Next month, the HathiTrust will release a full-text search engine indexing 1.5 billion pages from digitized books and other materials from 25 member research libraries.

An experimental version of the search engine is now available.

Read more about it at "HathiTrust Launching Full-Text Library of Books."

The University of Michigan Library will distribute over 500,000 rare and hard-to-find digitized books using HP BookPrep POD service.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

HP BookPrep — a cloud computing service that enables on-demand printing of books — brings new life to the traditional publishing model, making it possible to bring any book ever published back into print through an economical and sustainable service model.

As part of a growing movement to preserve and digitize historic content, major libraries are partnering with technology leaders to scan previously hard-to-find works using high-resolution photography. HP's process transforms these scans prior to printing by cleaning up some of the wear and tear that often is present in the originals.

HP BookPrep significantly drives down the cost of republishing books by eliminating the manual cleanup work that would otherwise be required. Based on imaging and printing technology from HP Labs, the company's central research arm, HP BookPrep automates the creation of high-quality, print-ready books from these raw book scans by sharpening text and images, improving alignment and coloration, and generating and adding covers.

People can now purchase high-quality print versions of public-domain, out-of-print books from the University of Michigan Library through HP BookPrep channels, including traditional and online retailers such as Amazon.com.

"People around the world still value reading books in print," said Andrew Bolwell, director, New Business Initiatives, HP. "HP BookPrep technology allows publishers to extend the life cycle of their books, removes the cost and waste burdens of maintaining inventory, and uses a full spectrum of technologies to deliver convenient access to consumers."

For publishers and content owners, HP BookPrep offers an opportunity to offer their full catalog of titles online, irrespective of demand. Because HP BookPrep is a web service that processes books as they are ordered, there is little upfront investment or risk as books are printed only after they are purchased, no matter the volume, eliminating the need for high carrying costs.

Consistently ranked as one of the top 10 academic research libraries in North America, the University of Michigan Library is a true repository for the human record. The print collection contains more than 7 million volumes, covering thousands of years of civilization. HP is collaborating with the university to eliminate barriers and increase access to content as part of an ongoing effort to make the concept of "out of print" a thing of the past.

"Our partnership with HP is a testament to the University of Michigan Library's commitment to increase public access to our library's collections and our continued innovative use of digitization," said Paul N. Courant, librarian and dean of libraries, University of Michigan. "We are excited that HP BookPrep can offer print distribution of the public domain works in our collection and help to provide broad access to works that have previously been hard to find outside the walls of our library."

The collaboration also builds upon HP's existing relationship with Applewood Books, a publisher of historical, Americana books. The company, which has been using HP BookPrep for the last year to republish hundreds of titles, also will distribute HP BookPrep's best-selling titles from the University of Michigan Library.

Google has signed an agreement with On Demand Books, maker of the print-on-demand Espresso Book Machine, giving it access to over two million public domain e-books.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

This unprecedented number of reading options is in addition to the current 1.6 million titles already available directly to consumers via the Espresso Book Machine®. The Espresso Book Machine® is a small, patented high-speed automated book- making machine. In a few minutes it can print, bind and trim a single-copy library- quality paperback book complete with a full-color paperback cover. "ODB, in effect an ATM for books, will radically decentralize direct-to-consumer distribution," says Jason Epstein, Chairman and co-founder of ODB."With the Google inventory the EBM will make it possible for readers everywhere to have access to millions of digital titles in multiple languages, including rare and out of print public domain titles."

"This is a revolutionary product," says Dane Neller, CEO and co founder of ODB."Instead of the traditional Gutenberg model of centrally producing, shipping and selling we sell first, then produce. In a matter of minutes you can get a paperback book identical to one you can get in a store at point of sale. In addition to readers, On Demand Books will bring substantial benefits to authors, retailers and publishers. It has the potential to change the publishing industry."

The Espresso Book Machine® is powered by EspressNet, a proprietary and copyrighted software system that connects EBM to a vast network of permissioned content. Using industry-standard encryption methods EspressNet assures the security of publishers' titles, tracks all jobs, and provides for payments to publishers. Content owners retain full ownership and control of their digital files. . . .

Espresso Book Machines® already are up and running in bookstores, libraries and trade and campus bookstores such as the University of Michigan Shapiro Library Building in Ann Arbor, MI, the Blackwell Bookshop in London, UK, the Bibliotheca Alexandria in Alexandria, Egypt, the Northshire Bookstore in Manchester Center, VT, the University of Alberta Bookstore in Edmonton, Canada and Angus & Robertson Bookstore in Melbourne, Australia. The Harvard Book Store in Cambridge, MA and the University of Melbourne Library in Melbourne, Australia soon will carry their own EBM.

In “Turning Out-of-Copyright Books into Gold: An Interview with University of Michigan’s Maria Bonn,” Maria Bonn, Director of the Scholarly Publishing Office at the University of Michigan Library, discusses Michigan’s recent decision to offer print-on-demand paperback editions of over 400,000 digitized books via BookSurge and Amazon.

The article "Is This the Future Bookstore?" includes a digital video that shows the detailed operation of the Espresso Book Machine. Be sure to stick around after the first overview of the paperback production process for the subsequent close-up view.

Update: See “A Look Back at 22 Years as an Open Access Publisher” for current information.

Bowker reports that print-on-demand and short-run book titles grew 132% in 2008, and, for the first time, they exceeded traditional book titles.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

Based on preliminary figures from U.S. publishers, Bowker is projecting that U.S. title output in 2008 decreased by 3.2%, with 275,232 new titles and editions, down from the 284,370 that were published in 2007.

Despite this decline in traditional book publishing, there was another extraordinary year of growth in the reported number of "On Demand" and short-run books produced in 2008. Bowker projects that 285,394 On Demand books were produced last year, a staggering 132% increase over last year’s final total of 123,276 titles. This is the second consecutive year of triple-digit growth in the On Demand segment, which in 2008 was 462% above levels seen as recently as 2006.

"Our statistics for 2008 benchmark an historic development in the U.S. book publishing industry as we crossed a point last year in which On Demand and short-run books exceeded the number of traditional books entering the marketplace," said Kelly Gallagher, vice president of publisher services for New Providence, N.J.-based Bowker. "It remains to be seen how this trend will unfold in the coming years before we know if we just experienced a watershed year in the book publishing industry, fueled by the changing dynamics of the marketplace and the proliferation of sophisticated publishing technologies, or an anomaly that caused the major industry trade publishers to retrench."

The University of Pittsburgh Press has made 500 out-of-print titles open access with a future fee-based print-on-demand option.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

The University of Pittsburgh Press, in collaboration with the University of Pittsburgh Library System and the Chicago Digital Distribution Center (CDDC), is making nearly 500 out-of-print Press titles available again for scholars and students around the world.

Representing the full range of scholarly series and subject areas published by the Press, these titles are now part of the University of Pittsburgh Press Digital Editions collection, fully searchable and freely accessible to anyone with an internet connection through the University of Pittsburgh Library System's D-Scribe Digital Publishing Program. Over the next year, they will also be made available for purchase in reasonably priced paperback editions through the CDDC. Readers and researchers may read and search the full texts online, and those who wish to have a print copy may purchase it through retail outlets or directly from the Press.

The University of Washington Press will begin to publish some converted print books as e-books for the Kindle. It also plans to begin to use Amazon's print-on-demand BookSurge service for some books.

Read more about it at "UW Press Dabbles with Kindle, Amazon Print on Demand."

Lightning Source will work with selected publishers on a pilot project to offer print-on-demand of books using the On Demand Books' Espresso Book Machine at point-of-sale locations.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

Participating publishers in the pilot include John Wiley & Sons, Hachette Book Group, McGraw-Hill, Simon & Schuster, Clements Publishing, Cosimo, E-Reads, Bibliolife, Information Age Publishing, Macmillan, University of California Press and W.W. Norton. The pilot, being offered initially to a small group of publishers that currently work with Lightning Source, will enable these publishers to enhance the availability of their titles at point-of-sale EBM locations. Approximately 85,000 titles from these publishers will be available for purchase at EBM locations in the USA in May 2009.

Upon the completion of a successful pilot, publishers that print and distribute books with Lightning Source will have the option to participate in the EBM channel. Complete channel automation is expected in the first half of this year, and rollout of the program to publishers globally is expected to follow shortly thereafter.