Sony and the Public Library

An interesting article came through one of our library mailing lists this morning.  It appears that Sony has stepped up their commitment to public library service and ebook borrowing.  Sony and OverDrive struck a deal about two years ago that paved the for this new Sony device, the PRS-T1.

The new Sony reader has a dedicated icon for accessing public library ebook services wirelessly.  The article here explains in more detail.  There's also information here in this article.  The idea is to support OverDrive's initiative with public libraries called the "Public Library Service".  It's a pretty plain-jane-looking site, but you put in your ZIP code, find the library near you for which you have a valid library card, and check out a book.

What an interesting time for libraries!  We may be hurting for money, but the opportunities are there to make some great leaps in service.

Kansas and Libraries

***WARNING - RANT AHEAD***

I attended a focus group last week, the purpose of which was to help form a list of what is essential in a database package for Kansas.  Sound pretty dry, right?

It was.  But there was an interesting side to it that really wasn't talked about until the very end.  The question on everyone's mind was, "How are we going to pay for this?"  And the answer was, "We don't know, the money has all gone."

So how did this happen?  Well, first off the economy went in the tank a couple of years ago.  So, cost cutting became even more of a mantra in the legislature.  And the cutting was done with a sword rather than a scalpel.  So far, from a library perspective everything REALLY useful has been cut to the bone.  Not only was state aid reduced (direct aid to libraries) for what I think was the 4th year in a row, several statewide programs were massacred.  So this year, Kan-Ed had its funding slashed.  This is basically because big telecoms don't want the downward price pressure on their services.  You see, Kan-Ed provides low- or no-cost T-1 connections to public entities like libraries that can't otherwise afford "high speed" Internet.  Now, I take issue with the definition of "high speed" Internet as our providers use it, but that's a rant for another day.  Unfortunately, by slashing Kan-Ed's funding, over 50% of the funds for statewide databases - these tools provided here - disappeared.  And in the next budget year, they are gone all together - nearly $1 million.

Now, bear in mind that all of the cutting, I was told directly, was to reduce the "government footprint".  And, that ,"We're not looking to increase your [the library's] costs or reduce access..."

So, can you guess what happened?  EXACTLY.  Our direct costs, because we lost the power of purchasing in a state-wide contract, have increased and our ability to provide access to information has already and will continue to be drastically reduced over this year and next.

Lest you think that nothing was done to enlighten our state government as to the results of these actions, librarians and others across the state wrote, emailed, talked directly to, and testified in the state house about these matters.  Only, instead of listening to feedback from knowledgeable sources, no provisions were made to transfer funds from Kan-Ed to the State Library to administer state-wide tools and services.  Instead, contracts will lapse, work will have to be repeated, and much more struggle for funds will have to be made in order to even BEGIN negotiating new contracts - and worst of all, library service and credibility will be damaged.

You may not know this, but the Kan-Ed funds I have mentioned so often are actually "Kansas Universal Service Fund" (KUSF) monies.  They are collected by the Kansas Corporation Commission and WILL CONTINUE to be collected at the same rate as before.  The legislature merely choose to not allocate them to Kan-Ed.  Taxes (or in this case service fees) are not any lower because of this action.

What can you do?  Contact your legislator and ask her or him to allocate to the State Library KUSF funds not given to Kan-Ed to provide for state-wide library services.  Kan-Ed funding went from $10 million per year to $6 million.  That means there are $4 million available - even a quarter of that amount would allow us to restore lost services and take pressure off the State Library so that they might be able to stave off further cuts to direct aid or other services.

[Wipes spittle from corner of mouth]

An insider's view of ebooks

The other day, information about a series of interviews conducted on the BBC came out across a library email list I belong to. The bits that caught my attention were from Victoria Barnsley who is the Chief Executive of HarperCollins UK.  Here are a few of the things she said:

• 50% of their fiction to be digital within 2 years,
  
• eBooks will replace paperbacks,
• hardbacks will improve in quality to be the books people keep.

 Hardbacks will improve in quality!  Wait...what?  You mean you think there will still be a market for ...(GASP)...paper books?  OK, while I might mean to sound a little sarcastic here, I would like to think that the opinion that I and many others have held for a while now, might also be a consideration in the publishing world.  Paper will not be going away any time soon. The ebook format lends itself well to replacement of paperbacks and fiction titles.  Paper copies will also be wanted and even preferred in some cases, and ebooks for lending will help libraries expand their collections, patrons discover new authors, and ultimately purchase more e- and regular books.

Of course, HarperCollins has also made the controversial decision to make their loanable ebooks to libraries "wear out" after 26 checkouts thereby requiring the library to purchase a "new" copy.  While I don't think it is unreasonable for publishers to make these sorts of requirements of libraries, I think 26 circulations is a pretty low number.  Apparently HarperCollins needs to improve their hardback quality now if all they think we can expect from their products is essentially a year's worth of checkouts!

Librarian / tech nerd nirvana

A colleague of mine (who also happens to be something of a tech nerd AND a great guy) sent me a link to this product  - Boopsie - today.  It's an app for libraries and library users that does a whole bunch of cool things in all-in-one fashion.  Feature description from their site:

• BookLook - Scan the barcode of that new best seller at the bookstore and instantly know whether your library has the book available.
• Publisher Reviews - Integration with book review providers such as Syndetics, Goodreads etc.
• Overdrive Access - search, view, download and read Overdrive titles right from mobile device.
• BookCheck - Mobile checkout from the palm of your hand!  Simply scan, click (check) and go!

They seem to have a reasonable subscription rate for us here in Small Town America!  We've talked about having a mobile app developed for us locally, but why reinvent the wheel?  These folks seem to have thought about how it might be used by patrons, so we'll give it a serious look to see how it would integrate with our systems and network.

Save the Libraries

chirp! chirp!

There is a tremendous lack of understanding these day of, well...of many things actually; but within the scope of this blog, the value of libraries.  I think the true value of public libraries is that they provide common ground.  This is reflected to me in two related ways.   I have a quote that I've collected recently from a UK article on libraries that articulates it one way:

"The libraries' most powerful asset is the conversation they provide – between books and readers, between children and parents, between individuals and the collective world. Take them away and those voices turn inwards or vanish. Turns out that libraries have nothing at all to do with silence." - Bella Bathurst, writer for The Observer [newspaper]

Libraries facilitate an intellectual conversation, no matter the format of the conversation or the materials on the shelves, readers, or digital devices.  This largely has to do with the training, skill, and actual practice of the job known as "librarianship".  The people that work in a library make sure by their very work that the conversations listed in the quote above can flourish.

A second way that this thing called a "library" acts as a societal leveler, is as a place where people from all walks of life can experience a certain level of equality and equitable treatment.  The physical space makes it unique in the modern world in that anyone can use it for meeting and exchange of ideas, largely free of any out-of-pocket expense.

Public libraries continue to provide free access to information in the form of books, digital files, Internet access, and government publications, all the while being dismantled bit-by-bit in the name of "lowering taxes" and "trimming the fat".  I contend that libraries, especially public and school libraries, give the most bang for the tax dollar that you can get.  HPL will be here for a while, I think.  We have benefited from the gifts of many fine residents in our town.  But Kansas libraries as a whole are being picked apart.  From elimination of funding for cheap high-speed Internet connectivity (this has already happened - funding was slashed), to statewide accessible databases of information (this funding has also been eliminated), to school libraries at every level, our State Legislature and Governor seem to be doing their best to demolish educational support of any sort.

Lastly, I am not advocating support of this project - you can make your own decisions about it, but I think it is a great idea.  Photographer Robert Dawson is touring 22 states, photographing public libraries as a commons, one of "...the things that we share as a nation - our environment, our infrastructure, our culture - the things that keep our society civil and working."

Here's the link from the comments section below:  Karin Slaughter Writes Story to Help Save Libraries

What does a public library look like?

I was thinking about the future of libraries today while participating in the library board meeting.  We were talking about where we go at HPL with downloadable media of all types.  It is my current belief that libraries everywhere will be subscribing to more than one online content provider to get the broad scope of what is (and what will be) available for download.

Warehouse?

Center of the City?

Tiny kiosk?

Here's what I think will happen:  Despite all the talk about ebooks driving the future of reading / publishing, there is still an important demographic that prefers paper, or can't afford the technology, has no access to high speed Internet, or any number of other contributing factors.  The library will have another demographic to cater to - the ebook patron.  Just like before them came the downloadable audio patron, the DVD patron, the VHS patron, the tape audiobook patron, the CD music patron, the vinyl / 8-Track / microfilm / microfiche / plain-old-book patrons before them.

Ebook readers don't kill libraries.  Lack of good services for lending ebooks does.  When the publishers realize that libraries DO promote their authors and DO promote a love of reading and services like OverDrive realize loaning ematerial CAN be easy and seamless (look at 3M Cloud Library, hint, hint), libraries will integrate this new media and move on.  Afterall, libraries are so much more than the materials they loan out.  Libraries serve a function in their communities no other entity can fulfill - they cause the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States to be injected into the real world.  Sound grandiose?  It isn't - public libraries provide space to assemble, access (at least for awhile) information to allow the existence of an informed electorate, defend the freedom of speech, and ensure at least some measure of equality to all this across the increasingly disparate ends of the socio-economic spectrum.

TALK books series

HPL is hosting another of the Kansas Humanities Council's book discussion series.  This time the theme is "food".  We have some very good discussion leaders lined up for this time, so I hope we have good attendance!

This discussion series is put together by the Kansas Humanities Council and our local library staff to provide a way to hold book discussions on a wide variety of subjects.  If you haven't tried one out - give it a shot!