ALA Moves Forward in Ebook Arena

Wrap-up of the Virtual Town Hall

October 29, 2013

More than 700 librarians, publishers, and media representatives participated in the American Library Association’s Virtual Town Hall on Ebooks October 23. ALA President Barbara Stripling led a discussion that highlighted ALA’s successes from the past two years and the Association’s plans to address the challenges ahead. View the archived town hall and download the Power Point presentation.

ALA Immediate Past President Maureen Sullivan recounted the grim situation for libraries seeking to grow their ebook collections in 2011 and into 2012, ALA’s issuance of an Open Letter to Publishers, and how her appearance at a forum at the headquarters of the Association of American Publishers represented the peak of the conflict between ALA and the publishers. In 2013, we enjoyed multiple breakthroughs. Digital Content Working Group (DCWG) Co-chair Sari Feldman, executive director of the Cuyahoga County (Ohio) Public Library, summarized the current status with respect to the Big Five publishers. Despite this progress, libraries still face major problems such as high prices and limited availability of titles from some publishers.

A key part of ALA advocacy actually consisted of education. DCWG Co-chair Robert Wolven, associate university librarian at Columbia University, explained how both publishers and librarians needed to learn about the others’ world views, needs, and rapidly evolving situation in the digital environment.

ALA Executive Director Keith Michael Fiels discussed the high level of media attention on the ebook library lending issue. He credited some of the media success to the Author for Library Ebooks campaign and the release of the ALA E-book Media and Communications Toolkit. Fiels also summarized the many educational products and presentations generated by ALA.

Though 2013 is a remarkable year of library ebook achievements, the road ahead remains a long one. Alan S. Inouye, director of ALA’s Office for Information Technology Policy, explored emerging issues in the ebook lending arena, including digital preservation, improved library access to self-published works, libraries as publishers, accommodations for people with disabilities, and privacy. ALA leaders and the DCWG will continue to provide updates on the American Libraries’ E-Content blog.

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Genevieve Trainor writes: “The Guinness World Record holder for Most Prolific Book Thief is Ottumwa (Iowa’s) Stephen Blumberg. The 23,600 volumes he accumulated between the 1970s and his arrest in March of 1990 were all stashed in his 17-room home. Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska, got involved with Blumberg as part of the FBI’s efforts to return the stolen manuscripts and rare books to their museums and libraries. Referred to as the Omaha Project, the information science proving ground involved four weeks, 44 catalogers and reference librarians and 600 volunteer hours to determine who might be the rightful owners.”

Little Village (Dubuque, Iowa), Dec. 4
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Casey Newton writes: “At the moment, no one knows for sure whether the large language models that are now under development will achieve superintelligence and transform the world. And in that uncertainty, two primary camps of criticism have emerged. The first camp, which I associate with the external critics, holds that artificial intelligence (AI) is fake and sucks. The second camp, which I associate more with the internal critics, believes that AI is real and dangerous. Today I want to lay out why I believe AI is real and dangerous.”

Platformer, Dec. 5
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Latia Ward writes: “One way to keep current with what students think of the library and its services is through Student Library Advisory Committee meetings. These meetings are a way to gather feedback and reinforce the library as a welcoming place. How do librarians create a welcoming environment within Student Library Advisory Committee meetings? Librarians create a welcoming environment through community, purpose, and dedicated space.” Also see part 1 of this blog post.

RIPS Law Librarian Blog, Nov. 13, Dec. 5
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Eleanor Hecks writes: “Few things are as frustrating to a user as when a site won’t respond. Unfortunately, it’s also an all-too-common scenario. Graceful degradation is a design approach that ensures the basics of a website will still function even if specific individual parts of it stop working. The approach removes single points of failure: just because one thing stops working doesn’t mean the system as a whole fails. A site following this principle fails in pieces instead of all at once, so the most important features remain available when some components encounter an error.”

Smashing Magazine, Dec. 6
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Camruinn Morgan-Rumsey and Lexi Lepof write: “On December 3, Knox County (Tenn.) schools received a list from the district of books to be removed from school libraries under Tennessee’s Age-Appropriate Materials Act. Knox County’s board of education voted in July, passing a policy to remove ‘explicit’ books from everyday student access in response to the new law. Some of the books on the list of nearly 50 titles might surprise parents. Among those to be removed are Shel Silverstein’s A Light in the Attic and Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five.”

WVLT-TV (Knoxville, Tenn.), Dec. 4
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Creative Bloq, Dec. 7; Everybody’s Libraries, Dec. 3, Dec. 7; Public Domain Review, Dec. 10
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Brittany Adams writes: “The digital landscape of libraries is expanding rapidly, with an increasing shift towards electronic resources and online services. As members of the library community, we’re witnessing a transformative era where physical collections are complemented—and sometimes replaced—by digital ones. This transition offers new opportunities for enhancing accessibility and engagement, but it also presents challenges, especially for young patrons and their families. It is essential to equip children and their caregivers with the tools and knowledge they need to navigate this evolving space confidently.”

ALSC Blog, Dec. 9

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ALA Moves Forward in Ebook Arena

Wrap-up of the Virtual Town Hall

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