McGraw-Hill Higher Education Offers Digital Textbooks through netLibrary’s Metatext

April 4, 2001

NEW YORK — McGraw-Hill Higher Education, a unit of McGraw-Hill Education and a leading provider of electronic learning solutions for the college market, today announced it has formed an alliance with MetaText, netLibrary’s digital textbook division, to develop electronic versions of its college textbooks that will be ready for review this spring.

In a move designed to enhance student learning and help professors manage their courses, McGraw-Hill for the first time will make its digital-textbooks available through classroom websites created with its PageOut® course management software, which is free to professors who use McGraw-Hill materials. With over 50,000 registered professors, PageOut® continues to be the most user-friendly course management tool available. Through PageOut®, a student can view a professor’s instructions and notes, take tests prepared by instructors, and directly link to a MetaText e-textbook and other electronic tools, such as McGraw-Hill’s Online Learning Centers, exercises and links to related websites.

MetaText will convert about 30 McGraw-Hill market-leading textbooks, covering a variety of subject areas including Economics, Accounting, Communications, English, Biology, Anatomy & Physiology and GeoScience. MetaText’s production staff will digitize McGraw-Hill textbooks and make them available throughout the spring and summer for review and adoption by instructors at colleges and universities throughout the North America. Instructors will be able to adopt MetaText editions directly through McGraw-Hill Higher Education sales representatives and begin using the McGraw-Hill Metatext editions in the fall semester of 2001.

This alliance is part of McGraw-Hill Education’s strategy to combine its superior content with the best of technology to enhance learning at all levels any time, any place, in any format and on any device. It also adds to the over 400 e-textbooks McGraw-Hill offers through Primis Online and alliances with other e-textbook developers.

“This alliance supports our goal to provide cutting edge technology-based learning solutions to the higher education marketplace,” said Ed Stanford, president of McGraw-Hill Higher Education. “Providing our e-textbooks through PageOut® will make learning more efficient and effective by linking all learning materials in one online environment and enhancing communication between professors and students.”

“We are delighted to be working with McGraw-Hill to develop MetaText editions of many of their leading textbooks”, said Herb Hilderley, senior vice-president at netLibrary. “Having the McGraw-Hill sales and marketing organization promoting these e-text editions will assure that professors and students will quickly become aware of the many advantages they offer for teaching and learning.”

MetaText editions contain all essential components of a textbook, including text and most photographs, charts, and graphics. MetaText editions organize text into conceptual units rather than arbitrary page breaks. The MetaText platform features a variety of tools to benefit both instructors and students. With MetaText, professors can annotate text, and make class announcements that are instantly viewable by students. Students using MetaText can take advantage of a host of features to search, navigate, annotate, highlight, and bookmark their online texts. Students purchasing a MetaText e-textbook will have their own unique home pages that serve as a portal to all of their MetaText resources associated with the course, including thetext, and additional reading materials. Communication tools built into the MetaText platform facilitate instructor-student and instructor-class feedback.

About McGraw-Hill

McGraw-Hill Education is a unit of The McGraw-Hill Companies, a global information services provider meeting worldwide needs in financial services, education and business-to-business information through leading brands such as Standard & Poor’s and BusinessWeek. Founded in 1888, the Corporation has more than 300 offices in 32 countries. Sales in 2000 were $4.3 billion. Additional information is available at http://www.mcgraw-hill.com.

About MetaText

MetaText was founded in 1998 to help publishers, instructors, and students harness the power of the information age. MetaText creates Web-based digital textbooks that provide instructors and students with a full range of interactive learning tools. Since its acquisition by netLibrary in March 2000, MetaText has utilized netLibrary’s industry leading conversion and technology development capabilities to rapidly expand its digital textbook initiatives. For more information, go to www.MetaText.com.

About netLibrary

netLibrary is the leading provider of eBooks and Internet-based content management services. Hundreds of publishers of academic, professional, and scholarly books have adopted netLibrary’s digital rights management infrastructure. netLibrary develops, archives, hosts, and securely distributes eBooks through a variety of channels, including academic, corporate, public, and school libraries. netLibrary eBooks are full-text searchable and available for use on personal computers in online and offline formats

Contact Information

McGraw-Hill Education

April Hattori, 212/904-2078

april_hattori@mcgraw-hill.com

McGraw-Hill Higher Education

Becky Mazzanobile, 212/904-3972

becky_mazzanobile@mcgraw-hill.com

netLibrary

Leslie Kemp, 303/415-2548

lkemp@netlibrary.com