There is a specter haunting the publishing industry, the specter of scarcity. Scarcity no longer exists. Electronic copies can be made and are being made quite rapidly. This wasn’t always the case with books. It used to be music and movies that were exposed to this threat. They were always electronic. One could easily pirate the works and share them. Someone somewhere had to purchase the CD or DVD then share it online. It is now starting to happen with books at a rapid pace.
As books become digital, the model needs to change. One fact to consider about the future of the book is the fact that books have been printed for 500 years. However, its creation has been electronic for the last 20 years. The industry is fully computerized just like any other. With the rise of e-reader devices, this electronic creation can now be read on devices easily. It can also be distributed just as easily as music and movies.
From this description, one could conclude that from the author’s computer to online as the easiest step. Two things get in the way, the majority of people still want a book in print, and placing something online creates a fear of piracy and lost sales. The e-reader is creating an increased level of piracy because one can purchase either device and then has to purchase additional content, often at the same price as a print book. Why would anyone want to do that? They begin to turn to sites like Gutenberg and Manybooks.net, but there are only so many classics one can read. They soon turn to piracy.
Books are freely available online and they are good books that are only a few years old like The World is Flat, Freakonomics, and Never Let Me Go. Countries that do not have strict digital rights management laws can post this information and anyone in any country can download these books. Depending on what country you live in, this can be illegal. The publishing industry is facing what the recording industry and the motion picture industry have experienced. The reason why this is happening is the proliferation of e-reader devices like the Amazon Kindle, Sony Reader, and others. This will soon force publishers and authors to re-think their strategies.
How does the industry change?
How the Book Publishing Industry Should Reinvent Itself by Dave Balter
For publishing, it would work something like this:
• Authors self-package their book entirely on their own.
• Authors distribute digital copies of their books for free to attract readers and to identify a market. They use self-distribution tools to sell as many books as they can.
• Based on the response, the publisher determines which books to pick up, and pays a licensing and distribution right and uses their relationships to distribute a product that has developed an initial marketplace of buyers (note: great new potential business model for some plucky entrepreneur: track the ‘response’ of free book downloads as a data set for publishers to review opportunities).
• Publishers take the completed product, make tweaks as author and publisher feel necessary, print more and distribute them through the strength of their partners.
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Balter suggests authors place their books online to see if there is any interest. If there is, then there is money to be made. Others have suggested that this model would work great for up and coming authors who need to have their works distributed. Even pirated work for a new author is great since someone cared enough to pirate it. If they are good enough for someone to steal, it is good enough for someone to purchase it.
Another suggestion:
Bits, Bands and BooksBy PAUL KRUGMAN
For example, she described how some software companies gave their product away but earned fees for installation and servicing. But her most compelling illustration of how you can make money by giving stuff away was that of the Grateful Dead, who encouraged people to tape live performances because “enough of the people who copy and listen to Grateful Dead tapes end up paying for hats, T-shirts and performance tickets. In the new era, the ancillary market is the market.”
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Krugman states money can be made on ancillary items related to the book. As another author pointed out, the author doesn’t exactly reap the benefits of these extras. They get paid for the book and may get some royalties for someone alternative marketing. Again, this goes back to if the book is really popular it can make money on its own in many different ways. This model may work more for the established author who can make money off of their brand name.
How do authors change?
Some ideas for established authors:NYTIMES Pogue's Posts
The e-Book Test: Do Electronic Versions Deter Piracy?
What finally brought me around, though, was an e-mail from Kevin Kelly, a founding editor of Wired:....
“If you can’t retrieve the actual data, then I challenge you to complete the experiment. Take one of your books you have historical sales data for, release a viral PDF version and then measure what happens. Then either celebrate or curse the results — but at least it will be based on evidence.“My guess is that if you take the challenge to release one of your books in free PDF form, that even by using your column or blog as a platform to announce it, that (a) it won’t spread or duplicate as far as you might first imagine, and (b) it will elevate or at least not depress your sales.
END SNIP
This experiment should work. The idea that an established author can distribute a free copy of their book and it will only increase its sales. This is exactly what public libraries do. We provide a free copy of the book and this only enhances sales. I had a patron come in and I recommended a new author based on what she was looking for. She LOVED IT. She then bought the whole back catalog for that author and requested us to do the same. So if that author lost money on the first book, the author could have doubled or tripled its sales based on the free copy. Libraries do this now, why doesn’t it work online?
Engst furthers this idea:
No, David Pogue, Ebook Piracy is Not a Givenby Adam C. Engst
Supply and demand are inextricably linked, and if there's no supply for the demand Pogue freely acknowledges, it's easy to see how someone could feel relatively little guilt in downloading or sharing an illicitly acquired copy. I'm not justifying such behavior, but the harder you make it for someone to buy an easily replicated digital commodity, the more likely they are to share that commodity as a way of making things easier for others. Look at the parallels in the music industry. Apple made legitimate purchases of music both easy and inexpensive via the iTunes Store, and anyone who was on the fence about whether it was acceptable to share music suddenly had a viable alternative. Providing a legitimate purchase path for electronic versions not only generates revenue, but also reduces illicit copying.
END SNIP
So if you choose not to make a free copy and the book is popular, people will find a way to get it. The fact that the Kindle and the Sony Reader are so locked in on the formats that they can read, people will pirate online works to make it compatible for their devices. They want to use their devices and not look like schmucks that purchased an electronic device that has nothing on it. Furthermore, you CAN’T put anything on it unless you shell out the same amount of money you would have to purchase the print copy.
I can’t get what I want on my device
Pogue reviews the comments on his E-book test article:
NYTIMES Pogue's Posts Readers have their say about e-publishing debate
• “All you have proven is that there is pent-up demand for an electronic version of your book. Your conclusion is only valid IF you had a legitimate electronic version to sell, and people chose to get the free one instead of the paid one. You haven’t given them that choice. They used the pirated electronic version, because it is the only one.“The same principle was true in the pre-digital world. People could read the book for free from the library, but many of them would still choose buy a copy. Even if your book was on a pirated site, people (like me) would buy a legitimate non-DRM’d electronic version if you sold it. Until you do, you cannot make any claims about digital piracy from personal experience, because you haven’t done a valid test.”
From the comments:
Off-topic, but related to Kindle and ebooks. I’m intrigued by the Kindle, but having an expensive device that’s basically empty until I make purchases is a little off-putting. One of the joys of the Ipod has been to digitize my own CD’s and fill up the Ipod with my choice of music, at no further charge and with only a small expenditure of time. Is there anything new out there, or on the horizon, so I can digitize my own books. The book scanners I’ve searched for have been either very expensive or very slow.— Posted by Charles Slater
Again, it is frustrating to purchase an e-reader and then not being able to put your favorite books or books you want to read on it without buying the format. I can purchase an Ipod, burn a CD that I have ALREADY purchased and put the music on there. I can’t do that for books I already own. It would be silly to destroy your books to make an electronic copy for your reader so people turn to piracy.
Then there is the price issue. Seth Godin provides a random thought as to why the book prices are the same for electronic and print.
Seth's Blog: Random Thoughts About the Kindle
Once you have a device that lets you get any book in a few seconds, one that eliminates both paper and inventory (the two enemies of every publisher and bookstore) then the marginal cost of a book drops dramatically. And as we learned at the iTunes store, when something costs a buck, it's a fundamentally different purchase than when it costs $10 or $20.
END SNIP
Why does it then cost the same, or even close. Making digital copies cost near to nothing, which goes back to the problem of scarcity. The publishing industry had a problem when it produced too many book. This led to bookstores throwing perfectly good books away because they had more supply than demand. The electronic version would allow publishers to control that a bit more, but it certainly can’t argue that there isn’t enough or it costs too much to make more.
Non-compatible formats hurt sales and drm protection further hurt sales. I am not sure how much evidence is required to convince the publishing industry of this. The modern business model is provide it for free and if it is good enough, people will pay for it. Now we just get horror stories about how people cannot access their favorite books. People want to buy the book, the publisher wants to sell the book, but something seems to get in the way…
Teleread:How real people buy, read and use e-books—and how freebies can help By Ficbot
So, the tally for this batch of reads?-One sale that could have been two sales had publishers not been so protective of their book that they failed to make the sequel available in a format I could read on my device
-One sale that was regretted and will not be repeated because I could not transfer it to my device
-One freebie I opted not to purchase for myself but may in future purchase as a gift
-One gifted book which gained a sale for one of the author’s other works
One freebie I opted not to purchase but which put the author on my radar for future purchases
-So, freebies and borrowed or gifted books do pay off. And format stinginess does not pay. I would have finished the Roberts (and perhaps bought others) had I been able to read them on my eBookwise. And if that sequel was available, it would have been a sure sale.
END SNIP
There were several lost sales in this experiment. Publishers are beginning to get wise, but are they too small to make a dent, particularly against businesses like Amazon?
Blackstone Audio phases out audiobook DRMPosted by Cory Doctorow
All this raises the question: when will Audible -- the largest audiobook retailer in the world and the exclusive provider of downloadable audiobooks for iTunes and Amazon -- drop the DRM on its audiobooks? I was shocked a month ago to hear from Amazon that they would not carry the Random House Audio audiobook of my NYT-bestselling novel Little Brother because it was only available as an MP3. Official Amazon policy on audiobooks still seems to be no DRM = no dice.
END SNIP
Even though a business model works, they cannot be successful because Amazon blocks the door. That is a scary prospect since Amazon seems to want to corner the market on book publishing and sales. Then it becomes, do what we say or else. That’s very scary.
Are there rebels in our mists? Print on Demand books are becoming popular with the Espresso book machine. Overall, this machine doesn’t produce a lasting print copy, more like a cheap paperback. These are available in some libraries. This is a way someone can get a copy of any book they want and print it out. Think about working this with local authors trying to get attention, collaborate with this machine and put it in a library, and any local library can help local authors get the attention they deserve.
Blackwell's to launch 'clicks and bricks' book retailing
Lindesay Irvine
Blackwell's is to become the first high-street bookseller in the UK to offer print-on-demand books while customers wait. The innovation will be delivered by an "Espresso Book Machine" (EBM), which can print and bind any one of a million titles.Set to be piloted this autumn in a branch that is yet to be announced, the chain plans eventually to install EBM machines in all 60 of its shops across the UK. The machine can currently print about 40 pages per minute, but a newer model due later this year is expected to double that speed.
END SNIP
Are books worthless?
The above articles discuss how the publishing industry can transform, how authors can make money for themselves in a digital book world, and the simple reasons why the publishers and the authors are both losing money. There is another factor not discussed, the worth of the book over time.
Once a book is published and run its course, the book loses its value. All books lose steam. Working in a library I can see how many books we weed out because we need the space for the new. After about two to three years, the books lose a great deal of value and this creates an interesting situation. Some books are being placed online by book pirates after two to three years, but does this increase sales of a book that will only be dead without the piracy?
Sites like Bookyards can provide links to authors that have a major fan base. It isn't illegal for them to host or point to websites that provide free drm-free e-books online mostly because copyright varies from country to country. In a recent correspondence, I found that after two to three years, most books published can be found online. It is a scary revelation.
Furthermore, most books published today will not have a fan base after two to three years. I know I work in a library that weeds books. After so many years, the books are no longer read, the marketing fails, and unless the author is extremely popular, or continues to put out great work regularly, the author can fade away. In my weeding process, I surveyed different sites to resell the books to. We typically have a Friends of the library booksale in which books are sold at 25 cents for paperback and $1 for hardcover. Some of these books you can't give away. Many of the sites I visited priced the books I was weeding at 0. That's right, after a few years many books are worth NOTHING!!!
An author gets attention through controversy. If their book is banned, it only draws more people to try to get a copy. The less that the book is available, the more people will want it. The same goes for electronic books, if the format isn’t available, people will pirate it. If you don’t offer it for free, people will try to get a copy even more. By providing a free copy, it will generate interest that will lead to sales. After the book has passed its prime, providing a free copy will only continue the interest in the book and the author. That will only lead to a lifelong love of the book and the author and will provide funding for the industry for years to come. If the book is cut off, not published, and not available, the book and the author will fade into history. They go out with a whimper.
Showing posts with label digital rights management. Show all posts
Showing posts with label digital rights management. Show all posts
Friday, June 20, 2008
Wednesday, April 02, 2008
Actually, people like to share books, and it only helps the author
I am quite frustrated with the availability of e-books and the fact that I cannot read e-books in the format and the device I choose. I would love to fill a device with dozens of books and I would never be bookless. (A fear not mentioned in most psychiatric phobia analysis, but altogether very real and frightening.) Even with the Sony Reader and Amazon Kindle's ability to store hundreds of books, you would have to purchase them from their store since the format is compatible. These devices don't do well with e-books that have Digital Rights Protection on them. Furthermore, while drm on an audiotrack is easily hacked in a variety of ways, the drm for e-books is remarkable. Just try to google the term adobe reader drm hack and similar terms and you find empty forums and of those, few exist. I understand that the author must be compensated, ABSOLUTELY, but I think they would like their books to be read as well. Afterall, a book more widely read (no matter how it was acquired) puts money in the authors pocket. After all, the first public libraries were formed from bookstores. When the bookstores ran out of copies of very popular books, they would loan them out until new books came in. It helped keep the interest of the reading public and the buzz about the books stoked the demand for the book, rather than drive down demand.
This headline from Techdirt discussing an article from The Times Online gives some hope.
Techdirt: Despite Inflammatory Headline, UK Authors Society Looking To Embrace Free, Not Fight The Internet: "There's a really inflammatory headline and opening paragraph in an article in the Times Online in the UK stating that 'book piracy on the internet will ultimately drive authors to stop writing.' This claim is actually unsubstantiated by history (which has actually shown book piracy ends up helping authors) or, actually, by the rest of the article. Rather than a reactionary RIAA-style response from the UK's Society of Authors, the article shows that the group isn't so much fearing internet piracy, but simply noting that business models need to change."
Now that authors are beginning to understand that they need to find ways to lesson DRM on their books and make them more available, I have hope that we will make a connection in having downloadable e-books whenever you need them (when you are bookless in an airport, but have wi-fi) and the ability to read it on any device. This will be a great service to the reading addicts and will assure that a reader will never be without a book as long as they have an internet connection. Hmm think about that, the internet INCREASES reading instead of decreases it.
This headline from Techdirt discussing an article from The Times Online gives some hope.
Techdirt: Despite Inflammatory Headline, UK Authors Society Looking To Embrace Free, Not Fight The Internet: "There's a really inflammatory headline and opening paragraph in an article in the Times Online in the UK stating that 'book piracy on the internet will ultimately drive authors to stop writing.' This claim is actually unsubstantiated by history (which has actually shown book piracy ends up helping authors) or, actually, by the rest of the article. Rather than a reactionary RIAA-style response from the UK's Society of Authors, the article shows that the group isn't so much fearing internet piracy, but simply noting that business models need to change."
Now that authors are beginning to understand that they need to find ways to lesson DRM on their books and make them more available, I have hope that we will make a connection in having downloadable e-books whenever you need them (when you are bookless in an airport, but have wi-fi) and the ability to read it on any device. This will be a great service to the reading addicts and will assure that a reader will never be without a book as long as they have an internet connection. Hmm think about that, the internet INCREASES reading instead of decreases it.
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Overdrive will be IPOD Compatible!!!!!
This is exciting news, Overdrive will soon make mp3s available for download on library sites.
Read below from Library Journal!
OverDrive Breaks the iPod Barrier for Downloadable Audio - 3/19/2008 - Library Journal: "
* 3000 titles will be available
* No DRM means compatibility with iPods, iPhones
* Libraries will remind patrons of copyright
For years, librarians and patrons have complained that the most popular digital audio player, the iPod, was incompatible with the Windows Media Audio (WMA) files, the format for library downloadable audio. OverDrive now says it will offer at least 3000 titles—about 15 percent of its catalog—in MP3 format without digital rights management (DRM), which means compatibility with nearly every MP3 player and mobile phone, including iPods. OverDrive MP3 Audiobooks will go on sale in May at Borders.com and should be available to libraries by the end of June, to be followed with the release of OverDrive Media Console for the Mac.
OverDrive CEO Steve Potash said the policy change emerged from demand in the library market, OverDrive’s track record, and “some recent moves in the audiobook retail market,” including an announcement by Random House that it would make its audiobook titles available without DRM in the MP3 format. While Random titles are limited to retail sales, Potash said OverDrive MP3 Audiobooks would be provided by at least a dozen publishers. “Each publisher is reviewing their entire audiobook list to confirm each title/author"
END SNIP
Constant complaints from libraries drove this. How many times have libraries said, this is great, downloadable stuff! Only for the patron to ask, does it work with Ipods....mmmm no. (No matter how many times I announced this, it was the first question EVERY TIME!)
The library gods smile down upon us so that now we will make something available that makes sense. Now if we can get overdrive to do the same for E-books.....
Read below from Library Journal!
OverDrive Breaks the iPod Barrier for Downloadable Audio - 3/19/2008 - Library Journal: "
* 3000 titles will be available
* No DRM means compatibility with iPods, iPhones
* Libraries will remind patrons of copyright
For years, librarians and patrons have complained that the most popular digital audio player, the iPod, was incompatible with the Windows Media Audio (WMA) files, the format for library downloadable audio. OverDrive now says it will offer at least 3000 titles—about 15 percent of its catalog—in MP3 format without digital rights management (DRM), which means compatibility with nearly every MP3 player and mobile phone, including iPods. OverDrive MP3 Audiobooks will go on sale in May at Borders.com and should be available to libraries by the end of June, to be followed with the release of OverDrive Media Console for the Mac.
OverDrive CEO Steve Potash said the policy change emerged from demand in the library market, OverDrive’s track record, and “some recent moves in the audiobook retail market,” including an announcement by Random House that it would make its audiobook titles available without DRM in the MP3 format. While Random titles are limited to retail sales, Potash said OverDrive MP3 Audiobooks would be provided by at least a dozen publishers. “Each publisher is reviewing their entire audiobook list to confirm each title/author"
END SNIP
Constant complaints from libraries drove this. How many times have libraries said, this is great, downloadable stuff! Only for the patron to ask, does it work with Ipods....mmmm no. (No matter how many times I announced this, it was the first question EVERY TIME!)
The library gods smile down upon us so that now we will make something available that makes sense. Now if we can get overdrive to do the same for E-books.....
Monday, October 22, 2007
Providing Free Content, Radiohead, the Open Content Alliance, and the near death experience of libraries
Free content is the buzzword in the media. Radiohead announced that its latest album will be online for whatever price you want, even free! The Open Content Alliance has decided to kick Google to the curb and provide their own content online for free without any deal with Google that will restrict content.
Free Music or the Near Death of the Music Industry
The recent announcement by Radiohead that they will be selling their next album online at the price the consumer names is the latest blow to the death of current state of the music industry. Why go through all these middlemen, who take a majority of the profit, for the work the band does? Currently, the music, movie, and publishing industry are undergoing the "near-death experience". A near-death experience can revive an industry so that it is operating the way it should and changes its services to best serve the users.
The move by Radiohead proves that it doesn't need a big behemoth of an industry to create, produce, and market its album. The days of the middleman are numbered. A quote from the Time article, Radical Remix:
SNIP
In any industry, the most efficient distribution system has a way of prevailing. Sure, new acts without loyal fan bases would be ill served by the Radiohead strategy. But successful bands at midcareer would be wise to take note. Even the most lucrative deals--the ones reserved for repeat, multiplatinum superstars--give artists less than 20% of the sales they generate, and that has to feed multiple band members. Meanwhile, as CD sales decline (in early 2007, they were down 20% from early 2006 in the U.S. alone), the concert business is booming. In July, Prince, long underestimated for his business acumen, decided to turn his most valuable asset--a buzzed-about record--into a loss leader, flooding the U.K. with 3 million free copies of his Planet Earth CD through the Mail on Sunday newspaper. He was ridiculed for going down market, until he announced 21 London concert dates--and sold out every one at prices five times the suggested retail price of a CD. Not surprisingly, Radiohead has an extensive tour planned for 2008.
END SNIP
Could Steven King pull a Radiohead? or the e-book alternative
Some authors may be able to do this, but there is one problem. The book format is not digital. By its very nature, the book is the printed word on paper. Eventually, it will go digital, but it will only take a near death experience for publishers for it to go that way. The book is the perfect format. It can remain in its pre-digital format and not worry about copyright and all the problems with piracy in the music and movie industry. Even when digital becomes very prominent, will the majority of readers will still purchase a printed book? Isn't it ironic that the blog Print is Dead printed a book?
It seems that the e-book is becoming an alternative format to reading like an audiobook. From the Christian Science Monitor article, E-books multiply, but who's reading them?
SNIP
"as habits change and content inventory nears critical mass (Google, to name one prospective repository, is still wrangling with copyright issues), digital books might finally gain a foothold, observers say – not as a replacement format, but as an alternative delivery system not unlike the audiobook. Both the publishing industry and the reading public appear to be shaking the notion that for the beloved book, digital equals death."
END SNIP
A reaction to this story is available on Teleread here. It speaks to the fact publishers prefer that books stay in print, not so much for their readers, but because books are DRM proof.
SNIP
Take away DRM—really more of a protection for proprietary formats than the intellectual property rights of authors and publishers—and sales of e-books from large publishers will get a nice bump.
END SNIP
Libraries provide access or the near-death of the public library
To add to that, publishers force libraries to have increased digital rights management to check out digital content. Nobody has really figured out a simple cost and access model for the new way of access. Instead of creating a copy for everyone, there is one copy in which everyone can access. Digital Rights Management treats the one copy like many copies. Libraries have to make access even worse to provide the content at all.
More on DRM from Jessmyn at librarian.net:
SNIP
The weird part is that patrons can more easily buy their own content, but to get the “checkoutability” it requires DRM and that puts this into the arena of the heavy hitters vendorwise.
END SNIP
On the YALSA blog, Joseph Wilk laments the fact that Radiohead did not provide a way for public libraries to distribute this album to their patrons. Libraries were traditionally the middleman. Sell it to libraries, and they turn around and provide access. Now this is done through Digital Rights Management. Ironically, Radiohead already provided access and libraries can still distribute them. However, it is not so much in the physical format, but by providing computers with internet access.
Public libraries will continue to house books in print as long as the publishing industry continues to do so. When books become digital completely, what will libraries do? If the content is free and can be accessed with a computer and Internet access, what is the future role of the public library?
Public libraries are undergoing the near-death experience as well. Since 1995 the common theme from non-library users is, why do you need the library when you have the Internet. This has come up for discussion recently on Publib because of that same remark in the popular hit series Heroes.
Quote from Publib, starting the discussion:
SNIP
"... the girl was trying to lie to her parents so that she could go out with a boy. She told them she was going to the library. Her brother said, "haven't you ever heard of the Internet?" She replied that she was doing a paper on how libraries were becoming more and more obsolete for her generation.
END SNIP
The reality is that information wants to be free. Everyone wants free access. The Internet provides that. It will increasingly provide better content online for free. The library role with in relation to content is to provide access through computers with sufficient Internet bandwidth. Content once housed and organized in libraries are freely available online. This will only increase over time. Libraries will increasingly need to shift gears to provide the content, not by owning it or organizing it, but by providing access to it, for free. Watch this video (Information R/Evolution).
Libraries are already striking back by changing their environments mostly due to the Library 2.0 movement. They are also beginning to take back their content to make it freely available online instead of giving it away to Google.
NY Times: Libraries Shun Deals to Place Books on Web
(This article should read, Libraries to provide free content, tells Google to take a hike)
SNIP
"But the resistance from some libraries, like the Boston Public Library and the Smithsonian Institution, suggests that many in the academic and nonprofit world are intent on pursuing a vision of the Web as a global repository of knowledge that is free of business interests or restrictions."
The real irony with the current state of content on the Internet is the fact that everyone who produces content, at some point, wants to be paid for it. Libraries are the biggest purchasers of the written word. The real goal of libraries is to breach the rich/poor gap and to provide access to content. And in a digital age, there is still a staggering amount of people who cannot read, don't have access to computers and the Internet, and have no skills to compete. This is one of the many roles in which libraries currently play, and will continue to play.
Free Music or the Near Death of the Music Industry
The recent announcement by Radiohead that they will be selling their next album online at the price the consumer names is the latest blow to the death of current state of the music industry. Why go through all these middlemen, who take a majority of the profit, for the work the band does? Currently, the music, movie, and publishing industry are undergoing the "near-death experience". A near-death experience can revive an industry so that it is operating the way it should and changes its services to best serve the users.
The move by Radiohead proves that it doesn't need a big behemoth of an industry to create, produce, and market its album. The days of the middleman are numbered. A quote from the Time article, Radical Remix:
SNIP
In any industry, the most efficient distribution system has a way of prevailing. Sure, new acts without loyal fan bases would be ill served by the Radiohead strategy. But successful bands at midcareer would be wise to take note. Even the most lucrative deals--the ones reserved for repeat, multiplatinum superstars--give artists less than 20% of the sales they generate, and that has to feed multiple band members. Meanwhile, as CD sales decline (in early 2007, they were down 20% from early 2006 in the U.S. alone), the concert business is booming. In July, Prince, long underestimated for his business acumen, decided to turn his most valuable asset--a buzzed-about record--into a loss leader, flooding the U.K. with 3 million free copies of his Planet Earth CD through the Mail on Sunday newspaper. He was ridiculed for going down market, until he announced 21 London concert dates--and sold out every one at prices five times the suggested retail price of a CD. Not surprisingly, Radiohead has an extensive tour planned for 2008.
END SNIP
Could Steven King pull a Radiohead? or the e-book alternative
Some authors may be able to do this, but there is one problem. The book format is not digital. By its very nature, the book is the printed word on paper. Eventually, it will go digital, but it will only take a near death experience for publishers for it to go that way. The book is the perfect format. It can remain in its pre-digital format and not worry about copyright and all the problems with piracy in the music and movie industry. Even when digital becomes very prominent, will the majority of readers will still purchase a printed book? Isn't it ironic that the blog Print is Dead printed a book?
It seems that the e-book is becoming an alternative format to reading like an audiobook. From the Christian Science Monitor article, E-books multiply, but who's reading them?
SNIP
"as habits change and content inventory nears critical mass (Google, to name one prospective repository, is still wrangling with copyright issues), digital books might finally gain a foothold, observers say – not as a replacement format, but as an alternative delivery system not unlike the audiobook. Both the publishing industry and the reading public appear to be shaking the notion that for the beloved book, digital equals death."
END SNIP
A reaction to this story is available on Teleread here. It speaks to the fact publishers prefer that books stay in print, not so much for their readers, but because books are DRM proof.
SNIP
Take away DRM—really more of a protection for proprietary formats than the intellectual property rights of authors and publishers—and sales of e-books from large publishers will get a nice bump.
END SNIP
Libraries provide access or the near-death of the public library
To add to that, publishers force libraries to have increased digital rights management to check out digital content. Nobody has really figured out a simple cost and access model for the new way of access. Instead of creating a copy for everyone, there is one copy in which everyone can access. Digital Rights Management treats the one copy like many copies. Libraries have to make access even worse to provide the content at all.
More on DRM from Jessmyn at librarian.net:
SNIP
The weird part is that patrons can more easily buy their own content, but to get the “checkoutability” it requires DRM and that puts this into the arena of the heavy hitters vendorwise.
END SNIP
On the YALSA blog, Joseph Wilk laments the fact that Radiohead did not provide a way for public libraries to distribute this album to their patrons. Libraries were traditionally the middleman. Sell it to libraries, and they turn around and provide access. Now this is done through Digital Rights Management. Ironically, Radiohead already provided access and libraries can still distribute them. However, it is not so much in the physical format, but by providing computers with internet access.
Public libraries will continue to house books in print as long as the publishing industry continues to do so. When books become digital completely, what will libraries do? If the content is free and can be accessed with a computer and Internet access, what is the future role of the public library?
Public libraries are undergoing the near-death experience as well. Since 1995 the common theme from non-library users is, why do you need the library when you have the Internet. This has come up for discussion recently on Publib because of that same remark in the popular hit series Heroes.
Quote from Publib, starting the discussion:
SNIP
"... the girl was trying to lie to her parents so that she could go out with a boy. She told them she was going to the library. Her brother said, "haven't you ever heard of the Internet?" She replied that she was doing a paper on how libraries were becoming more and more obsolete for her generation.
END SNIP
The reality is that information wants to be free. Everyone wants free access. The Internet provides that. It will increasingly provide better content online for free. The library role with in relation to content is to provide access through computers with sufficient Internet bandwidth. Content once housed and organized in libraries are freely available online. This will only increase over time. Libraries will increasingly need to shift gears to provide the content, not by owning it or organizing it, but by providing access to it, for free. Watch this video (Information R/Evolution).
Libraries are already striking back by changing their environments mostly due to the Library 2.0 movement. They are also beginning to take back their content to make it freely available online instead of giving it away to Google.
NY Times: Libraries Shun Deals to Place Books on Web
(This article should read, Libraries to provide free content, tells Google to take a hike)
SNIP
"But the resistance from some libraries, like the Boston Public Library and the Smithsonian Institution, suggests that many in the academic and nonprofit world are intent on pursuing a vision of the Web as a global repository of knowledge that is free of business interests or restrictions."
The real irony with the current state of content on the Internet is the fact that everyone who produces content, at some point, wants to be paid for it. Libraries are the biggest purchasers of the written word. The real goal of libraries is to breach the rich/poor gap and to provide access to content. And in a digital age, there is still a staggering amount of people who cannot read, don't have access to computers and the Internet, and have no skills to compete. This is one of the many roles in which libraries currently play, and will continue to play.
Sunday, April 29, 2007
A book is not a piece of music, nor is it a movie
The e-book struggle continues. The Sony e-reader has responded to the complaints that people will not read a book on a computer screen. Now the computer screen looks just like the page of a book, it reacts to light, it's not back-lit, and it's not hard on the eyes. It IS however, hard on the wallet. No one will shell out $350 for an e-book reader, especially if they have to shell out an additional $25 for a book, why not just buy the book? There is something about books that is different from movies and music. In many ways it is easy to define the difference. However, there are many differences that are difficult to explain other than how people act about books.
Two quotes from Lawrence Clark Powell:
" We are the children of a technological age. We have found streamlined ways of doing much of our routine work. Printing is no longer the only way of reproducing books. Reading them, however, has not changed."
Another quote I cannot find and so I probably shouldn't mention it. However, this quote was repeated to be by former University of Arizona School of Information Resources and Library Sciences Dean Brooke Sheldon. It mentioned something about the soul of books and how one could drink from them and find everlasting nourishment. It was a quote she mentioned when recruiting for library school. I signed up soon afterward.
The point being that books cast a magical spell on the reader. Something unexplainable that no technology can ever master or reproduce. It's the reading of the book quietly at night and staying up until 2 in the morning finishing it, satisfied. I think the problem with the internet so often is that there is no end to it, no quiet. It is a constant state of doing something with no accomplishment. Reading a book gives you a story that inspires the soul that lasts forever long after the book has been read. It reminds me of a quote I read about The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold.
"Aimee Bender, author of An Invisible Sign of My Own
The Lovely Bones is the kind of novel that, once you're done, you may go visit while wandering through a bookstore and touch on the binding, just to remember the emotions you felt while reading it.."
It is difficult to explain that emotion. Many publishers and technologists may say, "It's silly that these people go on about you can read the book in bed and you can't share it, its electronic you can put it anywhere, give it to anyone". It seems simple, but it is not the same thing. The feel of the book, to touch the spine, it's something real, tangible, it transforms you to that place in the book, just be feeling the paper, touching the spine. I even like the vinyl cover on library books.
Some posts in the last month have hammered the e-book industry about the systemic problems with e-books. No one will buy an expensive reader AND pay for the book. Especially since they can only use the book on that reader. They can, of course, download from Gutenberg and other free sites. Those are nice for the classics, not very good for current titles.
The most prominent was this post:
SNIP
Why the commercial ebook market is broken
"My take on ebooks is that they are — and should be seen as — the cheapest form of disposable literature. They're not cultural artefacts (pace Cory Doctorow); you don't buy them in signed, slipcased, limited editions. They're like stripped mass market paperbacks without even the value-added of doubling as wood pulp wall insulation once you've read them."
AND
"I don't think most of the ebook sharing subculture is even about reading the books in the first place — it's about collecting, and participating in a gift sub-culture where your kudos is governed by how much stuff you can give away."
END SNIP
Which leads to this quote:
"To be a book-collector is to combine the worst characteristics of a dope fiend with those of a miser. "
Robertson Davies
Which explains the obsessive nature of book collectors, or just readers in general, to collect books. They may have a house full of books, with no room for more, and then they convert their garage. Look at Library Thing!
Then this article from Wired! talking about the problem of digital rights management. Something I talked about in a post a while back.
Wired! article:
http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2007/04/killed_by_drm_e.html
"E-books are growing, thanks to the improving simplicity and mobility of acquired content. With the masters of digital music finally relenting and offering DRM-free tracks, it's time to kill e-book rights management once and for all: give us we want, in the file format we want, and you get our money. Once."
END SNIP
Then to add to that, we have very clueless publishers trying to charge PER PAGE! (older article, probably will never materialize)
SNIP
Random House Announces Ambitious Pay-Per-Page E-Book Project
November 03, 2005
By Max Chafkin
The world’s largest trade publisher will charge websites four cents per page for fiction and narrative nonfiction (a 350-page book would cost $14, for example), ostensibly allowing vendors to determine their own pricing schemes.
END SNIP
Why would I want to pay for one page of a book? Books don't work this way. Music can be broken down to a song, even a favorite part of a song (which ends up on your cellphone), but the same cannot be done for a book. You cannot rip it apart and just read its parts, you need the whole thing. It is not a CD, nor a song, it must be complete.
A few more articles from this week:
On Mobileread.com:
SNIP
Fujitsu to release colour e-book reader
http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=10598
"So, of course, all this is too good to be perfect. The price, for one, is over $1000 per-reader (for ten readers, for testing purposes - presumably the final product will be slightly less expensive), for the small size. The large size more-than-doubles that price. It's also running "Japanese Windows CE 5.0" (apparently something different from Windows Mobile), and will only be available in Japan."
END SNIP
Again, very expensive and a very closed system.
Why e-books are bound to fail
Electronic books pack bleeding-edge technology, too bad they'll never catch on
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&taxonomyName=mobile_devices&articleId=9017934&taxonomyId=75&intsrc=kc_feat
"People who care enough about books to spend $25 billion on them each year tend to love books and everything about them. They love the look and feel of books. They like touching the paper, and looking at words and illustrations at a resolution no e-book will ever match. They view "curling up with a good book" as an escape from the electronic screens they look at all day. They love to carry them, annotate them, and give them as gifts. Book collecting is one of the biggest hobbies in the world."
I liked this comment on the article as well:
http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=10588
"Perhaps 'e-book reader' is just too misleading a name, as these are at least as well suited - if not better - to non-book written material. I highly doubt the e-book reader will ever disappear, and I honestly believe these could replace everything I noted. References, like encyclopedias, probably in only 5-10 years, and completely replacing newspapers and magazines in, perhaps, 10-15 years."
Another e-book fallout is around the corner. One thing I loved reading over and over again on mobileread.net was how many people use their local library for books. Hey its free, your taxes already pay for it, so why not use it. It certainly makes a lot of sense to me. Think about it this way, you own 100,000 books at your library. Not many people can collect that much AND the more you use it, the more it gets for you. The public library was designed to provide the most money towards the people that use it most. Save $350 or $1000 or even $25 and check out a book. Even some of the e-book vendors aren't pushing as hard as they once did. Music and movies are easy to download since they have always been electronic. Books have never been and it will be difficult to get them there due to proprietary reasons and eyesight annoyances. Until then, you can always get free books at the local library.
Two quotes from Lawrence Clark Powell:
" We are the children of a technological age. We have found streamlined ways of doing much of our routine work. Printing is no longer the only way of reproducing books. Reading them, however, has not changed."
Another quote I cannot find and so I probably shouldn't mention it. However, this quote was repeated to be by former University of Arizona School of Information Resources and Library Sciences Dean Brooke Sheldon. It mentioned something about the soul of books and how one could drink from them and find everlasting nourishment. It was a quote she mentioned when recruiting for library school. I signed up soon afterward.
The point being that books cast a magical spell on the reader. Something unexplainable that no technology can ever master or reproduce. It's the reading of the book quietly at night and staying up until 2 in the morning finishing it, satisfied. I think the problem with the internet so often is that there is no end to it, no quiet. It is a constant state of doing something with no accomplishment. Reading a book gives you a story that inspires the soul that lasts forever long after the book has been read. It reminds me of a quote I read about The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold.
"Aimee Bender, author of An Invisible Sign of My Own
The Lovely Bones is the kind of novel that, once you're done, you may go visit while wandering through a bookstore and touch on the binding, just to remember the emotions you felt while reading it.."
It is difficult to explain that emotion. Many publishers and technologists may say, "It's silly that these people go on about you can read the book in bed and you can't share it, its electronic you can put it anywhere, give it to anyone". It seems simple, but it is not the same thing. The feel of the book, to touch the spine, it's something real, tangible, it transforms you to that place in the book, just be feeling the paper, touching the spine. I even like the vinyl cover on library books.
Some posts in the last month have hammered the e-book industry about the systemic problems with e-books. No one will buy an expensive reader AND pay for the book. Especially since they can only use the book on that reader. They can, of course, download from Gutenberg and other free sites. Those are nice for the classics, not very good for current titles.
The most prominent was this post:
SNIP
Why the commercial ebook market is broken
"My take on ebooks is that they are — and should be seen as — the cheapest form of disposable literature. They're not cultural artefacts (pace Cory Doctorow); you don't buy them in signed, slipcased, limited editions. They're like stripped mass market paperbacks without even the value-added of doubling as wood pulp wall insulation once you've read them."
AND
"I don't think most of the ebook sharing subculture is even about reading the books in the first place — it's about collecting, and participating in a gift sub-culture where your kudos is governed by how much stuff you can give away."
END SNIP
Which leads to this quote:
"To be a book-collector is to combine the worst characteristics of a dope fiend with those of a miser. "
Robertson Davies
Which explains the obsessive nature of book collectors, or just readers in general, to collect books. They may have a house full of books, with no room for more, and then they convert their garage. Look at Library Thing!
Then this article from Wired! talking about the problem of digital rights management. Something I talked about in a post a while back.
Wired! article:
http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2007/04/killed_by_drm_e.html
"E-books are growing, thanks to the improving simplicity and mobility of acquired content. With the masters of digital music finally relenting and offering DRM-free tracks, it's time to kill e-book rights management once and for all: give us we want, in the file format we want, and you get our money. Once."
END SNIP
Then to add to that, we have very clueless publishers trying to charge PER PAGE! (older article, probably will never materialize)
SNIP
Random House Announces Ambitious Pay-Per-Page E-Book Project
November 03, 2005
By Max Chafkin
The world’s largest trade publisher will charge websites four cents per page for fiction and narrative nonfiction (a 350-page book would cost $14, for example), ostensibly allowing vendors to determine their own pricing schemes.
END SNIP
Why would I want to pay for one page of a book? Books don't work this way. Music can be broken down to a song, even a favorite part of a song (which ends up on your cellphone), but the same cannot be done for a book. You cannot rip it apart and just read its parts, you need the whole thing. It is not a CD, nor a song, it must be complete.
A few more articles from this week:
On Mobileread.com:
SNIP
Fujitsu to release colour e-book reader
http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=10598
"So, of course, all this is too good to be perfect. The price, for one, is over $1000 per-reader (for ten readers, for testing purposes - presumably the final product will be slightly less expensive), for the small size. The large size more-than-doubles that price. It's also running "Japanese Windows CE 5.0" (apparently something different from Windows Mobile), and will only be available in Japan."
END SNIP
Again, very expensive and a very closed system.
Why e-books are bound to fail
Electronic books pack bleeding-edge technology, too bad they'll never catch on
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&taxonomyName=mobile_devices&articleId=9017934&taxonomyId=75&intsrc=kc_feat
"People who care enough about books to spend $25 billion on them each year tend to love books and everything about them. They love the look and feel of books. They like touching the paper, and looking at words and illustrations at a resolution no e-book will ever match. They view "curling up with a good book" as an escape from the electronic screens they look at all day. They love to carry them, annotate them, and give them as gifts. Book collecting is one of the biggest hobbies in the world."
I liked this comment on the article as well:
http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=10588
"Perhaps 'e-book reader' is just too misleading a name, as these are at least as well suited - if not better - to non-book written material. I highly doubt the e-book reader will ever disappear, and I honestly believe these could replace everything I noted. References, like encyclopedias, probably in only 5-10 years, and completely replacing newspapers and magazines in, perhaps, 10-15 years."
Another e-book fallout is around the corner. One thing I loved reading over and over again on mobileread.net was how many people use their local library for books. Hey its free, your taxes already pay for it, so why not use it. It certainly makes a lot of sense to me. Think about it this way, you own 100,000 books at your library. Not many people can collect that much AND the more you use it, the more it gets for you. The public library was designed to provide the most money towards the people that use it most. Save $350 or $1000 or even $25 and check out a book. Even some of the e-book vendors aren't pushing as hard as they once did. Music and movies are easy to download since they have always been electronic. Books have never been and it will be difficult to get them there due to proprietary reasons and eyesight annoyances. Until then, you can always get free books at the local library.
Monday, September 18, 2006
Technology Nobody Uses: Are you buying it just to be cutting edge?
In the last week I have read three different analyses about online digital materials. My library is at the cusp of jumping into this format. However, these items give me pause (along with many other library user interfaces that are not popular and don’t meet user needs).
From Techdirt we find that most music listeners are not really downloading their songs from online music stores. Most of the users are just burning them from CDs so they can avoid Digital Rights Management problems. Your library comes in when they offer music CDs for check-out as opposed to online content. It is easier for someone to come in, burn a music cd from your collection than to download it from your website (or ANYBODIES website). How big is the market of downloadable music? Not as big as you think. I know Itunes is a loss leader but FIVE PERCENT?!!
The article:
iTunes May Not Be That Popular, But It Serves Its Purpose A new analyst report says that just 5 percent of the tracks on the average iPod are bought from iTunes -- a figure that really shouldn't be all that surprising, given that Apple intended it to be a loss leader to sell more iPods. People are still buying music on CD, and they're still using file-sharing networks, illustrating two realities: first, that the mere existence of digital distribution doesn't mean people will overlook its shortcomings and flock to it in droves; second, that despite the availability of free music, people are still paying for it. Digital music sales offer some benefits over buying CDs or other physical media, but for many consumers, the lack of playback restrictions on music ripped from CDs and the benefit of owning something tangible outweigh the convenience and minor price savings legal downloads offer. (end of snipped piece, read more at the link above.)
Here is another article on online audio content. Again, online audiobooks show steady increase, up a whopping 3% in two years!
APA Surveys: Audio Growth Continues
by Shannon Maughan
The Audio Publishers Association has released findings from two new surveys on audio sales and audio consumers that shows another gain in sales in 2005 and the increasing popularity of the digital audio format.
According to the sales survey, total spending on spokenword audio rose 4.7% in 2005, to an estimated $871 million. As expected, sales of downloadable audio are showing steady gains. Downloads represented 9% of total audio sales last year, up from 6% in 2004. Another obvious trend is the continuing decline of sales in the audiocassette format. Cassettes comprised only 16% of total sales last year, down sharply from 30% in 2004, indicating the inevitable fade of this technology. Additionally, member publishers indicated that they produced fewer titles in the cassette format in 2005. (end of snipped article)
Of course on both of these above issues, no library online audiobook/music vendor has provided a downloadable format that works for all music players. If all the music works for windows and is in mp3 format, and everyone has an ipod, who is going to use it, especially if you cannot hack it?
Another issue is e-books. No one has agreed to a standard e-book player. There are a dozen different format and no player in which you could read the item without hurting your eyes. Even then you would have to pay $500 to get it.
Another article from the Washington Times about the non-use of e-books and the problems that have arisen with it:
E-books unplugged
Start of snipped piece:
“Ms. Schroeder says that a few years ago, publishers were anticipating a surge in e-book sales. "We built it, and they didn't come," she says, speaking of consumers.
Part of the reason for consumers' hesitancy is the difficulty in finding an appropriate reading device. Mr. Bogaty refers to new e-book reading devices, such as the Sony Reader or IRex Technologies E-Reader but says the preferred platform in the United States is a personal digital assistant (PDA). In the future, he speculates, cell phones and PDAs will combine features in one electronic device with a larger screen and better resolution, which would be more conducive for e-book reading.” (end of snipped piece)
Start of another snipped piece, same article:
“Before e-books can truly hold up in the mass market, however, the industry has to agree on standards regarding digital rights management, known as DRM, for consumers to get full use and accessibility from their e-books.
Jonathan Smith, a graduate student at Catholic University who works as the electronic resources assistant at the university's library while he pursues his degree in library science, recently confronted one of the problems caused by the lack of open standards in the e-book industry.
After purchasing and downloading an electronic textbook to his computer, Mr. Smith realized that his e-book couldn't be transferred to another, more accessible reading device such as his Palm Pilot.
"DRM is the largest barrier," Mr. Smith says, referring to the lack of e-book popularity. "Open standards would help across all [reading] devices."”
(End of snipped piece)
I thought that because I worked for a semi-rural library that we were behind the curve in offering these services to the public, but the market isn’t here yet. I would see these items as services bigger systems are providing through their central library, but it seems like this market is still pretty small. Digital Rights Management seems to be the biggest problem and for libraries to provide this information, it would require heavier than usually since it expires after so much time and most of the vendors do not provide services compatible to all formats.
I guess we will see what happens, but I feel better about not being able to offer these services yet.
From Techdirt we find that most music listeners are not really downloading their songs from online music stores. Most of the users are just burning them from CDs so they can avoid Digital Rights Management problems. Your library comes in when they offer music CDs for check-out as opposed to online content. It is easier for someone to come in, burn a music cd from your collection than to download it from your website (or ANYBODIES website). How big is the market of downloadable music? Not as big as you think. I know Itunes is a loss leader but FIVE PERCENT?!!
The article:
iTunes May Not Be That Popular, But It Serves Its Purpose A new analyst report says that just 5 percent of the tracks on the average iPod are bought from iTunes -- a figure that really shouldn't be all that surprising, given that Apple intended it to be a loss leader to sell more iPods. People are still buying music on CD, and they're still using file-sharing networks, illustrating two realities: first, that the mere existence of digital distribution doesn't mean people will overlook its shortcomings and flock to it in droves; second, that despite the availability of free music, people are still paying for it. Digital music sales offer some benefits over buying CDs or other physical media, but for many consumers, the lack of playback restrictions on music ripped from CDs and the benefit of owning something tangible outweigh the convenience and minor price savings legal downloads offer. (end of snipped piece, read more at the link above.)
Here is another article on online audio content. Again, online audiobooks show steady increase, up a whopping 3% in two years!
APA Surveys: Audio Growth Continues
by Shannon Maughan
The Audio Publishers Association has released findings from two new surveys on audio sales and audio consumers that shows another gain in sales in 2005 and the increasing popularity of the digital audio format.
According to the sales survey, total spending on spokenword audio rose 4.7% in 2005, to an estimated $871 million. As expected, sales of downloadable audio are showing steady gains. Downloads represented 9% of total audio sales last year, up from 6% in 2004. Another obvious trend is the continuing decline of sales in the audiocassette format. Cassettes comprised only 16% of total sales last year, down sharply from 30% in 2004, indicating the inevitable fade of this technology. Additionally, member publishers indicated that they produced fewer titles in the cassette format in 2005. (end of snipped article)
Of course on both of these above issues, no library online audiobook/music vendor has provided a downloadable format that works for all music players. If all the music works for windows and is in mp3 format, and everyone has an ipod, who is going to use it, especially if you cannot hack it?
Another issue is e-books. No one has agreed to a standard e-book player. There are a dozen different format and no player in which you could read the item without hurting your eyes. Even then you would have to pay $500 to get it.
Another article from the Washington Times about the non-use of e-books and the problems that have arisen with it:
E-books unplugged
Start of snipped piece:
“Ms. Schroeder says that a few years ago, publishers were anticipating a surge in e-book sales. "We built it, and they didn't come," she says, speaking of consumers.
Part of the reason for consumers' hesitancy is the difficulty in finding an appropriate reading device. Mr. Bogaty refers to new e-book reading devices, such as the Sony Reader or IRex Technologies E-Reader but says the preferred platform in the United States is a personal digital assistant (PDA). In the future, he speculates, cell phones and PDAs will combine features in one electronic device with a larger screen and better resolution, which would be more conducive for e-book reading.” (end of snipped piece)
Start of another snipped piece, same article:
“Before e-books can truly hold up in the mass market, however, the industry has to agree on standards regarding digital rights management, known as DRM, for consumers to get full use and accessibility from their e-books.
Jonathan Smith, a graduate student at Catholic University who works as the electronic resources assistant at the university's library while he pursues his degree in library science, recently confronted one of the problems caused by the lack of open standards in the e-book industry.
After purchasing and downloading an electronic textbook to his computer, Mr. Smith realized that his e-book couldn't be transferred to another, more accessible reading device such as his Palm Pilot.
"DRM is the largest barrier," Mr. Smith says, referring to the lack of e-book popularity. "Open standards would help across all [reading] devices."”
(End of snipped piece)
I thought that because I worked for a semi-rural library that we were behind the curve in offering these services to the public, but the market isn’t here yet. I would see these items as services bigger systems are providing through their central library, but it seems like this market is still pretty small. Digital Rights Management seems to be the biggest problem and for libraries to provide this information, it would require heavier than usually since it expires after so much time and most of the vendors do not provide services compatible to all formats.
I guess we will see what happens, but I feel better about not being able to offer these services yet.
Friday, September 08, 2006
Fix-it Fridays: All dressed up and nowhere to go or stuck in the middle with you
Today’s Fix-it Friday will focus on technology and finding a balance between an agency that bridges the technology gap and one that creates barriers. (note this posted late, sorry)
Our library is at a turning point. We have provided sufficient technology to meet the needs of our users. Space issues are planned to be resolved by bonding for facilities, followed by more staff. We are currently considering more technology to help save staff time and more convenience to patrons until this happens. In all services, the library must meet the lowest common denominator for service. It cannot push too much technology on the public; otherwise it creates the same digital divide it has sworn to bridge. We keep looking at making the next step in technology to provide content online. However, with much of the population still unable to afford a computer and Internet access, E-books, downloadable music, and even electronic databases are a problem. In the past, if we did not have enough modern computers, how can we take away a paper product and replace it with something that requires a computer. If we could not provide access to these electronic resources ourselves, how can we expect our patrons to.
In a previous Successful Saturday I documented how we solved the problem of new and updated computers and adding additional computers. We recently received another grant for more computers which will give us one computer for every 1000 people in our legal service area. That is higher than average and great progress. We have solved the problem of basic needs technology-wise and patrons do not often have to compete for computer time. Our next dilemma, where do we go from here? We can provide more and more databases for the public so that they can meet all their information needs from the library's website, at home or at the library. That is the first step.
Databases are great, they save the library money, they provide the same information one can find in a book, but multiple people can the same information at the same time. Sounds great right! You still have the problem of the lowest common denominator. Who is going to use this product on average and will they have the technical ability to use it. A case in point, we went to a product called referenceusa and stopped ordering phone books out of state and stopped purchasing some business directories which ended up saving the library $4,000. You would think it was a win-win, saved money and provided greater access, but not completely. When the library participated in its Master Plan, one of the focus groups came up with the problem that the library was pushing too much technology too fast. We got rid of reference materials that were being viewed everyday by patrons thinking they would easily migrate to a digital format. However, instead of just going to the book and getting their information, they had to learn how to use a computer. This is the problem with today’s transformation of library services, we are creating a barrier of learning how to use a device to access the same basic services patrons are used to.
For databases, sometimes libraries have no choice. We must go digital because that is the only way the information is being distributed. Government information, directories, and reference books in general are being placed in databases online. We created computer classes, but many people will simply refuse to use the computer. So, we ended up getting dinged by a number of patrons because we caused more problems than we solved. We did end up getting them to use the databases and referenceusa is one of our highest used databases now. It took a long time to get there though for our core users.
Databases have become standard fare now, we still need to be careful in purchasing the expensive databases to replace the expensive reference books. The problem is providing services in the area of e-books, audiobooks, music, and movies online. The funny thing is that I keep hearing about Digital Rights Management and the problem with purchasing these items online and stripping that out of them. Now the library is going to purchase some for their patrons with even more of the same stuff? Not sure if that will work long-term. The worst problem is the e-book.
There is no set standard for e-books, no format to be downloaded that everyone agrees to. You can go to project Project Gutenberg or other online sites and download free e-books, but not in the same format to read it in microsoft reader or adobe acrobat. You would have to download the text file and read the raw text, or put it in a freeware software program to allow it to be read by either the reader or adobe. That's not even the problem.
The whole concept of the book is that it never required any type of technology to use it. You just needed to learn how to read. Now with music, audiobooks, and movies it is generally accepted that you need to have some tech savvy to get these items to run, but never with books. Are we really expecting patrons to use a laptop or PDA to read these books. What do we tell the patron when all of our books are e-book, sorry you will have to buy a $500 computer to read that instead of the $20 you are accustomed to? That definitely seems like creating a technology divide to our patrons instead of bridging it. It is something to keep in mind as we progress online and provide services to our patrons from the web 24 hours a day, we still need to serve the patrons that walk through our doors and use our “traditional” services like reading books or storytime. We can move to a format and sacrifice our core users for the technology end. We need to bridge the divide, not create one. And if we are providing virtual reference that patrons find difficult to use, or if we provide books that patrons need to purchase a computer to read, or put music, audiobooks, and movies online with so much digital rights management that patrons cannot watch them, then we have failed in taking the right steps forward in technology. It goes back to the rules of library science, save the time of the user, much of this technology does not save anyone anytime. We have to find a way to provide these services that patrons are getting from other places and expecting it from us, but still be the same library that patrons are using.
Our library is at a turning point. We have provided sufficient technology to meet the needs of our users. Space issues are planned to be resolved by bonding for facilities, followed by more staff. We are currently considering more technology to help save staff time and more convenience to patrons until this happens. In all services, the library must meet the lowest common denominator for service. It cannot push too much technology on the public; otherwise it creates the same digital divide it has sworn to bridge. We keep looking at making the next step in technology to provide content online. However, with much of the population still unable to afford a computer and Internet access, E-books, downloadable music, and even electronic databases are a problem. In the past, if we did not have enough modern computers, how can we take away a paper product and replace it with something that requires a computer. If we could not provide access to these electronic resources ourselves, how can we expect our patrons to.
In a previous Successful Saturday I documented how we solved the problem of new and updated computers and adding additional computers. We recently received another grant for more computers which will give us one computer for every 1000 people in our legal service area. That is higher than average and great progress. We have solved the problem of basic needs technology-wise and patrons do not often have to compete for computer time. Our next dilemma, where do we go from here? We can provide more and more databases for the public so that they can meet all their information needs from the library's website, at home or at the library. That is the first step.
Databases are great, they save the library money, they provide the same information one can find in a book, but multiple people can the same information at the same time. Sounds great right! You still have the problem of the lowest common denominator. Who is going to use this product on average and will they have the technical ability to use it. A case in point, we went to a product called referenceusa and stopped ordering phone books out of state and stopped purchasing some business directories which ended up saving the library $4,000. You would think it was a win-win, saved money and provided greater access, but not completely. When the library participated in its Master Plan, one of the focus groups came up with the problem that the library was pushing too much technology too fast. We got rid of reference materials that were being viewed everyday by patrons thinking they would easily migrate to a digital format. However, instead of just going to the book and getting their information, they had to learn how to use a computer. This is the problem with today’s transformation of library services, we are creating a barrier of learning how to use a device to access the same basic services patrons are used to.
For databases, sometimes libraries have no choice. We must go digital because that is the only way the information is being distributed. Government information, directories, and reference books in general are being placed in databases online. We created computer classes, but many people will simply refuse to use the computer. So, we ended up getting dinged by a number of patrons because we caused more problems than we solved. We did end up getting them to use the databases and referenceusa is one of our highest used databases now. It took a long time to get there though for our core users.
Databases have become standard fare now, we still need to be careful in purchasing the expensive databases to replace the expensive reference books. The problem is providing services in the area of e-books, audiobooks, music, and movies online. The funny thing is that I keep hearing about Digital Rights Management and the problem with purchasing these items online and stripping that out of them. Now the library is going to purchase some for their patrons with even more of the same stuff? Not sure if that will work long-term. The worst problem is the e-book.
There is no set standard for e-books, no format to be downloaded that everyone agrees to. You can go to project Project Gutenberg or other online sites and download free e-books, but not in the same format to read it in microsoft reader or adobe acrobat. You would have to download the text file and read the raw text, or put it in a freeware software program to allow it to be read by either the reader or adobe. That's not even the problem.
The whole concept of the book is that it never required any type of technology to use it. You just needed to learn how to read. Now with music, audiobooks, and movies it is generally accepted that you need to have some tech savvy to get these items to run, but never with books. Are we really expecting patrons to use a laptop or PDA to read these books. What do we tell the patron when all of our books are e-book, sorry you will have to buy a $500 computer to read that instead of the $20 you are accustomed to? That definitely seems like creating a technology divide to our patrons instead of bridging it. It is something to keep in mind as we progress online and provide services to our patrons from the web 24 hours a day, we still need to serve the patrons that walk through our doors and use our “traditional” services like reading books or storytime. We can move to a format and sacrifice our core users for the technology end. We need to bridge the divide, not create one. And if we are providing virtual reference that patrons find difficult to use, or if we provide books that patrons need to purchase a computer to read, or put music, audiobooks, and movies online with so much digital rights management that patrons cannot watch them, then we have failed in taking the right steps forward in technology. It goes back to the rules of library science, save the time of the user, much of this technology does not save anyone anytime. We have to find a way to provide these services that patrons are getting from other places and expecting it from us, but still be the same library that patrons are using.
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