Annotated Bibliography, take two

Annotated Bibliography
1. Fialkoff, Francine. “To Kindle or not” Library Journal 133:8 March 1, 2008 p 8

This article suggests that while Sparta Public Library in New Jersey is resisting restrictive licensing that accompanies Kindle, the Kindle license itself is very restrictive. Officially, libraries may buy books for Amazon’s Kindle, but cannot lend them because of licensing agreements that limit first use, lending to third parties. Sparta Public Library has created their own rules that have nothing to do with licenses: users may borrow and buy one book. All other books on the kindle are available to that borrower.

This short piece echoes the Hughes article below which suggests that many ebooks market only to individuals.

2. Harris, Sian. “Redefining E-Books” Research information April/may 2009/

This article surveys seven different organizations (Oxford University Press, Swets, Ingram Digital, SAGE, Elseviar’s Science and Technolgy, OCLC NetLibrary, Cengage Learning) in the ebook business, primarily in scholarly or academic fields Within this field there were areas of disagreement, for example while: Sage suggests that text books without designated readers are generally not workable, Cengage argues that e textbooks are a hit.

Academic publishing is moving forward the change in the technology of the book much more quickly than the trade market. Most of the seven organizations discussed the increased ability to search the ebook, exemplified by the OCLC rep discussing the ebook as a database. This use of the book this way, however, requires DOIs and metadata for each chapter. Most of the reps suggest that the use of ebooks is of limited use. Average users spend less than thirty minutes in any part of a full text. Extended reading seems still to be reserved for print books.
Discussion of business models suggest that so far there is really not a business model that supports cost. Costs and pricing, some argue, are still using print models. And yet, books are generally being bought as collections just to have a quantity of titles. Furthermore, while the book producers want to put into place restrictive licensing, libraries are resisting. Because libraries want to loosen DRM, it is happening, though perhaps less fully than libraries.
Finally, one publisher suggests that standards are still not absolute. What this essay suggests to me is that all of the problems we have been discussing regarding ebooks are evidence. There is a problem with standards and being able to cross read. There is a desire to create pricing models and access over ownership that looks like ejournal agreements on the business side of the ebook industry. Some libraries are resisting, but they are not completely successful.

3. Herther, Nancy. “Ebook Reader is not the future of Ebooks” Searcher 16:8 Spring 2008, 26-40.

In this essay, Herther distinguishes between the ebook and the ebook reader quite distinctly. The essay suggests the ebook has languished in the market place is because of the ebook reader. She suggest it has not fared well because the ebook readers do not significantly alter the technology of the book, allowing for hyperlinks, multimedia, adding notes, ability to share passages, etc. Her second response to this question, why are ebooks languishing, is that the publishers of ebook readers and ebooks do not yet understand the traditional book market which was made of many small runs and markets. Ebook readers producers are not thinking about markets in the diverse way they need to. They want to bundle materials and consolidating, rather than following the model of internet: a kind of the superniche publishing of books.

Herther’s essay is perhaps the most interesting I have read about the business side of the ebook. Here she suggests that less control, less of an ejournal model will help the industry. It seems a bit at odds with the material reported by libraries in the academic model.

4. Hoorebeek, Mark. “eBooks, libraries and peer-to-peer file-sharing” The Australian Library Journal 52.2 http://alia.org.au/publishing/alj/52.2/full.text/hoorebeck.html accessed 7/6/2009

Draws a parallel between the music business, napster and e-content of books. Ipods, like book readers, may jeopardize the copyright laws. Looks as if the book business will be protected as the music industry has been . Essay fears copyright infringement.

In many ways this piece shares the concerns of Lawrence Lessig about copyright’s growing power.

5. Hughes, Carol Ann. “E-Books” Encyclopedia of Library and Information Science, eds. Marcia J. Bates, Mary Niles Maack, and Miriam Drake. 23 June 2003. www.infromaworld.com.ezproxy.library.wisc.edu/smpp/section?content=a7135311989 accessed on 7/26/2009

The essay begins with a consideration of the definitions of book and ebook. Ebooks challenge existing publisher, author, bookstore, and library interactions in which everyone hopes that costs will go down and more money will be made. Publishers fear the ability to copy digitally and want to limit fair use and first sale copyright abilities. They are also now changing contracts because in Random House vs. Rosetta books publishing houses were not granted immediate rights to print, publish, and sell electronically.

Most producers of ebooks were either engaged in individual subscriptions or institutional licenses, not both. Hughes suggests that there is not yet a viable business model, that ebooks are still a niche market. Further she quotes a report by the International coalition of Library consortia:

“Although there is no empirical evidence that fair use causes material or undue harm to providers, many information providers nonetheless are seeking to discontinue the well-established principle of fair use, and they are using the new electronic environment as the reason and means to do so.”

In some ways, I Hughes suggesting that ebook producers are trying to control and limit fair use and first sale in order to create the business model that will support the ebook. So far, this has been unsuccessful. But it remains a threat.

6. Shatzkin, Mike. “A Modest Proposal in the E-Wars” Publishers Weekly May 28, 2001. P 24
In this essay, Shatzkin discusses the litigation that is nearly inevitable about authors and publishing houses. Original contracts, negotiated over time, did not address epublishing. Should this be considered part of publishers copyright, as it is a different world now? Should authors be able to negotiate their own deals on epublishing? Shatzkin suggests that author should grant these rights to publishers.

Shatzkin would allow that much more control to publishing houses over intellectual property. This is a consolidation of power that just continues apace.