Libraries are Screwed, Part 2

So we've enumerated the threats to libraries and the difficulties in finding a new formula to providing value to our communities in the absence of access to commercial content markets. So now what? How can libraries re-invent themselves to provide service and value in a world where bestsellers are not for sale to libraries? Part 2 of a 2-part youtubeification of Eli's talk at the Library Journal / School Library Journal eBook Summit: Libraries at the Tipping Point, held September 29, 2010. Featuring the live audio from the session and the slides as Keynote intended!

• Category

  People & Blogs

[8bitlibrary]

LOCAL COPY ONLY MAKES SENSE TO A HOARDER. that quote is full of WIN.

[mordecaicarroll]

Gather 'round the Kindle, kids, it's storytime!

What a depressing thought.

[Irmgarde Brown]

Love this. We will be using these videos as springboard to discussion in Admin Mgrs meeting today. Whoop!

[kbmontrose]

Couldn't a new technology cause the advent of new, much more dangerous threats? Would you rather deal with a bookworm or a conficker worm?

[celticelk]

I mostly agree with what you're saying here, Eli, but I feel obligated to point out the tremendous assumption embodied in your presentation: that cheap and easy digital transmission will remain available for the indefinite future. The emerging data suggests that the alternative - that we may not, in fifty years, have enough available energy to run something that looks like our modern Internet - can no longer be dismissed as wild-eyed fantasy. In that case, how does this picture change?

[Eric Bateman]

I'm having a hard time predicting how "libraries as a platform/host for new experiences/content" will serve emerging readers. Do we give up sharing published books (digital included) with young students, hoping they can access them on their own (on their parent's dime)? I agree that publishers have the upper hand when it comes to what we can do with their digital content -- but won't making their content only available to those who can afford it widen the gap between the haves and have-nots?