There's little to say about the Harper Collins fuss that hasn't already been eloquently, or at least vehemently, said. I appreciated Bobbi Newman's moderate approach, and agree that allowing librarians to participate in the decision-making process of marketing e-books to libraries would ease some of the tension. Most of us agree that 26 checkouts just isn't optimistic enough, at almost any price. While it's true that some poorly bound books do wear out after a year of continuous lending (which is the assumption made by HC in setting its limit), librarians purchase print books without knowing their termination date, and circulate them optimistically with hope each copy will survive one more checkout. Skillful repairs can coax them to last even longer. But the limited e-book lease takes the art out of service and circulation, pushing librarians to act more as gatekeepers than providers. The BBC article from our readings mentions exactly what I have feared all along: that as readers increasingly download e-books from home, they have a decreasing interest, or need, in visiting the library. I've often wondered at the public library's enthusiasm for e-books, which to me undermines the library experience. But the ALA Code of Ethics might explain it: We distinquish between our personal convictions and professional duties and do not allow our personal beliefs to interfere with fair representation of the aims of our institutions or the provision of access to their information resources. Access trumps tradition. Which means boycotting a publisher's book selection because we are disappointed with its e-book policies is not an ethical response. It also means libraries will have no choice whether to be or not to be distributors of e-content; it's how information is increasingly distributed, driven by user demand, and the trick is to stay in the game.
Consider the short stories we chose for the Book Club. All of us chose stories available online because they were free and instantly available. Right now. Anything else looks inaccessible to us, though only a few years ago it would not have been out of the question to expect us to distribute paper copies or even (!) check out a few books. We librarians have no qualms about bypassing the library for information we want, nor does anyone else. Kristin is trying to prepare us for a changing environment, or better yet, to be part of the changes made, but none of us really know where this is going. Isn't it an exciting ride?
I hadn't even thought about book repair, but you're right! Many libraries make their collections last as long as possible with the help of a little glue and tape. No options for that with HarperCollins ebooks. Hmm...
ReplyDeleteYou also make a thought-provoking point about the book club stories. What is immediately accessible is preferred, which means that even the difficulties of using OverDrive are barriers to access. But this also made me think of something that came up in 638--there are some people who recommend that classroom libraries should contain at least 100 books per child so that there is always immediate access to books rather than having to go all the way to the school library. If walking a few hundred feet to a different room in the building is too hard, how on Earth are we going to keep people coming to the public library? On the other hand, for us so much information is immediately accessible online because we're always attached to an online device (like a computer, iPhone, tablet, etc.). For students in many/most classrooms, this is not the case. Getting onto a computer means going down to the lab or having a laptop cart reserved (which then means going through the whole log-in process that we know all too well from Bach), which is another barrier that might make going to the school library that much more attractive. But it actually means, most likely, not pursuing answers or information that one is curious about. What to do?