LISNews: Librarian News

The future in one word: platforms
"One of the reasons why librarians don't talk very much about ebook platform chooice is because, by and large, we've already decided the matter. Libraries have made their choice, voted with their dollars and their energies, and have overwhelmingly selected Overdrive as our platform.
Yes, we have outsourced ourselves with an ebook platform that betrays many of the values that the public admires us for in exchange for a user-experience that be described in any variations of the word, horrific."

Another major publisher has pushed back against making its e-books available to library users. Penguin Book Group said it would “delay the availability” of new e-books to libraries because of security concerns.

“Penguin’s aim is to always connect writers and readers, and with that goal in mind, we remain committed to working closely with our business partners and the library community to forge a distribution model that is secure and viable,” Erica Glass, a spokeswoman for Penguin, said in a statement issued Monday. “In the meantime, we want to assure you that physical editions of our new titles will continue to be available in libraries everywhere.”

Full article in the NYT: Penguin Suspends E-Book Availability to Libraries

Many parents say they want their children to be surrounded by print books, and to experience turning physical pages as they learn about shapes, colors and animals.

Full story

One of the most confusing impacts of the surge in access to e-books is whether academic library interests should be more or less bound together with public libraries. The issue has a wide range of ramifications, from acquisitions, to collections, to the responses to the shifting commercial marketplace. At conferences that I have attended with mixed audiences, each of these “together” and “apart” strands surface; I suspect both are correct, but more through overlay than union.

Full article in Publisher's Weekly