Loaning Across the Digital Divide?

One of the loops I belong to is talking about libraries right now—specifically, libraries and electronic books. I feel qualified to comment (not that any lack would stop me when I’m in the mood to speak) since I spend a fair amount of time in libraries. In fact, I’m posting this from one! And here’s my considered opinion:

My local public library system is actively hostile to e-books.

Sound paranoid? Well, I might be, but in this case, I’m also correct.

The Austin library system does offer NetLibrary, but most of the Austin eContent catalog is the same list of titles that you can get directly from Project Gutenberg. The others are literary analyses and small-press literary works, largely poetry and non-fiction with the odd regional story scattered here and there.

Okay, I know, that doesn’t sound too bad; Project Gutenberg includes a great many readable texts, and some people like poetry about chaparrals and high winds on lonesome plains. But even if you find an e-book you’d like to read from that sadly lacking list, the default option is online-only. You can check a book out and download it, assuming the library has the appropriate license for downloading, only if you have an account. That’s free to card holders, but it’s a separate step—even if you have an account with the library’s electronic portal. (Why can’t I just use that?) Downloading the PDF may also require activating a separate instance of Adobe Reader, but after that, you can read the thing. Until your borrow-term expires, or you finish it. You must also check the text back in, which involves more steps than a physical return would, and there doesn’t seem to be any way to renew without checking it in and back out again, or at least, not one I’ve found.

Oh, and it’s Adobe Reader only, no other formats, with the initial download only to a computer, though you can then transfer to a PDA or whatever. Ack! All that, for things I can either get elsewhere and own for no charge and with less work, or don’t want in the first place?

I know, some of you are muttering about evil and stupidity. Maybe they just didn’t think things through? But I’m not finished yet. It’s not just that the e-book section looks like it was populated by someone trying to discourage readers from trying e-. It’s more than that.

I don’t know if any of you’ve ever heard of Mark Y. Herring. Certainly it’s not a household name! I wouldn’t have known it myself except for a poster I saw in the library. (The Northwest branch of the Austin Public Library system, the first and only time I was ever in that particular branch!) The poster was headed

10 REASONS WHY THE INTERNET IS NO SUBSTITUTE FOR A LIBRARY

And it’s apparently based on one or more articles he’s written. A quick search turned up this one. I was so annoyed by the poster-version that I actually wrote down the high-points from that numbered list; the article isn’t identically phrased, but covers the same points, so in either version, # 6 and #10 raised my blood pressure a few points—

6. Hey, Bud, What About E-books?!

Reading on any e-reader is a chore. The technology will doubtless improve but it's still more than a generation away.

10. The Internet is Ubiquitous but Books Are Portable.

Try curling up by the fire with a laptop, or stopping by the woods on a snowy evening with a handheld. The future may bring this, but for now the vast majority of readers-- even online readers--want books.

Yes, folks, this is the message my local library system disseminates. In their catalog, in their sponsored talks, on their bulletin boards and lectures, and on their walls, they’ve chosen their message: e-books aren’t books, to them.

Hostile, like I said. And this in Austin, which is trying to become the most wireless wired city in the US! Maybe I’ll ask them to order something I know is only available in e- But then, I’d have librarians actively hostile toward me. And you know what they say about librarians...

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