In 2003 I wrote a letter to ANS Librarian Frank Campbell sending him a copy of my new CD-ROM book and offering to send him all the CD's I had collected to study what other people in coins were storing on CD. I did send them to him including a 20 disc holder. From my experience, the creation of CDs either commercially or self-produced was a great idea during the period these were issued. But as the Internet became more available, most of the products put out on CD (slide shows, data bases, or book formats) were not very cost effective and most were discontinued. Based on my experience with print-on-demand publishing, it seems a far better way to distribute a book (or as I also have done, put it up on the Internet for download, either for a fee or free).

You asked about books on CD format. All of the books we have been releasing on Disc are DVD format. This would include the following:

Standard Catalog of World Coins 1901-Date - Three DVD set, including the 5th edition 1801-1900, 35th edition 1901-2000 and the 2nd edition 2001-Date (this was our first DVD offering)

14th edition Standard Catalog of World Paper Money - Modern Issues - 1961-Present - released as a book with DVD and as a stand alone package

36th edition 2009 Standard Catalog of World Coins 1901-2000 - released as a book with DVD and as a DVD stand alone package

3rd edition 2009 Standard Catalog of World Coins 2001-Date - released as a book with DVD

7th edition 2009 U.S. Coin Digest - released as a book with DVD and as a DVD stand alone package

Coming later this year will also be:

12th edition Standard Catalog of World Paper Money - General Issues - 1368-1960 - released as a book with DVD and as a stand alone package and 4th edition Standard Catalog of World Coins 1601-1700 - released as a book with DVD

Most collectors are familiar with our books, some use our DVD's and many use our NumisMaster website. We have been evolving our focus from print products alone, to a broader offering in various media. We want everyone to have access to our data through whatever media form they find most useful.

At present we do not offer any numismatic books exclusively on DVD alone. This has been talked about and will most likely come into play in the future. We sell fewer stand alone DVD's than we do books at present. It's a new type of product for us and we are still feeling out the market.

Because we chose to include a free DVD with all our books this year, is is hard to fully judge their popularity. Our intent was to get the data out there in digital form and get collectors used to this type of format. As a media company I am sure that we will be doing more products offering digital forms of data as the 21st Century progresses. It's a great way to make the data more flexible for individuals.

Books won't go away in our lifetimes, but many other forms for our coin data will surely emerge. Consider music - since the inception of recorded music, how many media forms have experienced popular use? Cylinders gave way to discs, 78's transitioned to 33 1/3's which competed with tape and eventually we got CD's. Now most people use MP3 digital format. Maybe some day I will have a little pocket device with the Standard Catalog of World Coins 1601-2020 in digital format?

Unless a "sugar daddy" pops up somewhere, the second edition of my book on Indiana Obsolete Notes and Scrip will likely be a CD-only offering.

At something close to the size of my Ohio book and as a second edition of a previous work, I doubt that the market is big enough to support a hardbound book. In addition a CD offers all color photos, enlargements of same, and an easy to use search tool at no additional cost.