Can I download that?
Posted: April 21, 2011 | Author: Steven Harris | Filed under: E-books | Tags: Amazon, Kindle, OverDrive | Leave a comment »Reference librarians everywhere breathed a sigh of relief yesterday. OverDrive announced a relationship with Amazon to allowing download of library ebooks to Kindle devices. OverDrive is an ebook service that is popular in public libraries around the world. They have provided ebooks primarily in PDF and ePub file format with Abode digital rights management (DRM). (They also offer MP3 audiobooks.) Kindle books use Amazon’s own AZW file format and a different DRM. So downloading to a Kindle was never possible with OverDrive collections. Public service folks in libraries have probably heard a million times, “why can’t I download your ebooks to my Kindle?” Now they won’t have to answer that question anymore. It will probably take a while for the new format to show up at OverDrive. Details of the roll-out are yet to come.
Many academic libraries, however, use different ebook services than OverDrive. We’ll have to wait and see if services like ebrary, Netlibrary (soon to be called something more Ebsco-ish), EBL, or some of the publisher-specific platforms will begin to offer downloading to Kindle. I’m not holding my breath.
The news:
Rent or Own?
Posted: April 12, 2011 | Author: Steven Harris | Filed under: Collection Philosophy, Online collections | 5 Comments »I have a running debate in my brain: rent or own? Libraries have been in the ownership business for a long time. You might say we are almost obsessed with containers. In the past, information was only available in containers: a particular copy of a book, a print subscription to a journal. Those physical items sat on our library shelves. In fact, their very physicalness gave libraries a lot of rights that made library collections possible and practical (see the right of first sale doctrine). As we move into an electronic environment, a whole new set of principles and laws apply. I don’t think libraries and publishers have quite worked out their relationship in a totally digital world. It is a time of chaos. Libraries would still like to hold some of those rights that inhere in physical objects. Publishers, however, think different terms should apply. Mostly, publishers have had their way. Digital library collections are largely driven by license agreements that dictate different terms than the ownership model, or the level of ownership is limited or restricted (try interlibrary loaning an item from your digital collections).
But the radical thought I’m having is whether we should give up the notion of ownership altogether. What if libraries and collections staff focused their energies on use? What if our entire raison d’etre was simply to media and enable use? Give up the entire ownership model? This seems especially relevant in a digital library collection. Does it really matter if we own something that isn’t really “anywhere” anyway? This might make some of the recent ebook debates seem irrelevant. No HarperCollins limit on the number of uses your ebook can have before you have to buy it again. You pay for each use individually. This is scary for both libraries and publishers. It can make it difficult to budget for usage. For the library there are no discrete costs; they are behavior driven. For the publisher, they might discover that large swathes of their catalog do not generate any library sales at all. (See Go To Hellman on the Pareto Principle–in fact all of Eric’s recent posts.)
What one hopes is that the as-yet undetermined pricing model is fair to both libraries and publishers. For the libraries, one would hope that the unit or usage cost would be low enough to enable use of a greater number of unique titles at a total cost that was not greater than what we are already spending. Obviously, that is a hard thing to work out. Publisher: “How much money you got?” Library: “$100,000.” Publisher: “Send it to us.”
What kind of math can we use to determine fair usage cost? I think the library world needs to spent some energy thinking about this. Otherwise, the models will be entirely driven by the publishing world. ALA now has a Presidential Task Force on Equitable Access to Electronic Content, but the thinking needs to spread out beyond the task force. It is something all collections and acquisitions librarians should be thinking about and talking about. Collectively, we will come up with more and better ideas.
The same, only different!
Posted: April 5, 2011 | Author: Steven Harris | Filed under: E-books | 2 Comments »
The blow up about HarperCollins and the 26-use limit for library ebooks raises a lot of interesting and contradictory issues in the library/publisher relationship typology. One of these is how, at various turns, one or the other of the parties wants ebooks to behave just like print books. Then, after a moment of arguing, the parties change sides. This begins to be a little ridiculous after a while. In an NPR story Monday (yes, the issue has risen to NPR level visibility), Eli Neiburger raises some of these points. A trendspotting symposium hosted by the Connecticut Library Consortium today also highlights the topic. There are a lot of good tweets, if you weren’t able to attend.
Clearly, the notion that ebooks and print books should behave the same is absurd. But both parties have a hard time giving up the idea. From a commercial perspective it is easy to see why. Print books are unique and discrete objects. Despite the bibliographic complexities of bookishness (see FRBR ideas of “work,” “expression,” “manifestation,” and “item”–PDF), a single book can be sold, owned, shelved, loaned. But it is never more than a single book. It gives comfort to the seller and the buyer. The sense of ownership is clear and the limits on duplication and distribution are obvious. All of that goes out the window with ebooks. What does an owner own? How can the imminent (and infinite) power to duplicate and disseminate be limited?
But some other aspects of bookishness begin to seem strange and inhibiting as we move into the digital realm. An idea at the heart of HarperCollins’ new ebook model is that print books wear out, and, therefore, so should ebooks. As though their business model is based on books wearing out. But more to my point here: PRINT BOOKS WEAR OUT! What an unfortunate limitation. Can’t we begin to see that one of the beauties of ebooks is that they don’t wear out? (Let’s leave aside all the questions of digital preservation. The mere act of using an ebook doesn’t contribute to its degradation.)
Another obvious limitation of print books is that a particular book has to be in one place. When we hunt for a book in the library, it can only reside in one spot. I hope I know what that spot is and understand the library’s organizational scheme. A lot of our professional literature in recent years has addressed the notion of organizational schemes and how libraries seem to make it more difficult to find something on the shelf than it ought to be. An ebook has “no shelf required.” It can be anywhere; it can be in a multitude of places. Although, British publishers encountered opposition similar to what HarperCollins has experienced, when they floated an idea several months ago that library users should be required to come into the library in order to borrow ebooks. (See the Guardian.)
But we cling to the notion that print books are comforting. We love the idea of browsing the stacks for books, although we can’t find the one we originally went in there to get. We like to “curl up” with print books. Even though ebooks in no way inhibit curling, and might, in fact, aid it. We wish ebooks could be more like print books, only different.
Just Another Brick in the Paywall
Posted: April 2, 2011 | Author: Steven Harris | Filed under: Online collections | Tags: Access, Newspapers | 1 Comment »Just over a month ago, the library world blew up when OverDrive announced that ebooks from HarperCollins would have a limit of 26 uses, after which libraries would be required to buy an additional copy. Librarians, understandably, were not pleased.
Last week another limit to online access took effect. On March 28, the New York Times implemented a paywall. After using 20 articles within a month, visitors to nytimes.com will be asked to take out some kind of subscription. Subscribers to the print edition will have unlimited access. Little mention of this is being made in the library world.
Nonetheless, there do seem to be library implications. One presumes that IP addresses and cookies are the means by which NYT will track users and uses, and that subscriptions will be monitored with individual IDs and passwords. As of yet, there is no model for institutional access.
All these mechanisms present problems for access on public computers in libraries (or even on staff computers for that matter). Will particular computers begin prompting users for subscription or login information? How will we keep track of public use? What will be our response to the angry patron demanding access? It is unclear what will be the best response. Perhaps deleting cookies will reset the usage clock. Perhaps switching to a different browser will work, or moving to a different computer. Or do we tell patrons to buy their own subscription? All of those seem rather impractical in a library.
Yet librarians, it seems, are not very concerned. We typically have other online access to NYT through database aggregations. I would bet, however, that a large majority of NYT use on library computers happens through nytimes.com. We also have print subscriptions, which would entitle us to one online user per print subscription–we could just run around and log on each library user with our one password whenever the paywall kicked in. (Violation of TOS?)
Perhaps more than 20 NYT uses in a month on a particular computer will be rare, but I doubt it. It may be that NYT will quickly come up with a practical and affordable institutional solution. I doubt that too. Better start thinking about this.
Your Blog Post Here
Posted: April 2, 2011 | Author: Steven Harris | Filed under: Meta Posts | Leave a comment »Ohai! That last blog post was all in the editorial plural. But we (oops again!) intend that this blog carry the individual voices of its authors. In future, we will attempt to carry this blog through without use of “we.”
Thus, if you are interested in blogging about library collection issues, just let us, um, me know. Steven Harris: srharris@unm.edu.
Collection Connection
Posted: March 22, 2011 | Author: Steven Harris | Filed under: Meta Posts | Tags: Meta Posts | Leave a comment »Welcome to Collection Connection: The Library Collection Management Blog. The name of the blog is Collection Connection, but our banner uses a typographic trick with an equal sign to suggest that collections are connections. As libraries move into new and uncertain territory, it becomes more important than ever that librarians make real and significant connections with library users and that the collections on our shelves (physical or virtual) serve tangible user needs.
The purpose of the blog is to present new ideas about library collections and to provide a forum to discuss changes in the practice of collection management and development. We look forward to exploring a wide range of collection issues with you.
Collection Connection is sponsored by the Collection Management and Development Section of the Association for Library Collections and Technical Services (ALCTS), a division of the American Library Association.
If you are interested in contributing to this blog, contact the blog master, Steven Harris