The Future Of Libraries In The E-Book Age
Libraries—free, well-stocked, well-run public libraries—are, I think, essential for a free people. And libraries are under siege: things change. This NPR article by Lynn Neary discusses the trends:
A lot of attention has been focused on the way bookstores and publishing companies are managing the e-book revolution. The role of libraries has often been overlooked. But when HarperCollins Publishing Co. recently announced a new policy that would limit the number of times its e-books can be borrowed, it sparked a larger conversation about the future of libraries in the digital age.
These days, you don’t have to go anywhere near a library to check out an e-book. You can download one to your digital device in a matter of seconds. And there’s no more pesky overdue notices — the e-book simply disappears from your device when your time is up.
“The fact is that with a digital item, if you give it to somebody you still have it. It doesn’t have to come back,” says Eli Neiburger, the director for IT and production at the Ann Arbor District library in Michigan.
E-books, says Neiburger, are really digital files, but libraries and publishers are still trying to deal with them as if they are just like print books. In other words, they’re trying to do business the way they have always done business
“Part of the models we’ve seen so far are still trying to force 20th century business models onto digital content,” Neiburger says. “And any digital native says, ‘You mean I have to wait to download an e-book? What sense does that make?’ And they’re off to the Kindle store to spend $3.99 or $4.99 or $9.99 to get that same book.”
In the current climate, libraries worry they’ll become obsolete. Publishers are afraid they won’t be able to make any money. That’s why HarperCollins came up with a new e-book policy that says an e-book can be checked out 26 times, after which it has to be repurchased. Leslie Hulse, a senior vice president at HarperCollins, says publishers have to place some limitations on the way libraries lend e-books.
Chicago Public Library patron Anna Sykes talks with a librarian about the book Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, a title available on one of nine new Rocket e-books. Providing e-books is just one of many services that libraries are trying out in an attempt to stay relevant in the Kindle age.
“I think the tension is, at the extreme, we could be making a book available to one national library on a simultaneous access model in perpetuity,” says Hulse. “And what that would mean is everyone in the country could check out that book for free at any time, and that’s not a commercially viable solution.”
HarperCollins may have raised the ire of librarians around the country with their new e-book policy, but Christopher Platt, director of collections and circulation at the New York Public Library, says the move has also stimulated a more public discussion about the future of libraries and e-books.
“The HarperCollins limit isn’t going to stick,” he argues.”It’s going to develop into something new. And Harper, to its credit, is engaged with libraries to see what would work.” . . .
