"This relationship marks an important milestone in the netLibrary commitment to libraries to work toward delivering multiple forms of e-content through one source and one platform," said Rich Rosy, corporate vice president of netLibrary. "Our goal is to provide libraries throughout the world with a single access point to a growing and dynamic collection of electronic content, also taking into account the growing appeal of portable devices. The addition of audio books to our catalog of e-books, e-journals, and databases reinforces our goal to provide libraries and their patrons with more access models, more content choices, and more delivery solutions."

The program launches with 500 titles, including authors appearing on The New York Times' hardcover best sellers lists, such as Patricia Cornwell for CSI fans, Alexander McCall Smith for Zimbabwe mystery fans, Elizabeth Peters for Egyptian archaeology mystery fans, etc. Marge Gammon, division vice president of library and publisher services at netLibrary, described the collection as combining classics, mysteries, westerns, biographies, and a variety of titles, but it is primarily popular reading material—that is, no business titles at this time. She expects the collection to grow by around 30 items a month, with the increase in titles not requiring an increase in payments. Recorded Books has a much larger collection of material from which it generates a range of packages for different audiences. For example, the children's book collection alone encompasses more than 1,500 titles, but only a few of those will appear in the netLibrary/Recorded Books offering.

netLibrary already delivers service to more than 12,000 libraries worldwide. Under the new arrangement, patrons will use the netLibrary interface to search for audio-only titles or all electronic content from netLibrary with audio book titles appropriately tagged. Searching for the audio books will rely on metadata, aka bibliographic citation elements, according to Gammon. Though netLibrary e-books can be searched full text, the audio books do not allow such flexibility. Gammon said there is very little overlap between the publishers with which netLibrary already has e-book arrangements and the publishers working with Recorded Books chosen for this program. So, the chances of searching netLibrary e-books and finding an audio title option are slight. However, Gammon did indicate that netLibrary plans to deal with more publishers in the future and will offer them a "unique model" to encourage participation in such programs.

Upon retrieving bibliographic citations, users will be able to preview the item, in some cases, with a 2-minute extract, check-out (i.e., download), and listen to the books for a set period of time (21 days) with the option for one renewal for another 21 days at most. The reader is allowed to use the audio book on up to two portable devices.

Downloads of the audio books will play on desktop or laptop computers, as well as a large and expanding number of portable devices, particularly those supporting Windows Media Player (version 9), Music Match (version 8.2+), Nullsoft Winamp 5, and devices that accept protected WMA files. Supported portable devices include Creative products (except for the Rhumba series), Rio, iRiver flash players, RCA, Dell Digital Jukebox, Gateway Juke Box, and dozens of others. Apple's iPod is not supported at this time, according to Gammon.

The co-branding of the service that appears on the site could guide users to Recorded Books' own site, where they could purchase titles outside the netLibrary program. However, netLibrary has no plans to set up a patron-targeted purchase model. "We sell to libraries," asserted Gammon. Recorded Books sells to libraries, as well as schools and the legal and medical markets, but they also sell to individuals. In fact, they will rent audio books to individuals for 30 days with return packaging and prepaid postage included.

The pricing model for the new service will set a flat rate for an "access fee" based on the libraries' size and anticipated circulation needs; the fee will cover access to the entire collection. This access fee will allow for a set number of check-outs. According to Gammon, the minimum price for access will run $3,000 for a maximum of 3,500 check-outs up to $60,000 for a maximum of 100,000 check-outs. Libraries that run over the maximum can buy additional blocks of check-outs.

This program also represents an expansion into multimedia delivery by netLibrary's parent, OCLC. Gammon told us that OCLC was very excited by the new program, but it already had projects underway to expand the WorldCat database to accommodate other kinds of content than print. Illustrations, tutorials, and audio material are "definitely down the road" and on their way from the world's leading library vendor.