Baker & Taylor has signed a longterm digital distribution and technology licensing agreement with OverDrive to provide customers with downloadable e-books, audiobooks, music, video and more.
In the next few months, Baker & Taylor will begin offering its Digital Media Library, powered by OverDrive, for library customers worldwide and will offer retailers digital media that their customers can download, transfer and play back on a variety of devices.
"We are executing on Baker & Taylor's strategic vision to be the industry leader in the distribution of bundled physical and digital media to our customers worldwide," B&T CEO Tom Morgan said.
B&T's executive v-p for global business development Bob Nelson stated, "Adding digital media to our current offerings allows our retailers and library customers to buy additional products and services in a more efficient process from one trusted source."
For his part, OverDrive CEO Steve Potash said, "The demand for digital media is exploding, and Baker & Taylor is in a prime position to give customers a bundled solution--digital content in multiple formats along with physical media. OverDrive technology will provide Baker & Taylor customers worldwide the ability to securely manage, protect and fulfill orders for premium digital media."
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Ingram is merging its Ingram Digital unit with the Ingram Book Group and Lightning Source to create a new company called Ingram Content Group, which aims to provide "a full range of content services--the physical and the digital," as chairman John Ingram put it. Ingram Digital is a digital content distributor and supplier of content management, distribution and hosting solutions; Lightning Source is Ingram's print on demand unit; and Ingram Book Group is the company's book wholesaler--and oldest of the Ingam Content Group companies.
The Ingram Content Group will be headed by president and CEO David "Skip" Prichard, who joined Ingram two years ago as head of the Book Group.
John Ingram thanked Frank Daniels, chief commercial officer of Ingram Digital, who is leaving the company in July after having "agreed to stay on and help transition VitalSource, the market leader in higher education digital textbook technology, into the broader Ingram Digital business following its acquisition in 2006."
"We have been the innovator in distribution, print on demand, and now digital," John Ingram added, saying that more and more of Ingram's customers want "solutions without having to contact multiple people in our organization. So we're organizing to make that happen."