Good Afternoon,
A couple of our editors submitted a reference question asking about the possibility of publishing our approved for public distribution technical reports in places like Google Books, Apple Books and SmashWords. This is in addition to our own digital repository and DTIC where we post them for public consumption. They wanted to know if there are other FED ORGs currently doing this and the who, what, when, where, how of it all. They are willing to look at Open Library, HathiTrust, and Gutenburg type outlets, as well. The goal is to be able to make reports available where report consumers are already virtually book browsing and to do this while offering other eBook formats like EPUB, iBOOK and MOBI. My question is do any of your federal agencies distribute electronic publications in these third party outlets? If so, would you be willing to share some insights and experiences to help us learn more about it? I'm looking for a precedent, but I can only find some articles about a GPO-Apple agreement from 2012. There are a few items in Amazon from USGS, but I am unsure if this was through a partnership between Amazon and USGS or some other mechanism.

Any bits of wisdom are appreciated.

Thank you and take care,
Emily

Emily Wegrzyn M.L.S., M.A.I.S.
USACE/ERDC/ITL
ERDC Library (CEERD-ISK)
Champaign, IL
217-373-7275
Virtual Reference: [log in to unmask]

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