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Video on Demand From the Public Library
ye oulde library lover writes "In light of the recent story about Wal-Mart and movies on demand, readers should know there is a free service available from some public libraries that lets you download movies and tv shows. The service is just beginning, so selection is pretty mediocre, but the sponsors, Recorded Books and PermissionTV, make some big promises. If your library ponies up the dough for the top service, you will be able to download movies on the same day as their dvd release. All you need is a library card. You can see one of the early adopters — Half Hollow Hills Community Library in the library's blog. Look for MyLibraryDV."
This looks like it could be a great service, but I can't help but think the movie industry will fight this one to the death. On the one hand, the libraries already have the right to loan movies for free (by law) as well they should be able to. On the other hand, the libraries are unlikely to have deep enough pockets to battle it out with the industry. And it is highly unlikely they will just pass on the chance to fight this one out. If this goes as well as it could (for us) it would severely undercut the industry, therefore destroying the profitability of film making in general. This of course would put the industry into its death-throes. I suspect the argument they could make will be something like "The library may have x copies of the DVD that they purchase. Therefore, x people may borrow the DVD at a time." That seems reasonable I suppose, but would also make this service a lot let useful, as it could be weeks before you get to view your video.
My library has this and the librarians are clueless how bad this is.
The main problem is this the company and the librarians and the broshures they hand out say it's for MP3 players. well it's not: it only plays on WMA 10 compabtible devices. This means no ipods, very few Mp3 players even the ones that play the older WMA files. It won't play on a mac and it won't play on linux computers. And it won't even play on older windows machines that don't have WM player 10. Sure you can download it but is granny gonna do that?
Also the way the check out works is that you can check it out once for two weeks, renew it once for two weeks, and then you can never check out the same book a second time, making it essential to have multiple fake library IDs if you want to get through some long book.
Now given that the libraries have fixed budgets I'm sure this resulting in the purchase of fewer CDs . The 95% of the world that does not have a WMA 10 compatible "MP3" player is subsidizing this.
If you want to use it you have to not only buy a WMP 10 compaitble Music player, but now you also have to use some new music management system different from the one you use for your other players to transfer the audio. You have to have a windows computer too.
I guess the most galling thing to me was that librarians kept showing me the printed broshure from the company saying it worked with any Mp3 player and insisting I must be mistaken.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
I don't like sounding like a GNU/Linux zealot, but it is disheartening when these people always choose windows only options, especially when there are easily availble ways to distribute media for any OS. I am near the half hollow hills district, I wonder if I get a cross library sticker (so I can borrow from them since they are in the suffolk county system) if it would let me download too :)
Libraries in their race to become relevant - are becoming meaningless
No, libraries are responding to their customers. The customer is always right because the customer knows what he or she wants. And the customers of public libraries (who pay the taxes) want nearly everything.
During the VHS/betamax wars, the customers pressured libraries to provide this medium. The libraries responded. When books on tape became popular with a certain segment of the population, they asked the library to provide them. Libraries responded. When DVDs and CDs came along, customers asked libraries to provide them. Libraries responded. When the Internet became popular, customers asked libraries to provide free access. Libraries responded again. In many cases, the ONLY free access available is at your local public library.
Libraries responded to these new types of information pretty well, I think, while still providing a wide variety of fiction and non-fiction books, children's books, storytimes, programming, reference service, interlibrary loans, holds, local history collections, genealogy departments, classes, and all the traditional things libraries have historically done.
This particular service we've been discussing is new. There are only a couple of offerings. Yup, they are only windows. That's because, dear readers, the vast majority of people are not at all interested in Linux, slashdot, or whatever arcane OS is popular with geeks. It is simply not relevant. When someone comes up with a service that caters to all at once, libraries will get it. Many libraries are well aware of the MP3, iPod issues on some of these new services. But they are not going to wait until they've satisfied 100% of potential users until they implement, particularly on a trial basis, these new services. When LIBRARIES tell vendors their offerings are not good enough, the vendors will change. It happens every time. Libraries also generally have a vast array of "internet accessible" information you are not going to find with Google. This includes almost all periodicals and indexes, both popular and academic. Just go to your local library's web site and look at the list of "online resources." It's incredible. From JSTOR to Information Access, Proquest to Morningstar, Business Reference to Academic Index. That's a vast amount of information available.
If you don't use your local library, that's okay. They are quite busy enough already. I don't physically visit my library either; I do it all on-line. But criticizing libraries because they respond to their customers is crazy. If they didn't, they would already be gone. Lots of the criticism here is of organization that do NOT respond to their customers (e.g. Nvidia). You can't have it both ways.
"The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them." -Mark Twain
How about a moderation of -1 pedantic.
Wow, the slashdot community meets it's twin! In a sort of Star Trek "Mirror, Mirror" way without the evilness. By that I mean that the Libraryhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library community has been at the forefront of infotech since BCE putting the tech to real use for the general populace - making the info available. Tags? try the MARChttp://www.loc.gov/marc/overview.html/ based WorldCathttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WorldCat/, Deep Web? try your Nationalhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_libr ary/ Library or Consortia.http://www.library.yale.edu/consortia/ Come on slashdotters get in behind your Libraries and build the future!