From the Article:

After years of library membership declining and fears that the public no longer wanted to borrow books, some institutions are reporting a spike in interest since they started to offer e-books.

[Snip]

Tony Durcan, former president of The Society of Chief Librarians, said: “Book issues have seriously declined in recent years.

“This is an exciting development. These are not going to replace the paper book, they are as well as.”

He pointed out that e-books were not only cheaper, because of the lack of wear and tear and thefts, but they also offered great opportunities for older housebound readers. That is because with most devices you can enlarge the font size to as large as you like, which will help people with failing eyesight.

Newcastle, where he is chief librarian, is considering buying some e-book reading devices to lend to older, housebound residents.

According to the department of Culture, Media and Sport, annual visits to the library have declined from 302 million a decade ago to 280 million, with the decline in book loans far sharper.

Source: The Telegraph

David Rothman, the founder of one of our favorite blogs, Teleread.org, had a guest column published in The Huffington Post on Thursday. In it Rothman calls for a National Digital Library System.

He writes:

Today millions of children are still growing up in bookless homes. But suppose a well-stocked national digital library system existed for Americans of different ages, along with the means to encourage schoolchildren and others to use it.

He goes on to say:

Ideally the e-books would be just the start. Imagine blending the system into local schools and libraries, while letting states and localities tailor the national collection to their particular needs. Teach the teachers how to work the library system into their lessons. Getting e-books and other items online isn’t enough by itself.

The concluding sentence about getting e-books online is not enough is one point we’re right with him on with or without a national e-books program. Buying content, technology, etc. is not THE solution. Hardly. People (users and potential users) first have to know that the service or resource is available and in some cases that it exists in the first place. Then users have to learn how to use the technology. How much money is wasted when technology is purchased that can do many things only gets used at a bare bones level?

Rothman writes that the key to the program is a full-service program that can help get technophobes to use the technology.

More After a Click
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The PDF file available here is of a book review (really a “report” review) from the October, 2009 issue of Learned Publishing. The report being reviewed, Library Use of E-books: 2008-2009 Edition, was published by Primary Research.

Here are a Few of the Stats that are Included in the Review:

This is an update of a report that was first published last year, when the 2006–7 figures were analysed. It is heavily weighted towards academic libraries, and quite US-centric: 77.03% of the respondents were college or university librarians (as opposed to 22.97% public or special librarians); and78.38% of them worked in the US (as opposed to 21.62%‘non-US’ librarians).

One of the most interesting findings of the report is that librarians with the biggest budgets (of $4m or more) increased their expenditure on e-books much more in 2006–7 (when the average increase was 35%) than in 2007–8 (when the average increase was 14.2%). Even more markedly, librarians with budgets of between $1.5m and $4m increased their expenditure on e-books by an average of 53.3% between 2006 and 2007, but by an average of just 7.43% between 2007 and 2008.

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Of the sample featured in the report, half had a NetLibrary contract, 34% used Gale Reference Library, 27% used Ebrary, and17.6% used Safari. Institutions with budgets of over $4m were seven times more likely to subscribe to Safari than others(which is not surprising, given that Safari has a specialist appeal, and libraries with smaller budgets tend to buy only very generalist e-book collections).

The libraries in the sample were relatively loyal to their e-book platform providers. On average, 77% expected to renew current contracts (with83% of academic librarians expecting to do so, and 61% of special/public librarians). 70% of the total spending on e-books in the sample was with aggregators; 24.6% was with individual publishers (the remaining 5.4% is not accounted for).

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From the Article:

Yet for some, using the latest technology is not always the ideal way to read. Matt Fedel, an undergraduate student at Texas A&M, is skeptical of reading the digital way.

“I think people love the tangibility of turning the page instead of just scrolling through,” Fedel said.

Others, like SMU senior Kelly Pearson, miss the experience that buying books was before she bought her eReader.

“I miss the way they smell,” Pearson said. “Just walking into a bookstore and finding a book, I really enjoy that.”

These intangible benefits are what retailers such as Half-Priced Books are relying on to keep their business model afloat.

“People are always going to want the feel of a book, the smell of a book, the experience that comes with reading an actual book in front of you,” said Megan Kuntz, public relations specialist for Half-Priced Books.

[Snip]

The digitization of printed books also has potential implications for libraries. At SMU, for instance, the university libraries began offering digital copies of books online more than five years ago, through a program called Net Library. This shift has freed up shelf space and allows students to access research materials from anywhere, 24/7.

Melanie Golder, a research librarian at SMU’s Fondren Library Center, believes that electronic texts are here to stay.

“In the library world, we’re trying to meet students where they are,” Golder said. “And today that’s on their computers.”

Source: Pegasus News (Dallas, TX)