Tales of a Librarian

Two posts on ebooks from the same blog caught my attention today. One was pointing to another post which was discussing the need for library 2.0 to incorporate books into it methods as this is still one of the primary functions of the library. I’m sure that some of the things he mentions, such as user comments inside books, have been discussed and done before in public libraries (although i do forget the name of it). Anyhow, its still worth looking at and reminding ourselves that people still associate the library with books, and we must find ways of developing this primary usage of them to include new methods of service delivery and user experience.

The second post i have to admit made me giggle, it’s another pointer to a post which likens people’s scepticism and concern about incorporating hand held computing equipment (such as ebook readers) into education to resistance to other advances in technology such as paper, manufactured ink and ball point pens. I wonder what things that are thought crazy today will be totally normal and mundane in the future. Hmmm…

Technorati Tags: ebooks, library2.0, books, resistance, technology, advances

Hey, have a look at the website of the Universal Display Corporation, and in particular, the concepts page, which lists a whole range of new devices that they envisage as being possible in the future. Just imagine what this could do for ebooks and the like… Reading it makes you feel like your in a science fiction movie or something! On the right is just an example of something they have imagined, which they describe as ‘the ultimate portable communications device’…

Technorati Tags: ebooks, design, displays, screens, computers, technology

A very interesting paper by Bennett & Landoni (2005) was published in The Electronic Library. They present discussion of some of the main definitions of ebooks and suggest their own four-dimensional definition of ebooks, focusing on content, format, purpose and use.

They also highlight some of difficulties ebooks have faced in getting off the ground, suggesting that whilst the ebook should, to a certain extent, be a the digital equivalent of the printed book e.g. ‘a medium where information is organised and structured so that it can be presented to the reader in order to facilitate consultation‘ (pg.10), where consultation is considered to include ‘browsing, searching, extracting, comparing and assessing relevance and quality of information presented‘ (pg.10), it also needs to take into account the advantages and disadvantages inherent in the medium, particularly in terms of legibility, portability and autonomy.

They attest that as the screen resolution offered by ebook readers and their ilk is widely known to be of much lower quality than that offered by printed books, there is a strong need to offer some ‘added value’ to the ebook, in order to justify the ‘discomfort’ of reading them. They suggest:

• lower numbers of words per page
• title headings on each page
• clearer page layouts
• tools for searching and browsing (indexes and tables of contents, bookmarks and annotations, etc.)
• diversity of presentation styles possible (highlighting the differences between adult and childrens print books, and between reference, non-fiction and fiction print books)
• opportunties to personalise presentation styles to meet individual needs (e.g. text size, font, etc.)

They also review the barriers to ebook take up as found by a study commissioned by JISC in 2003, the most important being:

• the wide diversity of software and hardware products/platforms associated with ebooks
• differences between ebook and print book supply chains
• the reluctance of publishers to make publications available in ebook form/promote them out of worry of the effect on their revenues
• difficult to understand pricing models
• various problems with cataloguing and metadata
• Bennet & Landoni also suggest that there are various complexities associated with copyright that need to be addressed (e.g. see current news article on DRM by BBC)

The study also found that the numbers of library users that were unaware of ebooks and their library’s own ebooks holdings was high. However, one interesting finding was that although out of the students questioned none were likely to use ebook for private reading/pleasure, 71% of the academics questioned and 72% of students questioned said that they would buy the ebook in preference to the print book if it were substantially cheaper (regardless of whether it incorportated added value functionality).

They also point out that ebooks will need cataloguing, integration with other library resources and easy location by users. I guess this comes down to promotion and accessibility again, something that we as librarians should be actively developing, and ensuring that users are fully aware of how to access and utilise the services available to them. In my years as a student, I think i used a grand total of one ebook (yet about 30,000,000 ejournals!), which was in fact included in the reading list of a class instructed by one of the authors of this article! I’m not sure how I felt about using it to be honest, I think that for dipping in and out of it was very convenient, but for serious study? I really see their point about added functionality, however, particularly the keyword searching, as i think that would be very useful indeed, for example, i’m sure that i am not the only one to have spent ages pouring over an index page trying to locate information on a small topic area, and having to flick back and forth and back and forth… then losing your pages… aaaargh! If there was a way of adding comments/annotating parts of the text (such as the comment function in word), this would also be a great addition, as I am loath to do this to my own textbooks, and wouldn’t dare do it to the library’s!!

And if your not sick of ebooks by now, another article recently published in Aslib Proceedings by Gunter (2005), reports on the results of research into the early market for ebooks in the UK. It finds that a significant proportion (85%) of respondents (randomly selected members of an online panel) were aware of ebooks, and among half (49%) had made trial use of them. 38% reported having purchased an ebook, and of these people, the most popular types of ebook generally tended to be technical books and non-fiction publications, again, highlighting users apparent preference for ebooks as a medium for reference work rather for reading extended passages and things such as novels.

The main perceived advantages of ebooks was that they can be obtained more conveniently than going via a bookstore and they are often cheaper than hard copy versions. Having said this, however, it is worth pointing out that of those respondents who had borrowed an ebook from their library, a greated proportion (37%) still preferred the hard copy over an electronic copy (28% preferred electronic version).

[Sources: Bennet, L. and Landoni, M. (2005) E-books in Academic Libraries, The Electronic Library, 23 (1), pp.9-16; Gunter, B. (2005) Electronic Books: A Survey of Users in the UK, Aslib Proceedings, 57 (6), pp.513-522]

Technorati Tags:research, ebooks, functionality, library, users, electronic publishing, academic libraries

ALA president Michael Gorman accuses digitisation as being a waste of money and has attacked librarians for being ‘too interested in technology’ says an article from Information World Review (issue 220, pg.7)

He was talking, of course, about the google digitisation project in particular, a project which has met with both support and hositility from a wide range of people and organisations. He claimed that there is a danger in reducing whole books down into ‘a bunch of paragraphs’ and reading information out of context. (I wonder what he makes of Amazon’s intentions to do something similar? - see my other blog entry on ‘Amazon in the Academic Library‘)

A spokesman for Google refuted his criticisms and suggested that people were turning to Google because library catalogues, even those available online, did not contain enough bibliographic information, as is quoted as saying ‘we need catalogue enrichment with links, table and abstracts and we need more sophisticated systems that are multi-lingual and intelligent’.

I have to admit I agree. More bibliographic information is becoming more important to users, particular as increasing sources of information become available to the reader. I personally would have loved it if books from my own academic library had abstracts of content, or even contents pages, available to browse in the catalogue, as much time is wasted locating and browsing through texts and books that are irrelevant. Perhaps the practicality of this is not great - imagine having to abstract every book that came into the library and every book that was already available?? I can see how this could cause problems. But in my work that is exactly what we have to do, and we add nearly 200 items to stock each week, so it does take up a considerable amount of our time. I couldn’t imagine how our library would function without this however, as it is essential for our users to be able to evaluate the content of documents/books. I’m sure there are plenty of libraries that are also already doing this, although I don’t honestly know. However, a (very) quick survey of the main university library catalogues in Scotland shows that there is only one that provides this options to students - Glasgow Caledonian University Library.

There have even been suggestions from those involved in the Library 2.0. discussions (more on this later) about including user comments, people who read this also read…., etc. just making the system more interactive for users generallly (I forget who mentioned this so I hope they will excuse this). I think that it is a mistake to rule out the possibilities that technology creates for us to improve and add to the library service, and it seems as senseless as resisting the first automation of libraries would have been…

Google are reported to be considering creating an online ebook store, subject to copyright permissions being granted, according to Google CEO Eric Schmidt who told reporters at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas (see article from BBC). The renewed interest in selling ebooks seems to be occurring at the same time as Sony trying to push ebooks and their new ebook reader device - the Sony Reader - as being the new ipod of text. I will be very interested to see how this takes off, will people eventually turn to reading books electronically? Evidence has shown that people generally do not like to read longer texts such as novels onscreen, as it is uncomfortable on the eyes, and generally less comfortable than reading a printed version. Indeed, evidence from some medical libraries has shown that access to ebooks is generally short - reinforcing the view that people do not like to spend long amounts of time reading electronic texts. (IWR, 219, pg.11) Will the new e-ink technology be good enough to counter this?

Can you imagine taking your entire bookshelf with you on the train, or on holiday?? There are clearly advantages to this technology. Some publishers of ebooks are now trying to provide more than just electronic versions of the printed book, e.g. by including extra content. But drawing once again from my own experience, readings and research, although many people love accessing things such as electronic journals online, even the most enthusiastic of users still tend to print out electronic copies of documents for reading. I tend to spend longer looking over a printed document than I do an electronic one, where the tendency is to just skim over it. The electronic medium is perfect for shorter, to-the-point pieces of information such as blogs, news pieces, abstracts etc. or even academic journals (although my preference would be to print these too - but saving paper is always an issue!!). However, I could not imagine myself settling down at my desk to read Wuthering Heights, for example.

The book reader is portable enough to counter this argument to some extent, and perhaps advances in screen technology such as e-ink will make it just as comfortable to read books electronically, but as I have mentioned before, there is still something that seems to be missing from the ebook equation - the aesthetics of the book!! And although there would be much less space, my house would be far less interesting without my wonderfully diverse bookcase…

Looks as if Amazon may become a more prominent feature in the academic library. A front page article in Information World Review has reported that academic publishers have endorsed a new intiative from the online bookseller that will allow users to purchase books in small parts, such as chapters or even pages. In fact, Tim Harty of legal publisher Sweet & Maxwell, comments that publishers will be able to let some books go out of print, secure in the knowledge that the edition is available electronically. (From Information World Review, Issue 219, pg.1)

I have come across various articles today about a new product which has just been released - the Sony Reader, a new electronic book reader. Not a new concept perhaps, but there is certainly a high degree of enthusiasm behind the advertising campaign. It is the size of a paper back book and has a screen made from ‘electronic paper’ - e-ink in fact, a technology which it is claimed can almost reproduce the quality of print found in hard copy books. It can also hold over 80 ebooks (and more with memory card). It certainly looks the part but will this one succeed or fall by the wayside like many others?

I have found in my own personal research (and from my own experience!) that people like books. They like to hold a book in their hands, turn the pages, feel it, smell it, look at it, take it into the bath… will an electronic device ever be able to reproduce the same emotions?? I certainly believe that such a device has it’s uses, and am particularly interested in the combination of different functions that it offers, e.g. rss feeds, access to blogs, pdfs, mp3s and jpeg files. Clearly this is beyond the capacity of the average book. But does this mean the end of dusty bookshelves…? I doubt it.