Ebrary.com, for example, allows people to view all of their online material for free, but then charges for each page users print and each section of a work they copy and paste. The funds from that copy fee will be split between Ebrary and the publishing house, which then has the right to decide how much should go to the author of the work, says Marriott.
By contrast, Questia.com has a flat monthly fee of $19.95, which enables members to access over 40,000 books and 5,000 journal articles, all of which can be printed and copied with no additional charge.
“You could actually read these cover-to-cover,” said Helen Y. Wilson, director of marketing and communications for Questia.
Both sites will also offer online reference tools like encyclopedias and dictionaries.
They plan to target students and academic professionals with their availability of what Marriott calls “authoritative info on the web.”
Questia and Ebrary are hoping that the fear of unregulated content on the Web will convince people to use and pay for their library services in order to ensure accurate and scholarly information.
In order to get material to put on their sites, the online libraries have made partnerships with a myriad of corporate publishers and university presses.
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