Deal Allows Free Search Of Digitized Book Lists
-- Graphic Arts Online, 11/1/2000
In the Internet-based system, fees will be levied for access to texts and use of tools.
HOUSTON -Questia Media, Inc. and New York City-based Perseus Books Group have announced that Questia will distribute more than 5,000 titles from Perseus's backlist of humanities, history, and social science books through its on-line digital research service.
Under the nonexclusive agreement, Questia will offer students and researchers direct access to an entire collection of 50,000 digitized books and journals as well as a suite of writing tools, all via the Internet.
As planned, powerful keyword searches and hyperlinks will guide subscribers to the content they need for academic research. The service will be launched in January.
The Questia service will allow users to search its collection for free, but a subscription fee applies to access of the actual texts as well as to use to the suite of writing tools. Questia officials say that this business model creates a new revenue stream for publishers by capturing money that is lost when students repeatedly check out their books.
Says Troy Williams, founder and chief executive of Questia, "Our mission is to revolutionize academic research; we believe this agreement moves us toward that goal. We have undertaken the largest digitization project in history, which will create a research service for college students that provides them with access to the full text of hundreds of thousands of credible books and journals.
"In the process, we are providing publishers and authors with a new, incremental stream of revenue in which they are compensated every time someone views a page of one of their books."
Adds Perseus's chief executive Jack McKeown, "[The agreement] is a pure extension of our core business. It's also in keeping with our long-term strategy of integrating e-commerce with the digitization of our publishing assets and processes."
