PVLD Director's Blog

Library Books on the Kindle

Over the past year or so the thing I have most frequently asked by community members is "Can I download library books to my Kindle" which is why I was very pleased when our Ebook vendor, Overdrive, announced a few weeks ago that our library patrons would now be able to download most of our e-book collection to their Kindles.

While our patrons are thrilled, some in our profession have been quick to point out some of the possible pitfalls of having Amazon as a commercial partner...one prime example being this video rant by Librarian In Black Sarah Houghton Jann.

I have to say, though, that while I wish libraries had access to cheaper, more user-friendly, and platform independent options for offering e-books I simply don't share many of Sarah's concerns. I guess you can count me as one of the librarians who she describes as making a "greedy attempt to get content into our users hands."

I was going to write a post articulating why I don't think Sarah's anger is truly justified, but discovered that Andy Woodworth of the Agnostic, Maybe blog had written it better than I ever could...in two posts:

Library Books on the Kindle, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Amazon and

Amazon, Overdrive, and Other Reasons to Be Pissed

Andy's posts are a pragmatic argument that the sky is not falling just because we are giving people what they have been asking for. They are both great reads, and the second one raises a truly interesting point about whether Amazon is actually collecting confidential library records...one that both Amazon/Overdrive and the library community needs to resolve.

In the second post Andy makes the point that many of the things generating outrage on the part of some of our colleagues are analagous to many long-standing library practices and commercial arrangements but it is his statement in the first post that really matched what I have been wanting to say:

"While it may not be the ideal, it cannot be denied that bringing Amazon (and its 40% of the eReader market share) on board with library lending doesn’t raise the profile of libraries with it. Rather than simply buying every book, Kindle users now have the option of borrowing it through their local library. It’s not perfect, but even in giving that capability it puts libraries back into the minds of people who might not otherwise be library users. For them, it’s another selling point; for us, it’s another visit to our website where we advertise our programs, services, and materials. It’s an exposure opportunity that didn’t previously exist."

If the choice is being greedy to put content in the hands of community members, and in the process expanding access and maybe exposing more people to the library and what we offer, or being fearful of the shadow of possible risks to professional principles that may in fact be falling victim to changing social mores no matter what librarians do....count me among the greedy.

Like Google...with Judgement

I LOVED this description of the value of librarians from the Net Cotton Content blog via one of my daily must-reads Cultural Offering -

"I love to go in and ask the librarians questions. They often know the answers. If not, they know where to turn.

They are like Google. But with judgement.

They face disintermediation. As in: we might stop realizing we need librarians and libraries because everything is Googlable. But, you know and I know: the Internet isn't the same thing as a Masters in Library Science. It isn't the same thing as knowing what information is trustworthy and what is just Net Cotton Content.

Don't disintermediate. Talk to a librarian today."

Politics and Performance

Sometimes "politics" is viewed as a dirty word, but as Michael Wade of Execupundit points out in a recent post:

It is important to understand that in a great many jobs, good performance involves various political skills, such as:

• • Pleasing community groups.
  • Avoiding any complications with the board of directors.
  • Not engaging in interdepartmental wars.
  • Keeping staff members within certain boundaries.
  • Using constant discretion in language and actions.



 

Staying out of the news.




Giving and sharing credit.

Fumble any of these and all other performance achievements may be neutralized. Some points may seem minor, but they have the potential to become major within seconds. They can be simply summarized: Be a solution, not a problem.

This surely is true for Library Directors!

Hard Choices

Like libraries everywhere PVLD has limited physical space and a myriad of demands for that space...with one of the biggest demands being the need to house all of the books, magazines, newspapers, CDs, DVDs, and even audio- and video-tape items in our collection.

With limited space and a constant influx of newly purchased items, the librarians are constantly "weeding" the collection of older items to make space for new ones.

We, like many other libraries, are also finding that in this era of downloadable and streaming e-books, audio, and video the demand for physical items is trending downwards, while the demand for space for people in the library is growing.

Taken together, these factors mean that each month we remove a large number of items from the library collection - over 5,000 in September alone. The decision to remove a book is never easy and we take a number of factors into consideration including its age, how recently it has circulated, whether it is a "classic" or the only available copy in ourlibrary or in our region, its condition, etc.

Once a book is removed we make every effort to dispose of it responsibly. Those that are in very bad condition sent straight to the recycle bin, but most are sent to the Peninsula Friends of the Library for their book sales. Those that can't be sold individually (and the market for used library books with their stickers, labels, and stamps isn't as big as you might think!) may be sold in bulk to the film industry for movie sets, to interior decorators seeking books with a certain "look", or to dealers. The remainder are often donated - they have gone to schools in needy areas, shelters for the homeless or battered women, the county jail, military hospitals, the local Boys and Girls Club, and many other places. After all of these avenues are exhausted a book in reasonable condition still may end up in the recycle bin...and when a member of the public discovers that we are "throwing away books" all h&*!&@ can break loose!

Deciding which books get removed from the library, and then deciding how to dispose of them, is one of those aspects of library operations that most people don't think about, so it was refreshing to find this article on the National Public Radio blog. It's a pretty good overview of the process many libraries go through in managing their collections.

The NPR post makes reference to this article from Cracked.com which is a bit more pointed and a bit less representative of how PVLD handles disposing of books, but is a succinct articulation of the challenges nonetheless.

I think most librarians feel that every book has value, and "getting rid of" any book is not easy, but making those hard choices is part of keeping our libraries and what they contain relevent to our communities...so we do the best we can to keep the things that should be kept, responsibly dispose of those that can't, and balance all of the competing needs for our physical spaces. In the process do some books get destroyed forever? The answer is yes....but what is the alternative? To become a mausoleum for books? I doubt our comunities will continue to invest in public libraries if that is what we are.

How would you handle this dilemma?

Steve Jobs's Chopsticks

Since the announcement of Steve Jobs' death yesterday the Internet has abounded with tributes, a good many featuring his 2005 commencement speech at Stanford University.  The speech is great, but this article by Peter Robinson (via Execupundit) gave me an even clearer insight into what made Steve Jobs unique. The closing line of the article says it all:

"He alone insisted on beauty"

What a legacy.  R.I.P. Steve

Visions of the Future

The year 2000 as imagined in 1910. Thank you to the Centered Librarian as shared via the I Love Libraries page on Facebook.