Ebooks, Patrons, Libraries, and Consortia: Past, Present, and Plans for the Future
Tuesday, September 22, 2015 at 1:00 PM–2:00 PM (Central Time)
Greg Pronevitz, executive director of the Massachusetts Library System and stakeholder in a statewide ebook platform servicing over 400 libraries, will discuss consortial ebook platforms and their history, present, and plans for the future among library consortia. Our patrons who have patience have grown accustomed to state-of-the-art library platforms and can navigate the maze of links and authorizations required to check out ebooks. Those without patience buy their ebooks from commercial providers. Greg believes that libraries can succeed in serving current ebook patrons and many new ones as the years go by if they work together.
Presenter: Greg Pronevitz is the founding executive director of the 1,600-member Massachusetts Library System (MLS). He has 17 years experience at the CEO level at MLS and one of its pre-merger components. He spent nine years managing the provision of services to libraries in a consortial environment at OHIONET.
Greg is an advocate for consortial services. He has written and spoken frequently on library delivery service. He was a key player in the formation of the Digital Commonwealth of Massachusetts (one of the Digital Public Library of America’s founding hubs). At MLS, Greg has worked with main partner the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners (the state library agency) and other stakeholders to pilot a statewide ebook platform that has been expanded in beta and has grown to more than 400 subscribing libraries called the Commonwealth eBook Collections with access to some 170,000 titles.
And Greg has a Minitex connection: He was co-author/editor with Minitex director, Valerie Horton of the 2015 ALA Editions book Library Consortia: Models for Collaboration and Sustainability.