Abstract
‘The pomegranate is a complicated fruit’ – thus Polanka, in her Introduction to No Shelf Required, sets an analogy for the discussion of e-books, their history, provenance and management issues that arise from their use. Is the analogy appropriate? Most certainly, because e-books arguably provide the greatest shake-up for the publishing world since the Gutenbergian revolution and, for the library world, since the introduction in the 19th century of open-shelf access. Both revolutions transformed the way in which information could be made available and both encouraged new views of the way in which the information media could be used. Resistance to both innovations was immediate, sustained and largely unsuccessful: both are simply better ideas than what had gone before.
Like it or not, then, the availability of e-books is altering the market for individual purchases: ‘Dramatic falls in hardback sales are turning the triumph of the e-book into a defeat for paper publishing, with readers in their thousands opting for electronic editions rather than expensive, dust-jacketed copies of the latest fiction titles’ (Flood, 2011) and whilst sales of cheap paperback books have fallen more slowly, there is a definite trend. Furthermore, as Armstrong and Lonsdale note, in the ‘Introduction’ of E-Books in Libraries, this growing commercial market is accompanied by a growth in the availability of free e-texts. So, regardless of what we as librarians may think about the format, many users of libraries will already be accustomed to the e-book and expect our services to provide access to information in this form.
Both texts are available (as one would expect) in e-format as well as print-on-paper. Indicative of an interesting trend, perhaps, is the approach to pricing: the American Library Association charges less for the e-format and also provides a print and e-text ‘bundle’ at a slightly higher price. Facet Publishing prices its e-texts at the equivalent of the print-on-paper version and does not offer a ‘bundle’.
Indicative of the speed of developments and, perhaps, frightening, is that a second edition of Sue Polanka’s work has already been published: No Shelf Required 2: Use and Management of Electronic Books (2012). However, this also marks out the differences between the work of Polanka and that of Price and Havergal: Polanka’s first edition is more concerned with the e-text phenomenon whilst that of Havergal and Price centres on issues of e-text management. Thus, the books are complementary and my recommendation is to read both.
Both books include case studies and this is an effective way of exploring what is a turbulent environment where the old orthodoxies are no longer reliable. Blaise Dierks, in No Shelf Required, for example, explains how the River Forest Public Library near Chicago developed an Amazon Kindle loan service, struggling with aspects such as the legality of and practicality of such a service. The case study serves to emphasise how little reliable information there is about the reliability of e-text services, how well the devices and services meet the needs of readers and how problematic the legal landscape can become. River Forest, faced with such unknowns, decided to pursue the idea and deal with the consequences if, and when, they arose.
This latent uncertainty identifies two key issues: in marketing-speak, we know little about this new information product and even less about how our present and potential readers will react to their use. Therefore, their adoption is inherently risky: the question is, ‘How do we respond to risk?’ and the answer is, perhaps, surprising. Librarians have often been ‘early adopters’ of technologies although, as Rayward (2002) notes, the adoption was driven by need rather than the excitement of experimentation. So, we need to understand that risk always includes the possibility of failure; as managers, we need to provide space where new approaches can be tried, prototypes of services explored and where failure can be acknowledged for what it is: the results of an attempt to try something new in uncertain times. Whilst running workshops on the adoption and use of e-texts in South Africa, it has become evident that many participants are shocked and almost frightened by the uncertainty, unfamiliar with the notion that, for example, a licence should be a basis for question and negotiation, discomfited by the lack of clear guidelines on how to develop e-text services and alarmed at the lack of clear evidence about user acceptance.
Reading both books will certainly assist: each contains a summary of experience and guidelines from the viewpoint of academic and public librarians, and No Shelf Required includes a chapter by Shonda Brisco on experience in school libraries. Several contributors make the point that the information provided is, and can only be, a provisional statement; there is insufficient experience yet to be sure what will work.
No Shelf Required commences with a discussion of the short history of the e-book, written by James Galbraith of DePaul University in Chicago. His starting point is the visionary work in 1945 of Vannevar Bush as a precursor of hypertext; in this respect, one might have expected a passing mention of the equally visionary work of Ted Nelson and Project Xanadu, launched in 1960. Leaping forward to the foundation of Project Gutenberg in 1971, Galbraith guides us through the development in e-text creation from keyboard transcription through Optical Character Recognition and scanning to the complex social and legal issues surrounding Google Books. He also considers the future of e-books and the views of authors about the transition to e-texts and the opportunities offered by the ‘born digital’ evolution. Galbraith makes a telling point when he suggests that the aim must be to create better means of accessing texts rather than transferring them to new commercially controlled locations.
Enjoyment, acceptability and utility are key factors in the promotion of learning and reading, so the chapter in No Shelf Required by Collier and Berg (‘Student learning and e-books’) provides some thought-provoking moments on how well this medium will support a learning culture and the barriers that exist, arising from the dangers of ‘commercial siloisation’ mentioned by Galbraith. Martin Palmer’s chapter on public library users in E-Books in Libraries analyses the range of opinion about e-texts and e-readers from users and the publishing industry and concludes that the market may be approaching the ‘tipping point’ where expectation segues into demand.
Palmer underlines the crucial importance of promotion and marketing strategies. This is a theme, mentioned by other contributors to both books: it is insufficient just to provide. One needs to adopt a positive marketing strategy and that means considering what characteristics of the new product might be considered especially attractive to a range of users and the channels through which such users will be able to gain access to the new product.
Collection development is also a constant theme of both books. The emergence of e-texts has increased the ways in which a request for information can be supplied and has, thus, complicated the work of the acquisitions specialist. If a source is available only in electronic form, there is no choice, other than to refuse or suggest an alternative. If it is available in both print-on-paper and electronic there is a more complicated choice. What, however, if the source is only available as part of a package? Both books provide guidelines and encourage critical thinking about what is the best set of solutions for a community of users. Here, again, there is the implicit warning that simply adopting the same strategy as another library service may not be an adequate response. The task of the acquisitions specialist must be to explore and understand the supply side, including the profile of offerings from aggregators and other suppliers but, equally well, to understand the profile of users. One should not neglect the resources available at no cost: Katie Price in E-Books in Libraries provides a full discussion of this approach, including a well-balanced discussion of the Google Books project. Surprisingly, however, no mention is made of Armstrong’s regularly updated Guide to Free or Nearly-Free e-Books (2011).
One of the most perplexing parts of the e-text development has been the emergence of so many, and so different, standards: Deliquié and Polanka, in No Shelf Required, provide a brief outline of the standards, Digital Rights Management and licensing. James Clay in his chapter in E-Books in Libraries provides rather fuller coverage, including an extensive discussion of the various types of e-reader technology and devices.
Where is the technology taking us? Both books include sections discussing this from the viewpoints of public and academic librarians; Rolf Janke, in No Shelf Required, discusses the issue from the perspective of the academic publishing industry, though this chapter does not have the same depth of treatment as Joel Claypool’s chapter in E-Books in Libraries and Grigson’s fascinating insights into the e-book business model, also in E-Books in Libraries. The future certainly seems clearer after having read both books: the continued existence of so many variations in format, licensing and Digital Rights Management signals a market still in confusion, with manifest uncertainties about the best path, as a consumer, to pursue. The lot of the acquisitions specialist and librarian is even more perplexing when one takes into account the long-term problems of archiving and digital (im)permanence. If we have guides like these, of similar clarity, and a community of practice that is willing to share the results of successful and failed experiments we shall, at least, be able to make principled decisions.