In this article on the ALA Midwinter session, the discussion underscores the continuing evolution of libraries from places with shelves of books to an “information port” or “hub”.  One development is that publishers are no longer asking whether to do this but how–and in particular how they and their authors are payed under these models.

The larger and more interesting issue is the authors who are not working through publishers. How can libraries serve as an outlet linking readers to their works? Then tension is finding readers and getting paid. Amazon’s Kindle Direct Platform allows for this but the librarians are arguing that Kindle should not be the only option.

To me it seems that the question is not only royalties but distribution. How are independently published e-books to be distributed to the many different libraries in this country or around the world? It seems that there is a need for some kind of counterpart to Amazon that serves as clearing house and financial agent between independent authors and local library systems. I also wonder how acquisition would work. Will librarians still acquire the works they think readers want or will they “acquire on demand” or some mix of the two, which would make sense.

Libraries of late have been making themselves into a kind of “third place” community gathering spot as this article suggests. Yet I wonder if they can continue to sustain this if they become “all-digital”. Why can’t I just meander down to my local Starbucks and “go to the library” while sipping that latte’?

The other side of this is that there is an immutability about physically printed books that digital resources do not have. Digital text can be deleted or altered, or hacked. Physical books and periodicals are much more difficult to do this to. This writer contends libraries play a crucial role in guarding our civilization against 1984-like re-writing of history and everything else.  The honest question though is, should every library be part of this or simply places like the Library of Congress, major university libraries and the like.

For those interested, all the articles linked to in this post come from today’s PW Daily email, also available on the web. I’m finding this to be an interesting source on what is going on in the world of books and publishing