Why did Penguin terminate their contract with OverDrive? Here’s what we’ve learned from an INFOdocket source. We are told that publisher contracts with OverDrive allow them to store and serve library end users ebooks. That’s it. OverDrive does NOT have permission to first authorize the lending of an ebook to a library end user and then forward the request for actual distribution and tracking of the title to Amazon.com or ANY other retailer. Similarly, in most situations*, publishers do not permit retailers to lend ebooks directly to end users. Finally, in November and again yesterday we noted an LJ article (November 23, 2011) that...

One of the giants of the book trade has unwittingly reinforced LibraryCity‘s argument that public libraries or a nonprofitshould buy the OverDrive distribution service. Penguin said it would stop selling new books to OverDrive‘s library side. In another OverDrive-related development, former librarian Andrew Strong, a library activist in Rockford, IL, told local officials they should consider advocating both an OverDrive purchase and a true national digital system. And he cited a current Rockford library manager’s enthusiasm for the OverDrive-related idea. Penguin’s dissing of OverDrive and public libraries is hardly alone among publisher, as you can see from this sign from Sarah “Librarian in Black” Houghton, the acting director of the San...

With yet another publisher announcing today that it’s dropping out of the library eBook market, I decided to put up a new sign in our library in a few different spots to raise public awareness.  The sign lists which publishers won’t do eBook business with libraries and provides contact information for the publishers in question.  I’ve posted about the issue on our library blog and pushed it out on our Twitter account and Facebook page.  And here’s a direct link to a downloadable copy of my sign on Google Docs. It’s not fancy, but feel free to take it, modify it, use...

Max Kaiser has published "Putting 600,000 Books Online: the Large-Scale Digitisation Partnership between the Austrian National Library and Google" in the latest issue of LIBER Quarterly. Here's an excerpt: In a public-private partnership with Google, the Austrian National Library is digitising its historical book holdings. Some 600,000 volumes from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries will be digitised and made available free of charge. The project demonstrates that public-private partnerships can be successful in enabling our heritage institutions to provide large-scale access to their holdings, provided that such partnerships are not exclusive and free access is ensured. The article outlines the preparatory phase...

UPDATE: Penguin Group Terminating Its Contract with OverDrive (by Michael Kelley, LJ) “In a stunning development, Penguin Group has extricated itself from its contract with OverDrive, the primary supplier of ebooks to public libraries. ‘Looking ahead, we are continuing to talk about our future plans for ebook and digital audiobook availability for library lending with a number of partners providing these services,’ said Erica Glass, in a prepared statement. Penguin is negotiating a “continuance agreement” with OverDrive, which will allow libraries that have Penguin ebooks in their catalog to continue to have access to those titles.” From an E-Mail to OverDrive Partners Starting tomorrow (February 10, 2012),...

Could children be better readers if we went “back to the future,” even in the era of e-books and calls for massive budget calls? I’ll share thoughts. But first let’s hear from Andy Strong, a children’s librarian at the library in Rockford, Illinois, during the 1990s: “When the library cut its hours, it drastically reduced storytime programming. In fact, service to parents and young children is a shadow of what it once was. “In its heyday, mothers and children would leave the library with armloads and tote bags full of books. Head Start would routinely bring busloads of children to dedicated storytimes weekly, introducing new families...

A couple of weeks ago I blogged a post by author Will Entrekin about why he felt Amazon’s Kindle Select program (in which authors give Amazon exclusivity over their work in return for getting paid for Kindle Prime subscriber e-library checkouts) was a very good deal. Now I see another post, by Christopher Wright on Eviscerati.org, about why self-publishing authors might want to stay far away. Wright compares Kindle Select to Michael Roberts’s MP3.com independent music distribution site, which allowed independent musicians (such as Wright) to upload mp3 tracks to catch the attention of the Internet audience. ...

I missed this report when it was released back in December, 2011 by COSLA, the Chief Officers of State Library Agencies.  According to a survey of state libraries from the summer of 2011, 39% of public libraries reported offering no downloadable media service – no ebooks, no audiobooks, and no videos. Here is more from the press release: The Chief Officers of State Library agencies recently surveyed their membership to determine the extent to which U.S. public libraries are offering downloadable ebooks, audiobooks and videos for use on portable devices like e-readers and smartphones. The results of the survey, conducted this summer, showed that 39%...

Public librarians, have you seen Library Journal’s new publication, Patron Profiles?  It’s chock full of data and analysis on public library users.  From the preface: “Patron Profiles focuses on who uses libraries, why they use libraries, and how that use may change. We are interested in their usage of content—especially via the discrete products such as books, videos, and music that libraries buy or lease, lend or distribute.” Here are some nuggets I found from the January issue (28 pages of data and analysis on mobile devices, mobile content, and library apps): Ebook usage continues to increase and patrons who prefer ebooks are,...

From a Publisher’s Weekly Article by Andrew Albanese: Never has a price increase been such good news for libraries. At a meeting with ALA leaders this week in New York, Random House officials said the “terms of sale” for Random House e-books to libraries will change, with a price increase coming. But the publisher reiterated its commitment to library e-book lending, saying they would continue to enable e-book lending of their entire list for both adult and children’s titles, backlist and frontlist, without restriction. “No change,” Random House spokesman Stuart Applebaum told PW in a briefing this morning, when asked about...

From the Minneapolis Star Tribune: More than 100 metro-area libraries serving about 2 million users depend on one provider of digital audiobooks, but there’s a problem: The company’s technology is so plagued with glitches that one county library system temporarily suspended the service and another will be launching a separate service in February. “We hate, we absolutely hate that the customer service we’re providing right now is not working or variable,” said Chris Olson, executive director of the Metropolitan Library Service Agency (MELSA), a consortium of 103 libraries. “We know that’s poor service.” [Clip] Recorded Books LLC, the company that provides the service, has...

Tina Chrzastowski has self-archived "Assessing the Value of Ebooks to Academic Libraries and Users" in IDEALS. Here's an excerpt: In 2010, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) Library agreed to take part in a global study of Elsevier electronic books (ebooks) sponsored by Elsevier Publishing. Ultimately, 129 UIUC faculty and graduate students participated in a logbook study that examined the ebook discovery process, detailed the way in which this group of researchers used ebooks, and queried users on the value they assigned to Elsevier ebooks. Going beyond the Elsevier survey, this study examines the...