Slashdot Mirror
Public Library Exclusively For Digital Media Proposed
CowboyRobot writes "In San Antonio, a judge and a precinct commissioner are proposing (PDF) a plan to create a library called BiblioTech that offers electronic media exclusively, offering patrons only e-readers and digital materials. 'BiblioTech intends to start with 100 e-readers that can be loaned out, 50 pre-loaded e-readers for children, 50 computer stations, 25 laptops and 25 tablets, with additional accommodations planned for the visually impaired.' But the economics have yet to be ironed out. 'A typical library branch might circulate 10,000 titles a month... To do that electronically would be cost-prohibitive — most libraries can't afford to supply that many patrons with e-reading devices at one time. And expecting library visitors to bring their own devices may be expecting too much.'"
i only ask because i ride the train with people less well off than me and i see them with iphones and all other kinds of toys
One of us must be drunk.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Seriously...
I keep waiting for another company to produce a better e-Book. Apparently they are, like Amazon, staffed by bozos.
This is why Apple kicks a$$.
Where the editors don't even proof-read the headlines!
Many people have their own phone, tablet, and/or e-reader. They should expect most who are interested in a digital library to have their own devices. Having a few for those who don't own one is an extra service. A cheap e-reader is under $50. That's the cost of a few paperbacks. Less than a typical text book.
...which will only take money from **REAL** libraries
they should worry less about devices and more about actual content and ease of use. I have tried using my library's current digital offerings and what is available (not much) it stupid hard to get.
Public libraries were one of the great achievements of Western civilization. However, it seems to me their time has passed. Classic books are available freely anything, and for books still in copyright, a variety of online "for profit" lending options make more sense than somehow tying reading to a physical building. Book rentals generally are cheaper than a milkshake at McDonalds, and healthier too.
The big issues involve licensing for eBooks and the fact that publishers seem to engage in punitive pricing with Libraries. Example: One publisher declares that an ebook can only be checked out 27 times, then the license for that expires. Multiple publishers REFUSE to sell ebooks for Library use. Libraries are treated like pirates by many publishers.
Now, different companies are trying different models. Kansas libraries spearheaded a massive campaign to control their own ebooks licensing, and they succeeded with an unprecedented project of contacting hundreds of Publishers and finagling acceptable licenses for public usage. Will the San Antonio folks be doing this? Do they expect 3M, Sirsi, or Polaris to do this?
A tertiary issue is the license themselves. Typically in libraries, you cannot use a library owned computer to capture or transfer the license to an ereader device. This is because in the case of "USB required devices or items", the license exists on the COMPUTER itself. Downloading a license to a public computer currently violates all applicable copyright law for ebooks/eaudio materials because it makes the license available to all (or the license is lost when a computer reboots and doesn't save anything at all between sessions.)
Intriguing idea, but the article doesn't include any comprehension of the issues involved in this. Just because it sounds "cool", doesn't mean it's doable.
understand, i do not
Remember kids, if you're not paying for the service, YOU ARE THE PRODUCT THAT IS BEING SOLD.
The Internet Is Shit.
As someone who uses (and relies upon) the Internet regularly, I don't share this person's views, but they make some extremely good points.
Many of these same points could be applied to eBooks vs. paper books.
"For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong."
-H. L. Mencken
That's the most idiotic thing I've heard. And I've been on the internet a while.
If it weren't for those messed up copyright laws, all it would take to make the project real, is just a calibre server.
Hell, I could do it. I have 25.000 books in a Calibre library, all nicely sorted and catalogued. As long as you don't ask how I got them (read just ~2000, but I'm getting there).
Why on earth would I want to load myself and the kids* in the car and schlep it over to the library to read stuff on an electronic device? It'd be a lot easier to do that from home using the entartubes. Are there still library systems out there that haven't drank the Overdrive Kool-Aid? I don't even need to put on pants to do that.
*I don't have kids but, from what others tell me, they can be a handful.
"Public Exclusively Library For Digital Media Proposed"
Seriously, it seems like not a day goes by without some [b]glaring[/b] editorial failure, be it spelling, grammar, or an [b]obviously[/b] botched copy/paste. I'm sure that I speak for many when I say that although I read Slashdot for the comments, the atrocious, lazy editing is still offensive.
Get your shit together.
Yo dawg, I heard you like the Ackermann function, so OH GOD OH GOD OH GOD
Got a Sony PRS-505 through work back when they first came out, but couldn't bring myself to purchase any books for it (and given how the copy of _Space Cadet_ which I got w/ a gift certificate was _rife_ w/ errors to the point of being unreadable and resulting in my spending the weekend proofreading the book, no big loss), and instead have been reading through public domain and (legitimately) freely available books as listed at the Online Books Page:
http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/new.html
I just wish there were better sorting options available --- in particular, I'd like to be able to filter out just biographies, then order them chronologically by date (of the lifetime of the subject).
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.
More than a quiet place to read, why is needed that library? For most digital books for your own e-reader, computer or phone, an access point and knowing where to get the books (i.e. Project Gutenberg) is enough. Even lending, if you want to do it, can be done online.
Wait 5 years and e-readers will be under $30, then sell them at the front desk.
My wife has a Kindle and uses it almost exclusively to check out e-books from the Austin Public Library. They have to be reserved through the library and transferred by Amazon, but she says the process is easy enough to manage. I know she has read upwards of 100 books in the past ~18 months this way.
So if libraries already have a working process for lending e-books for Kindle (and presumably other readers), I have to ask why someone thinks they need this "digital media library" approach. I assume that this is all political and/or publicity oriented, but I have to ask whether the money wouldn't be better spent elsewhere. If nothing else, loaning delicate electronic equipment to the public seems like a frightful risk.
"...To do that electronically would be cost-prohibitive..."
Huh?
OK granted, I understand that from the later context of the article, they're not just talking about an electronic library (which, let's face it, isn't much more than a gussied-up ftp server), they're talking about a whole social program where they loan out e-readers.
Electronic public library - great idea, easy way to make e-texts available to the public. Many public libraries already offer this service, but the service varies from community to community and there's really no reason for doing it that way. You could just as easily and more efficiently have a STATE-level electronic library and eliminate the redundancies of (for example) MN having 87 different public library systems each with their own little ghetto of users, access, and licenses.
Electronic lending of ebook readers - approaches the catastrophically stupid. So instead of lending BOOKS which are durable, relatively cheap, nearly-zero-cost once you've purchased them, you want to loan out e-readers which are fragile, expensive, and offer little utility to a typical reader above that of a normal book (as well as significantly lower readability, depending on the kind of book)? It's one thing if you're decommissioning physical libraries and the e-reader program is to allow the public to access those inventories, but if you're just talking about another social program to loan electronic gadgets to poor people, is it really the best time economically to be EXPANDING social service programs?
-Styopa
...that biblioteque means "library"... in French!
I'm sorry, but do they think the people who created that content are going to allow it?
I applaud someone for trying to do this, but I predict it would almost immediately lead to lawsuits by people claiming their EULA forbids this.
These are the same people who think photocopiers should be banned, and if more than one person watches a movie they should get paid more.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
He plans to call the system the National Archive Project Storing Texts Electronically Readable.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
What's the point? Why not just incorporate this into the regular public library?
Surely we whites should have our wages stolen from us, in the form of taxes, so that we can give every African on Earth a free Kindle and the complete works of Shakespeare! Because, after all, it's not like it's a complete and utter waste of time trying to educate them, is it...
It's not as if their IQ is twenty to thirty points below that of white people, is it...
Am I the only one who finds it odd that it is cheaper to purchase and circulate physical media rather than "virtual" media? I know my local school district, looking at fruity tablet computers, determined that electronic textbooks would end up costing more than the actual books they are purchasing now - largely because e-books from their publishers would have to be purchased every year, and not allowed to be passed down for a few years like a traditional book. Sound like the publishers killing e-books
This idea seems obsolete, given that most users with broadband Internet access have the necessary tools to host a digital library. Why should the public authorize the allocation of funds to yet another walled garden of publications when the technology already exists to allow the freedom to access anything at any time? I see what you did there, publishing companies.
Crimey
I agree with some of the posts above, this isn't well thought out
They're also going to have to provide support for the readers they lend out. Some things are pretty straight forward but others are not. Like when you start getting into DRM issues and they need to set up an Adobe account for the epub books. Or if the reader they are lending has special software needed on a PC to download books, unless they will only be pre-loaded. What about the first time someone leaves a book on the reader they just returned and little 8 year old Joey is the next one to use it? Joey's parents may not be too happy with his new vocabulary. How about when they start coming back broken, will they be quick to replace them? How long will their insurance company put up with it?
As others have mentioned it sounds good initially, but a better idea would be a space in the library where people could sit and use a reader to see if they like it. Corporate sponsorship would work well here and give the library a chance to market its ebook collection.
It's called "The Scene"
Just make topsites the equivalent of libraries under law and you've already got a head start.
The big issues involve licensing for eBooks and the fact that publishers seem to engage in punitive pricing with Libraries. Example: One publisher declares that an ebook can only be checked out 27 times, then the license for that expires. Multiple publishers REFUSE to sell ebooks for Library use. Libraries are treated like pirates by many publishers.
Didn't we give them copyright in the first place.. ..so that there would no longer be such things as book licenses?
I might be missing something, but I think that if we start licensing books again, they should lose their ability to copyright them.