Library Futures Podcast on Ebooks in Libraries

Laura Crosset and Mary Needham from Library Futures are creating a podcast in three parts that will air over the next three weeks.

It promises to be lively and provocative. If you have any interest in how library digital content is provided, acquired, read, and—all-too-often!—restricted, it will be worth tuning in.

Here’s part of the transcript from the trailer:

Laura Crossett 00:30

And in A Podcast About Ebooks, a three part miniseries from Library Futures, we'll take you through some of the history of ebooks, what happened when they entered libraries, and how libraries, library workers, and organizations like ours are trying to preserve library rights in the digital age.

Mary Needham 00:46

You'll hear the story from ebook experts, from the voices of librarians who were on the ground when ebooks first arrived in libraries, and from those who were trying to forge a future where ebooks are books – books libraries can own, preserve and share just as they have with books throughout history.

Laura Crossett 01:02

“We are the People of the Book,” Cory Doctorow once said. “Our books are us.They are our outboard memory banks, and they contain the moral, intellectual and imaginative influences that make us the people we are today. Books are older than copyright.” He says “books are older than publishing. Books are older than printing!” But as he notes, the people who make ebooks have no respect for our books. Quote, They say that when you buy an ebook or an audiobook that's delivered to you digitally, you are demoted from an owner to a licensor, from a reader to a mere user.

I’ve always loved that speech, and we will link to it in the show notes. At Library Futures we believe in readers, and we believe in digital rights, and we believe a book is a book is a book no matter what form it takes.

Thanks, Laura and Mary! How libraries will provide access to digital content, even as many commercial and narrow-minded social forces work to restrict access to library materials of all types, is one of the biggest issues facing us. I look forward to hearing what you have to say!