More on Ebooks and Libraries

[ysabetwordsmith]

Here's another article about how libraries and publishers are failing to meet reader needs, particularly in regards to ebooks.

Basically, if you aren't meeting people's needs, they will find somebody else who will.  If your economic model isn't meeting people's needs, they'll replace it with one that will.  If your system isn't managing the main flow of activity, it's a failure, and the real system is wherever that main activity is.  What we're seeing now in the shakeup of the publishing/literature industry -- and to some extent, media in general -- is the process of consumers declaring that the current options don't meet their needs and they're exploring other options, kthxbai.

You aren't going to make money by trying to trap people where they don't want to be and aren't getting their needs met.  You need to find a way to meet their needs and make a reasonable profit in the process; you need to go where the interest and activity are.  You also need to treat people decently, and expect them to behave decently.  If you mistreat them, they will not hesitate to mistreat you in return and you will have no moral high ground to complain about it.

I'm keeping my eye out for a subscription-based e-library where you can read whatever you want that's in the stacks without the stupid restrictions that the libraries, publishers, and software are currently promoting.

Comments

[terrycloth.livejournal.com]

Libraries have to be a bad place to get e-books or everyone would get them there. Just like they're an inconvenient way to read real books; inconvenient enough that people who can afford to will buy the books instead.

A subscription service could work but it wouldn't really be a library in the usual sense.

[laylalawlor.livejournal.com]

Just like they're an inconvenient way to read real books; inconvenient enough that people who can afford to will buy the books instead.

Mmmm, the phrasing here makes it sound like inconvenience is intentionally built into libraries to push people to buy their own copies of books, either that or inconvenience is a beneficial side effect that we (as authors) ought to support, and either way, I disagree. Most of the inconvenience of libraries (limited terms for book checkout, having to go to a central location to get them) is a side effect of cost and space limits for physical books. The library can't afford to purchase multiple copies of a single book, or deliver them personally to your door. With digital copies, that's going to change, and I don't think it benefits me as an author to try to force the library back into a model that works very well for hard-copy books, but isn't the only way or the best way to handle digital books. Over the last few hundred years in the West, we've developed this very standardized idea of what a library is and what it does and how it works. But there's no reason why it has to work that way -- it's developed out of the physical medium of hard-copy books, and the culture that's grown up around them.

Basically I guess that I'm saying that I can't see why a library couldn't look and function completely differently than the libraries we have now, and still be a library, and still be good for authors, even if it doesn't rely on the traditional library model.

Well...

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

I think that libraries had better find a way to adapt and remain relevant to people's needs, or they will cease to exist, and that would really suck.

[terrycloth.livejournal.com]

My prediction is that they'll turn into public net access portals? That's what most of my friends use them for, that use them at all.

[terrycloth.livejournal.com]

Well, what they *can't* do is give out unlimited free e-books for people to read over the net, which is what the not-deliberately-annoying version of them would do. I mean, barring legal issues, that would be easier than anything less convenient. So they *have* to be deliberately annoying in one way or another.

Hmm...

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

I think free ebooks should be an option. Why not? More and more writers are offering at least one free ebook. "Make a free ebook" is an increasingly common piece of advice to new bloggers or people launching a topical website.

Why? It gives people a nice big chunk of your work, so they know that you actually know what you're talking about. That's advertising. It's a great choice for anyone who writes fast enough that they can afford to give away a free sample. It's a great use for anything that's cool but is too nichey to sell easily. It's a great use for stuff that was bought and published a long time ago, since re-releasing it takes little extra work. You just include somewhere in there some information about your current work that people can BUY. Readers do get hooked this way.

People will read for free stuff that they wouldn't pay to read, which is why libraries exist in the first place. A big bundle of free ebooks would make terrific bait. Then maybe people would think, "Okay, I've read the stuff I want from this list of books I can copy and keep. I wonder if any of the same authors/publishers have more stuff in the ebooks I have to check out for two weeks. Oh yeah, they do!" And they'd go read those books. Or maybe they'd go out to the author's or publisher's website and buy some books, like they go to a bookstore if they really like a library book now.

[tuftears.livejournal.com]

I was going to mutter something about 'the Netflix of ebooks' but besides that I think I already suggested it before, I think that may actually be where Amazon.com is headed!

[westrider.livejournal.com]

My understanding (from an admittedly limited pool of sources, e.g. the people I know who work in Libraries) is that the Libraries are just stuck in the middle, and want to create better eBook solutions for their patrons, but are getting hamstrung by the Publishers' restrictions.

I've heard a couple of nearly identical accounts of frustrating meetings where the Library puts together a program that meets their patrons' desires for eBook service as well as could be expected, only to find that it violates some requirement from a Publisher, and they're forced to implement something half-assed instead.

Well...

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

I figured the librarians would be interested in making improvements. When I tried investigating alternatives, however, it looked like the libraries were too shackled by Overdrive software as well as the publishers. If libraries would like to explore alternatives, there are plenty of small presses and individual authors also interested in that. Feel free to float that idea back to the folks you know who work at libraries. Getting the damn cork out of the bottleneck will take some teamwork.

Re: Well...

[westrider.livejournal.com]

It's not going to do anything short-term for the horde who want the latest Dirk Cussler right now, but it could definitely lead to steps in the right direction, and for the segment of the patron base who have broader interests, it's definitely a great idea.

I'll pass it along.

Re: Well...

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

Consider that somewhere out there in alternative publishing are things at least as hot as the current Big Press bestsellers. If a bunch of folks bundled the stuff together, and library patrons read it, the crowdwit would pretty quickly identify the good stuff.

And then everyone else would want to read it, which they could, and that would be awesome.

Re: Well...

[jenett]

The problem with small press options is that anything that isn't centralised takes a *huge* amount of time and managements. Due to budget pressures, a lot of library systems now rely on centralised budget and selection methods, or have really limited technology resources, both of which really hamstring independent development.

And .. when it's a call between keeping the physical space (and all that happens there) open a few more hours a week, and exploring ebooks ... I have a hard time blaming my fellow librarians for not going too far down that route.

(I'm working in an academic library these days, so our selection criteria are both pretty specific - a lot of ebooks just don't qualify for other reasons than their format - and they also take much longer for our catalogers to deal with, because anything outside of the university system methods involves all sorts of exceptions.

There are times it's worth doing - but the catalog and acquisitions staff is down nearly two full time positions from what it was a few years ago (used to be 4, is now 2), so there's only so far that can stretch.

Re: Well...

[jenett]

I should add, to my second paragraph: going too far down that route, given that it's immensely time consuming and confusing to try and deal with different licensing agreements, what's allowed and what isn't allowed, on top of the varying approaches for actually getting books into the hands of readers.

I should also add: I do expect the library community will eventually press further down this road: I certainly hear a variety of comments about it on the more progressive discussion fora of the field. But everyone's pretty much in agreement that it's *hugely* complicated, and that everyone's dealing with tight resources and a vast *existing* set of needs and demands.

My personal theory is that in the next 6-18 months, we're going to see massive shakeouts in the licensing agreements from even the major publishers, and it's going to change the landscape. Again.

Re: Well...

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

It is hard to find the time and skill to get things done. But if you've got lots of unsatisfied patrons bitching about the current offerings, someone will eventually do something about that.

Doing things piecemeal is an inefficient pain in the ass, tolerable only if it's less of a nuisance than the current options, which it might or might not be. I think the better idea is to compile one or more big bundles of ebooks, based on some simple userights -- maybe "This book is a free sample; everyone can read it and even copy it if they wish." and "This book is a library copy, readable temporarily, but all your patrons can read it at once if they wish." If the terms are more favorable than other options, people will want it, the stacks will get bigger, and eventually it will outcompete the stupid predecessors.

Re: Well...

[jenett]

And what would you have librarians give up to do that work? (Especially in a rapidly changing environment, where even keeping up with the options takes a handful of hours a month, never mind actually doing anything with them?)

Do we give up story hours? Helping patrons use computers to apply for jobs or file their taxes? (The fact the government is dumping more and more general computer help on public libraries without any funding help is a big issue, especially in more rural areas.)

It's not that I don't agree that ebooks are a thing that needs attention. But it's a lot more complicated than "Make some lists of awesome stuff and it'll be all available." Every new technology means patrons who have lots of questions about it - awesome, but someone needs to be able to help them with devices, or explain why this book is available, but that one isn't. Learning to do those things takes time (and administrative support). Training every librarian on staff to do them takes more.

Back to the rural areas: I'm living these days in a town of 8000 people, that's the largest town for 45 minutes. If you don't live in the center of one of the town, you can't get DSL or cable - just satellite, which is expensive and flaky enough that I'd think twice about it, and I've been on the 'Net for nearly two decades.

The public library has, I think, 2 public access computers, and they've got relatively limited hours, especially for people who work during normal business hours (they're open past 5pm two nights a week, and a few hours on Saturday).

The university I work at allows community patrons (and that's a part of what I do I really *like*.) But at the same time, the bulk of our own focus has to be our students and faculty.

So, we're doing some careful ebook exploration beyond the stuff we get from the state and sytem, but we can't afford to support one of every device to be able to do really excellent testing and explanations of how to download/organise/loan. (And there are the issues of staffing already mentioned: those two people are already plenty busy with the existing materials we maintain.)

It's a question of "What do we give up, to do this new thing." And libraries quite reasonably have a variety of answers to that, and a lot of them are currently in the "The benefits - given that stuff is *so* scattered and chaotic right now - aren't there for us to invest massive staff time or collections budget in it."

A lot of librarians are exploring things privately, on their own time (and on their own, privately owned and funded devices, mind you.) But that takes time to trickle into work practice.

Finally, add to that that a lot of the small press stuff - there's great stuff out there, but there's also some *lousy* stuff out there, and it's hard to tell the difference between the two without either reading it yourself (outside the scope of most librarians in the quantity of titles we buy), or getting actual reliable reviews.

One of my hopes is that we get much more reliable systems for reviewing ebooks (in terms of reviews that talk about the things librarians care about: audience, particular concerns, ways to market the material to "if you liked X, try this", etc. that library publications currently do for print materials.) But we're not there yet either.

Re: Well...

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

It's up to individual teams to decide what's right for them. Is the ebook problem minor at your library? Ignore it; someone else may solve it. Are your patrons bugging you like heck? Consider that it may take less time to solve the problem than to keep dealing with people nagging you or the internal frustration of not being able to do a halfway decent job of connecting literature with eyeballs. You may be able to skip some other program temporarily, establish an alternative ebook system, then go back to what else you were doing.

Libraries are floundering because people don't want to pay for them. People don't want to pay for them because, okay, you can't run 80% of the economy on 20% of the wealth, but also because they don't feel libraries are very relevant anymore. I want libraries to be relevant to people's needs now, because the rule is adapt or die. Either libraries find ways to meet people's needs or they will cease to exist.

I don't like the way that trend is going, with cutbacks making libraries even less useful, so I'm trying to do what I can from where I am to stop it. At least I can throw ideas out there. Maybe somewhere, somebody will have enough resources to give it a try. If they do, I hope they get in touch with me. I've had authors and small publishers saying they're interested in alternative ebook arrangements that would improve library function.

Maybe the damn pig will fly.

Re: Well...

[jenett]

That's the thing, though.

Public library use - people in the physical space *and* circulation numbers (print items) is up substantially in a lot of communities from the conversations and stats I've seen. (a lot of them fairly informal, mind you.) That suggests a whole lot of relevance - but it's circling around points that are hard to put into tidy lists. (Community gathering space, computer access, a variety of community centered programs, but also classic how-to reference materials.)

Interest in ebooks is up, as well, but a lot of it is coming from a relatively small (but quite vocal) minority. Many of whom are reasonably happy with the current options in ebooks (or, in particular, want easier ways to read Latest Current Big Titles, not all sorts of other - potentially even more awesome - books.)

So if we're just going on demand, exploring alternate ebook options is not the top priority for most libraries. Or even the tenth. Or maybe the twentieth.

To put this in context: in the past nearly-six months at this job, I've had, I think, two questions about ebooks (though also a request to update our docs, which is actually my project for the rest of this week, because there's places we could do better. Though as the licensing and technical details are making *my* head spin, I fully understand why it's a mess)

I've had a whole lot more about how to use Word, or Excel (mostly for class purposes) or the usual run of glitches in public use computers. And for every one of those, I do two or three computer account requests for community patrons.

(And then there's the rest of what I do: the past few weeks, it's been the twice-yearly upgrades to public computers, tracking down a networking problem enough our IT folks could fix it, staffing the reference desk, necessary meetings, and so on. And the current Big Project, which is getting off the ground, and is a big part of why they funded my position, so it sort of has to get priority.)

My impression is that it's like that at a lot of libraries: ebooks come up, but they're not the big thing on the top of the list, either. Maslow's heirarchy of needs: you need access, and time and space before you get to additional options like sorting through more complex ebook options.

Like I said: I think it's coming eventually. But I don't think we're going to see big shifts for a bit longer, because one of the things that needs to shift is access for those big bestsellers that are the bread and butter of a lot of library collections. We'll see a lot of individually passionate patrons, many of whom are willing to invest the time on their own to figure out how to make things work, and individual librarians.

There's also a complicated thing about collection development budgets that's hard to explain quickly - but briefly, in most libraries, including public ones, a substantial amount (somewhere between 30%-60%) is going for database access, which continues to get more expensive, and sometimes unpredictably so. That leaves a much smaller piece of the pie than many people are aware of for any other segment of the library's collection. A couple of thousand dollars for ebooks doesn't go terribly far to build a rounded collection, even under the most generous of licensing terms.

I also think that's going to shift, somewhere, somehow. But it's going to take another few years for that to play out, because of the length of contracts and related negotiations.

[fireun.livejournal.com]

I am the director of the public computing center we have set up within one of our local libraries. I teach a workshop weekly on borrowing eBooks and using eReaders (among a rather large breadth of digital literacy offerings). This is nothing the library itself could support- my project is grant funded. You have to remember right now things are rather awful for libraries. There is little money for anything, and that includes innovations in technology and programming. I am not saying this is an excuse, but there is a broad picture to consider. There is a huge strain on staffing as well- part of why my project exists is to move technology assistance-related strain from the circ/info desk by providing a dedicated resource. Public libraries are seeing a huge increase in usage, especially technology related, but that does not mean they are getting the budget increases to do everything we would want.

Much of the problem in regards to eBooks does come from publishers- from some insisting on a circulation limit for eBooks to just general availability. We do what we can with the budget we have. I wish I could give you more insight, but I am only peripherally involved in the purchasing end of things. I will say our queues are NOTHING like described in the article and I am a bit leery of taking most of that article to heart, but very open to looking and seeing what other information is available.

I worked as a bookseller/bookstore manager for 7 years. I am a (soon to be) published author with DAW. I am a librarian. I have seen all sorts of angles for this situation, and every stakeholder is effected on a different level. Its tricky. Painfully so.

As laylalawlor says, we have an established idea of the library, but there is no reason it has to stay that way. There IS a move towards change in libraries, it is just slowed by habit, perception, and a very real lack of financial backing. We need to get support for libraries if we want anything to change.

Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

>>You have to remember right now things are rather awful for libraries. <<

I am very aware that libraries are critically short of staff and funding. But it's a bus-fare problem: the more they cut services, the less people are willing to spend on them, until it reaches zero and the library closes as so many are doing now. People have to want to keep the libraries open. In order for that to happen, the libraries have to do something people care about. What people care about is changing. Either the libraries keep up, or they go down. I really want to find ways that libraries can adapt.

>> I will say our queues are NOTHING like described in the article and I am a bit leery of taking most of that article to heart, but very open to looking and seeing what other information is available.<<

You're lucky then. Maybe the problem isn't as bad in some areas; that would be good in terms of buying time to solve it before a meltdown.

>>We need to get support for libraries if we want anything to change.<<

It's usually possible to rustle up volunteers for a project if something is in it for them. Small publishers and individual authors would benefit, just as libraries would, from circumventing the Big Press/Overdrive bottleneck. The project to create an alternate stack of books for borrowing might even be crowdfundable. Minimal effort and expense on the library's part, if approached thoughtfully. You'd just need someone to oversee enough to make sure the outlined project would work for the library, and that the library would actually use it. And once it exists, it could be replicated elsewhere.

I borrow lots of books from my two library systems, and I'm quite pleased with it

[dakiwiboid.livejournal.com]

of course, I also get a lot of dead tree books as well. If I can't get what I want as an ebook, I request it as a paper book.

I generally have at least 8-10 ebooks checked out from the two systems at at a time. Yes, it's true that the selection of brand new books isn't huge, but I'm surprised at what pops up.

I've been happily working my way through several mystery book series that I never read all of in paper format. It's a lot easier to read them as ebooks, and believe me, I'd never be able to afford to buy all of them. I don't mind requesting them or putting them in my Wish List. Even though I read fast, I can't read all of Anne Perry's William Monk series in a three week period, largely because I wouldn't want to. It'd drive me nuts.

Now, admittedly, St. Louis County Library has lots of money, lots of tech, and gets the latest books fast. The Consortium Libraries don't get the same books, which is fine with me. If SLCL doesn't have what I want, I look at the Consortium. If they don't have it, I get it as a paper book.

Every couple of weeks, it seems, there's a new publisher available. Are you using your own library to check out ebooks, Elizabeth? Have you tried the system?