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.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dancing_serpent
(no subject)
Date: 2012-01-25 12:38 am (UTC)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.