Tag Archives: Steve Potash

If we can buy Alaska, can’t we purchase OverDrive for a national digital library system? Reflections from a visit to the National Archives

Update: See a related article on the LibraryJournal.com Web site. “Seward’s Folly” was what the skeptics dubbed America’s 1867 purchase of Alaska from Russia for $7.2 million. No one had found gold in the Klondike by then. And yet America was buying a distant territory twice the size of Texas. Secretary of State William Henry [...]

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Prominent publishing expert Thad McIlroy intrigued by LibraryCity’s OverDrive proposal: “Time to put the ‘public’ back in ‘Public Libraries’”

“Yes, it’s time to put the ‘public’ back in ‘Public Libraries.” So says Thad McIlroy, a prominent publishing consultant, about LibraryCity’s proposal for OverDrive to sell itself to America’s public libraries directly or to a nonprofit serving their interests. McIlroy has worked for clients ranging from Apple and Adobe to Thompson Learning (now Cengage) and [...]

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Should OverDrive sell itself to America’s public libraries? Any foundation angels care to help?

Update: See positive reaction from Thad McIlroy, a prominent publishing consultant. OverDrive—the leading supplier of popular e-books for America’s public libraries—should sell itself to its library customers or at least think about it if they are willing and able to buy. In Rockford, Illinois, a much-needed controversy rages about the local library system’s spending almost [...]

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