In the last few days, I have noticed some new initiatives mentioned in
the press about how publishers are finally beginning to take ebooks more
seriously. The first article was "Publishers Make a Plan: A ‘One Stop’
Book Site"
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/07/books/publishers-plan-a-joint-one-stop-book-site.html
which discusses Bookish.com and that:
"The site intends to provide information for all things literary:
suggestions on what books to buy, reviews of books, excerpts from books
and news about authors. Visitors will also be able to buy books directly
from the site or from other retailers and write recommendations and
reviews for other readers." The idea is to make a "one-stop shopping"
site for books on the web.
“There’s a frustration with book consumers that there’s no one-stop
shopping when it comes to information about books and authors,” said
Carolyn Reidy, the president and chief executive of Simon & Schuster.
“We need to try to recreate the discovery of new books that currently
happens in the physical environment, but which we don’t believe is
currently happening online."
They have some major publishers signed on, plus AOL and Huffington Post,
and compare it to imdb, RottenTomatoes, and Netflix. (what strange words
we deal with anymore!)
The second article is for a site that already exists "Publishers
Navigate The 'Open Road' Of E-Books"
http://www.npr.org/2011/05/10/136144912/publishers-navigate-the-open-road-of-e-books,
which talks about Open Road Media http://www.openroadmedia.com/ , which
concentrates on the very lucrative back lists. The founder says, "My
feeling was if we could make those books accessible — if we could bring
those books back to the attention of the consumer — we would sell those
books."
also:
"Open Road backs its titles with aggressive multi-platform marketing
campaigns, making creative use of the web, social media and video. The
company produces short documentaries to promote its authors. Kaylie
Jones was impressed by the quality of these films as well as their
marketing potential."
The site is really impressive--very welcoming, easy to use, and the
videos excellent.
When I see these kinds of initiatives, I can't help but think how our
library catalogs will fit in. With these kinds of options, why will
people choose our libraries? These sites appear to be essentially
advertising sites that have their main purpose to let people know that
specific ebooks exist, and to bring them to the correct places to buy
them. Why would these people then go to a library site? So that they
could get the same book for free--if they think about it. (In this
regard, this article is highly enlightening! "The Library Card As A
Pop-Culture Fiend's Ticket To Geek Paradise"
http://www.npr.org/blogs/monkeysee/2011/04/11/135314291/the-library-card-as-a-pop-culture-fiends-ticket-to-geek-paradise)
But I don't know if the publishers would like the readers to know this,
e.g. I can't imagine that the "one-stop shopping" site above would
include libraries, that is, places where people can get the books for
free. So it truly would be "one-stop shopping" instead of "one-stop
searching". For example, Coleridge's edition of Byron's poetry can be
bought as an ebook from amazon, e.g. v.1
http://www.amazon.com/Byrons-Poetical-Works-Vol-ebook/dp/B0015BWI9Y/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&m=A3KSZ402CI2EG1&s=digital-text&qid=1305022122&sr=1-6
<http://www.amazon.com/Byrons-Poetical-Works-Vol-ebook/dp/B0015BWI9Y/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&m=A3KSZ402CI2EG1&s=digital-text&qid=1305022122&sr=1-6>,
But people can get the entire set for free from Project Gutenberg
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/search.html/?default_prefix=author_id&sort_order=downloads&query=1708
<http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/search.html/?default_prefix=author_id&sort_order=downloads&query=1708>
and can easily be made into a pdf which can be viewed on a Kindle. Plus,
of course, there are scans in different places,
In my opinion, if we try to "compete" with such projects, we will be
fated to lose because they are businesses, but cooperation may prove
very difficult because we have different concerns. I remain fully
convinced that people will continue to want and appreciate what
libraries can give them but this is a new environment for everyone.
--
James L. Weinheimer weinheimer.jim.l_at_gmail.com
First Thus: http://catalogingmatters.blogspot.com/
Cooperative Cataloging Rules: http://sites.google.com/site/opencatalogingrules/
Received on Tue May 10 2011 - 06:25:38 EDT