occamAn article on Daily Toreador looks at Ryan Litsey, an associate librarian at Texas Tech who developed an e-reader application to allow libraries to loan e-books via interlibrary loan. For his work on Occam’s Reader, Litsey received the Library Journal’s 2016 Movers and Shakers technology award.

The software is used by 24 university libraries across the country so far, with approximately 600,000 users. It hopes to expand to 70 more universities by the end of the year.

“When students are doing their research and writing their papers and they come across a citation or want to look at a book that they want to use for a paper that we don’t have,” [Litsey] said, “they can now make a request for the electronic book through the Occam’s Reader program.”

The students can access these books on their tablets or their cell phones, Litsey said.

Given the various licensing restrictions publishers place on e-books, I’m actually a little surprised that something like this would be allowed to begin with. But if it is allowed, and it helps students access more information that they need, I’m certainly all for it.

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