Re: universities experiment with paying OA fees

["Anne Orens" <aorens@gmail.com>]

Apologies for any cross-posting.  This may be of interest to the 
group:

*Tizra and Chicago Distribution Center Partner to Provide Online 
Access to Scholarly and Professional Books*

June 25, 2008. (Chicago, IL and Providence, RI)

Chicago Distribution Center (CDC), a division of the University 
of Chicago Press and one of the nation's largest distributors of 
scholarly and professional books, has signed an agreement with 
Tizra that will enable CDC publishers to sell subscriptions to 
online books. The joint venture will pilot in summer 2008 with 
the University of Chicago Press and other CDC publishers and will 
use the services of Bibliovault(R), the CDC's digital repository 
for not-for-profit publishers.

"The demand for access to scholarly content online is increasing both in
the academic community and among the general public," reported Carol Kasper,
Marketing Director of the Books Division at Chicago.  "Bibliovault(R) is a
cooperative venture between members of the scholarly publishing community,
and the University of Chicago Press is very pleased that it can be used to
facilitate online access to Chicago content and that of our CDC client
presses.

"Our customers have told us that they want to have their content 
delivered in a variety of ways," said Karen Barch, COO of the 
Chicago Distribution Center.  "Tizra's elegant and easy-to-use 
solution gives our publishers a simple way to sell and deliver 
their book content online."

The CDC/Tizra service will combine the data conversion, shopping 
cart, print fulfillment, e-commerce and reporting systems of the 
CDC with the web publishing and delivery capabilities of the 
Tizra Agile PDFTM hosted application. The result will allow CDC 
publishers seamless online marketing and merchandising. Agile PDF 
creates branded web sites, while collaboration with the CDC 
enables publishers to integrate sales reporting for online and 
print publications.

"We're delighted to be in the first group of CDC publishers 
piloting the CDC/Tizra online service," said Garrett Kiely, 
Director of the University of Chicago Press.  "University of 
Chicago Press publications appeal to wide audiences: from general 
readers to educators and scholars.  Our readers need to find us 
from wherever they are, with immediate access to the content they 
want. Tizra helps us meet that need."

Anne Orens, Chief Marketing Officer of Tizra adds, "Tizra's goal 
is to provide a platform for the future of online publishing, and 
help publishers generate new, immediate revenue streams from 
existing content, without disrupting existing processes. Our 
partnership model keeps us focused on our publishers, whether 
that means giving them a complete stand-alone sales and delivery 
solution, or linking our platform to existing services. We're 
delighted to work with a distribution center with CDC's size and 
reputation, and through them, to serve their pre-eminent 
publishers.

About the CDC

CDC is a state-of-the-art, 273,000-square-foot distribution and 
fulfillment operation, providing a full range of services to its 
client publishers and its customers worldwide. A long-standing 
leader in the distribution and fulfillment of academic books and 
journals, CDC provides fulfillment services for more than sixty 
scholarly publishers including America's largest, the University 
of Chicago Press.

In addition to its warehousing, fulfillment, and business 
services capabilities, the CDC also provides short run digital 
printing and the digital respository Bibliovault(R) that 
currently stores and distributes digital files for more than 
15,000 books

About Tizra

Tizra's mission is to provide content owners large and small with 
unprecedented control over the marketing, sales and delivery of 
their online content. Tizra's first product, AgilePDF, is a 
hosted service that enables non-technical staff to create new 
online products from existing content and sell them through 
publisher branded web sites with highly flexible business terms. 
Additional University Press customers include Duke University 
Press and MIT Press.  The company is headquartered in Providence, 
Rhode Island, and funded in part by Rhode Island's Slater 
Technology Fund. More at http://tizra.com.

*CDC Contact
Carol Kasper
ckasper@press.uchicago.edu*

*Tizra Contact:
Anne Orens
Anne.orens@tizra.com