Comments on: Amazon Suckers Libraries

By: Kate H

Kate H — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 01:00:01 +0000

DON’T WORRY -IT WON’T HAPPEN!! Honestly, the people LOVE paper. We want to snuggle into the couch/sandhill/bed/whatever, with a bendy, 3D book in hand, not fear that halfway thru lunch-hour the batteries/light/machine will fail.

Libraries will never die.

By: mdoneil

mdoneil — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 19:47:12 +0000

Well the people pay for the library so they should have what they want. Sure we all went to library school and we know what they need, but I bet you don’t follow all the advice of your physician gives you either.

Here is some good advice, get out of public librarianship if you think it is sinking. I did in 2006. Now I make 6 times as much money working for a private firm.

Sure I miss reading to the kids on Wednesday’s storytime, and I miss doing some of the programming I did for the adults as well, but the extra money makes up for it.

By: spencer

spencer — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 19:06:46 +0000

Joyce,

They’re out of business because they have to make money to survive. Libraries never have to worry about much of anyhthing on the cost side- only that they don’t get too big so they’re budgets are noticed.

By: KidLib

KidLib — Sun, 23 Oct 2011 05:50:51 +0000

Yeah… fines have a purpose, which is collection control, which is not relevant with electronic texts. They aren’t an income source.

We’re about all kinds of literacy–technical, cultural, social, etc–and you’re right when it comes to eyes-on-the-prize for that. E-books are also no more competition for the library than videos are. Or than fiction was when it was first introduced and thought of as unworthy of a library collection.

When Amazon starts offering thrice-weekly storytimes where kids can play tambourines or color pictures of horses after listening to stories, then I’ll worry. In the meantime, not so much. We have a pretty high approval rating, and the new formats are just new formats. They seem to produce *more* work for staff than non-e-books, which doesn’t seem to be a signal that we’re going anywhere anytime soon.

By: KidLib

KidLib — Sun, 23 Oct 2011 05:43:56 +0000

Considering my patrons so far are pretty much balking at the added layer of complexity, I’m not foreseeing a big problem here. Amazon wanted to get us to subscribe, and they wanted us to not be essentially free advertising for competing formats (lots of people coming up to say, “My daughter wants to buy me an e-reader… which one can I use at the library?”).

Electronic services aren’t the death knoll of libraries, just one more format that we have to handle. Or, rather, several more. At least they aren’t taking up space in the storage closet like the filmstrip player and reel-to-real tape recorders that were going to be the death of us forty years ago.

(ETA, because the post seems not to be going through, hopefully THIS format will hit the lockers very soon…)

By: Ms. Joneser

Ms. Joneser — Sat, 22 Oct 2011 20:45:53 +0000

People also have the choice to NOT buy a Kindle but instead another e-reader. If they have already purchased one, then they have set up an account with Amazon and paid money for the device. A lot of people purchased Kindles before asking whether they could get free books from their library for them.

As for the convoluted setup – libraries knew nothing about this until Amazon jumped the gun on Overdrive by making their announcement, less than a week before they launched the Fire tablet. Coincidence? I think not.

I anticipate huge hold lists once we offer Overdrive in a few weeks. We don’t have enough money to meet demand for any format, so people will be waiting for them all. If they choose to purchase the e-book, as they might purchase the print book, then that is their choice.

By: Wolfie

Wolfie — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 17:52:54 +0000

As a fellow librarian pointed out to me, if Amazon does not offer a book in digital format, the patron cannot borrow it from their library to put on their Kindle, even if the library owns it. I admit I’m a little biased based on the fact that I work part-time at a certain physical bookstore, but it seems to me that Amazon held a carrot up in front of their customers, saying, “no, don’t buy the OTHER eReader, we’ll let you download from libraries too!” and then instead of making the Kindle more open, they just found a way to keep it locked up tight while maintaining the illusion of giving their customers everything they want.

As a librarian, as a bookseller, and as a reader in general, Amazon is starting to scare me. How is all of their finagling with exclusive deals not in violation of antitrust laws? They started by trying to dominate the book market, then the eBook market, and now the publishing market as well, and I don’t like the vision of the future of literature and reading I see when I try to imagine a world where Amazon dominates all three.

By: Becky

Becky — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 16:44:34 +0000

I don’t see the issue. It isn’t creating more customers for Amazon – anyone with a Kindle is already an Amazon customer. I used to download library e-books to my iPad using Bluefire Reader and then the Overdrive app, and I MUCH prefer reading on my Kindle because I don’t have to mess with Adobe Digital Editions.

And our patrons absolutely love it.

By: Techserving You

Techserving You — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 15:50:24 +0000

Also… you do not need to download the Overdrive software to your own machine to use this service.

By: Techserving You

Techserving You — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 15:46:01 +0000

Just to add… as a Kindle user, I never thought I was “evading” Amazon by getting my content through Overdrive. I suppose there may be a few highly political librarian-type Kindle users who want what Amazon has to offer, but hate that Amazon is an evil corporation, and imagine that if they get the content through Overdrive via their public library, they’ll be going around Amazon completely. But I’m not that kind of person, and most people I have talked to aren’t. It’s not about making sure Amazon doesn’t make a buck… it’s entirely about my own self-interest. *I* don’t want to spend the buck (or ten bucks) if I can get the same content without spending it. I don’t care if I need to go into my Amazon account, as long as when I download the item, my own credit card is not being charged.