e(lectronic) textbooks

[Jill Brown <buflib@YAHOO.COM>]

Hi -

I queried the people at netlibrary about the status of
available texts for e books.  This is part of the
response I received:


At present, netLibrary's plan to offer electronic
textbooks starts with higher education. We will be
offering e-texts in the Spring, 2001 to students.

Regarding K-12, we are continuing to analyze that
market. In the meantime, we do have a pilot with the
Texas Education Agency. We have been asked by TEA to
work with three school districts to convert a
relatively small number of textbooks and supplemental
books (about 15) to our electronic textbook platform
(as opposed to the library format) for the Fall, 2000.
The evaluation of the pilot will be conducted by TEA
next Spring, 2001.

Our electronic textbook platform is different than the
library platform. Our e-textbooks will provide for a
faculty member/teacher to annotate the author's text
for all students to see. Students may annotate for
their own purposes. Searching is possible, including a
glossary that retrieves the definition and pronounces
it for the user. Faculty may link to virtually
anything that is available on the web to enhance their
teaching of a particular "chunk" of content. There is
a set of course management tools, including syllabus,
communication and quizzing aids.

Later, we will work with publishers, editors, and
authors to create "enhanced" netLibrary e-texts that
may include animation, very high-end graphics, and
voice and video streaming as part of the "new"
textbook.

To see the e-textbook platform, you can go to
Metatext.com. netLibrary acquired the MetaText
platform as of March 29, 2000, so we have not
quite had the opportunity to integrate that website
into netLibrary's.

We will be depending on our Texas members to keep as
posted.

Jill Brown, LMS
Nardin Academy
Buffalo, NY
buflib@yahoo.com





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