My notes from the session are below the embedded slides.
Empowering the Reader in a Digital World
Al Carlson, Tampa Bay Library Consortium
Chad Mairn, St. Petersburg College
Program Goals:
lots of great topics coming in this session!
What’s a book?
cave paintings; babylonian tablets; scrolls; Gutenberg (Codex); tree sliced very thin covered in cardboard; Kindle (eBook)
The form of the book has changed; the book is the content, not the package.
What happens when the package undergoes a drastic change?
Cassette tape -> CD -> MP3
VHS -> DVD -> Streaming
Book -> eBook???
Diagnosing the DVD Disappointment: A Life Cycle View, Judson Coplan, The Leonard N. Stern School of Business [highly rec’d report]
Rate of adoption of new devices, has increased more and more throughout the 20th century.
DVDs took 6 years adoption fully penetrated. eReaders?? we’ll see.
History suggests that eBooks will rapidly invade the codex space. Will be replaced by better package.
As libraries — we won’t be ready. We’ve NEVER been ready!
Books aren’t dead (Newsweek cover story).
What is a dedicated ereader? nook, sony, kindle.
Long battery life; small format with huge capacity; eink; reflect light the way paper does.
Boombox –> iTouch
Book –> eReader
1 book –> 1000 in pocket
Kindle 2 and Kindle DX; 3500 books holding capacity (4 tons of books)
Nook; Sony Reader; Copia other devices.
Non-dedicated eReader: a device designed for some other larger purpose that can also read epublications. (tablet (iPad); mobile devices; Kindle for PC/Mac; Stanza app; Nook apps for multiple devices; Kindle apps)
Android eReading apps.
Which one is better? Dedicated vs non-dedicated
Dedicated: excellent for etended reading; fall into book.
Non-dedicated: quick reading;
Is it ok to have both? YES!
Who knows what they will look like 50 years from now…
ePub Formats
Check out the Wikipedia article
Overdrive: ePub and PDF formats
Netlibrary: PDF, HTML, DJVU format (changing?)
Dueling formats: the cassette/CD format format difference is easy for our patrons to see and understand; eBook formats not so much.
AZW vs. ePub.
They don’t care — just want to read!
If format were the only issue (www.calibre-ebook.com)
Same Format, dueling DRMs
Sony: ePub w Adobe Adept DRM
Apple: epub w Apple’s Fairplay DRM
Kindle: AZW using Amazon’s DRM
Nook using Adobe DRM
Is DRM a good thing or an evil thing? YES!
Patron perspective:Â users don’t care about drm or formats they just want to read
Any devices we see will be quaint in a few years
ePub and Public Libraries
- Access – website becomes “the” library (my library has a website vs. my website still has a library)
- Delivery: instant home delivery. no need to visit the library. or wait.
- Delivery: your costly, polluting, labor intensive inter-branch delivery vanishes.
Effect on Public Libraries
- Overdues: book self-returns when due
- Storage: your entire collection fits on a one or two Terabyte harddrive (about $50 per terabyte at CompUSA
- Service area: why have a ‘local’ library?
- What happens to ownership? Storage on OD’s servers; CKO via OD’s software; Access via Netlibrary website
- Do we own the book we “bought”?
- Publishers’ reluctance to sell to libraries
- Term limited eBooks
- Limited range of vendors
Homework/Quest One
- Create OSS that enables a library to store and check out eBooks without needing an “overdrive”
- Think Apache
- Mailman
Question Two
- Devise a purchasing plan that benefits all.
Question Three
- Find out and share the true cost of publishing a book in hard copy vs publishing that same book as an eBook
eTextbooks
- http://laurafreberg.com/blog/?p=13
- Student Attitudes Toward Content in Higher Education survey (75% still prefer print textbooks)
- 2011 Horizon Report
- Campus Technology 3/11
- St. Petersburg Times 2/17/11
- Arizona Republic, 7/6/10
[links coming later]
eTextbook Options
- CourseSmart
- Amazon.com
- CourseLoad (browser based eTextbook written in HTML5)
- Flat World Knowledge
- Inkling
[links coming later]
Kno, textbook tablet (dual or single screens). Interesting….
Nook.
Browser-based ebooks = truly device agnostic.
Books in Browsers 2010: The Future of Reading on the Web conference [link later]
Appropriate Library Response
- issues like this that keep us relevant and employed
- powerful and FUN
- evolution in action
- show me the rules that say libraries may not convert ePUB to AZW for patrons or never ever mention Calibre or Feedbooks
Hands on empowerment
- Calibre
- have a DRM free eBook available
- Have a Kindle with Cable
- (Ask me about DRM afterwards) [is this legal or not legal — not gone to the Supreme Court; it’s not illegal to know how to do something; Agatha Christie murder mysteries, anyone! –speaker]
Recap
- DRM schemes are a possibly necessary evil
- Current treebook CKO is primitive DRM
- DRM schemes can be beaten, and it’s not illegal to know how
- We can be the eBook source with the least annoying DRM and often none at all.
How do we stay in the game?
Vendors??
One New Model (SHRED)
- Search
- Holds List (current alternatives cost money & time)
- Rental (lease)
- Electronically Purchase
- Donate to your library
Possible Academic model?
- find and borrow or buy an ebook
- add notes in a photoshop like layer
- return or sell back the book
- retain the notes
- sell the notes to next term’s students to be overlaid on the ebook (or used bookstore could do this)
Who do we buy from?
Empty shelf space; repurposing staff
- community center (Yin to Starbucks’ Yang)
- eGov and the stigma of food stamps
- Library expertise on ePub (OCLC Perceptions study)
Note to self: Really need to get to work on that MARC records eBooks project for NExpress (thanks to Colorado’s records)…
Further resources