Irwin’s ePublishing Program
In keeping with its policy of maximum accessibility to students and legal practitioners, Irwin has made its books available online since its inception. Until now, Irwin has simply supplied content to third-party vendors like QL Systems and Lexis-Nexis.
Now, however, using ebrary technology, the company is able to make its entire collection accessible to users directly.
Using ebrary’s HostYourOwn Content service, Irwin has released the Irwin Law e-Library, which makes its well-known selection of law titles easier to find, use, and manage than ever!
Available on a subscription basis to law firms and institutional users, Irwin Law’s E-Library provides access to all Irwin titles in an electronic bookshelf which combines the look and feel of the book with powerful search and research tools. Now practitioners can access Irwin titles anywhere, anytime through a password-protected portal exclusive to Irwin.
Powerful ebrary Technology Makes Research Quick and Easy
All Irwin Law E-Library titles are seamlessly integrated into one easy-to-use interface. Sophisticated technology makes it easy to pinpoint and manage relevant information from multiple sources.
ebrary’s InfoTools feature expands the utility of the library immensely, allowing users to select terms of interest from the texts and automatically link to additional information sources within the Irwin organization and on the web.
In the Irwin application, InfoTools allow a user to highlight a caselaw citation, then link to a caselaw database to search for a full-text version of the case. Additionally, personal bookshelves make storing, managing, and sharing highlights, notes, and hyperlinks quick and efficient.
Why ebrary?
As a small business, Irwin sought a platform that would offer its clients the advantages of a powerful search environment but would be affordable and manageable without additional staff or technical overhead.
Ebrary’s HYOC service was the answer. Hosted on ebrary’s servers, the service required no technical or staff investment on Irwin’s part. And the content-creation process is totally publisher-friendly. Based on industry standard PDF, the platform is a natural extension of irwin’s existing workflow. Adding new titles or other content is simple and straightforward. Once a book has been finalized and the PDF sent to the printer, Irwin simply submits the file* to to ebrary’s hosting site and within days it’s available online. Customers of the e-Library receive
access weeks before books are available to print users.
The e-Library "landing page" provides a means of highlighting new features and content.
Key features and benefits:
The HYOC service allows Irwin to offer its customers a variety of purchase models. While only a subscription model is currently being offered, the option is there to offer customers single-title purchase, browse-before-buy or usage-based pricing.
The package includes:
- Full DRM (digital rights management), protecting Irwin’s and its authors’ copyrights. Printing and copying restrictions may be set by the publisher, and these elements are managed by the system.
- A Title Preview site which can be used by Irwin for promotion and lead-generation.
- Comprehensive usage statistics (reports on sessions, page views, prints and copies) available to Irwin’s administrators, which will over time assist them in pricing and publishing decisions.
- A multilingual ebrary interface providing access in English, French, Spanish, German and Mandarin.
- APIs that are also available for further customization in future.
The Future
Working from this base, Irwin plans to add content to the e-Library, from both public domain and proprietary sources. The e-Library will provide Irwin Law with the portal to expand its publishing program, possibly issuing books in online-only editions, or with online-only enhancements.
* To add quality and online searchability to the files supplied to ebrary, Irwin first creates a Universal PDF, which provides, among other features, full internal linking of TOC, Indexes, Footnotes and Endnotes. These qualities are particularly important to reference titles like these. Many Irwin titles include Tables of Cases which are cited throughout the text. Links between these sections provide the online user with robust research capabilities.
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