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IT NEWS: Internet Publishing |
New Net resource for booksellersPublishing resources continue to multiply on the Internet. The Book Place, previewed in last month's Record, is due to go online at the beginning of September, and it will shortly be joined by a major resource drawn together by the Booksellers' Association (BA). Having secured £125,000 of funding from the DTI, the BA is looking to consult with its members about what they would like to gain from the interface with the electronic medium and is likely to put its project out to tender shortly. The initial stage will be looking primarily at the association's own information provision needs. It will then look at how it can market the services of its members on the Internet and, finally, investigate what information it can provide to the public. Nicola McLean, who has been appointed Internet Project Leader, quotes the demise of the NBA as an example of a time when the BA was inundated with inquiries. 'If we had been able to disseminate some of that information through the Internet, it would have made our lives a lot easier,' she says. She does not, however, envisage that the site will be selling books, although it is thought that assisting smaller booksellers to do so themselves may be a part of the project. The evidence from America is that online bookshopping is having a drastic effect on precisely such traders and it may be that smaller traders have little choice but to attempt to compete in the electronic marketplace. The latest online bookshop to be launched comes from the National Council for Educational Technology . It aims to be the first educational online bookshop to focus on the National Curriculum and allows key phrase and subject searching and credit card ordering. Also recently launched is the Internet Free Press , a membership organisation which aims to bring together people and information on the subject of electronic publishing. Members can launch their own journal, subscribe to the e-journal Internet Research: electronic networking applications and policy, network with other members, join in with electronic conferences and have access to a range of 'how to' information relating to publishing on the Web. Annual membership is £72. Cambridge University Press has also launched a new Internet service, Cambridge Journals Online , which offers full access to around 50 of its journals during 1997, with more coming online during 1998. The CUP service is also fully searchable and is available free for a limited period. |
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