When I was 16 years old I figured out that I wanted to be a librarian. Upon learning what I wanted to be “when I grew up,” friends and fellow classmates looked at me cross-eyed and told me that I wouldn’t have a job because “the Internet will make that job unnecessary.” Being the stubborn soul that I am, I went off to college, where I met more friends. When these friends found out I wanted to be a librarian I heard, “That’s a risky move. The Internet is going to make libraries obsolete in 10 years.”
2009 marks my 10th anniversary of being a professional librarian and the Internet is no closer to making my job irrelevant today than it was back in the early 1990s. If you want to know the truth, my job is in more danger from idiot politicians than anything the Internet can cook up – but that’s another post entirely.
Which brings me to ebooks.
There’s been quite a bit of talk lately about how ebooks are the wave of the future. How digital publishing is poised on the brink of super-stardom. Meanwhile all I can think about is all those people who told me I’d be out of a job in ten years time.
Yeah, color me skeptical.
Now before anyone accuses me of a being a short-sighted, narrow-minded stick-in-the-mud, I will say that I love ebooks. I own a Sony Reader and it has literally changed my life in regards to my category romance reading. I can’t remember the last time I walked into a Borders and bought a brand new Dead Tree Harlequin. I’m at the point where I’d say I’m doing 98% of my category romance reading on my Sony Reader. Also, as a librarian, I love having another format to offer to readers. Librarians are all about access. We want to give library users as many options as humanly possible to fill their information and entertainment needs. So hip-hip-hooray for ebooks!
That being said, the digital and publishing communities have a lot of issues that need addressing before they can even begin to think about taking over the world.
1) There is a digital divide. No, really, there is. These people tend to be forgotten by those who live, breathe and sleep on the Internet – but there are countless people out there who don’t own a home computer, have high speed Internet connections or lap tops with WiFi cards. Learning the art of a using a computer mouse? Hopping over to Gmail to set up a free e-mail account? So terrifying to some folks that librarians spend a lot of time holding hands and offering step-by-step instruction. Will this divide shrink over time? Certainly. But it still exists and shouldn’t be ignored.
2) Dedicated e-reading devices are really expensive! For a while I thought smart phones would be the wave of the reading future. However, turns out a lot of people don’t like reading on teeny, tiny screens. Until readers like the Sony and Kindle come down in price, the revolution is on hold. But frankly, you can now buy MP3 players for as low as $30 and there are still plenty of people walking around who don’t own one. See #1.
3) Ebooks are confusing. I’ll be blunt: the format issue really has to be addressed. Right now anyone can walk into a library, pick up a Dead Tree Book and read it. All you have to know how to do is read. But to read an ebook ? You need to download the book, get it on your reading device, and heaven help you should you have to convert a file. I spend a lot of time on computers and the thought of converting a file makes my brain go numb. How must it be for others? See #1.
4) Sharing books turns readers into criminals. Right now I can walk into a bookstore, buy a Dead Tree Book, then either donate it to the library or give it to a friend when I’m done with it. Certainly authors aren’t wild about this since they want everyone to buy their books brand new (and honestly, who could blame them?). But I can legally do this with Dead Tree Books and not be branded a criminal, pirate or scumbag. Since the dawn of the printing press and mass-produced reading material readers have done this. They just have. In order for Average Jane Reader to buy into the idea that ebooks are “just like” Dead Tree Books – this issue has to be addressed somehow. Hey, most readers don’t want to post a book on a file-sharing web site. Really, we don’t. But the vast majority of us aren’t willing to give up sharing and swapping books with our friends. Sorry, we just aren’t. And right now we can’t share and swap ebooks legally and that really blows.
So where does that leave us? Well, it leaves us with a lot of unanswered questions. Questions I would like to see addressed, and steps made to find workable solutions. Certainly the ebook market has grown considerably in the last several years, but I’m not seeing the speculated world domination that so many others are predicting until these issues are addressed.
No related posts.
I had read, years ago, at the time when Morpheus was most popular, that music sales had gone up. When people share with their friends, usually people with similar interests, those friends find new artists or authors that they enjoy and they go out and buy albums — really, I would never have even heard of Candye Kane if a friend hadn’t emailed me an mp3 of hers. I wouldn’t have heard of Laurell K. Hamilton if my sister hadn’t brought one of her books back from Texas.
All these big organizations need to realize that “mine, mine, mine” doesn’t sell. Sharing and friend recommendations is what makes the books go round. The first JD Robb (and Robert Jordan, if I think about it) book I read, I picked up for a quarter at a garage sale. I then had to go out and buy all the rest so I could catch up. Authors may think that used bookstores take money they could have gotten, but unless they only have one book and only ever plan one book, I’d have to say that it isn’t true. It’s just the sample plan. Same as libraries.
Hiya Wends!
I wanted to be a librarian too, and fool that I am, I let them convince me and I took an English and Art History degree instead. I love the smell of books, the way they feel.
But, like you, I’m also a big ebook convert and these days I read most of my romance books on an ereading device (ebookwise or pda for the most part).
Your last point about sharing books. Whenever a print book is duplicated, it’s been pirated – it says so at the beginning of every book you buy, you’re not allowed to duplicate it. So if you want to share an ebook, you have to give the person your book. Maybe the reader with the book loaded on it.
Backing up is something else. I back all my ebooks up to an external hard drive, with no intention of it ever going to anyone else. I’d say that was fair. And I effectively make another copy when I load books onto my ebookwise, since it has to convert them to its own format (IMP).
So yes, the law needs a tighten, but still, you shouldn’t be able to duplicate a book of whatever format. It’s quite okay to lend your reader with the book loaded, or even, if you use SD cards as I do to load my books on to, you could lend the card. But not another copy of the book you bought.
If you want to know the truth, my job is in more danger from idiot politicians than anything the Internet can cook up – but that’s another post entirely.
As a fellow librarian, I couldn’t agree more! I also have to say that I work in a public library in very poor county and the digital divide is unbelievable. There are teenagers, who should be learning computers in school, who can’t do more than Myspace. They have no idea how to find anything else, it’s very sad. Or the unemployeed who need to apply online, and can’t type very fast and haven’t used a mouse. Ever.
I’ll respectfully disagree with the ebook swapping. Until there’s a way to share under the Fair Use Act and not post illegally, there’s no good way. However, I’m open to suggestions as to how this could/would work!
Great points about the digital divide. Trust a librarian to remember that aspect!
I’ve pretty much switched over to all digital on my category romances too. I still love the feel of a “dead tree book”, but it was becoming a problem of space in my house. I do tend to donate lots of books each year to the library and loan out many more to friends and family. I have the Sony ereader and love it, but I don’t love that I can no longer loan out the books I buy for the reader. My niece reads pretty much the same books that I read and gets so mad when I buy digital since she can’t borrow. Must find a better solution for sharing digital books.
As others have said, the problem isn’t with lending or giving, but with duplication. Right now, “sharing” an e-book means giving someone a free copy while you keep your original copy. As an e-published author I personally don’t mind a certain amount of that, but there are already people who seem to Honestly Not Get that there’s anything at all wrong with this, and ever-growing crowds of people who think the whole copyright violation thing is just stupid, and anyone who complains about it is being selfish and whiny and whatever. We’ve got a generation growing up with the idea that copying and passing around digital media is just how the world works, which isn’t good for anyone trying to earn some fraction of a living providing digital content.
There are advantages to having a digital version of a book available for free, but only if there’s also a print version available. Multiple experiments have shown that free electronic copies of a book circulating will drive sales of the paper version; the vast majority of readers still prefer paper books, and will try a free digital book and then buy a hardcopy if it’s something they like and want to keep. Which is great if you have paper copies of your books available.
If you don’t, though, then someone who’s stolen an electronic copy already has everything they’ll ever get. There’s no actual advantage to the reader in paying for a legal copy, because what they’d get is exactly what they already have. Many people will buy a legal copy if they like the pirated version — this is true of music and computer games and videos as well as e-books — but it takes a lot of moral fortitude to do this and plenty of other people just don’t have it. I suspect that’s the majority, but I’ll admit I don’t have any numbers.
If there were some way of letting people share without copying, that’d be great. If you could enter a command into your reader and beam or e-mail your e-book to a friend, and have that command erase the book off your reader when it sends the book to your friend, I’d go for that. That’d be exactly like reading a paper book and then passing it on. I doubt we’ll see that particular function any time soon, though; the publishers will assume that it’d encourage pirates, and if they’re not willing to face facts and trash DRM (which is useless and counterproductive anyway, as well as expensive to implement) then I doubt very much they’ll be willing to help people pass around e-book files, even without the duplication problem.
I agree with you about the digital divide issue. It’s not just an e-book matter, either, although that’s going to get more significant as e-books become more common.
Another problem is that e-books are incredibly fragile. A hard drive crash can wipe out your whole library. It takes a major fire or flood to do the same to your paper books. Heck, if your books are in a proprietary format, all it’d take is the manufacturer going out of business, or upgrading their system to something that’s not backward compatible. There you go — as soon as your unit stops working,whether it’s a year or five or twenty, all your books are gone and you can’t buy a new unit to move them to.
It’s funny, but as history progresses, our writing is becoming less and less permanent. We can still read what Hammurabi wrote (or hired stone carvers to write for him) about his laws thousands of years ago. Paper books are more fragile, but if they’re printed on good paper they can last for centuries. Electronic books can vanish in a blink. It’s kind of disturbing if you think about the maintenance and transmission of knowledge, ideas and communication into the future.
Angie
Great post! I had a similar discussion with a librarian when I worked at my university library and he pointed another big difference between e-books and Dead Tree Books: preservation.
He said that e-books and electronic copies of materials are great for increasing access, but not for preservation. There are still copies of dead tree books out there that are CENTURIES old. E-books? In a world where technology changes and adapts and then becomes obsolete by the day (and a magnet or an electrical storm or just dropping an e-reader in a large puddle can still wipe out information), how can e-books be preserved with the same measure of success?
Can you have electronic museums? Electronic rare book libraries?
Great post, Wendy. I will admit, I’ve only just ventured into digital reading. I received my Sony Reader as a gift for the holidays and admit it took me DAYS to figure out how to convert certain files.
eHarlequin (love them) for example requires you to download and use specific programs in order to purchase and read their books. Initially, I had NO CLUE how to transfer them to my reader. It was a nightmare.
I do love the convenience of not even having to leave my house or wait for any book to arrive in the mail. However, I’ll also admit that–for me anyway–an ebook does not compare to purchasing a print book.
I love browsing the isles of the store, the feel of the book in my hands, the smell, and I’m also a cover art junkie–something that isn’t satisfied with ebooks.
I’m interested to see how ebooks evolve over the next few years, but personally, I don’t believe print books will ever really go out.
great points! but my biggest reason why i haven’t been interested in e-books or e-readers:
i broke my ipod in 1 week, my laptop in 1 year, the microwave yesterday, but i have NEVER broken a dead tree book.
i would freak if i invested in a Kindle etc. and it didn’t work and i couldn’t read.
Great post Wendy! The other day my kids and I were waiting to get into the library at opening. Dozens of people were already waiting on the steps. When we got inside, we saw them all rush to the computers to use the internet. My kids were so confused by this: “why don’t they just use their computers at home?”. It was a teachable moment, as they say.
I also see my college level students very confused by basic internet tasks. My colleagues tend to think “all these kids grew up with computers” but it is just not true. I have had so much trouble using e-reserve (electronic materials on reserve at our uni library), that I now dedicate a several minutes the first week to walking the students through it.
All this and I live in a state that gives free laptops to 7th graders!
I agree with you on a lot of points, Wendy! I also love e-books, but working in an academic library, there is still a lot of skepticism.
1. There are so many platforms on which to read e-books that it is hard to guide patrons through each without them being confused. Examples: e-brary, myilibrary, netlibrary.
2. Do libraries (public, academic and special) own the material of an e-book as they would a print copy or are we just “leasing” it for a time period? If so, that really dwindles collections when the money runs out.
Great post as always!
Well, now since you put it like THAT Wendy…no I don’t see how digital books can grow by leaps and bounds with those issues. I’m not advocating for the eradication of paper but that ebooks should be a viable format choice like audiobooks. Also, I agree that there is a lot that needs to be addressed concerning digital books. As much trouble as they have given me with the format wars, etc, I sill love reading ebooks and prefer them. I do most of my category reading on my Sony too and it’s tedious work to convert files that you’ve bought to go on a device that you’ve bought. Lately, as I stated on Twitter, I read mostly from my iPhone now and I love it.
Wendy, I loved your post–I found it very thoughtful. I come from a newspaper family, and that’s an industry that’s been struggling with the e-divide, too! I love it that the debate is open, considerate on all sides, and smart! Thanks for taking it on!
Sorry, couldn’t work out how not to quote the whole post in the reply, so I’ve just copied and pasted, and put it in quotes.
“I’m interested to see how ebooks evolve over the next few years, but personally, I don’t believe print books will ever really go out.”
But why should they? Prices will go up, but dead tree books will never die. We readers should rejoice because we have an extra way to read our books. It’s not a choice, it’s an addition.
“i broke my ipod in 1 week, my laptop in 1 year, the microwave yesterday, but i have NEVER broken a dead tree book.!”
I have. I got some of my keepers out and they fell to bits in my hands because the glue deteriorated. Inferior paper turns brittle and yellow in time, so they just don’t last.
I buy some books in print, still, but I never liked hardbacks, and paperbacks just don’t last. Ebooks are fresh every time, and if you buy a format like html, you can read it on almost any device. Ignore the complicated, go for the simple.
Leave it to Lynne to come up with a practical solution to the “lending” ebooks problem. SD cards! ::headslap:: I’m embarrassed I didn’t think of it.
Lots of thoughtful comments here so far. I think most readers are honest, good, wonderful people – so no, we don’t want to run around creating digital copies of ebooks willy nilly. But, we can’t help ourselves, we like to share. So having a legal way to achieve this is really a must for, I think, the vast majority of readers out there. Lynne’s SD card suggestion isn’t “perfect” – but it’s certainly a legal alternative just as long as your friend doesn’t turn around and download a copy for herself.
Glad to see some librarians chiming in. I love to hear from other librarians on their experiences with ebooks, digital formats and their service populations. Libraries aren’t all cut from the same cloth, and we all have vastly different challenges we encounter every day. Isabel – bless your heart working in a poor community. I started out in rural libraries, and they have their own set of unique challenges. Also, interesting to hear from the academics about their student populations. Very enlightening.
Good points. Have to wonder how much readers will have to change their assumptions before the needs of the consumer and the needs of the industry find a happy medium? I don’t think we can assume that the industry has to automatically bow to the assumptions readers have held for years.
Great points & great insight.
I continue to believe that the ereader answer is something similar to a personal gaming device – with book cartridges you can plug in rather than download.
My mother still uses a sony walkman from 1988 that is am/fm only – can’t even play a cassette. Of course she has lots of cassettes for her boom box in the house. Think the digital divide is going to stay strong for quite a long time.
A most excellent post Wendy full of very valid points. You are so right about the price of the readers. I also think of the price of the books. Also the price has to be considered when you compare to “dead tree” (love that term) discounters.
You are right on to think of the conversion issue. I think ebooks will continue to emerge but books books will hang around too.
Wendy,
You bring up excellent points and I think the strongest one is the digital divide. In central Maine where I’m from, if you live five miles out of town, you’re getting dial up, unless you pay for satellite services. The world is as far from broadband as you can get and my mom is a regular at the library.
The other piece though that ties into what you mention regarding the digital divide is that some folks don’t buy books. They borrow them because they don’t ever reread them. I’ll admit, I rarely reread books but the ones I do, I keep.
Also, regarding the piracy thing, the reason you, the reader, own a copy of the book and can give it away is just that: You give it away. If you give someone a copy of a book that you keep, you’re violating the spirit of the law. People point out that copyright infringment doesn’t apply when you copy someone’s cd and then keep the original. Technically, you’re in violation of the law. The problem is the internet sharing is one of scale. Millions of people download free stuff every day. Not only does that impact sales but it reduces morality to the click of a mouse button, far less ‘evil’ than walking into a store and shoplifting.
Your post brings up a very clear discussion of the e-book issues and the debate that will continue, as you rightly pointed out.
Jess Scott
http://www.jessicascott.net
I’m really all in favor of choices. Why does it have to be one OR the other? I have ‘dead tree’ books by my bed, AND my e-book reader. I love being able to have the lights off, using my back-lit reader to read until I fall asleep and I don’t have to budge to turn off a lamp.
And if I wake up in the wee hours, I can read and not disturb the hubster.
I won’t give up either. I just wish the formatting issues were easier to deal with. I’ve got a Model-T variety reader, and although there are more books available for it than I could ever hope to read, not all publishers format the books I want for my reader.
I found that when I did have an ‘oops’ with my reader, the customer service folks replaced it with a new one for a very nominal fee.
Wendy,
You bring up great points about ereaders as well as the digital divide. I’m getting ready to go home to central maine on R&R from Iraq and I’m going to straight up dial up mode with crappy cell phone reception if I’m lucky. Then there’s my brother in law, who doesn’t even own a computer, let alone an email account. The digital divide is absolutely real and should not be forgotten in the push to make things digital.
The other point that I like that you bring up is the piracy issue. Here’s what I think about giving up ebooks. A paperback book is tangible. You could spend a day and a half photocopying the book and giving out copies, but more than likely you’ll be allowed to give it away and that’s completely legal. Likewise, if you purchase an ebook and give away the only copy, I would assume that is legal under the same statute. But giving someone a copy and keeping a copy is like burning a cd, imo. We all do it but it doesn’t make it right. The record companies have adjusted their markets based on the demand for digital downloads. I think, given the extreme amount of file sharing cites that are offering books for downloading will continue to impact the ebook revolution, but I agree: this debate is far from over.
Thanks for a great, thought provoking post!
Jess Scott
http://www.jessicascott.net
Wendy & all other commenters-
As another librarian who also owns an e-reader (mine is a Kindle) – Good points on all sides – but I do think that the digital divide will start narrowing as more and different devices come onto the market. Look at all the options for computers these days – and yes even in a military general library the first customers of the day head straight to the computers.
I’ll NEVER not have actual books in my home, but I do love all the conveniences of having the e-books.