Re: Ebooks in libraries

[Sandy Thatcher <sandy.thatcher@alumni.princeton.edu>]

I'm not sure why the third problem is any worse for books than 
for journals. Access to Project Muse journals is controlled 
through the domain name of each university that subscribes. When 
Muse adds books, what difference will this make? Is that DRM in 
your view? And, if so, what's wrong with that kind of DRM?

Sandy Thatcher

>Yes, you missed the bulk of the books.
>
>To begin with, academic libraries are only a small piece of the 
>library business.  And academic books are only a tiny (very 
>tiny) part of the book business.
>
>More importantly, the form factor for the consumption of 
>academic books and publications for academic libraries remains 
>the PC (that is, when it is not print, including the printing 
>out of PDFs).  The form factor for most ebooks is a mobile 
>device: Kindle, Nook, iPad, Kobo, etc.
>
>Third is the "one book to rule them all" phenomenon.  If books 
>are to be sold to libraries in digital form WITHOUT DRM (and if 
>there is anyone who likes DRM, I would like to know who it is), 
>then the question is how to sell a second copy, as the first 
>will effectively take care of the entire planet.
>
>Finally, the infrastructure for networked computing, which 
>includes ebooks, is being built for the consumer market for the 
>simple but impossible-to-get-around fact that that's where the 
>numbers are. Academic books will have to piggyback on consumer 
>infrastructure.
>
>When my local public library can make Steig Larson's latest
>available to me as an ebook in a form that is not annoying to
>use, then the knot will have been cut.
>
>I don't know how to do this.  Do you?
>
>Joe Esposito