Harper Commits Further to Digital Publishing

By Neal 

It seems like it was only last summer that we were telling you about HarperCollins and its Internet initiatives, but now the publishing conglomerate has advanced beyond putting some pages online for its “Browse Inside” program to investing heavily in NewsStand Inc., which WSJ reporter Jeffrey Trachtenberg describes as “a closely held Web concern whose businesses include LibreDigital, which digitizes, electronically warehouses and distributes books via the Web.” In addition, Harper plans to license the search technology it’s already developed, often in collaboration with LibreDigital, to other publishers who want to digitize their backlists. Meanwhile, Trachtenberg reports, some of the other big companies are moving ahead with their own digitization agendae, and it’s expected they might lease out their technology down the line, too.