McGraw-Hill Education and Content Directions Announce Completion of First Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs)

McGraw-Hill Education, a leading global provider of electronic and print learning solutions and materials, and Content Directions, Inc. (CDI), today announced the first phase of "tagging" McGraw-Hill Education content with digital object identifiers (DOIs), which are aimed at enhancing all related online transactions between McGraw-Hill and its customers.

The DOI is a system for identifying and exchanging intellectual property of all kinds (physical books as well as eBooks) via the Internet. It is like the UPC (bar code) in the physical world, but on the Internet it functions as a kind of "super-URL," linking users directly to where they can buy the book, see additional information about it, find other books by the same author or on the same subject, access related services, etc. It also facilitates online transactions of all kinds, including e-commerce, rights management, and digital distribution.

McGraw-Hill Education has been a strong supporter of the DOI technology. "This first phase of DOI implementation represents a significant milestone. We are pleased to complete this important step in improving all online transactions involving our premium content. DOI will benefit our customers, allowing them to find exactly what they want, when they want it," said Henry Hirschberg, president, McGraw-Hill Education.

"McGraw-Hill Professional is pleased to be the first division within McGraw-Hill Education to roll out DOIs. Their presence has raised the profile of our individual books on Web search engines, and we are seeing increased traffic and sales as a result. In fact, DOIs have been so powerful that we have assigned them to our entire list of print Professional titles and deployed them at our online bookstore," said Bob Bolick, vice president, New Business Development, McGraw Hill Professional, which is a leading provider of reference materials on business, computing, science and medicine.

Evelyn Sasmor, vice president, Product & Marketing Technologies, who has sponsored and led the DOI implementation across McGraw-Hill Education said: "It's exciting to see the DOI now bearing fruit for the publishing industry. When we initiated this standard via the American Association of Publishers in 1996, the primary focus was on scientific journals, although we knew then that it would ultimately benefit the entire publishing industry. McGraw-Hill Education is proud to have been among the first to take advantage of this innovation and apply it to our books in both print and electronic formats."

David Sidman, CEO of Content Directions noted: "This is an important step in the evolution of the DOI and will greatly accelerate its adoption. Now for the first time, the public and the industry can see visible evidence that the industry is really utilizing the DOI as a core facilitator of increased sales via improved discoverability, cross-linking/cross-selling amongst their own content, and persistent linking from third party Web sites, business partners, etc."

"Even the DOI's widespread adoption in the scientific journals industry, where approximately 200 international publishers have now registered about seven million DOIs, previously had been invisible to the general public and to other non-journal publishers because the vast majority of those DOIs are only visible to subscribers of those journals."

To see live examples of DOIs applied to four different McGraw-Hill imprints, click on the following and mouse over the "DOI" link (right under the ISBN):

   -- McGraw-Hill Trade: "Six Sigma for Managers"
      (http://dx.doi.org/10.1036/0071387552 )
   -- McGraw-Hill/Contemporary Books: "Chase's Calendar of Events"
      (http://dx.doi.org/10.1036/0071390987)
   -- McGraw-Hill Medical/Appleton & Lange: "Current Medical Diagnosis &
      Treatment 2003" (http://dx.doi.org/10.1036/0071395938)
   -- McGraw-Hill Osborne Media:  "WORDPERFECT OFFICE 2002: The Official
      Guide" (http://dx.doi.org/10.1036/0072132493)

To see other examples from the entire McGraw-Hill Professional catalog, visit http://books.mcgraw-hill.com/ and click any of the "Subjects" listed at the left, then mouse over "See the DOI for more info," under each book.

To see an example of viral marketing using the DOI, which is also an example of how the DOI can be embedded within downloaded content (a PDF file in this example), see http://dx.doi.org/10.1220/demo22.

About the Digital Object Identifier (DOI®)

The DOI travels with the item itself (book, chapter, section, database record, image, etc.) throughout the Internet, on syndicated and partner sites, and via downloads. As long as the user is connected to the Web, the DOI will take the user anywhere the publisher wants to them to go via the DOI's MultiLink™ menu, which is specified by the publisher and enabled by CDI.

About McGraw-Hill Education

McGraw-Hill Education, is a leading provider of print and electronic learning solutions for the elementary, high school, higher education and professional markets. It is a unit of The McGraw-Hill Companies (NYSE: MHP), a global information services provider meeting worldwide needs in the financial services, education and business information markets through leading brands such as Standard & Poor's and Business Week. Founded in 1888, the Corporation has more than 320 offices in 34 countries. Sales in 2002 were $4.8 billion. Additional information is available at www.mcgraw-hill.com.

About Content Directions, Inc. (CDI)

CDI helps companies increase their sales and profitability by improving the discoverability and utilization of their intellectual property and services, both on the Internet and within their enterprises. Its major tool is the DOI, a linking mechanism developed by the primary inventor of the Internet (Dr. Robert Kahn) and representing "The Next-Generation URL" in terms of superior reliability and functionality. (See above for more information about the DOI.)

As a DOI Registration Agency dedicated exclusively to implementing and promoting the use of the DOI, CDI provides consulting on how the DOI can increase an organization's revenues and cut costs, as well as actually registering DOIs for digital content. Additional information on the DOI and on CDI's products and services can be found at http://www.contentdirections.com/. Live DOIs from other CDI customers can be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.1220/demo21.

  For more information, you can:

   -- click on the DOI for this press release:
      http://dx.doi.org/10.1220/pr21

SOURCE: McGraw-Hill Education; Content Directions, Inc.

CONTACT: April Hattori, Vice President, Communications of McGraw-Hill
Education, +1-212-904-2078, april_hattori@mcgraw-hill.com; or Tina Aridas,
Deputy Manager, Marketing & Press Relations of CONTENT DIRECTIONS, INC.,
+1-718-965-8490 or +1-917-514-5364, fax: +1-718-768-7542,
taridas@contentdirections.com

Web site: http://www.mcgraw-hill.com/
http://www.contentdirections.com/