netLibrary and Houghton Mifflin To Launch Digital Textbook Initiative

Posted on December 1, 2000

netLibrary, a provider of ebooks and content management services, and Houghton Mifflin Company, a leading educational publisher, have announced plans to launch a digital textbook initiative. netLibrary's MetaText division will create electronic versions of Houghton Mifflin College Division texts and, beginning in the fall 2001 semester, provide college students and instructors access to electronic textbooks through MetaText's interactive, Web-based learning platform.

``We are thrilled to be taking another step into the future of online learning with MetaText,'' said June Smith, executive vice president, Houghton Mifflin College Division. ``Houghton Mifflin is committed to offering our customers the freedom to choose between reading materials in print or online. We chose MetaText to help us achieve our digital textbook goals because of the pedagogical value of the MetaText platform and the scalability of netLibrary's conversion, hosting, and serving infrastructure.''

MetaText editions contain all essential components of a textbook, including words, photographs, charts, and graphics. With MetaText, instructors can build online course syllabi, manage class rosters, annotate text, and make class announcements that are instantly viewable by students. Students using MetaText can use features to search, navigate, annotate, highlight, and bookmark their online texts.

Students have their own unique home pages that serve as a portal to all of their MetaText resources associated with the course, including the syllabus, text, announcements, and additional reading materials. Communication tools built into the MetaText platform facilitate instructor-to-student and instructor-to-class feedback.