Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Library Anywhere Prices (Public!)

As we announced last week at ALA Midwinter, we're about to come out with "Library Anywhere"—a mobile catalog for any library. In short, it provides a mobile catalog, both mobile web and native apps (see the handout).

Price List. We promised that Library Anywhere wouldn't just be cheap, but that we would have published prices. This is a pretty big deal in the library world, where wiggly, negotiable prices and hidden formulae are the norm.

LibraryThing Anywhere Price List!

We key off buildings and locations, to be as dead-simple as possible. It's an annual subscription fee.

Schools
$150, plus $50 for each additional location

Public libraries
$350 for main library, plus $50 per branch

Two and four-year colleges
$750, plus $150 for each additional library building

Universities
$1,000, plus $150 for each additional library building

We're confident this is 1/4 to 1/2 the price of our competition. This makes us very happy. It should also be a good deal better.

Beta Libraries Wanted. We're still looking for beta libraries, especially for some systems. Contact abby@librarything.com if interested.

For ordering information contact Peder Christensen at Bowker—toll-free at 877-340-2400 or email Peder.Christensen@bowker.com.

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18 Comments:

Blogger fluteflute said...

Hourly? Daily? Monthly? Yearly? Forever?

1/26/2010 10:51 AM  
Blogger Abby said...

Oops, good catch. I'm updating the post, but it's an annual fee.

1/26/2010 11:01 AM  
Blogger Andrew Guidroz II said...

What about individuals? Are we destined for using the web page forever?

1/26/2010 11:19 AM  
Blogger Abby said...

Andrew—this is a feature for library catalogs, not for LibraryThing catalogs. But working on the mobile version of LibraryThing is indeed on our to-do list.

1/26/2010 11:21 AM  
Blogger Unknown said...

Yeah, they can't offer a mobile LT until they figure out what to do with Amazon data.

1/26/2010 12:36 PM  
Blogger Unknown said...

How might pricing work for an online academic library (i.e., one serving distance learning students, with no print collections or building)? Our catalog is just e-books and access would be remotely via a proxy server...

1/26/2010 2:03 PM  
Anonymous Sara Thompson said...

Is there a sample mobile URL we could look at, to see how a catalog would look in the Library Anywhere interface? Thanks for doing this!

1/26/2010 2:45 PM  
Blogger Catalogablog said...

How about special libraries? Non-profit, for-profit, open to the public, closed to the public.

1/26/2010 2:47 PM  
Blogger Library Hag said...

Not to be mean, but geez, people. I think some of you users are a little ballsy. I mean we get LibraryThing really for nothing and you complain? I think it is the best thing ever and enjoy all the enhancements as they have time to get them out. Go Team LibraryThing!!!

1/26/2010 3:02 PM  
Blogger Tim said...

Special libraries cannot buy the product.

Just kidding. We can't come up with a price list that is both simple and covers everything. (We know there's going to be some questions about just what constitutes a location or building too.) Talk to us. The parameters are pretty clear. If you're a big special library, like about the size of a small college, expect to pay that much. If small, like a public school, you'll pay that.

1/26/2010 4:14 PM  
Blogger Barbara said...

Hats off to you for putting the price out there publicly instead of the "contact us for a very unpleasant experience that you can't mention to anyone." The way deals are made in secret and with non-disclosure expectations violates libraries' interest in transparency, but we put up with it all the time. (scratches head)

1/26/2010 5:20 PM  
Blogger Rellotivity said...

Thanks for putting this up!

I'm surprised by the price difference between colleges and universities - I'm assuming you mean college in the American sense of a place which just offers undergraduate degrees.

(I'm just whining because my university is mostly involved with undergraduates with relatively fewer higher degrees, which would be the case for a lot of 'universities' internationally. The price isn't that high though.)

1/26/2010 6:04 PM  
Anonymous dakvid said...

Do you have to be a LTFL customer for this?

1/26/2010 6:28 PM  
Anonymous cab said...

Very exciting! Will be keeping an eye on this. Wish there was tiered pricing, however, to take into account the vast range of library sizes -- multi-million dollar annual budgets vs. many, many with budgets < $100k.

1/26/2010 9:42 PM  
Blogger Casey Durfee said...

dakvid: No, you don't have to be an LTFL customer. It's designed to work with just about anything, even systems we can't currently put LTFL inside of.

1/31/2010 7:01 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I'm trying to imagine how our special library users could use Library Anywhere. We have many ebooks/ejournals, access to which is by IP address. Since IP address doesn't apply to their mobile devices--rather their network login on their PCs--would we be unable to offer access to electronic resources on their mobile devices?

4/01/2010 2:25 PM  
Blogger Alex G. D. said...

It kind of depends on how open your catalog is in the first place, I would guess. I work in a corporate library where our main catalog is totally accessible to the public, but the links to online content require either IP access or log ins. So that would probably still work. I don't know if they could make it function if your whole catalog is behind a firewall or something like that.

4/13/2010 10:13 AM  
Anonymous Justin Spargur said...

Any update on a release date? "Coming soon" is a bit vague. I've heard April, but that too is vague (and quickly coming to an end). Any update you could give would be great!

4/22/2010 11:26 AM  

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