As co-chair of the Digital Content and Libraries Working Group, I was very disappointed to miss the meetings with publishers in New York. But in the end I had the best of both worlds. I read the great report from ALA President Molly Raphael and know that our subgroups are energized to continue the discussion and work of our ALA charge. While the important conversations were happening in New York, I was traveling in Europe, culminating in today’s Chancen 2012 in Stuttgart, Germany. Ebooks and digital content was a main topic at this gathering. I was fortunate to be one of the keynote speakers and shared an update on the issues, opportunities and work of ALA’s Digital Content and Libraries Working Group. One of the sponsors of the conference, ekz bibliotheks service, is providing content on a platform similar to the OverDrive model. The content offerings are limited and the German public is already clamoring for more. Although my own speech covered many different aspects of public library work in the digital world, the preconference questions were nearly all about the issues of access to content in the United States. So the eyes of the world are upon us!
Sari Feldman, Co-chair, ALA Digital Content & Libraries Working Group