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

Tags:

• Libraries
• eBooks
• LJ
• SLJ
• Screwed

[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.

[irmbrown]

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?

[gonewrenchin]

The fair use exception is still far-fetched even if it were to pass legislatively. When one library can host all content, what's the point in there being thousands of libraries? Any digital distribution model would result in consolidation.

[ebateman21]

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?