2021 Presentations (Communicative Events)

Taking Control Using Academic SimplyE: Our Journey to an Open Reading Landscape

Cartolano, Robert T.; English, James; Lin, Nancy; Peterson, Christine

Libraries are part of a unique moment in history which unites broad technology adoption, readily-available technical training, widespread use of the internet, and support of openness and equitable access. We have the ability to change our own future in transforming the academic reading experience. Libraries have started down the road of providing open reading environments for everyone. We believe open source initiatives like SimplyE and open standards like Open Publication Distribution System (OPDS), Open and Distance Learning (ODL), Readium and Lightweight Content Protection (LCP) will allow all involved—commercial software vendors, publishers, libraries, consortia—to innovate. In this session, we will demonstrate progress in SimplyE for the academic reading landscape, and discuss what is yet to come. We will discuss our progress with these technologies, our services and content vendors, and ask for feedback as we consider how to incorporate additional academic functionality. Come with us on this journey. Be ready to engage, question, and consider!