Hi.
For some time now, Sony Reader has ‘officially’ supported use on the Mac by providing a version of the Reader Library Software for Mac.
So, I was wondering, when are you going to release a version of Digital Editions that will allow me to transfer books to my Reader, via Digital Editions?
Might seem like a small thing, but those of us who borrow eBooks from the library need this functionality to get our borrowed eBooks onto our Sony Readers.
kthxbai
I’m a self-confessed Apple girl. And I’m a self-confessed eBook fiend. So it goes without saying that I was eagerly awaiting the announcement of what everyone was calling the iSlate (enough has already been said about the #namefail that is iPad – I won’t add to it!).
There’s been plenty of commentary, fueled largely by speculation, about precisely what this device will and won’t offer. Mac Word’s FAQ provides a good synopsis of what is and isn’t known about the device at this stage.
What I’m really interested in, though, is how the iPad could work for me personally. And what I want personally is a device on which I can browse the web, answer email, read feeds (and follow links) and read books. I’m not a huge mobile web user – other than for social networking sites, I really find my phone too small for web browsing or feed reading. So I carry my MacBook or my eee PC around. And, seeing I already carry an eBook reader, I’d love to combine book reading functionality with web browsing in a single device that’s optimised for both. An iPad might just mean that I could leave my laptop, iPod and Sony Reader at home and just carry the slim iPad instead.
The iPad looks like a slick device, and yes, I’d love to buy one in 56ish days time, when they become available, just because it’s sexy (regardless of the flaws that have been pointed out around the place – particularly the fact that it’s pretty much entirely geared for content consumption and fails on the production front). But a lot remains to be seen about this device, particularly on the eBook front, and that’s probably of the most concern to me at this point. Before I buy one:
Much as I’d love to run out and buy this thing, I’m just not sure I can justify it unless it’s going to meet my needs on the eBook front. And that certainly is something I’m not sure about just yet.
A colleague and I have been spending a lot of time lately thinking and chatting about libraries’ use of SaaS solutions and free, third party proprietry cloud-based services to host their systems and software. We’ve thought about it so much that we decided to take that one step further and do a spot of research.
At the VALA 2010 conference (one of Australia’s leading ITish conferences for librarians), we’re presenting a paper called ICT as core business: will we prosper or drown? Here’s the abstract:
Information Communications Technology (ICT) is core business for libraries. Every day, libraries deliver ICT services to their customers, in the form of public access computers, wireless Internet connectivity and technology training programs. We increasingly rely on the Internet and the World Wide Web as a core service and collection delivery channel. And ICT is the single most important set of tools in allowing us to carry out ‘traditional’ library functions such as collection management and circulation.
At the same time as we are seeing our dependence on ICT reach new heights, we are also seeing IT departments locking down and standardising organisational ICT environments in response to an increasing need for control in order to meet efficiency and governance requirements. Often, these efforts occur in response to the organisational needs of the parent organisations to which libraries belong, not in response to the library’s needs. The move towards shared service models for ICT services means that libraries have to compete for ICT services and support, and as a result, do not always obtain the needed support.
Libraries are surrounded by tools and systems that provide new and exciting options for service delivery, but that require a move away from the traditional ICT model. The authors’ conversations with colleagues throughout the industry, commentary in the biblioblogosphere, and even the library literature, suggest that with the proliferation of these new tools and their uptake by libraries, there has been a disconnect between some libraries and their IT support groups. Many libraries are adopting, or at least investigating new models, including Software as a Service (SaaS) options for major systems, cloud computing for hosting of services and resources, and open source systems and software solutions. How does this fit within the broader ICT framework of parent organisations? Often, it simply doesn’t fit at all.
Why is it that libraries have chosen to position services in the cloud, to move core systems to SaaS environments, and to seek out open source alternatives to proprietary software and systems? This paper considers whether the adoption of these tools and environments by libraries has occurred as a result of a lack of appropriate and necessary ICT solutions and support within our corporate ICT environments. Did the disconnect cause libraries to seek out new models and tools, or did our adoption of the new models and tools cause the disconnect?
Given that libraries are adopting strategies and implementing services in this new ICT sphere, what do libraries need to consider in order to ensure sustainability, supportability, and ultimately, success? As the end users become controllers of ICT – as libraries implement ICT solutions quite independently of the ICT groups within their broader organisations – is it enough for library staff to be able to depend on the intuitiveness of the tools, or are there skill sets – ICT, writing, publishing, design and other skill sets – required by library staff, skills that have perhaps been taken for granted as being provided by the organisational ICT group?
If you work with IT in libraries, if you adminstrate a library management system, if you’ve ever implemented a blog or wiki or Facebook page for your library, then we need your input to get a clear understanding of why libraries are looking for alternative models for system and software hosting, and what that means for skill requirements.
If you’ve got 15 minutes to spare, we’d really appreciate you taking the time to complete our survey.
This post started out as a comment on Kathryn Greenhill’s latest post, Like a Virgin? If you haven’t read it, you should. In it, Kathryn talks about the concept of ‘fast’ - in a recent post, David Lee King identifies a number of services that are direct competitors for libraries, and Kathryn astutely points out that the defining characteristic of these competitors, and the characteristic that makes them such strong competitors for libraries, is that they get the idea of ‘fast’. Customers want what they want, right now, and the competitors that David Lee King lists get that.
I think what our customers want often goes beyond fast, into the realms of immediate. As the hyperconnected generations become independent library users (ie users in their own right, rather than kids brought along to libraries by their parents), they’re going to want immediacy, because they’re used to it in every aspect of their lives. I think that’s going to extend to the physical items we hold, too. If they have to go on a long hold list to get a popular book, as David Lee King suggests in his post on competitors, are they going to be willing to wait? Will they actually care about format at all, if they can get something in one format faster than in another?
Something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately is agility. My greatest concern for the future of libraries is that I’m not sure we’re positioned as an industry (or as individual organisations, in some [many?] cases) to be agile in meeting the challenges that face us and the opportunities that await us. We’ve been playing catch up for too long. We need to take some giant leaps. This goes hand in hand with Kathryn’s notion of fast: we need to be able to act fast when opportunities or challenges arrive. We often just can’t do that.
So how can we address this? We need to kit our staff out with the skills they need to drive web based services and non-traditional service delivery and collecting models. We need to build the infrastructure required to sustain robust online services. We need lightweight policy frameworks that allow wriggle room. We need leaders that value innovation. Without all of this, we’ll never have any hope of being agile.
Kathryn also talks about marketing our strengths to ensure our future. I agree, we need to sell ourselves, to our funding bodies and to our customers. Public libraries, for example, already have some of what our customers are looking for: downloadable media, fast and free wifi, latest release dvds… but how many people in our communities actually know all of this? Do our funders even know what a rock-star job we do on some of this stuff?
For me, the keys to ensuring the future of libraries are agility, good marketing, and the ability to immediately satisfy customer needs. Becoming an agile industry is perhaps not an easy task, but it’s certainly something we can aspire to. When it comes to marketing - well, that’s not easy either, but how many libraries exist within larger organisations that have their own marketing departments, and how many of us make use of them? How many of us willing talk ourselves up, both as individuals and as organisations, by going after media, speaking at conferences, writing articles? Perhaps the hardest thing of all is going to be the immediacy issue: with limited funding, how can we satisfy our customers’ desire for immediacy? It’s not always feasible to buy more books, and how else do you meet demand? But even here, there are things we can do: think outside the square, like mpow has, and put in place programs designed to ensure the latest and hottest titles are on the shelves. Or run customer programs that teach people about how great eBooks are, so demand increases for this lower-priced format.
So, be agile, talk yourself up, and give your customers what they want, right now, then the future of the library is guaranteed. Piece of cake, right?!
Courtesy of Kathryn (thanks!), it seems it’s my turn to do the seven things thang, cause I know you’re all totally keen to find out ten things you didn’t know about me. This is actually quite hard, because I still have a circle of friends from school and my pre-library working days, plus I’m a blabbermouth who’ll tell anyone just about anything, so some of this might not be all that new to a number of people. Anyhoo, here goes:
I’m tagging:
So for Christmas, I scored a Sony PRS-505 Portable Reader System (aka a shiny eBook reader). I’m increasingly interested in eBooks for both personal and professional reasons. As an Electronic Services Librarian, I’m always thinking about digital formats and one of the most interesting parts of my job is looking after our eBook collection. Personally, I really want to stop accumulating so many print books - I’d rather accumulate ’special books’ (ie coffee table books and fiction and non fiction prose that I’ve read and enjoyed). They take up so much room and they are such a pain when moving house!
Anyway, I thought I’d jot down a few things here based on having read a couple of books on my reader now. I am, in a nutshell, exceedingly happy with it. So happy with it that I want to start with the few negatives, so I can finish here on a positive note:
And on the upside:
What I’ve learnt from my experience with my new toy thus far:
So, in a nutshell, I love my new toy. I’m all for multifunction devices, but I really am not bothered by carrying this extra device. I understand the appeal of being able to read a book on, say, your iPhone, but I’m not bothered by the extra gadget in my bag and I really think the reading experience is far better on the Sony than it is on touch screen phones, at this point. There’s certainly a big enough difference in quality of experience to warrant carrying an extra device (but then, in my handbag at any given moment you’ll find a three metre data cable, a wireless presentation remote, a couple of thumb drives, two mobile phones, and very often, a sub notebook, so perhaps I’m not the best example…). It was a pricey acquisition (I really wish I’d bought it a couple of months ago, when I was thinking about it, before the bottom dropped out of the Australian dollar) but I do think I’ll get a significant amount of use out of it.
To finish on a funny note, go check out the Unshelved strip written especially for all those library customers who got an eBook reader for Christmas. Tee hee! There’s a lesson in it, as well as a laugh. When these things eventually do sell in Australia, and they pick up some traction in the market, I’ll be looking at running classes on using them, just like we do for customers with computer training and our “Get the most out of your MP3 player” classes. We might think they’re dead simple to use, and they might actually be that, but there’s a lot to be said for helping people develop confidence with gadgets.
I said I’d do it. No one believed me. But the day has come, and I am one stubborn gal.
My seven-day-long interwebs free period begins in three hours.
I may resort to getting someone to hide my laptops, but the aim is to resist temptation, while temptation is in full site.
Wishing all a fabulously festive week ahead. See you on the flip-side (when I’ll either be highly strung and in desperate need of some net time, or totally chilled and ready to relinquish my gadgets).
danah boyd explains the rationale behind her forthcoming month-long email sabbatical. How refreshing to come back from holidays and not have to spend the first days/weeks catching up on email. If I was dealing with 500-700 personally addressed emails a day, I think I’d be doing the same (and I thought my current onslaught was overwhelming!).
Those of you who know me know I’m a chronic email checker / Twitterer / Facebooker / blog reader / yadda yadda… I own two laptops because my preferred laptop (a MacBook) is too big to throw in my handbag, have a mobile wireless connection for backup and have been known to check webmail on my mobile when my morning coffee stop is taking too long.
It’s nothing compared to a month of rejecting emails, but I’m aiming for a totally interwebs free week starting Christmas day. My phone will only be used for proper phone tasks - no surreptitious checking of anything - and my laptops will be gathering dust. It’s sad, but true, that I cannot remember a single day in the last five years where I haven’t been connected to the interwebs. No, wait. I think having my wisdom teeth out might have meant a web free day. But only one.
So, a disconnected week? Hmmm… It will be a challenge, but one that I’m looking forward to.
This weekend, I’m working on the bordering-on-mythological paper on mpow’s blog pilot. To that end, I’ve been trawling the interwebs looking for blog posts, articles… anything documenting libraries’ and the corporate world’s strategies for evaluating the success or otherwise of blogging projects. I’ve been trawling for a while, but I live in hope that it’s just my search skills letting me down, and I’m going to miraculously find the very article I need at the eleventh hour.
As I’ve lamented earlier, libraries are not publicly documenting their evaluations of blogging projects, which is a problem because it makes benchmarking near impossible. Sure, you can still come up with a bunch of metrics and work out a number for each, but how do you know if the number you’re getting it good or bad?
Luckily, through a serendipitous Twitter experience, I’ve managed to track down a couple of people who were willing to share their data. But I need more. More, I say!
Enter Walt Crawford’s Public Library Blogs: 252 Examples. I have to confess, I’ve been meaning to buy and read this book for ages. I finally did buy and read it today, and I wish I’d read it a while back. If you’re responsible for a blogging project, you need to read this study. Especially useful is the grouping of the examples by population served - this allows you to compare your library’s blog’s performance for key metrics against like-sized libraries. I think it’s also a useful tool in setting realistic expectations, especially when it comes to converstatinal intensity (or the number of comments libraries tend to get per post). I wish I’d bought this and shared it with our staff ahead of the pilot.
While Crawford didn’t have access to usage stats, this is still an incredibly useful book.
I do wish, though, that someone would go begging to the library community at large to supply site visits, page views, links clicked and a few other metrics besides, so that we could have a ginormous study alla Walt Crawford’s that includes the kind of statistics he unfortunately didn’t have access to. PhD thesis, anyone? Even to do it for a grouping of libraries (say, public libraries serving populations between 400,000 and 500,000 - obviously, my reasons are entirely altruistic) would be incredibly useful, and you could extrapolate for libraries of different sizes.
As an aside, I love that I can buy a book online and be reading it within two minutes. I wonder if publishers will ever sort out the DRM debate and get pricing right on eBooks so we can do this with anything we might want to read.
Right, enough procrastinating.
“I can tell.”
The Night Ferry by Michael Robotham.
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i'm an associate lecturer in library and information studies from the gold coast, australia. i have a general interest in ebooks, online service provision, and the application of technology in public libraries.
