Future of libraries

appnewser reporting:
OpenSite.org has created an infographic called, “The Future of Libraries,” which imagines what libraries will look like in the future.
According to the graphic, there are more than 121,000 libraries in America and 69 percent of Americans use libraries. In addition, the infographic reveals that 67 percent of libraries offer eBooks and 28 percent lend eReading devices.
We’ve embedded the entire infographic below for you to check out.
http://www.mediabistro.com/appnewser/the-future-of-libraries-infographic_b31564

Connecticut Introduces Bill Mandating Publishers Sell Ebooks to Libraries

dbwreporting:
A bill has been introduced into the Conn. General Assembly that would mandate publishers sell ebooks to libraries “at the same rates as offered to the general public.”
...Government has been famously involved in the ebook business in the U.S. since 2011 when there were rumblings of a Department of Justice investigation into Apple and five of the largest U.S. publishers concerning alleged ebook price-fixing and collusion. In July in the UK, the Labour party called for a task force to investigate library ebook lending.
http://www.digitalbookworld.com/2013/connecticut-introduces-bill-mandating-publishers-sell-ebooks-to-libraries/?et_mid=600462&rid=233619411

Amazon Kindle ebook rentals take the time out of reading

slashgear reporting:
This week Amazon has unveiled Kindle book rentals in an extremely quiet fashion, opting to test it out with the public before doing any sort of press on the topic – but you can try it out right this minute if you wish. What you’re going to be doing here is renting a title for a certain amount of time, with the price going up based on how many months you’d like to keep it around. Thirty day increments appear at the moment to be the turn-over for how much you’ll be paying, 30, 60, 90, and 120 day periods being available for less than a dollar difference.
If you’re paying for a digital book, you have the right to look at that book as much as you’d like – and in most cases, download it to a limited number of devices at any one time. Here with Amazon’s Kindle rentals, you’ll be doing the same – but instead of your limits stopping at the amount of devices you can download to, you’re limited to time. The price being significantly less for these limited amounts of time may just be the ticket to those of you out there that have steel trap memories and tight pocketbooks in the e-generation.--
http://www.slashgear.com/amazon-kindle-ebook-rentals-take-the-time-out-of-reading-18265921/ 

How to Make Library eBooks More Visible

goodEreader reporting:
Many libraries are investing in a digital infrastructure to allow patrons to borrow ebooks on their phones, tablets, and e-readers. Overdrive currently is the largest company that facilitates the entire lending process and many libraries are suffering from poor visibility to their visitors. Libraries traditionally spend $10,000 or more in setting up their digital ecosystem and trained staff on how to assist customers. The big issue is how do libraries promote the fact they have ebooks and what measures can they take to ensure public awareness?
Recently, staff members at Sacramento Public Library came up with a clever way to connect its physical and digital collections: they place “Now in eBook Format!” stickers on the covers of corresponding titles in the physical collection. These stickers were printed in bulk and direct customers to the library’s website where people can sign up to borrow books online. It promotes the ebook service, without having to spend more money in marketing materials.

Another great way to promote a library’s ebook collection is to develop shelf cards. These can be inserted into the books themselves or placed underneath them. This gives patrons a picture of the cover art and name of the book, as well as a web-link to the book entry in the library’s computer system.
http://goodereader.com/blog/e-book-news/how-to-make-library-ebooks-more-visible/

New Survey Supports That Ebook Borrowers Buy, Too

digitalbookwire reporting:
Readers who borrow ebooks from libraries also buy books at an impressive clip — and their buying has accelerated, according to a new survey.
An online poll of 75,000 library patrons conducted by Cleveland-based library lending platform OverDrive and the American Library Association found that those who borrow ebooks also buy about 3.2 print books and ebooks per month. Further, 44% of survey respondents reported that their digital content purchases have increased over the past six months.
The finding supports that of a study from earlier in the year from the Pew Internet and American Life project which found that among those who borrow ebooks, 41% bought the last book they read.
“Library lending encourages people to experiment with new authors, topics and genre — which is good for the entire reading and publishing ecosystem,” said Carrie Russell, director of the ALA’s Office for Information Technology Policy, in a statement.
The ALA and libraries nationwide are eager to convince publishers that libraries offer them a solution to one of their growing problems: How will readers discover new books in a world of disappearing bricks-and-mortar bookshelf space?
http://www.digitalbookworld.com/2012/new-survey-supports-that-ebook-borrowers-buy-too/?et_mid=590098&rid=233619411

Sähkö- ja äänikirjoille avataan uusi kirjastopalvelu

Tietoviikko reporting:
Pääkaupunkiseudun kirjastot avaavat uuden e-kirjapalvelun, jonka kautta voi ladata sähkö- ja äänikirjoja.
Helmet-järjestelmään kuuluvien pääkaupunkiseudun kirjastojen yhteinen OverDrive-palvelu avataan elokuun alussa. Aluksi kokoelmissa on noin 400 nimekettä, jota kasvatetaan vuosittain 800 teoksella.
Lainaaminen edellyttää kirjastokortin koodilla kirjautumista. Kirjallisuus on pääosin englannin- ja ruotsinkielistä. HelMet-kirjaston suomenkieliset sähkökirjat löytyvät jo 2006 avatusta Ellibs-palvelusta.
Kaunokirjallisuuden lisäksi palvelun kautta pääsee lainaamaan 25 suosituinta Lonely Planet -matkaopasta, joihin on hankittu rajoittamaton yhtäaikaisten lukijoiden käyttöoikeus. Kaikki halukkaat pääsevät käyttämään matkaoppaita samaan aikaan.
Sähkökirjojen tiedostomuodot ovat pdf- ja ePub- ja äänikirjat vma- ja mp3-muodossa.
Aineisto on suojattu Adobe kopiosuojaustekniikalla. Sen vuoksi kirjojen lukeminen edellyttää OverDrive Media Console -lukuohjelman lataamista...
http://www.tietoviikko.fi/kaikki_uutiset/sahko+ja+aanikirjoille+avataan+uusi+kirjastopalvelu/a824162?s=u&wtm=tivi-25072012

Study: E-book library borrowing takes slow pace

JS reporting:
NEW YORK (AP) E-book readers have been relatively slow to borrow digital works from the library, frustrated by a limited selection and by not even knowing whether their local branch offers e-releases, according to a new study.
The Pew Research Center published a survey Friday that reports around 12 percent of e-book users 16 years and older downloaded a text from the library over the past year. Earlier in 2012, Pew issued a study showing that around 20 percent of adults had read an e-book recently.
Simon & Schuster, the Hachette Book Group and other major publishers have limited e-book offerings to libraries or refused to make any available, citing concerns that the ease of free downloads would hurt sales. Lack of awareness may be another factor. Around 60 percent of those 16 and older couldn't say whether their libraries had e-books.
Pew's Internet & American Life Project study, conducted with nearly 3,000 respondents between Nov. 16 and Dec. 11, 2011, suggests that library patrons trying to borrow digital texts have been deterred by the selection and by not having the right e-book device. Just over half of respondents said their library did not have the book they were looking for and nearly 20 percent found that the device they owned could not receive a given title.

Officials from the American Library Association have been meeting with publishers in an effort to work out a system that would satisfy both sides. On Thursday, Penguin Group (USA) announced a pilot program with the New York and Brooklyn library systems that will make e-books available six months after they first go on sale. Penguin had suspended its e-book program with libraries last year.

One statistic reported by Pew should please publishers and librarians: Those who borrow e-books from libraries tend to read more 29 books a year than readers who don't use the library (23 books). But library card holders also are more likely to borrow, as opposed to buy, a book compared to those without library cards.
http://www.jsonline.com/entertainment/national/study-released-on-library-ebook-borrowing1a456473c1754ec2a555c777b833f138-159970395.html

Libraries 2020: Imagining the library of the (not too distant) future

Pew internet reporting:
On Thursday June 7th, Kristen Purcell will deliver the keynote address for the 2012 State University of New York Librarians Association Annual Conference in New York City.  Kristen will share Pew Internet's latest data on mobile, social networking, and e-reading with an audience of several hundred library staff from the SUNY system.  More information on the event can be found at the conference's website.
Libraries 2020: Imagining the library of the (not too distant) future http://www.pewinternet.org/Presentations/2012/Jun/SUNY-Libraries.aspx

New French Law: Digital Exploitation of 20th Century Unavailable Books

Teleread reporting: France has implemented a new law on the Digital Exploitation of 20th Century Unavailable Books. Here’s an excerpt from the Library of Congress’ summary:

This Law adds a new chapter to the French Intellectual Property Code, comprising articles L.134-1 to L.134-9. Article L. 134-1 provides that an unavailable book is “a book published in France before January 1, 2001, which is commercially unavailable and is not currently published in paper or digital format.” (Id.) The Law creates a public database specifically dedicated to unavailable books, accessible at no charge, which will list these titles. . . .
After a book has been registered in the database for six months without any opposition, a collective management society approved by the Ministry of Culture will be authorized to grant a publisher a non-exclusive license for digital exploitation of the book for a period of five years, which will be renewable (art. L.134-3). . . .
In addition, the Law provides an exception for libraries. It states that the collective management society must authorize libraries that are accessible to the public to digitally reproduce at no cost and distribute to their patrons unavailable books, where a holder of the right to reproduce the work in its paper format has not been found within ten years of the first authorization to reproduce, provided that the library does not receive any commercial profit.
http://www.teleread.com/copy-right/new-french-law-digital-exploitation-of-20th-century-unavailable-books/

Threats to Digital Lending

American Libraries reporting:
...The situation in Kansas highlights the uncertainty about ownership of ebook content. What is ownership, after all? Perpetual access under certain conditions defined in the contract? True ownership, where the library can sell or discard its digital copy?
Check out your ebook licenses; if you think you own the ebooks that you paid for, think again. A thorough examination of the contract language may indicate that you are only renting the content, which would mean you have to pay the rent every year or risk losing all of your ebooks. State and local government officials might question what you have been doing with the money appropriated to fund your public library: “You say you bought the books, but now you don’t have them anymore? Sounds like tax dollars down the drain.”
...
Contracts for digital content can also legally circumvent user rights that we value in the print world. Here, the right of first sale under the copyright law is of greatest concern. First sale allows the owner of a lawfully acquired copy of a work the right to lend that copy or rent or dispose of it. Libraries can purchase resources and lend them at no cost to the user because of first sale, which is an exception to an exclusive right of copyright—in this case the distribution right. But there is no digital first sale right per se, unless a license agreement expressly says so.
Some troubling scenarios already exist: limiting the number of loans unless an additional payment is made, as in the HarperCollins 26-loan business model, Penguin delaying access to such high-demand e-content as new releases, and Hachette refusing to sell any new ebook releases to libraries. The worst-case scenario is already practiced by two publishers: Neither Macmillan nor Simon & Schuster sell ebooks to libraries at all. And Brilliance Solutions has decided to suspend the availability of its audiobooks for library download as of January 31.
The very real possibility that libraries may find themselves unable to lend escalates as more content is made available only in digital formats under stricter contract terms. In addition, other library functions—preservation, interlibrary loan, and fair use, to name a few—may also be forbidden when dealing with digital materials...http://americanlibrariesmagazine.org/features/01122012/threats-digital-lending

Libraries struggle with e-books

mediashift reporting:
There are lots of considerations libraries must make: Which e-reader(s) will they adopt? After all, e-readers are tied to their associated bookstores -- Kindle to Amazon, Nook to Barnes & Noble, iPad to iBooks (even though the latter offers apps for the other e-readers). The e-readers not only have different features (black-and-white screens versus color, for example, touchscreens versus keypads) but their bookstores offer different selections. That's a big consideration when you're looking specifically for children's literature rather than just general interest ("grownup") fiction or non-fiction.
But the biggest problem, according to librarian Buffy Hamilton, author of the Unquiet Librarian blog, is DRM. Digital Rights Management is what restricts content from being shared across devices. It means that e-books from Amazon can't be read on Nooks, and e-books from Barnes & Noble won't work on Kindles. It means, oftentimes, that kids can't bring their own devices from home to use for library check-outs.
"The biggest challenge for libraries is trying to accommodate the demand for e-books in a world in which there is no standard DRM," Hamilton said in a recent interview. "While services like Overdrive provide e-book checkout that's friendly to multiple devices (that could be owned by the library or by students themselves) and allow you to track circulation stats, the cost is prohibitive for many school libraries; in addition, the terms of service with Overdrive no longer provide you an option to move your purchased e-books to another platform should you decide to change from Overdrive to another vendor, which basically means you'd lose your investment in your e-book collection."
That's what the state of Kansas faced when it terminated its contract with Overdrive, which highlights the fact that when it comes to digital content, more often than not what we own -- both libraries and consumers -- isn't the content itself but a license to access it. Those licensing rules often restrict lending and sharing altogether, particularly between consumers. But even libraries are finding some of the new licensing policies onerous.
http://www.pbs.org/mediashift/2011/09/school-libraries-struggle-with-e-book-loans269.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+pbs%2Fmediashift-blog+%28mediashift-blog%29

Amazon offers Textbook Rental System with Savings up to 80%

Amazon ushered in a new textbook rental system today offering students huge savings by renting books. Students can now rent textbooks between 30 and 360 days and save up to 80%.
Currently Amazon is offering around 20,000 textbooks available for rent by some of the industries leading content providers. Signed up to this new program are John Wiley & Sons, Elsevier and Taylor & Francis.
In order to save the most amount of money students will be able to configure their own loan periods. This is great because of the varying semester system with many different schools. You only pay for the  textbook for the duration of time you are going to rent it. These books an be read on your Kindle, iPad,  Mac, iPhone and many other devices.
http://goodereader.com/blog/electronic-readers/amazon-offers-textbook-rental-system-with-savings-up-to-80

New ebook library subscription launched in the Netherlands

The Digital Reader reporting:
The Dutch  ebook provider Yindo recently announced that they had  expanded their services to include a new subscription plan. For a flat monthly fee, users can borrow up to a limited number of ebooks at a time. The new library is launching small, with about 150 titles published by Van Duuren Media. Yindo also announced that the selection will expand each month with new titles.
This marks a slight change from their existing service, where users could rent each ebook for up to a month. Yindo also will sell you the ebook, too.
http://www.the-digital-reader.com/2011/07/02/new-ebook-library-subscription-launched-in-the-netherlands

Is This The Tipping Point For E-Books & Libraries?

ReadWriteWeb reporting:

The American Library Association (ALA) has just released its 2011 Public Library Funding and Technology Access Survey, and among its findings, 67% of public libraries in the U.S. now offer free access to e-books for their patrons. That's up 30% since 2007. Of course, access to e-books ranges greatly from state-to-state: 100% of Maryland and Utah libraries offer e-books, while only 25% of ilbraries in Mississippi do so, for example.
But even in the states where e-book access is commonplace, when it comes to making digital literature available to their patrons, libraries face a number of challenges. We've covered many of these issues here. Most well-known among these obstacles was the controversial announcement earlier this year by publisher Harper Collins to have library e-books "self-destruct" after 26 checkouts, forcing libraries to re-purchase titles in order to secure more checkouts. This among other factors (including, of course, budget issues) has made the future of e-books in libraries unclear.
A number of announcements made during the ALA's annual convention this past week suggest that the tipping point of e-book library lending may be here:
"Always Available" E-Books: In order to address the problem with wait lists for checking out e-books, OverDrive announced a set of "Always Available" titles so that multiple library patrons could check out titles simultaneously. Although digital texts do make it possible to distribute multiple copies this week, in most cases, up until now, lending of e-books has followed the same restrictions of print. In other words, if a book is checked out - whether it's print or digital - no one else can read it. OverDrive's "Always Available" books do not include all its titles, but it's a sensible start.
Magazine Checkouts: Digital newsstand Zinio announced it has partnered with Recorded Books to allow digital magazines to be available to library patrons in the U.S., Canada, Australia, and the U.K.
Library Checkouts for Nook: Library lending comes to the Barnes & Noble Nook with a partnership between the bookseller and digital distributor Baker & Taylor.
The Open Library Serves More Public Libraries: The Internet Archive announced that it has expanded its OpenLibrary lending program to its 1000th library. This program allows libraries to pool and share their e-books.
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/is_this_the_tipping_point_for_e-books_libraries.php