ACQflash: Saving Born-Digital eBooks In Libraries: A Freakout, April 23-24, 2015

<<apologies for cross-listserv pollination>>

Announcing
Saving Born-Digital eBooks In Libraries:  A Freakout
April 23-24, 2015
Z. Smith Reynolds Library
Wake Forest University
Winston-Salem, North Carolina, USA

Raison d'être
The relatively recent rise of "digital publishing" and "self-publishing" 
and "independent publishing" and "retail publishing" are prompting 
libraries' irregular (if not frantic) reconsideration of long-standing 
practices in the art and science of ebook acquisitions, collection 
development, cataloging, preservation and general memory-hole 
avoidance.  Not to put too fine a point on it, but a certain Internet 
e-commerce site (hint: it starts with an A, and ends with a .com) has in 
a relatively few short years built a database of available e-content to 
rival that of any library.  In fact, that same Internet e-commerce site 
(spoiler alert:  it's Amazon.com) has built a database of content to 
rival that of every library, ever, combined.  While remaining calm, 
libraries are nevertheless facing the new math of (Amazon + Apple) x 
Google > WorldCat + HathiTrust.  It's freaky out there, is the thing.

While libraries are surely still adaptable and innovative and evolving 
ecosystems, they really got nuthin' on digital publishing these days, 
which continues, like the universe, to expand rapidly, unabated.  Too 
rapidly, in some cases, for mere normals to keep up with -- especially 
with respect to ebooks-related services, facilities, policies and prices.

But due to the Internet's continual re-churning of the universe's 
grinding digital expansion -- not to mention the universe's rampant 
injustice, constant war, contagious pestilence, dangerous climate 
change, and the persistent and pernicious Designated Hitter rule -- 
libraries now find themselves sort of suddenly stuck in the middle of 
this "digital publishing revolution" -- a world where ebooks don't 
really go out of print or out of stock, a world where ebooks are 
everywhere, immediately accessible, and ridiculously inexpensive, a 
world where patrons' virtual shelves are infinite, a world where there 
are way, way more ebooks than people, where literary and scholarly and 
popular ebooks alike are all collected and curated not so much in the 
library but in the cloud, a world where publishers and distributors and 
booksellers and authors and readers and even administrators are turning 
their lonely eyes back to the library, and asking the still-unanswered 
and still-poignant question:  Now what?

So, let's get started -- what can libraries do about all these freaking 
ebooks?

Proposals
Proposals are currently being accepted via the official Proposal 
Submission Form.

To RSVP
Of course, you're invited to attend/enjoy the Freakout whether you have 
a proposal or not -- either way, it's free of charge, so no need to, 
well, freak out about costs.  Just let us know if you're coming (so we 
don't have to freak out about the coffee situation).

Deadlines
Official proposals are not really due until towards the end of January, 
2015. RSVPs are due anytime between now and about the end of February, 
2015. So, you've got plenty of time.

Eligibility
Proposal selection for the Freakout promises to be peer-review rigorous 
-- if you're a librarian or a library user or a publisher or a vendor or 
a bookseller or an archivist or an author with good ideas about what 
libraries could and maybe should do about all these freaking ebooks, 
please feel free to share said ideas with the rest of us, sooner rather 
than later -- regardless of how freaky your ideation may seem to the 
uninitiated.

Requirements
Presenters at the Freakout may be asked to:

     grant permission for possible recording and/or broadcast of 
presentations;
     assign Digital Publishing @ Wake first publication rights, as 
contributed papers may be published as part of an unprofitable 
meta-publishing exercise.

For More Information
See the conference website for complete details.  And please do feel 
free to give us a shout anytime with questions or concerns.

Meanwhile, welcome to the resistance.

--Bill

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
William P. Kane
330A ZSR Library
Digital Publishing
Wake Forest University
kanewp_at_wfu.edu
336-758-6181 (office)
336-422-6181 (google)
@WFUdigpub (twitter)
DigPub Toolkit
Hey, are you coming to the Freakout?


<http://m.lib.uci.edu/>
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