Every week we’re sharing excerpts from our exclusive interview with Neil Schlager. Today we learn about what motivated Neil and his team to create an online platform and how this will impact the print and ebook publishing for which Schlager Group is already known by many libraries.
“We knew that the content we have been publishing for years in print and ebook form was valuable as a research and reference solution. Titles like Milestone Documents in World History and The Schlager Anthology of Black America won industry awards and were widely acquired by academic libraries for just that purpose. But we also knew there was another potential use case for our content–as a direct course reading solution–that individual reference books couldn’t tap on their own. When combined into an integrated digital platform, all our past books deliver a comprehensive solution that serves an entire university community in both ways: as research and reference, and as a direct course materials offering. And what’s more, it does so in a way that meets students where they are, by being available to them 24/7 from any device, from any location. That doesn’t mean we will stop publishing individual titles in print and ebook form (see our forthcoming titles such as The Schlager Anthology of the Ancient World, The Schlager Anthology of American Wars and Conflicts, and Milestone Documents of American Presidents). We’ll continue to do both things–publishing individual titles and augmenting our comprehensive digital collection.”