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.

The future of the World Wide Web...and what might it mean for libraries?

It's a quiet Friday at the library, which means I have some much appreciated reading and thinking time.  A few weeks ago I came across the following video of Kevin Kelly, founder of Wired magazine talking about the "next 5,000 days of the Internet", and ever since many of his comments have been floating around the back of my mind.  I've been a fan of Kevin's ever since I read his New Rules for the New Economy nearly 10 years ago.  He was the first person I encountered who could explain (in language even I could understand!) why the Internet was not "TV but better".  

In the video Kevin notes that the World Wide Web (not the Internet, which has much older roots, but the system of URLs (Uniform Resource Locators) that allows us to find and link to documents and pages in the vast sea of digital information that the computer era has spawned)as we know it today is not even 5,000 days old!

After giving a mind-bending account of the current state of the Web in terms of its storage and processing capacity, Kevin gives his view as to what the next 5,000 days and beyond will bring, and as when I first read "New Rules" a decade ago I had several jolts of recognition.  When he talked about shoes as "chips with heels" I couldn't help think about how much I love my Nike+ Ipod - essentially a chip you insert in your shoe that tracks your walking/running and uploads the data to a personalized webpage...heaven sent for someone with obsessive compulsive tendencies like me but also a wonderful example of not only the convergence of the physical and the digital, but of the evolution of the web to a "me-centric" network of information.

On a less frivolous note, however, some of the concepts and issues he raises are things librarians need to really think about. 

How will we deliver services in a world where the digital and the physical converge? What will our collections look like?  (I'll write another day on some interesting ideas put forth by Brewster Kahle of the Internet Archive related to this topic.)

If "web 3.0" moves us from a network of "pages" to a network in which every item, idea, and word can be linked what does that mean for an organization like PVLD who sees its core mission as "Connecting People, Information, and Ideas"?

How will we meet people's growing expectation of personalization of services and products?  And what does Kevin's assertion that "the price of personalization is transparency" mean for our deeply held values and beliefs around privacy?

Important questions, and I don't pretend to know the answers.  I do know, however, that this thing we call the "web" has to large degree taken on a life of its own as more and more people, devices, and bits of information are caught up in it....so trying to change its course is almost certainly impossible.  I don't know whether all of Kevin Kelly's predictions will come to pass.  He is, however, someone whse intellect and perspective I respect.  With that in mind, watch the video and let me know what you think!

Privacy

As I've written before, I get some of my best ideas and insights from reading what other bloggers have to say.  Today I saw a link to this fascinating article http://nymag.com/news/features/27341/index2.html from New York Magazine on Jenny Levine' The Shifted Librarian blog http://www.theshiftedlibrarian.com/

Librarians have fiercely guarded our customers' right to privacy, and much of the hand-wringing over social networking and other web 2.0 technologies results from what some percieve as the indiscriminate sharing of what used to be considered intensely private information. 

What are the implications if, as this article hypothesizes, a new generation has a very different view of privacy - i.e. that it doesn't exist anyway so why guard it ?