E-books at Cleveland library: Novels beat Nonfiction

David Rothman writes “Best-sellers are played up in a gutsy experiment with e-book tech by the Cleveland library system, and guess what? Fiction is now whipping nonfiction in defiance of what Walt Crawford wrote in the January issue of Cities & Insights: Crawford at Large–in his
customary role as a zealous skeptic of e-books. We’re not just talking about sci-fi for geeks, one of Crawford’s exceptions. The most popular e-book at the CPL in 2003 was The Lovely Bones, Alice Sebold’s best-selling first novel that made the critics rave. Just one nonfiction title cracked the top five list, and only six were among the top 25. So, yes, some recreational readers outside Project Gutenberg circles are finally are starting to read e-books “cover to cover”–popular fiction, not just “pseudobooks” such as tax guides and CliffsNotes.

David Rothman writes “Best-sellers are played up in a gutsy experiment with e-book tech by the Cleveland library system, and guess what? Fiction is now whipping nonfiction in defiance of what Walt Crawford wrote in the January issue of Cities & Insights: Crawford at Large–in his
customary role as a zealous skeptic of e-books. We’re not just talking about sci-fi for geeks, one of Crawford’s exceptions. The most popular e-book at the CPL in 2003 was The Lovely Bones, Alice Sebold’s best-selling first novel that made the critics rave. Just one nonfiction title cracked the top five list, and only six were among the top 25. So, yes, some recreational readers outside Project Gutenberg circles are finally are starting to read e-books “cover to cover”–popular fiction, not just “pseudobooks” such as tax guides and CliffsNotes.

E-book circulation figures in Cleveland are still small. But the experiment by tech services head Tish Lowrey and colleagues is laudable and worth watching because, if it’s successful, then similar efforts could eventually help public libraries save buckets of tax money. Think of all the hit books that libraries stock up on in paper, only to see demand vanish in six months. Not that electronic reference acquisitions should be neglected. But some unconventional thinking about e-books and recreational reading could go a long way, as long as libraries don’t overdo it. Public domain e-books could be a partial solution for libraries without budgets for Cleveland-type experiments.

One thing that could help, in Cleveland and King County, Washington, which is also putting up contemporary e-books, though not with quite the same emphasis on best-sellers, would be better formats. Adobe Reader isn’t the most pleasant-to-use software on PDAs (Reader 6 won’t even run on them). And yet, for many but not all patrons, PDAs are far better for recreational reading than are desktops. Great way to laze back on the sofa and truly enjoy an e-book, as opposed to having to sit at attention in front of a hot monitor. A more promising alternative to Adobe and Palm Reader, another format in Cleveland, is Mobipocket, which, on my 33 mhz Sony Clie PEG-SJ22 handheld, an about-to-be-discontinued model now on sale for about $100 at some Staples stores after a mail-in rebate, ran very acceptably.

OverDrive, the e-book vendor for Cleveland and King County and some other systems as well, says more than 10,000 titles from 150 publishers are in Mobipocket format. Functionally and aesthetically Mobipocket beats the others. I’d
strongly suggest that libraries promote Mobipocket’s use until the real solution comes along–a universal consumer format that could drive down costs for libraries and publishers alike and make the e-book market more competitive. A UCF with a standardized DRM Lite, as I’ll call it, could address the DRM issues that afflict e-books today. The flexibility of present systems still isn’t great enough–“Draconian” remains the best description. The less proprietary are e-book stanards in DRM and other areas, the less chance of repeats of the disgrace debacle at Gemstar.

Classes in PDA use could also help, more immediately, as could synergies with local computer clubs that have special-interest groups dealing with handhelds. PDAs, though a popular platform for e-books, come with their share of support challenges; and minus enough hand holding, many patrons are likely just to give up.

The issue isn’t just the looks of library Web sites. Even more, it’s what the e-books look like on patrons’ machines, and volunteers could help library users install spiffy fonts and otherwise tweak their e-book software.

I myself can read hour after hour on my handhelds without eye fatigue since I’ve set up everything just so. But how about newbies? In the present state of technology, e-books are somewhat like hearing aids, which, for optimal use, work far better when audiologists assist. I’d suggest that libraries use local news media, local Usenet news groups, official blogs and other areas of library Web sites to round up volunteers–and aggressively publicize case histories telling of the difference the volunteers can make. Librarians and support staffers have only limited amounts of time–very limited!–but imagine the potential of using volunteers to help scale up. Volunteers, in turn, having sampled the libraries’ e-book offerings, could also help spread the word about the e-book collections–working in this respect and others with Friends of the Library-type groups. What if Friends could even sell memory cards in popular formats, preloaded with public domain titles? Among other possible allies might be the PR departments of image-conscious corporations like IBM, which encourage community involvement.

Long term, as I see it, a TeleRead approach could help immensely by widening the range of titles and increasing the numbers available to local library patrons. Ms. Lowrey herself says the biggest issue with her isn’t format or hardware but rather content, and in my opinion a well-stocked national digital library system would be an efficient way to spread around resources for local librarians to package for their communities. Meanwhile a loud round of applause, please, for the Cleveland and King County systems and the other experimenters. Certainly it is easy to fall back on the old clichés about e-books and just carp away, pandering to popular prejudices. It is much, much harder–but potentially far more rewarding!–for libraries to experiment and give the medium a chance.”