By Katie Dunneback
Yesterday I covered, in a greatly abbreviated manner, some of the technical issues of offering e-books in the library. Today we’ll cover the questions beyond the technical that need to be considered.
Beyond being savvy about the technical issues surrounding e-books, we need to be savvy about the books themselves. Librarians have long been looked to for suggestions on what to read next. With the explosion of all titles published (the projected number for 2009 was nearly double that of 2008 according to Bowker, and the sales growth rate during the same period was 176.6% according to the Association of American Publishers, our skills to cull out what it is our patrons want are essential.
Why is it I think we need to talk about how to perform RA services in a digital environment when electronic collections of popular materials, and sales of the same in the greater market place, are still a very small fraction of the whole? First, they’re already here and they’re not leaving. Second, I do believe we will see a shift in publishing to a digital-first/-only model well within my lifetime, and I’m in my early-30’s. There are a number of well-established digital-first/-only model publishers of popular materials, especially in the romance genre, which command significant portions of the market. The world’s largest romance publisher, Harlequin, opened the sales doors of its new multi-genre, digital-only (for the time being) division, Carina Press, at the beginning of June. I think we will see more and more publishers moving in this route. This means we will not only need to be aware of when a print title is also available in digital format, but we will also need to be aware of books that only exist in the digital realm.
The amount of print-alone books we need to be aware of is mind-boggling by itself. How do we incorporate this new format…especially as other book formats are typically titles that first appeared in regular print. We need to incorporate new methods of book awareness to our workflows. A young service called NetGalley is making advanced reader copies available in electronic formats for review by librarians, reviewers and book bloggers. You will be able to review titles in these formats, though most of the participating publishers are print publishers. However, you will be able to get an idea as to how they process their digital editions. I should note that NetGalley does not do sales of books. You will have to use your regular vendor for purchasing titles.
Every smart author with a website these days also includes an excerpt of their book. And, if not the author, the publisher typically does. The Los Angeles Times ran a story dated June 27, 2010 (but online as of the 25th), about the emergence of book bloggers and their influence in the culture of reading. An overlapping group not mentioned in the article consists of people who use social networking sites like Facebook and, especially, Twitter, to talk about books. These people are another source of book information to whom we need to pay attention—especially since the publishers are. The way television and radio shows were, and still are, tastemakers, so too is this new breed of book critic.
With so much being said, there is also a multitude that has been left unsaid here—such as the question of availability of e-books for libraries in the first place, but that’s a treatise in and of itself.
Katie,
I think these were great posts on a new topic that needs to be discussed–thank you! I’ll admit that part of my reticence to talk or even think about e-books is that of my own deep disinterest in them–the thought of shopping for another kind of gadget to get between me and my book for myself (much less for the library, or to use so I could help others use theirs) makes me cry.
So there’s at least one of my answers to your questions: I think for some of us–even those of us who “should” be gadget and e-savvy and who are nowhere near the ends of our careers–it will be hard to overcome an antipathy to something that seems to be more about format than it is about reading.
I also think a challenge of the e-book era will be how to find them by browsing–just like the internet or catalogs, e-books are great if you know exactly what title you want. But such things stink as a “browsable experience.” Even flipping through cover art online is a cold sterile experience compared to browsing a library or bookstore shelf.