ATG Interviews James R. Gray
ATG Inter views James R . Gray
Katina Strauch
Against the Grain
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President and CEO of Ingram Digital Group
ATG: Congratulations on your recent
appointment as president and CEO of Ingram
Digital. You were recently CEO of Coutts
InformationServices andMyiLibrary which
were acquired by Ingram in December 2006.
Now can you explain to us what this means
tousinthebookbuyingmarket?
JG: Coutts’ being part of the Ingram
Book Group is excellent news for the
bookbuying market. It means that Coutts has access
to over a million extra titles in inventory, which
is going to make a significant impact on their
ability to offer rapid delivery to book buyers.
It also means greater sharing of bibliographic
resources, which should improve both the
quality and quantity of MARC records available.
Finally, Ingram can provide Coutts with a
secure source of investment to enhance their
services to customers over the long term.
MyiLibrary has become part of the Ingram
Digital Group, which is the Ingram division
focused on e-content hosting, digital asset
management and digital distribution services.
MyiLibrary now sits alongside VitalSource,
which provides digital textbooks, CoreSource,
the digital asset management and distribution
system, and our range of retail eBook and
audioBook solutions. As CEO of IDG I can
now focus entirely on the digital arena,
including how we support libraries in the transition
from print to electronic and in feeding back to
publishers an understanding of the needs of the
market. Our recent agreement with Microsoft
and participation in their Live Search Books
program is a great example of what this means
for libraries and for publishers. Books that
publishers place into the programme that need
to be scanned can also be added immediately
to MyiLibrary and made available as eBooks
and also be made available in print through
our sister company Lightning Source, the
print-on-demand supplier, giving libraries the
opportunity to choose a digital edition of a book
or a print version or indeed both!
ATG: Can you tell us about your
experience in the physical and digital distribution
segmentsofthebookindustry?
JG: It’s been an interesting journey and so
much has changed since I came into the book
world in 1992. In that time the environment
has changed in astonishing ways, affecting
how books are published, distributed, used,
bought, stored and accessed. It’s been great to
be part of that revolution, which seems to be
gathering pace, working with publishers and
with libraries to help both make the transition
into the digital world. A key part of my work
as an eBook distributor has been to consult
with both libraries and publishers to find the
right business and access models that best serve
content owners and content users. While the
print book market is still robust, the eBook
wave is certainly rising, and we are seeing
that eBook revenues in areas such as Science,
Technology and Medicine are starting to gain
real momentum. Also, with major publishers
now providing simultaneous ‘e’ and ‘p’
versions in some disciplines, eBook availability
is increasing at a rapid pace.
ATG: What does the Ingram group of
companies offer publishers and other content
ownersthatisunique?
JG: At Ingram we offer a unique
proposition that combines digital content storage,
a complete asset management service and a
comprehensive distribution capability to take
content into retail, library and consumer
markets — into all channels and in all transfer and
download formats including print-on-demand.
We are also unusual in being a traditional book
business that also has a large presence in the
‘e’ world. This means that we have a good
understanding of the needs of book-buyers
— whether academic libraries, public libraries
or retail outlets — and we are a trusted
longterm partner for the content creators. This
allows us to work closely with publishers to
create, agree and deliver eBook distribution
models that offer real value to content
purchasers in all sectors of the industry. With active
relationships with over eighteen thousand
publishers around the world, we think we are
exceptionally well placed to work with them to
address and overcome the complexities of this
new digital content space. It’s what we do. It
is this combined capability that has propelled
us to the number one position for publishers
for the distribution of digital content.
Right now we are focused on making
available as much digital content as we can,
in as many formats as the consumers of
content require. This means providing solutions
for online access to reference material, for
downloading academic material such as
textbooks for intensive use, and for downloading
all kinds of content onto mobile devices and
eBook readers including audio content. At the
same time we are building channels to markets
— retail, institutio (...truncated)