This week, The Caravan Project [4] announced the addition of five nonprofit publishers to the unique partnership offering serious nonfiction readers a menu of formats, both print and digital, from which to choose how they read a book. The five -- Columbia University Press, Harvard University Press, Kent State Press, University of Michigan Press, and the University of Minnesota Press -- will join the seven founding publishers in contributing books to Caravan's fall 2007 list.

Caravan's inaugural spring list features 23 titles in simultaneous print, print-on-demand, e-book, Chapter e-book, and digital audio editions. The titles from Beacon Press, Council on Foreign Relations Press, Island Press, The New Press, University of California Press, University of North Carolina Press, and Yale University Press are being marketed under the tagline "Good Books any way you want them ... now."

Beta testing of the transactional portion of the Caravan site is expected to begin sometime next week and will include eight independent bookstores and 10 Borders locations. The independents are: The Book Stall at Chestnut Court [5] in Winnetka, Illinois; Books & Books [6] in Miami, Florida; Just Books [7] in Greenwich, Connecticut; Northshire Bookstore [8] in Manchester Center, Vermont; Politics & Prose [9] in Washington, D.C.; R.J. Julia Booksellers [10] in Madison, Connecticut; Tattered Cover Book Store [11] in Denver, Colorado; and Vroman's Bookstore [12] in Pasadena, California.

Launched in April 2006 by Peter Osnos, the founder and editor-at-large of PublicAffairs Books, The Caravan Project unites nonprofit publishers, booksellers, and libraries in an effort to make the distribution of serious nonfiction books more efficient by placing them where and when they are needed. Books will be available in traditional hardcover or paperback editions along with e-books and audio books, both available for download in their entirety or in chapters.

Caravan is funded by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, and its supporters include the American Booksellers Association and the Association of American University Presses. BookSense.com, the e-commerce component of ABA's Book Sense marketing program, is in the process of adding eBooks to its product mix to enable member stores' participation in the project. --David Grogan [13]