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.

[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.

[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.

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?