Forget those well-thumbed paperbacks with covers last laminated in the mid-1980s. Libraries, often chided for being outdated and remote, are going digital – with e-books arriving on numerous virtual library shelves.
But the concept of freely available electronic books has raised hackles in parts of the book industry. Some retailers argue unlimited access could undermine e-book sales. Looming over the debate is the shadow of local authority budget cuts, which at worst will push some libraries towards closure.
Bloomsbury, UK publisher of Harry Potter books, is at the vanguard of the movement to get e-books in libraries, by its Public Library Online project.
“One of the challenges libraries face is the erroneous idea that they’re fusty old Victorian institutions that have had their day,” says Richard Charkin, executive director at Bloomsbury. “Our ‘public library online’ means that anyone with an internet-enabled device can suddenly benefit from being a library member."
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But there is growing disquiet in some industry quarters.
“The free loan of e-books by libraries should not be possible,” wrote Tim Godfray, chief executive of the Booksellers Association, in a letter to the Department for Culture, Media & Sport this year. “The free loan of e-books is very different from the free loan of printed books.”
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Others question why the state should fund the purchase of e-books, when the readers libraries target most (such as low-income groups and communities with low literacy rates) are unlikely to own an e-reader.
Yet, libraries adopting the e-book model say they have taken this into account. “That’s why we go for formats that people can download on to their phone or their computer. Because most people have got a phone and access to a computer, whether at home or at school,” says Sue Wills, a librarian at Kensington and Chelsea, which recently began to offer e-books by means of Overdrive (see box below) and by Bloomsbury’s Public Library Online.
The article includes a sidebar with two boxes, "Pros and Cons of Current Models."
+ Model 2: Downoadable access, what OverDrive uses.
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