- 44 states plus DC
- 14 countries outside the US
First question – What are some of the implications they see with the new players in the ebook environment?
Marshall – Wasn’t long ago that digitizing the world books was inconceivable. But you can’t count on Google for everything! Google has the resources to go into the world’s best libraries and digitize them. A world changing phenomenon. He looks at it from the aspects of discovery. You can now search across books. Search for and search inside. The challenge is this search aspect. The discoverability is more exciting.
Stephen – What are the unintended consequences? Is this really about books? What are the consequences of putting all of these books online? Immersive entertainment experience versus the information finding experience. Disaggregation of books. What is the difference between chapters, books, articles? The books are discoverable, but it is the ability to search in that will change things.
Dick – Analogies to the journal digitization that occurred. There was a controversy when the first libraries signed with Google. Remember that Google is a vendor. Interested in the impact of digitization on what libraries do. With this content outside of the library catalogues, what is left for the library catalogue to do?
Libraries can digitize materials from their community and from their online collection – data, archival records. National Archives received money from Ancestry.com…so getting money from companies is not out of the question.
Roy – Years ago, he argued that the Library of Congress would not be fully digitized. He is now willing to eat his hat!
Stephen – Why do you digitize books? Demand Media has said (1) To put advertising within reading. (2) Use the books to control search engine results. In an advertising-based company (Google), why digitize books?
Marshall – Libraries have more books due to the books that are digitixzed. Enticing for smaller libraries. Have to do a “deal with the devil” in order to do it. Thinking of the Google Book Settlement, do libraries get what they want and need?
Internet Archive approaches digitization in a more library friendly way. Yes, libraries have to pay for part of the digitization that the Internet Archive does. However, the results are more frienedly. WE need to find the right deals that benefit libraries and library users the most.
Dick – What is the sttus of the books being digitized by Google? Can we really see the content from all of the books? Are some books still under copyright protection?
The publishers are digitizing books very rapidly. There is a vast rush to digitize books and make them available to ereaders. There is an ebook standard. Also HMTL5 – more flexibility.
Stephen – Sometimes in 2011 the Supreme Court will make a decision about the in-copyright books being digitized by the Google Books Project. The Google Books Project will limit access to the content at the libraries who have access to it. Libraries will need to pay for additional access –printing/saving. This is a major disruption in the force.
Roy – Harper Collins – the ramifications of leasing access to content.
Dick – IN the Netherlands the 26 loans is seen as fair. (odd) Lending ebooks scares publishers.
Marshall – Libraries are based on legal models that apply only to books. What is the library’s role when things are streamed? What is the library’s role with things are published digitally? There is a real struggle between what the publishers are worried about and what the libraries understand how to do. Most books will soon be in digital form.
Dick – ebooks are in place in many research centers. Lack of DRM.
Stephen – The Harper Collins solutions is a version of whack-a-mole. The two biggest publishers won’t let libraries have their ebooks at all (i.e., Simon Schuster). Why are we upset with Harper Collins? There are others that we need to be concerned with.
Obama Administration announced that it is going to refocus on copyright.
Roy – What kind of impact of having these massive collections of ebooks will have on our print collections? Can we ship more books to storage? Can we get rid of a few?
Marshall – A shift in how we handle backfiles. Put things in remote storage. The working collections will become smaller. The vast amounts of materials, if discoverable, will be available in some way. Long form readng is different than reading articles.
Stephen – Do I want Amazon to control what goes on an ereader? Do we want Apple to control how we read/comment on books? Do we want someone to have that type of power? How many libraries would allow one person to ban a book? Yet we allow Jeff Bezos to ban books. Why is the library profession silent on this issue?
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