Expands Follett's Leading Position in Ebook Content and Technology for Schools
Follett today announced a partnership with U.S. trade publisher Hachette Book Group (HBG) to provide preK-12 school libraries and students expanded access to popular children's titles in an ebook lending format for the 2013-2014 school year.
Ebook offerings published under HBG's Little, Brown Books for Young Readers imprint include noteworthy books such as the Ninth Ward (Coretta Scott King Author Honor Book Award) and The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (National Book Award Winner). "Our goal is to have authors' work available to schools and students as technologies and reading habits evolve, and this partnership with Follett helps us in this effort," said Evan Schnittman, HBG's EVP, Chief Marketing and Sales Officer.
HBG's wide array of titles are available for purchase on Titlewave®, Follett's powerful collection development, search and ordering tool. With the new HBG partnership, Follett now offers more than 190,000 ebook titles through Titlewave.
"As one of Follett's largest partners, HBG offers a wide variety of quality ebook titles that customers can circulate to students for as long as needed to support the school's educational needs," said Todd Litzsinger, President of Follett's Content Solutions and Services. "The addition of HBG's ebook titles reflects our mission of helping educators engage students with content and technology that drives learning outcomes." The HBG announcement marks Follett's second trade publisher ebook partnership so far this summer; Follett and Random House entered into a similar ebook distribution agreement in June.
With books increasingly moving to digital formats, Follett has been at the forefront of the transition with tools and solutions that help customers access, adapt and integrate the new forms of content within the school library and classroom environments. For example, FollettShelf® is the digital shelf most used by schools to access ebooks, and the Follett Digital Reader(TM) provides students with a consistent and easy-to-use ebook reading environment on their desktops, tablets and smartphones. Today, 28 million students and educators in 42,000 schools worldwide use ebooks provided by Follett.
