From The Digital Reader:

When OverDrive and Smashwords announced a deal last month which made hundreds of thousands of self-published available to public libraries, I was thrilled. Besides the potential increase in revenues and ebook sales, indie authors were gaining access to a whole new market with opportunities to find new readers.

Unfortunately, the deal between Smashwords and Overdrive isn’t working out as well as one would like. In fact, I’m not sure how it could be worse.

Maria Schneider, an author who self-publishes under the Bear Mountain Books imprint, writes over on her blog about her dismay over the hassle of finding self-published ebooks at OverDrive:

I was pretty excited the other day to learn that Smashwords, an ebook distributor, would be distributing books to Overdrive. Overdrive supplies libraries with ebooks. I made sure my books were all signed up. Yesterday I saw they had shipped and were available for libraries to order!

I immediately contacted my librarian friend to make sure they could be seen in the overdrive library system. I’ve had several requests from fans who want their library to order my series. I wanted to make sure the books showed up in the system before I shared the news.

Well. Smashwords does ship the books to Overdrive. HOWEVER, in order for the librarian to even FIND the books in the list, she had to spend a lot of time researching. None of the usual methods worked: Title, nope. Author name, nope. OH. Turns out there is a box on overdrive underneath some other menu…labeled “Self-published.” Once she FOUND that menu and clicked that box and did a search, well THEN the titles would show up. The button was not obvious and had she not known me personally and asked someone else about it…they would never have found my titles at all.

No, you did not read that wrong. Overdrive has put self-published ebooks in their own ghetto.

Link to the rest at The Digital Reader and thanks to Glinda for the tip.

From The BBC:

At the end of May, Rhydyfelin Library was closed. Library users chained themselves to the shelves, obtained a judicial review and, to cut a complicated story short, a small Welsh town had to fight to keep its books – and, in the last few days, may have managed at least a temporary stay of execution.

It was dramatic. And yet in terms of national media coverage the drama played out silence, perhaps appropriately for a library. Perhaps it was too regional a story.

And maybe library closures do just slide by, because they often are regional affairs and also because some things which happen repeatedly somehow become less newsworthy.

Certainly, if you examine Britain’s library closures the story does get repetitive. According to figures collated by Public Libraries News in the last financial year, 61 libraries were withdrawn from service. The preceding year it was 63, the year before that 201. Some new libraries have opened, but there’s debate, again often inaudible, about how many hundreds of others are threatened. Of those 325 lost libraries, around a third have been taken over by their communities in various ways, often with reduced opening hours and working with volunteers.

. . . .

And Britain isn’t just losing books because of library cutbacks and closures – a perfect storm of combined pressures means we’re losing books on all sides. And that concerns me on more than just the personal level.

. . . .

The child of two academics, I was taught that books should be safeguarded and that wasn’t just some sentimental impulse. As the child of two working class people who’d expanded their employment options through education, I was shown books opened like doors into almost unlimited opportunities. And when my mother took me to our local library – Blackness Library, Dundee, it is still there – I found it a high-ceilinged, soft-scented temple of good things yet to happen. Pensioners there reading the papers, enjoying the warmth and presence of company, adults at desks studying, changing their minds almost visibly and children picking out what were still novelties – stories we’d never met. My first ever means of personal identification was my proof of library membership. I was a citizen of the world because I was a reader.

. . . .

So we hear less often from unusual or marginal voices. Less than 3% of books are translations from other languages, other countries. Our range of bookshops and their stock has diminished. If we have computers we’ll mainly be offered multiple clones of successful books – and food porn, design porn, 50 shades of soft porn. And celebrity memoirs and misery memoirs will suggest that learning about other people involves being asked to stare at their degradation. There are still superb books out there – I just helped award the Ondaatje Prize to Alan Jonson’s excellent memoir This Boy – but with less media coverage and fewer ways to be visible, more and more books simply disappear, or are never published. No burning required.

Link to the rest at BBC and thanks to Joshua for the tip.

From National Public Radio Storycorps:

In the late 1950s, when she was just 8 years old, Storm Reyes began picking fruit as a full-time farm laborer for less than $1 per hour. Storm and her family moved often, living in Native American migrant worker camps without electricity or running water.

With all that moving around, she wasn’t allowed to have books growing up, Storm tells her son, Jeremy Hagquist, on a visit to StoryCorps in Tacoma, Wash.

“Books are heavy, and when you’re moving a lot you have to keep things just as minimal as possible,” she says.

. . . .

But when she was 12, a bookmobile came to the fields where she and her family worked.

“So when I saw this big vehicle on the side of the road, and it was filled with books, I immediately stepped back,” she says. “Fortunately the staff member saw me, kind of waved me in, and said, ‘These are books, and you can take one home. You have to bring it back in two weeks, but you can take them home and read them.’ ”

The bookmobile staffer asked Storm what she was interested in and sent her home with a couple of books.

“I took them home and I devoured them. I didn’t just read them, I devoured them,” Storm says. “And I came back in two weeks and had more questions. And he gave me more books, and that started it.”

Link to the rest at NPR

From Spiegel Online:

Many publishing houses don’t allow their products to be lent out by digital libraries for fear of piracy. Articles and books by researchers are also affected. Readers are the ones who have to pay the price.

When the German author Johann Gottfried Seume took his famous “Stroll to Syracuse,” as he entitled his book about his nine-month walk to Sicily in 1802, he made sure to visit a number of local libraries along the way. At the time, it was often impossible to check out books. If you wanted to read them, you had to be mobile.

Today, the situation has come full circle. If a student in Freiburg wants to read the hard-copy version of a book from the university library in Basel, he or she can simply order it via an interlibrary loan. But if only an electronic version is available, interlibrary loans are generally not an option. The student has no choice but to climb into a train and head to Switzerland to read the book on a university computer.

It is a paradox: Books that traveled around the world via interlibrary loan in the 20th century paper era are safeguarded locally in the Internet age. Indeed, it is the sheer ease with which electronic publications can be sent around the world that is now resulting in their being locked up behind digital bars. The book doesn’t go to the reader, the reader comes to the book — just like in the 19th century.

Interlibrary loans were formalized in Prussia in 1893 with the “edict pertaining to lending.” But it doesn’t apply to the new electronic world. Today, publishing houses dictate their conditions to libraries, motivated by their justifiable fear of pirated copies. Unfortunately, it is honest readers who have to pay the price.

Many publishing houses don’t issue licenses for loaning out e-books: Influential German publishers such as Droemer Knaur, Kiepenheuer & Witsch, S. Fischer and Rowohlt, for example, are nowhere to be found on the German-language online lending library Onleihe. That means that important works such as the new definitive World War I study by Berlin-based political scientist Herfried Münkler cannot be checked out electronically. It is a situation that would be unimaginable in the world of paper.

. . . .

There are plenty of absurd examples. Franco Moretti, for example, an English professor at Stanford University, achieved renown with his study “Atlas of the European Novel.” But his research ends at the point when rigid copyright laws, which protect works for up to 70 years after the death of the author, present a roadblock. It is dangerous to scan more current works of literature, Moretti says. “The specter of copyright keeps (them) too protected for us to make inroads. Too bad!”

“Currently, copyright owners are often in a unique position of power,” says Hinte. “A reform and simplification of copyright laws is long overdue.”

In many cases, it is the readers themselves who, through their taxes, pay the university authors whose studies they are then unable to access. It is also likely that many professors themselves cannot even afford a subscription to the journal in which their work is published.

Link to the rest at Spiegel Online and thanks to Peter for the tip.

From GigaOm:

Visitors to the New York Public Library’s website will have a new way to decide what to read next: The library is partnering with New York-based startup Zola Books to offer algorithm-based recommendations to readers. The technology comes from Bookish, the book discovery site that Zola acquired earlier this year.

Until now, the NYPL website had offered book recommendations based on titles other readers were checking out, reviewing or rating, rather than gearing recommendations toward a patron’s own searches or interests.

. . . .

There are long wait times for many new books at the New York Public Library, so a recommendation service like this could be useful to patrons who aren’t able to get the exact book they want right away.

Link to the rest at GigaOm and thanks to Matthew for the tip.

This is the Austrian National Library in Vienna:

Click Here for an interactive panorama of this library. Drag the image with your mouse to explore. It’s a big file and may take awhile to load.

Here are more amazing libraries and thanks to Meryl for the tip.

From The National Journal:

Forget what you know about the library of the 20th century. You know, those dark places with clunky microform machines fossilizing in the basement and with rows of encyclopedias standing, perfectly alphabetized, in denial of their obsolescence.

Forget all of that: The library as a warehouse of information is an outdated concept. The library of the 21st century is a community workshop, a hub filled with the tools of the knowledge economy.

“If we can’t shine in this environment, in this economy, shame on us,” says Corinne Hill, the director of library system in Chattanooga, Tenn.—a system that has thoroughly migrated into the current era.

The library of the 21st century still has books, but it also has 3-D printers, laser cutters, sewing machines, and spaces for conducting business meetings. It offers computer coding classes. It has advanced video- and audio-production software. All things that might and individual may find too expensive but can still benefit from using.

Last year, the downtown Chattanooga public library cleared out its entire fourth floor—14,000 square feet of former storage space—and opened its floor plan for a community collaboration space. It’s part public workshop, part technology petting zoo. But members of the community can also use the space to work on projects or try to launch a business.

. . . .

She shifted around the library’s $5.7 million budget, making room for the 3-D printers and vinyl cutters, and started stocking the shelves with more popular titles. So instead of spending $10,000 for access to little-used academic journals, the library purchased MakerBots (the 3-D printers) for around $2,000, a laser cutter for around $5,000, and a vinyl cutter for $3,000. With these moves, the library has rebranded itself as a coffee shop alternative/technology salon for the upwardly mobile. It even brews its own roast coffee, aptly named “shush.”

“With this space, what we’re trying to do is acknowledge that access to the commons is no longer a read-only environment,” says Meg Backus, who runs the library’s fourth floor.

Link to the rest at The National Journal and thanks to Barb for the tip.

From Annoyed Librarian:

Ahh, 2014 has finally arrived. A lot of people got really excited when it began, so they must know something I don’t about how exciting the year is going to be.

. . . .

 Unsurprisingly, the director of the Office of Information Technology Policy for the American Library Association (ALAOITPLOL) is “optimistic about libraries and ebooks for 2014.” He probably has to professionally optimistic, so I’m not sure that should count.

A VP for an independent ebook publishing platform has “a vision of the future that brings bookstores to every town and invigorates libraries.” You can probably guess what that vision is. “In this vision, libraries of the future are our local bookstores. I see a future where libraries let people borrow digital books—or buy them.” Lordy.

. . . .

The Big 5 publishers will all be “selling” ebooks to libraries for extravagant prices while seriously restricting access to the content to one user at a time. What publisher wouldn’t want that deal?

. . . .

 Oh well, at least libraries can become bookstores. You see, bookstores have been disappearing from communities. But libraries can replace them…somehow.

Libraries already have plenty of print books, so the key is making libraries a hub for selling ebooks, says the VP of an ebook publisher. Huh?

Can’t we just buy ebooks online? Isn’t that kind of the point?

Link to the rest at Annoyed Librarian

From Digital Book World:

As the New Year approaches, I have a vision of the future that brings bookstores to every town and invigorates libraries. In this vision, libraries of the future are our local bookstores. I see a future where libraries let people borrow digital books—or buy them.

. . . .

Buying ebooks through public libraries gives every town a local bookstore. In 2013, we continued to watch independent bookstores (as well as large corporate bookstores) slip away from our communities. Online stores that offer ebooks continue to grow as more and more people acquire ereaders and tablets. But human interaction and the advice of knowing readers are vital to vibrant reading communities. So why not let our libraries become our in-person digital bookstores?

Almost all libraries in the United States have an electronic catalog and offers ebooks in addition to their paper collections. Allowing people to buy digital books through public library catalogs should be possible with a bit of software development and a few new publisher contractual agreements.

. . . .

Jamie LaRue, Director Douglas County Libraries in Colorado understands this vision. In fact, he may be the one who planted this idea in my brain. LaRue and his team have developed their own independent ebook distribution platform that’s part of their overall library catalog.

One of the features of this system is that some ebooks are available for purchase. If patrons at Douglas County Libraries can’t find the books they want, no problem. They can purchase them directly from the catalog via Bilbary. The ebooks are available for sale in EPUB form, which is a start. The vision is there.

Link to the rest at Digital Book World

From Pew Internet:

Americans strongly value the role of public libraries in their communities, both for providing access to materials and resources and for promoting literacy and improving the overall quality of life. Most Americans say they have only had positive experiences at public libraries, and value a range of library resources and services.

. . . .

Some 90% of Americans ages 16 and older said that the closing of their local public library would have an impact on their community, with 63% saying it would have a “major” impact. Asked about the personal impact of a public library closing, two-thirds (67%) of Americans said it would affect them and their families, including 29% who said it would have a major impact.

Moreover, the vast majority of Americans ages 16 and older say that public libraries play an important role in their communities:

• 95% of Americans ages 16 and older agree that the materials and resources available at public libraries play an important role in giving everyone a chance to succeed;
• 95% say that public libraries are important because they promote literacy and a love of reading;
• 94% say that having a public library improves the quality of life in a community;
• 81% say that public libraries provide many services people would have a hard time finding elsewhere.

Link to the rest at Pew Internet