Technology and Books for All

by Marie Lebert

1994: BOLD PUBLISHERS

[Overview]

Some publishers decided to use the web as a new marketing tool. In the U.S., NAP (National Academy Press) was the first publisher in 1994 to post the full text of some books, for free, with the authors' consent. NAP was followed by MIT Press (MIT: Massachusetts Institute of Technology) in 1995. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, wrote in 1997: "As university publishers struggle to find the right business model for offering scholarly documents online, some early innovators are finding that making a monograph available electronically can boost sales of hard copies." (excerpt from the Project Gutenberg Newsletter of October 1997)

[In Depth (published in 1999)]

The web became a marketing tool for publishers. Some publishers decided to put the full text of some books on the web, for free, with their authors' consent. Oddly enough, there was no drop in sales - on the contrary, sales increased. In the US, NAP was the first publisher to take such a risk in 1994, followed by the MIT Press in 1995, and it worked.

NAP (National Academy Press) was created by the National Academy of Sciences to publish its own reports and the ones of the National Academy of Engineering, the Institute of Medicine, and the National Research Council. In 1994, NAP was publishing 200 books a year in science, engineering, and health. The new NAP Reading Room offered 1,000 entire books, available online for free in various formats ("image" format, HTML format and PDF format).

In 1995, the MIT Press (MIT: Massachusetts Institute of Technology) was publishing 200 new books a year and 40 journals, first in science and technology, and then in architecture, social theory, economics, cognitive science, and computational science. The MIT Press decided to put a number of books online for free, as "a long-term commitment to the efficient and creative use of new technologies." Sales of the print books increased.

Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, wrote in 1997: "As university publishers struggle to find the right business model for offering scholarly documents online, some early innovators are finding that making a monograph available electronically can boost sales of hard copies. The National Academy Press has already put 1,700 of its books online, and is finding that the electronic versions of some books have boosted sales of the hard copy monographs - often by two to three times the previous level. It's 'great advertising', says the Press's director. The MIT Press is experiencing similar results: 'For each of our electronic books, we've approximately doubled our sales. The plain fact is that no one is going to sit there and read a whole book online. And it costs money and time to download it'." (excerpt from the Project Gutenberg Newsletter of October 1997)