June 2014

7 surprises about libraries in PEW surveys

The Pew Research Center’s studies about libraries and where they fit in the lives of their communities and patrons have uncovered some surprising facts about what Americans think of libraries and the way they use them. As librarians around the world are gathered in Las Vegas for the American Library Association’s annual conference, here are findings that stand out from our research, our typology of public library engagement and the quiz we just released that people can take to see where they compare with our national survey findings: What kind of library user are you?

The right to resell ebooks — major case looms in the Netherlands

Infringing company is pointing to a 2012 ruling by Europe’s top court, the Court of Justice of the European Union, in the case of UsedSoft v Oracle. That case was about reselling licenses for downloadable software, and the court ruled that – even when the software license explicitly forbids resale – the buyer should have the right to resell that licence, just as they would be allowed to resell a boxed software copy.

Full article

New data on the Long Tail impact suggests rethinking history and ideas about the future of publishing

The Shatzkin Files

For most of my lifetime, the principal challenge a publisher faced to get a book noticed by a consumer and sold was to get it on the shelves in bookstores. Data was always scarce (I combed for it for years) but everything I ever saw reported confirmed that customers generally chose from what was made available through their retailers. Special orders — when a store ordered a particular book for a particular customer on demand, which meant the customer had to endure a gap between the visit when they ordered the book and one to pick it up — were a feature of the best stores and the subject of mechanisms (one called STOP in the 1970s and 1980s) that made it easier. But they constituted a very small percentage of any store’s sales, even when the wholesalers Ingram and Baker & Taylor made a vast number of books available to most stores within a day or two.

Full post here.

NYPL and Chicago PL to Loan Out Wi-Fi Hotspots

Via CityLab.

The NYPL’s “Check Out the Internet” project will lend WiFi hotspots for up to one year at a time and plans to distribute the service through various educational initiatives already running across its neighborhood library branches—for example, Out of School Time programs, technology training classes, and courses in English for speakers of other languages.

The NYPL actually launched a mini version of the program last month, distributing 100 devices across four library branches. According to NYPL president Tony Marx, it’s still too early to draw any conclusions from the 100-household pilot, but they’ve already begun collecting data like how much time participants are spending online and whether they’re using the devices at home or elsewhere. This information will guide the larger roll-out aimed at 10,000 households with an anticipated cost of $1 million. The Knight Foundation grant will get the NYPL half of the way there, and the library is currently trying to fundraise for the rest.

More on the Chicago program and future endeavors in the article.

Justice Scalia — “like a library card”

Aereo’s TV Streaming Service Is Illegal, Supreme Court Says

Aereo, the company that lets subscribers watch TV stations’ video that it routes onto the Internet, violates U.S. copyright law, the Supreme Court has ruled. The court’s 6-3 decision reverses a lower court on what has been a hotly contested issue.

‘Unlike video-on-demand services, Aereo does not provide a prearranged assortment of movies and television shows,” Scalia wrote. “Rather, it assigns each subscriber an antenna that — like a library card — can be used to obtain whatever broadcasts are freely available.”

Full story here.

Hachette Book Group Buys Perseus

In a three-way deal that would continue a wave of consolidation in the publishing industry, Hachette Book Group has purchased the publishing division of the Perseus Book Group, while selling Perseus’ client-service business to leading distributor Ingram Content Group.

Hachette, where authors include James Patterson, J.K. Rowling and Malcolm Gladwell, jointly announced the transaction Tuesday with Perseus and Ingram. The news comes at a time when Hachette is in contentious negotiations with Amazon.com, which has slowed shipments, reduced discounts and removed pre-order buttons for numerous Hachette releases.

Full piece:
http://www.npr.org/2014/06/25/325372745/hachette-book-group-buys-perseus