LSSI & Riverside County Library System Announce Print On Demand Book Fulfillment Program

Library Systems & Services (LSSI), a library management company currently operating the Riverside County Library System (RCLS) in California, announced in a press release that an "innovative new on-demand book printing program begins today at the Grace Mellman Library in Temecula":

"Under a $100,000 grant from the California State Library, the RCLS is studying the usefulness of on-demand printing to enhance library collections. The July 2009 grant has been used to purchase a Book Espresso 'print-on-demand' machine which prints, covers and binds trade paperback quality books from computer files."

"Library patrons will now have the option to request titles, have the book printed for free, read it and return it to the library collection, or they may choose to keep the book and pay a printing fee. If the requesting patron is at the Book Espresso location and wants to pay for the book, it can be printed immediately while they wait..."

"Available book titles will be obtained from Lightning Source, with over 500,000 titles available, and Google Books, who has partnered with over 20,000 publishers to make their content available for on-demand printing."

This innovative approach is actually very logical and timely, given the development of on-demand publishing services, though I'd love to compare how things price out between owning an Espresso Book Machine and ordering individual Lightning Source copies via Ingram.

Nevertheless, given the high cost of interlibrary loan, this is an innovation whose time has come.