This is the challenge...

In reference to what "book" sellers want to shoot for, specifically Barnes & Noble's probable new owners, Liberty Media Group:

"You don't want the old-fashioned bookstore customer who goes in and sits and reads a book for two hours. You want people going in there who are hungry for experience," said Richard Hastings, a consumer strategist with Global Hunter Securities.

Given this strategy, what is a library to do? Are we to cater to the "old-fashioned" customer?  The article from which that quote came goes on to say that paper books still out-sell ebooks 5-to-1.  But the publishing industry is banking on ebooks as the future which leaves libraries in an awkward position.  What about the people who want the "experience", whatever that is?

We in libraries are still tied to paper because our users are not just the "1" in the 5-to-1 ratio.  We are also saddled with a lack of viable ebook lending systems.  OverDrive, a big player in downloadable audio books cut a deal with Amazon to allow Kindle books to be borrowed through libraries.  But OverDrive has really expensive "access" fees that they charge libraries simply to get to their collections of ebooks and audio books.  Plus Kindle access will not be available until fall of 2011.  Likewise, Recorded Books, sort of the "gold standard" company among audio book producers, has been aggressive in attracting libraries by providing an alternative platform to the OverDrive juggernaut.  But they too have very small collections of ebooks for loaning through libraries and currently no access to Amazon's proprietary format for Kindle users.

How noisy is it?  WHO CARES - we'd be printing our own books!

HPL will continue to purchase paper for the time being, but just as LP, 8 track, and cassette collections fell prey to the evolution of formats and players, so too may the paper book.  What does that mean for people who can't afford to buy every book they read, let a lone purchase the reader?  As publishers limit their print offerings, it means less variety.  Libraries will step in and fill that gap easily though.  Libraries can purchase and circulate the  readers themselves, if they want.  Or libraries can become paper "book ATMs" if you will, by purchasing systems such as the Espresso Book Machine.  Then, we could continue to provide items to our patrons who either can't afford or don't want to purchase every single book they read or don't want or have an ebook reader.

An interesting challenge - a potentially dangerous one - but interesting indeed.