The Future Of Libraries In The E-Book Age « Phx Friends of UA SIRLS
« Librarians Talk Google Books, Orphan Works, and What’s Next
from the Wikiman: Stop BREAKING THE BASIC RULES of presenting! »
Tim Boyle/Getty Images 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.
“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.”
“So I’d buy a title with 1,000 uses, and then it’s up to us and our readers whether those 1,000 uses get used simultaneously in the first few days or whether they get drawn out over time,” Platt says. “And then if they do get used quickly, we’ll buy more.”
Neiburger has more radical idea. He thinks libraries could deal directly with content providers: “The goal of the library is to obtain the ability to distribute content to its public. And if we can do that easier and more cheaply with the rights holder or the artist themselves and they make more money on it, then it may be heretical — but the future usually is.”
“In some scenario that will happen and that will grow,” he says. “You will see more original content coming into library collections going forward and I think that’s a wonderful thing, especially if libraries play a role in creation of that content. But on a regular matter of just ordering at scale the number of e-books that we add to our collection, that’s a very difficult things to manage.”
From the traditional to the visionary, the conversation about libraries in the digital age has begun in earnest. Roberta Stevens, president of the American Library Association, wants more publishing companies to get involved in the conversation, because at the moment some publishers aren’t even willing to sell e-books to libraries. Libraries may be able to survive without those books now, says Stevens, but in the future a lot of books will only be available electronically.
“When we look at the future then we have to really think very seriously about what is our role — and how can we actually serve the millions and millions of people who use our public libraries everyday if we can’t even get access to titles,” says Stevens.
Libraries have always been thought of as a kind of “temple of books” … a place you can go to for peace and quiet, a place to read and think. They are intricate part of the fabric that pulls a community together. But if they are to be relevant in the future they will have to make space for themselves in the digital community as well.
This entry was posted on April 5, 2011 at 5:07 pm	and is filed under Library Management, News. Tagged: Digital Collections, Public Libraries. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
The Future Of Libraries In The E-Book Age « Phx Friends of UA SIRLS
« Librarians Talk Google Books, Orphan Works, and What’s Next
from the Wikiman: Stop BREAKING THE BASIC RULES of presenting! »
Tim Boyle/Getty Images 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.
“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.”
“So I’d buy a title with 1,000 uses, and then it’s up to us and our readers whether those 1,000 uses get used simultaneously in the first few days or whether they get drawn out over time,” Platt says. “And then if they do get used quickly, we’ll buy more.”
Neiburger has more radical idea. He thinks libraries could deal directly with content providers: “The goal of the library is to obtain the ability to distribute content to its public. And if we can do that easier and more cheaply with the rights holder or the artist themselves and they make more money on it, then it may be heretical — but the future usually is.”
“In some scenario that will happen and that will grow,” he says. “You will see more original content coming into library collections going forward and I think that’s a wonderful thing, especially if libraries p
lay a role in creation of that content. But on a regular matter of just ordering at scale the number of e-books that we add to our collection, that’s a very difficult things to manage.”
From the traditional to the visionary, the conversation about libraries in the digital age has begun in earnest. Roberta Stevens, president of the American Library Association, wants more publishing companies to get involved in the conversation, because at the moment some publishers aren’t even willing to sell e-books to libraries. Libraries may be able to survive without those books now, says Stevens, but in the future a lot of books will only be available electronically.
“When we look at the future then we have to really think very seriously about what is our role — and how can we actually serve the millions and millions of people who use our public libraries everyday if we can’t even get access to titles,” says Stevens.
Libraries have always been thought of as a kind of “temple of books” … a place you can go to for peace and quiet, a place to read and think. They are intricate part of the fabric that pulls a community together. But if they are to be relevant in the future they will have to make space for themselves in the digital community as well.
This entry was posted on April 5, 2011 at 5:07 pm	and is filed under Library Management, News. Tagged: Digital Collections, Public Libraries. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.